Before I get too deep into today’s column, I would like all my friends in Gun-control Nation to click this link and see where it does. In fact, it takes you to a private Facebook group, the 45/70 Club, whose members trade information about the rifles which are chambered for the 45/70 ammunition round.
The 45-70 cartridge was originally developed as a military round and started being manufactured and loaded into rifles and even some Gatling guns beginning in 1873. The diameter and weight of the bullet, as well as its speed when it leaves the barrel, makes it a very good choice for bagging big game like hogs, deer, and elk.
There are at least five gun makers currently offering rifle models in this venerable, old round, with Marlin and Winchester leading the pack, with Henry, Thompson Center and Connecticut Valley Arms not far behind.
Because the 45-70 is loaded in a long case which holds lots of powder, the bullet zips out to long range, often at speeds above 1,300 feet per second and still hits with a real – smack!
The size of the bullet and the length of the case also makes the 45/70 a favored round to be reloaded and/or shot from a bench rest.
This particular Facebook group, which I joined a number of years ago, has over 32,000 members. I happen to be a member of a bunch of Facebook groups like the 45/70 group, all devoted to a particular type of gun, or a specific round of ammunition, or some other technical or historical subject involving guns.
I would be willing to bet there are at least 25 such Facebook groups, maybe more. Together, I suspect that these Facebook gun groups have a total membership of somewhere around a million subscribers or more. These groups don’t let anyone advertise the sale of guns; they aren’t doubling down as space where the MAGA contingent can rant. They are exactly what they claim to be – internet zones where people trade information about a hobby or an interest which appeals to them.
I promote my daily column on my website, three Facebook pages, a twitter feed and two gun-control Facebook groups. I also send out a link to my column on a very private email list containing the names of leaders and activists from the national and statewide gun-control groups, journalists who write about guns for the mainstream media, bloggers and researchers connected to at least a dozen universities and other research initiatives as well.
Dollars to doughnuts, I’ll bet there isn’t a single person of the more than 7,000 subscribes to my website, my Facebook pages or is on my email list who has ever joined or even scanned any of these gun groups. By the same token, I suspect there isn’t a single member of any of these Facebook gun groups who has ever taken the trouble to read or think about any of the content on the websites run by Giffords, Brady or MOMS. The disconnect between the two sides who have been arguing about guns in America for more than twenty-five years is total and complete.
Which is why, when all is said and done, nothing has really changed. Know what the gun-violence rate was in 1981? 13.73. Know what it was in 2019? 11.57. That’s a whole, big decline in the death-rate from all gun violence of 15 percent. In raw numbers, 7,500 more were shot and killed in 2019 than in 1981.
Yesterday I was watching a news report from Gaza. It occurred to me that Hamas and Israel have been going at it since Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978. Forty-four years of killing, maiming, and brutalizing two populations and there’s no end in sight. I could say exactly the same thing about gun violence in the U.S.A.
Being a member of the 45/70 Facebook gun group has absolutely nothing to do with gun violence. Being a tree-hugging liberal is not any kind of threat to 2nd-Amendment ‘rights. How do we move beyond such nonsense and get something done?
May 19, 2021 @ 13:53:14
Don’t forget along with the Proud Boys and the Boobaloo bunch you need to include the “Not F**king Around Coalition” or NFAC
As for: “GOP continues to foster the racism,” no other word for this except, S T U P I D.
As Brad Betters says:
Considering that today, accusations of race-based discrimination are nearly akin to allegations of pederasty, they should only be made with serious care and consideration, and be supported only by the hardest of facts. Democrats and the elite media absolutely meet this standard. For their rush to judgement, their blatant race-based hypocrisy, and their increasingly dehumanizing treatment of white America, they absolutely deserve the label they so promiscuously pin to others: racial bigots.
May 19, 2021 @ 14:42:24
I think this the dates on this might be backward? Or perhaps I’m not understanding correctly:
“In raw numbers, 7,500 more were shot and killed in 2019 than in 1981.”
I have wondered about whether there is increased social alienation in the last 20 years vs the 1980’s for instance, and is that an underlying cause of mass shootings which is the thing that makes a lot of gun-control discussion erupt over and over again. I mean, there weren’t a lot of mass shootings back around 1981, were there?
With only a few exceptions there isn’t a lot of attention to death by suicide from guns, which is a significant category of “gun violence” and which I know you have written about. When you talk about it, I think it would be helpful to break down “gun violence” into types. I’m sure the solutions are different for different types.
Jun 05, 2021 @ 14:55:12
Simply because it is impossible for guns to be violent. This is obviously a gun control construct to associate guns and violence unjustifiably. Not unexpected from a propaganda organisation promoting a false ideology based on an equally false premise. That guns somehow cause crime. A phenomena that defies physics, logic, common sense and all factual empirical evidence.
Now if you wanted to reduce crime which obviously you do not, you would have consulted criminologists and not some rabid anti-social organisation run by propaganda experts being paid to accomplish a job. You would then have found that crime is caused by social problems and not objects.
A situation that has caused many billions per year to be wasted on gun laws and administration, every cent hijacked by gun control from solving crime and attending to the social problems in a complete proven waste with absolutely no benefit to citizens. It has unmistakably endangered citizens.
How much would crime be reduced if the wasted money hijacked by gun control was spent on crime fighting? Any idea?