I am getting very tired of the self-righteous twits in this world for whom everything is always someone else’s fault.  These twits are never responsible for anything that happens in their lives. It seems we have at least a generation of these magical-thinking folks that want the government to protect them from every possible harm, real or imagined.

Now, because a deranged man went into a school that these twits forced the government into making a gun-free zone, a place where the gunman would be guaranteed the time and opportunity to kill as many children and teachers as he wanted, it is the fault of gun owners that those children died. In a typical, knee-jerk political response led by the reigning champion of magical thinkers, Dianne Feinstein, the left has proposed the largest gun ban since the Bill of Rights was adopted saying “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Those teachers and children in Newtown are not dead because of the legally owned guns that might soon be banned. They are dead because their parents, school board, and politicians believed that declaring that guns are not allowed on school property would actually prevent a criminal with a gun from entering the school.  The children and teachers are dead because the politicians, school board and parents would not take responsibility for protecting them.

While I am sickened and saddened by the carnage wrought in Newtown, that carnage is not the fault of the American gun owners or gun manufacturers. Rather than take responsibility for protecting the children and teachers in schools in Newtown, the politicians, school board, and parents believed that a mystical charm called a “gun-free zone” would protect their children and teachers from evil.  Now, they also believe that a different mystical charm, the “gun ban” will prevent future deranged killers from entering schools and killing more children and teachers.

A gun ban will not remove the threat of a deranged person with a rifle, bomb, or other weapon entering another school, or mall, or movie theater and killing more innocent people.  A gun ban will be no more effective than making certain drugs illegal has been effective.  The “war on drugs” has been waged for more than 40 years in the United States.  It now should be close to impossible to obtain illegal drugs, if banning them could be effective.  It is, instead, a multi-billion dollar international industry.  The only thing a gun ban will do is to make sure that only those who will choose to break the law will have those banned guns.

Deranged killers are not necessarily stupid.  Many of them are quite intelligent and capable of strategic planning. One recent example of this is the shootings in Aurora, Colorado.  The killer did not go to the theater closest to his home or even the largest one in Aurora.  The killer chose the theater that had a policy of no weapons being allowed on the premises.  This guaranteed the killer the maximum amount of unopposed time to shoot the movie-goers.  Intelligent killers will be able to find the weapons they want to use, whether the weapon is a gun, a pipe bomb, other explosives, or poisons.

There is no law that will prevent evil people from carrying out horrible crimes.  All that can be done is to try to limit the harm that is done.  Unfortunately, this requires people to be responsible, responsible for the safety of themselves and those around them.  Responsibility, of course, is the last thing the magical thinkers want. Responsibility frightens them, particularly individuals being responsible for themselves, their lives, and their own safety.

The only rational response that has been proposed to the tragedy in Newtown is to place armed police officers in the schools.  Of course, this brought the predictable outcry from the fuzzy-brained that it would only lead to more children being shot in schools.  Of course, police are shooting innocent school children accidentally every day.  Aren’t they?

Another rational response is already being used, but you won’t find the mainstream media telling you much about it.  Utah has allowed teachers with concealed carry permits to carry their guns into schools since 2004.  There has not been a single shooting in any Utah school by a teacher, student, or outsider in the eight years since this law was enacted.  Just last week, nearly 200 teachers in Utah attended a training session to obtain their concealed carry permit.  They were there because they want to protect their students and feel an obligation to be able to end a lethal threat that comes into their classroom.

It seems to me that the only people that are thinking about the shootings in Newtown and responding rationally are the teachers in Utah and those like them.  Certainly, anyone that plans to rely on magic to protect their children is just refusing to see the facts and deal with them.