Librarians Would Rather You Die Than Shoot Back

Eastern New Mexico News

Time and time again, we have said that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. When a disturbed young man decided to shoot up the library in Clovis, New Mexico, killing two and wounding four, he only stopped when police arrived. The murderer thankfully did not continue his spree or engage the responding police. Nor did he kill himself. Instead, he meekly surrendered. In fact, most high-profile spree killers either surrender or kill themselves on the arrival of police or application of force.

One wonders what would have happened if an armed citizen was there that day. If the killer knew that someone inside the library might well be armed, would he have gone there? The killer almost certainly targeted the library precisely because it is a location where police are not. It is perceived to be a place of safety, like schools, but instead of acknowledging the threat and planning accordingly, librarians prefer to bury their head in the sand.

Nevada library officials would have their employees and patrons cower and hope for the best, praying that the police can make it in time to limit the body count. I guess they never heard of the axiom that “hope is not a plan.” If a similar shooting is to happen in Nevada, the hands of every anti-gun library official and everyone involved with SB 115, the attempted library gun-free zone/open carry revenge bill will have blood on them. Nevada libraries, particularly the law-breaking, recalcitrant Las Vegas Clark County Library District, have practically screamed that they are soft targets.

Unsurprisingly, the public library community is filled with liberal, hoplophobes as the American Library Institution’s (ALA) website attests in its affirmation of everything connected to the Progressive agenda. The ALA gave its support to the Clovis-Carter Library. “Unfortunately, we must all be prepared for violence in public places. The ALA encourages its members to work closely with local law enforcement and officials to prepare and train for violence prevention and response. The ALA also provides resources to assist with this issue.” This training and advice is limited to mostly escalation and prevention techniques, rather than practical self-defense.

Rather than empower staff and library patrons to fight back and kill those who would kill them, the ALA is actively seeking to empower murderers to have a resistance-free killing zone. In January of 2017 they issued a resolution basically saying guns are bad, Leftist gun control solutions need to be implemented, and libraries need to be gun free zones.

In the aftermath of the Charleston, SC, church shooting in 2015, the ALA issued a resolution deploring American gun violence and blaming it on “the ready availability of guns (handguns, assault rifles, etc.) in the United States due to ineffective gun laws, the absence of sensible gun control laws, and the efforts of the gun lobby and the manufacturers of guns to resist these controls.” It was not the work of a deranged, racist young man, but rather the NRA and gun companies who were responsible. They reaffirmed their commitment into making libraries into gun free zones.

Apparently, besides their Leftist, anti-gun bent, their motivation for this statement seems to be in part the death of “colleague” Cynthia Hurd, was killed in Charleston. After the Orlando gay nightclub shooting, they called for libraries to make more inclusive communities, as if the radicalized Muslim terrorist would have changed his mind if only the local library had more books on Sharia. The ALA’s stance should disgust everyone, but it hardly surprising.

New Mexico’s tragic situation could have happened here in Nevada, as the Land of Enchantment has similar open carry laws. In both states, the open carry of handguns is legal in public buildings, but Nevada bans licensed concealed carry. New Mexico does have a constitutional amendment forbidding local regulation of firearms, which more elegantly and efficiently stops shenanigans like LVCCLD’s illegal open carry ban than our mere statute. Despite that, open carry is far less popular than open carry and many “no gun” signs are given far more weight than they legally have, often dissuading people who might otherwise protect themselves and others. It’s unknown if the Clovis-Carter Library was posted (likely it was not, given state law), but in any case, the idea of the library being a sacrosanct gun free zone does not lend itself to safety.

So the take-away is not that libraries need more tools to ban guns; rather it is that libraries need to encourage responsibly armed citizens to patronize them and for employees to carry firearms for their own protection. Violence can strike anywhere and encouraging the innocent to remain defenseless only emboldens and encourages psychopathic murderers. Nevada library officials need to understand this point and drop their illogical and emotional opposition to the legal carry of firearms.

Fun fact: Did you know the Las Vegas Clark County Library District Board of Trustees seems to have violated NRS 241.035 by not approving its minutes within 45 days? If not, why would they approve eight meetings worth of minutes in one session? And why do so many of the meetings have their approved minutes missing from the website?