Under the NRA's thinking, Jared Loughner carrying a concealed Glock made Arizonans safer

Dennia A. Henigan dissects the reasoning:

The National Rifle Association wants guns in more American homes. It wants more guns on the streets, in grocery stores, in restaurants, in coffee houses, in bars, in churches, at workplaces, at political events, and on college campuses. Guns everywhere, to deter criminals from attacking and to shoot back when they do.

Arizona is fast becoming the quintessential realization of this vision. Arizona has virtually no restrictions on guns (the Brady Center gives it 2 points out of a possible 100 in its state law ratings) and the state recently became the third state to allow people to carry concealed weapons in public places without a permit. The state also recently allowed concealed carriers to take their guns into bars. 

Have weak gun laws made Arizonans safer?

The state ranks 6th in the nation in gun deaths. FBI data indicates it ranks 13th in homicides per 100,000 population. Arizona criminals don't appear to be cowering in fear of armed, law-abiding citizens. Arizona also has become a favorite source of lethal weaponry for the Mexican drug cartels. Three Arizona gun dealers are among the top 12 American dealers in supplying Mexican crime guns.

Indeed, Arizona's gun laws are so non-existent that it was entirely legal for Jared Loughner to be carrying his Glock outside that Tucson Safeway up until the moment he pulled the trigger. He actually was one of the "law-abiding citizens" the NRA thinks is making us safer by carrying concealed weapons where we live, work and shop. If Loughner's community college, which expelled him because he was thought too dangerous to be in class, had reported his behavior to the Tucson police, Arizona law allowed them to do nothing to prevent him from carrying a concealed weapon.

All those Arizonans packing heat did not prevent the carnage in Tucson. There was, in fact, a law-abiding citizen with a gun on the scene at that Safeway. He told Ed Schultz he got to the shooter after someone else had grabbed the gun from the shooter's hands and he initially thought the hero was the shooter. In the NRA's America, where everyone has a gun, it is tough to tell the good guys from the bad.

Why is a national debate on guns and ammo in the wake of Tuscon a "political agenda"?

The national meme as the horror of Tuscon continues to sink in is that both political wings, the Left and the Right, have been exploiting the tragedy to promote an agenda and that this is despicable, disgusting, hideous or (insert your own word of outrage here).

Put Jared Lee Loughner's own ideology, whatever it may be, aside. Why is it not legitimate to engage in a debate over whether weapons of mass destruction (and that is what Loughner's Glock, with its 31-round clip, was) should be kept out of the hands of delusional sociopaths who have exhibited tendencies of paranoid schizophrenia? Why, for that matter, should not multi-round clips like the one Loughner used be banned outright? Even sportsmen would agree, they serve no purpose other than to kill a lot of people quickly.

Oh, we'll hear the argument that nutjobs like Loughner will find a way to carry out their sick mission with other weaponry, like knives, or table legs, or lug wrenches.

Since when does an absolutist view of the Second Amendment have to trump everything else in society? Yet, even after Tuscon,  gun-control legislation, even among Democrats, is "not a winning issue" nor a fight they can win. There';s a resignation that things will never change in the American frontierland, that every few years some twisted individual with a high-powered arsenal will invade our national consciousness, shoot up a school or shopping mall or political event, kill or wound dozens, and America will just have to get over it.

Why can't we hold a debate that it doesn't have to be this way?