Last night, I watched as President Obama delivered his standard response to a mass shooting in Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, where, at last count, 13 Americans lay dead.  His solution, before any real evidence has been made public: more "commonsense" gun control.  He did this as he denounced, according to his view, the conservative "standard response" of "more guns," while providing his own standard liberal response of "more gun laws."  In his parting shot, President Obama promised us that each and every time there is a mass shooting, he will be there to remind us of his position.

His final words were correct.  President Obama will indeed remind us.  He will remind us that liberals, currently following his lead, own a big part of the responsibility for the high casualty count in these shootings.  He will remind us that "gun-free" zones ensure that murderers, whether psychopaths or Muslim extremists (I know, redundant), look for what is known as a "target-rich environment" upon which to inflict their horror.  He will remind us that gun-free zones provide just such environment.  He will remind us that federal and local laws preclude, under threat of felony incarceration, the ability of law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights to stop cold the second and/or subsequent shots of mass murderers, psychopaths, or jihadis returning from Syria.

Here is what liberals such as President Obama cannot seem to understand, or continue to ignore for political reasons.  When liberals create a "gun-free zone," they essentially create a target-rich environment, a safe space for those who would do their fellow man harm, for whatever reason.  Liberals make it legally impossible for any law-abiding citizen to intervene rapidly in a situation such as Sandy Hook or Columbine...or Roseburg.  As any Delta Force trooper, FBI hostage rescue team member, or concealed carry permit holder can tell you, it is well nigh impossible to prevent a dedicated killer, psychotic, or ordinary criminal from getting a firearm and getting off the first shot, no matter how many laws you pass.  By force of law, what gun-free zones do is prevent law-abiding citizens from stopping the shooter's second or subsequent shots.

Each and every one of these mass shooters was ultimately stopped by the presence of a law-abiding citizen with a gun.  The critical factor here is how long it took this law-abiding citizen to show up.  It just makes "common sense," as the liberals are wont to say, to have someone with a gun close at hand.  There is an old adage: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."  We will never know whether an armed citizen would have limited the carnage at Sandy Hook, Columbine, or Roseburg.  What we do know is that federal and state laws precluded that possibility.