In the aftermath of the horrible Newtown shootings, the folks who like to pretend they care are renewing their attacks on citizens owning guns.

These attacks on gun ownership are built on wild emotion, abuse, wrong information and bad research.

I came across this video at SDA where Lee Doren takes on one revved up attacker.

A very rational James Allan Fox had this column is USA Today.

Even though the nature and number of incidents today are not very different from years ago, one thing definitely has changed — the extent and style of news coverage. In an earlier era, the major networks did not have the capability to be on the scene reporting live and with video within minutes of a shooting spree. And cable news channels weren’t around to provide marathon coverage of these events.

Back in 1966, when Charles Whitman opened fire from a tower on the University of Texas campus, and killed 16 people and wounded 31 others, there wasn’t a line of satellite trucks parked at the shooting site. And in 1989 — when Patrick Purdy turned the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif., into his personal war zone with an AK-47 which he used to kill five children and wound 29 other students and one teacher — news outlets did not as yet have the means to transmit satellite images of frightened children running for their lives for instantaneous display on our television screens.

It wasn’t commonplace years ago to have a swarm of reporters on the scene with microphones and cameras just in time to interview surviving children with fresh tears in their eyes. We also didn’t hear an array of eye witnesses and emergency responders talk about a “parent’s worst nightmare” or describe the scene as the worst they’ve encounter in their careers. And we certainly did not have folks tweeting updates from location.

JD Tuccille has this column at Reason.com that ends as follows-

So, what can be done? Hawley and his frequent critic, Bruce Schneier, agree that just two responses to hijacking attempts have been effective: hardening airplane cockpits and psychologically preparing passengers and air crew to actively resist attackers. Forget the theater at the airports, which is the equivalent of the gun/video game/legal-whatever bloviating in Congress; it’s those two changes that have mattered.

If hardening targets and preparing people at the scene to intervene if necessary works against terrorist attacks on airplanes, it just may work at schools and elsewhere.

What does that mean in real terms? Well, that’s where the real discussion should begin. Debates over new legal restrictions on people who didn’t commit the crime are a pointless distraction.

And Bryan Preston has this short but excellent item.

The NRA came out with a proposal to post armed police officers at schools to prevent or at least minimize the next school shooting. The left promptly called the idea nuts.

Turns out, it wasn’t a new idea. President Bill Clinton proposed the same idea in April 2000. He implemented it, too, only to see Barack Obama cut the funding for it.

So, if you’re keeping score, the NRA agrees with a 12-year old Bill Clinton position on school security. The left just called a former Democrat president “crazy.”

Let’s get even more confusing. Clinton proposed more security for schools in the wake of the 1999 Columbine shooting. It turns out that Columbine High School did have an armed sheriff’s deputy on the scene the day of its tragic shooting spree. That deputy exchanged fire with one of the killers twice, drawing their attention away from killing unarmed teenagers. The deputy and his backup also helped organize the evacuation of students from the school. Though the deputy’s presence obviously did not stop the attack from happening, it likely did save many lives.

Let’s pile on even more confusion. The NRA today proposed protecting our children to a level similar to the way we protect our banks and many public buildings: With armed security. As we’ve established, this idea has been around for more than 12 years and was once proposed by a Democratic president. Many on the anti-gun left responded to today’s proposal not with a thoughtful rejoinder, but with calls to shoot Wayne LaPierre.

I’m not done yet. There is one more bit of confusing data to work with. The Columbine shooting occurred on April 20, 1999. The Assault Weapons Ban that the Democrats wish to revive in response to the Newtown killings ran from 1993 to 2004.

And from a very surprising source –

We will never change our attitude about the responsible use of weapons by law-abiding citizens,” says Hermann Suter, vice president of Pro-Tell, the country’s gun lobby, named after legendary apple shooter William Tell, who used a crossbow to target enemies long before firearms were invented.

Switzerland trails behind only the U.S, Yemen and Serbia in the number of guns per capita; between 2.3 million and 4.5 million military and private firearms are estimated to be in circulation in a country of only 8 million people. Yet, despite the prevalence of guns, the violent-crime rate is low: government figures show about 0.5 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. By comparison, the U.S rate in the same year was about 5 firearm killings per 100,000 people, according to a 2011 U.N. report.

One of the reasons the crime rate in Switzerland is low despite the prevalence of weapons — and also why the Swiss mentality can’t be transposed to the current American reality — is the culture of responsibility and safety that is anchored in society and passed from generation to generation. Kids as young as 12 belong to gun groups in their local communities, where they learn sharpshooting. The Swiss Shooting Sports Association runs about 3,000 clubs and has 150,000 members, including a youth section. Many members keep their guns and ammunition at home, while others choose to leave them at the club. And yet, despite such easy access to pistols and rifles, “no members have ever used their guns for criminal purposes,” says Max Flueckiger, the association’s spokesperson.

“Social conditions are fundamental in deterring crime,” says Peter Squires, professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton in Great Britain, who has studied gun violence in different countries and concluded that a “culture of support” rather than focus on individualism, can deter mass killings.

“If people have a responsible, disciplined and organized introduction into an activity like shooting, there will be less risk of gun violence,” he tells TIME.

That sense of social and civic responsibility is one of the reasons the Swiss have never allowed their guns to come under fire.

Guns are not the problem.

Social conditions, social and civic responsibility are key.