When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns

    We've all heard the trite old saying, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." It takes on a whole new meaning when we look at the recent events in Norway, where deranged gunman managed to kill more than 60 people over the course of more than an hour. Nobody had a gun to stop the guy.
    We've had these kinds of mass shootings in the U.S., of course, but with one big difference. We are an armed society, and someone usually arrives on the scene pretty quickly to take out the miscreant. Not so in Norway, where the police have to seek special permission to carry a gun.
    In Norway,only beat police officers in patrol cars have immediate access to weapons. By law, however, they have to remain unloaded and locked in a box in the car unless authorization is given for their use. I can't help but think of Andy Griffith and Barney Fife and Barney's single bullet.
    Mass gun ownership doesn't translate into gun violence. In Switzerland, almost all younger adult males are considered a part of the militia and are required to keep a gun at their home. After leaving the militia they may keep their weapon but it is modified to make it semi-automatic rather than automatic. The bottom line is that everyone in Switzerland is armed.
    Does Switzerland have a massive gun problem? Nope. But if some nut job starts taking people out, it's not going to take two hours to get permission to use a gun, either. That guy's going down. Same thing in the United States.
    Read more about it in the New York Times: Unsettling Wariness in Norway, Where Police Are Rarely Armed
    Norman Lear tried to make fun typical American Archie Bunker, but soon found out that more people agreed with Bunker than with the liberal elites. Here's Archie's views on gun control. Mine, too, for the most part.