Now that Nancy Pelosi has given Sleazy Don a quick lesson in how to negotiate a deal, everyone in Gun-control Nation believes that some kind of gun bill will emerge from the Democratic-controlled House. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But if any kind of bill is going to get voted through, the very least we should try to do is craft some kind of measure which will respond to the issue itself. And if the issue is what we call ‘gun violence,’ then we need to make sure we understand what that term really means.
According to the World Health Organization, violence means an intentional injury committed against yourself or someone else. So gun violence would include suicide, homicide and assault, which reduces the CDC-based number of total gun violence from 124,761 to 106,624 because accidents don’t count. And accidents shouldn’t count in the overall scheme of things unless, of course,Gun-control Nation isn’t telling the truth about its support for 2nd-Amendment‘rights.’
But of course they are telling the truth. After all,isn’t that why gun-control groups like Everytown only want to pass ‘sensible’ gun laws? Here’s what Everytown says: “Support for the Second Amendment goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns away from criminals and other dangerous people.” The Giffords group is even more explicit: “we can enact gun safety measures that save thousands of lives and do not threaten Second Amendment rights.”
Wonderful, just wonderful. Not only does Gun-control Nation want to protect us from gun violence, they also take it upon themselves to protect Constitutional ‘rights.’ Now I’m confused. I thought the NRA was America’s ‘first civil rights organization.’ I thought it was the boys in Fairfax leading the charge to keep gun owners from facing a world without a 2nd-Amendment security blanket. I mean, why did I give Wayne-o and Chrissie enough money to become a Life Patriot Endowment NRA Member if tree-huggers and Communists like George Soros and Mike Bloomberg are now making sure that we enforce a law which was ratified in 1791? Something’s not right here, something’s really not right.
I’ll tell you what’s not right. What’s not right is the attempt by my friends in Gun-control Nation to pretend they are committed to the idea that every ‘responsible’ and ‘reasonable’ American should be able to own a gun. If there really is a chance to get a new gun law through Congress next year, why don’t we cut the bullsh*t, okay?
Would someone from Everytown please explain to me what is ‘responsible’ about walking around with a Glock pistol which holds 16 military-ordnance rounds? And if you don’t know the history of the 9mm cartridge, do me a favor and learn something about guns before lecturing me on your commitment to ‘reasonable’ gun laws. Because in my state – Massachusetts – if you haven’t been arrested and convicted for some serious offense and you snooze your way through a gun-safety course which doesn’t require you to shoot a gun at all, you have just met all the sensible and reasonable requirements,Constitutional and otherwise, to walk around town with a gun. What are my friends at Everytown and Brady going to say about that?
I’m really sick and tired of listening to my friends in Gun-control Nation tell me that we can end gun violence by just making sure that the ‘bad guys’ don’t have guns. Gun violence isn’t caused by guys, bad or otherwise. Gun violence is…caused…by…guns. I mean,you just can’t do to someone’s head with a baseball bat what you can do to their head with a gun. I once accidentally whacked my brother on the side of his head with a Louisville Slugger and he suffered from double vision for a couple of days. He wouldn’t have suffered at all if I had blown his head off with my 1911 Colt pistol – he would have been dead.
I don’t think it would be so terrible if Gabby Giffords stood up and said that she just doesn’t like guns.Who’s going to blame her for saying that?
Dec 13, 2018 @ 18:26:06
For any given society, one can trace history back to a time before firearms were available and in wide use. I am not aware of any case where rates of lethal violence did not go down after that happened.
Where there are no guns, violence is drastically more profitable and predictable for those disposed to use it.
Read about travel in olde England where gangs of brigands routinely chose travelers they could assess, with accuracy, who would be easy prey.
Also, gun technology favors smart educated folks over dumb and brutish… if the will is there.
Dec 14, 2018 @ 06:29:07
I”m not sure that Gaby Giffords doesn’t like guns. She’s been quoted in several articles stating that she owns a Glock 19 (much like the one she was almost murdered with). She’s also had pictures of herself taken shooting an AR style rifle (not sure if it was hers).
Dec 16, 2018 @ 11:28:50
If we could pass most of the gun laws the Giffords, Brady & Everytown folks have on their wish list, within about a decade we could drop U.S. gun violence by a third. Maybe more. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
(Mike, on another topic, I like the new look of your magazine here! I didn’t want to say anything negative about the earlier one, but that rather drab, inside-of-a-Mars Bar background color didn’t cut muster.)
Dec 16, 2018 @ 22:46:17
Brent,
About 70,000 Americans died last year of drug overdoses… mostly opiates illegally obtained.
Question. How many teenagers who smoke weed would you give long prison sentences to in order to achieve a 30 percent reduction in the opioid death rates
1,000,000? 10,000,000?
How many totally law abiding gun owners , at least by current definitions, would you be willing to imprison in your reach for this dreamed of reduction in gun violence? Like, banning AR 15s …owned by 5-10 million citizens rarely involved in gun violence.
I offer that if you have not thought about this you have not been serious about this issue.
Dec 17, 2018 @ 00:45:09
I think his main point is the gross lack of training involved for reasonable people to gain access to guns. When you have a million Joe Shmoe’s walking around with guns with hardly any training there’s bound to be accidents/misuse.
Dec 17, 2018 @ 10:10:53
I’m not talking about imprisoning law-abiding citizens. What’s needed is closing the gross loopholes in our federal gun laws. As far as any form of gun ban, I’m not for it.