"Fort Hood: Death by Gun Control"

Excerpts from the article by Howard Nemerov at examiner.com:
"Yesterday at Fort Hood, disgruntled Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 12 soldiers and wounded 31 others before being shot and captured.

"These soldiers were entrusted to carry fully automatic, military assault rifles when deployed to Afghanistan, where the shooter was about to be sent. But in America, these same soldiers are disarmed when on base. From the Associated Press: 'Soldiers at Fort Hood don't carry weapons unless they are doing training exercises.' [...]

"In his book The Bias Against Guns, John Lott examined the relationship between the presence of legally-carried firearms and multiple murders. He concluded: 'If right-to-carry laws [legal concealed carry of handguns] allow citizens to limit the amount of attacks that still take place, the number of persons harmed should fall relative to the number of shootings… And indeed, that is what we find. The average number of people dying or becoming injured per attack declines by around 50 percent.'

"Lott also found that both the total number and rate of multiple murders in right-to-carry states are one-third that of restrictive states. In an email interview, he clarified this data by stating: 'The simplest numbers showed a 67 percent drop in the number of attacks and a 79 percent decrease in the number of people killed or injured from such attacks. The number of people harmed fell by more than the number of attacks because some attacks that weren't deterred were stopped in progress by people with guns.' [...]

"[Police SWAT-expert Ron] Borsch notes that nearly all mass murders occur in places where law-abiding citizens are banned from possessing firearms, either by property owners or government regulation.

"Off-base, soldiers over age 20 are eligible under Texas law to carry a concealed handgun."

Read the entire article here.