No one stopped him

Cindy Ann Yuille
Steven Mathew Forsyth

A shopper and a shopkeeper, gunned down by a 22 year-old man for no apparent reason.

The sheriff is taking credit, saying that mall security and the quick response of his agency prevented the gunman from taking more lives. Except there is a problem ... the perpetrator's gun jammed.

The police have a saying: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Once again, the police responded within minutes. 2 minutes? 15 minutes? Accounts don't specify. I can only wonder if the outcome might have been different if other, law-abiding shoppers had been armed. Would the gunman have even contemplated such an act if he knew that his targets might be able to resist?

Sometimes the government is just stupid

Microscopically etch an identifying mark on a gun's firing pin. Every bullet casing would be engraved with that mark, and law enforcement would know which gun fired that bullet. Seems like a great idea, right?

Actually, it's hard to count how many ways this is a stupid idea. But Jazz Shaw at Hot Air and Bob Owens at PJ Media itemize just some of the problems with gun microstamping.

Included in the litany of idiocy:

1. The firing pin for most weapons are easily replaced with a $12 part
2. The stamping naturally wears down through normal use, rendering it unusable.

This is what happens when central economic planners get too much power.