On Thursday, a lone gunman opened fire at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. As usual, the College was a gun-free zone, and the gunman knew that he would meet no resistance. He is alleged to have questioned students as to their religious beliefs and shot the students who claimed to be Christians. There are no clear answers as to the roots of his hatred of Christians, but the hatred was obviously there.

President Obama immediately made a statement that included the following:

There is a gun for roughly every man, woman, and child in America. So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer? We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don’t work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.

We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.

And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize.  It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.  I would ask news organizations — because I won’t put these facts forward — have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports.  This won’t be information coming from me; it will be coming from you.  We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so.  And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.  How can that be?

This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America.  We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.  When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer.  When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer.  When roads are unsafe, we fix them to reduce auto fatalities.  We have seatbelt laws because we know it saves lives.  So the notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations doesn’t make sense.

This is disingenuous at best. First of all, gun ownership is enshrined in the United States Constitution. The only way the right to bear arms can be changed is through a Constitutional Amendment–it can’t be done by Congress, and it can’t be done with a pen and a phone. The Second Amendment was put there to protect Americans from a tyrannical government. It may become a critical Amendment in the future.

Second of all. The answer to shootings on college campuses is to increase security on campuses. Allow concealed carry by those who qualify. Let a potential murdered know that if he attempts to shoot up a campus, he will meet resistance.

Third of all. Violent crimes are fewer where gun ownership is not restricted. Texas, where even almost every grandmother is armed, has a lower murder rate than Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun laws in America. Criminals don’t obey gun laws–law-abiding citizens do.

The following chart was posted at National Review today:

Oddly enough, more people have bought guns since President Obama was elected than in the years before. One NRA member has joking referred to the President as “Gun Salesman of the Year” on various occasions.

Seriously, the answer to the shootings at colleges is more security personnel carrying guns on campus–not less guns. To use this event to push a political agenda that is contrary to the United States Constitution is unseemly.