Civilian disarmament advocates eagerly awaiting "something horrible" to happen

Mayor Greg Nickels, of Seattle, is (once again) pushing for draconian, ineffectual gun laws statewide (which, fortunately, don't appear likely, because most of the state knows better). Nickels gleefully exploits every shooting in the Seattle area--the higher profile, the better--in hopes of fueling his jihad against private ownership of firearms.

Nickels has at least one ally, in his agenda, in Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. It's interesting that the good police chief would be so intent on keeping firearms out of criminal hands, considering the fact that his rather questionable stewardship of his service sidearm helped arm the criminal underworld

The first article I linked to very obviously shares the viewpoint of most of the people interviewed, and laments the fact that so-called "common sense gun laws" have so little chance of passage in Washington State. One of the people interviewed is Bryan Jones, director of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at the University of Washington. He, apparently, is so distressed about Washington legislators' unwillingness to attack the Constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms, that he thinks it will take a massacre of children to bring about "progress."

"I hate to say it but it's going to take the kind of massacre that kills lots of children. That's the only way we are going to see progress," Jones said.

"I think it's got to be worse than (Columbine). I mean, you didn't see anything in Colorado" in substantive new gun control laws after 15 people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999.

The gun rights deprivation lobby tends to shriek, and stomp their little jackbooted feet, when Constitutional advocates accuse them of dancing in the blood of victims of "gun violence," but this is not the first time they've expressed the need for more tragic, high-profile shootings to help advance their agenda. In this piece, by the VPC, for example, they lament "the fact that until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority."

That's one difference (one of many) between the civilian disarmament advocates and those of us who support Constitutional rights--we are saddened, horrified, and angered by senseless violence--they, apparently, see it as an opportunity.