Residents in Roseburg, Oregon, are rallying around the Second Amendment in the wake of the heinous attack on Umpqua Community College (UCC), suggesting the attack itself is proof of why citizens need to be armed for self-defense.
According to the Associated Press, Roseburg is a mill town surrounded by hunting and fishing opportunities, and one where many residents say they do not leave home without a handgun for self-defense. They do not carry because crime is high, but because crime is low and they want to keep it that way.
Consequently, residents like J.C. Smith believe the attack at UCC was made possible by the fact that the school denied the exercise of Second Amendment rights to its students. Smith suggests that “barring people from carrying guns on campus made it particularly vulnerable to a ‘lone wolf’ attack” like the one witnessed Thursday.
Casey Runyan, a disabled Marine, said he carries to protect himself and pointed to the UCC attack as proof of the need to be ready to do so. Runyan said he carries a Glock handgun “everywhere he goes.” He added, “All my friends agree with me. That’s the only kind of friends I have.”
Roseburg sits in Douglas County, where Sheriff John Hanlin drew attention to himself by fighting an expansion of gun control in 2014. He fought hard against expanded background checks–gun control’s Trojan Horse–even sending a letter to Vice President Joe Biden expressing his conviction that the laws being pushed were “offending the constitutional rights of [Douglas County] citizens.”
On October 2–the day after the heinous attack on UCC–Sheriff Hanlin made clear that his views remained the same and gun control is not the solution to stopping attacks like the one carried out in Rosuberg.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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