Last night I was watching one of the ‘fake news’ channels, probably CNN, and they did a brief report on shootings last weekend in which somewhere around 150 people were killed. Why has gun violence become so dreadfully high over the last year? Because everyone’s buying a gun to protect themselves from Covid-19.
I have been listening to this more guns bought = more gun violence for the last 16 months and frankly, it’s a load of crap. Or better said, it’s simply a convenient way to explain a somewhat scary bit of human behavior – gun purchasing – which nobody in Gun-control Nation has yet to try to understand.
Ask the average guy who comes walking out of a gun shop with his Glock 17 why he just laid out $500 bucks for a piece of polymer and tempered steel and he’ll tell you right off the bat that he needs to ‘protect’ himself from all those crazies who are going around burning and looting in this city and that.
Of course, the guy doesn’t happen to live anywhere near those cities, but so what? And if you were to point this out to him, he would think for a second and then say, “Well, it could still happen where I live.” And just to make sure you get the point; he would then remind you that he’s only exercising his 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’
Which is also a load of crap because the 2nd Amendment is an amendment, not a ‘right.’ But anyway, back to how and why legal gun sales are the reason for so much gun crime.
Back in April 1992, I happened to be visiting a gun shop in Baltimore, MD. When I arrived at the shop, the line was around the corner and I had to get the owner, Mel Abrams, to let me in the back door. Mel’s shop usually had an inventory of 200-300 handguns, he told me that he expected to be sold out by early afternoon. He had called his wholesaler that morning and was told that the wholesaler was also cleaned out of guns. What was going on?
The night before was the first night of the riot which erupted in Los Angeles after 4 cops were found innocent of beating the sh*t out of Rodney King. But it wasn’t the riot itself which resulted in every handgun in every gun shop being sold the next day. It was the live video that showed some White guy being dragged out of his truck in Los Angeles and then beaten to a pulp by some real ‘street thugs.’
This video played on virtually every TV in every American home where anyone was watching the news. It was repeated the next several days again, and again, and again.
Gun violence and violence in general did spike from 1992 through 1994. But according to the government, this increase in street mayhem was due to crack cocaine. Nobody said anything about all those guns that had been purchased back in 1992. And by the way, gun violence rates began falling in 1994 and ended up dropping by more than 50% over the next five years.
There was another spike in gun sales after 9-11. Even in my gun shop which was in a town that would never have been a terrorist target for Osama bin Laden or anyone else, my shelves were stripped clean. Know what happened to the gun violence rate in my state when we launched the War on Terror? It didn’t change.
Then there was a much bigger and more sustained increase in gun sales after Obama tried to get a new gun law passed following Sandy Hook. Know how many gun homicides were committed in 2012? Try 11,622. Know how many gun homicides occurred in 2013 when everyone in Gun-nut Nation knew ‘for a fact’ that Obama was going to take away their guns? Try 11,208.
How come none of the experts who keep saying that the legal purchase of all those guns in the past year is the reason for so much gun violence hasn’t taken one second to compare this year’s spike in gun sales to spikes in other years? WTFK, okay?
Jul 20, 2021 @ 11:27:48
“Which is also a load of crap because the 2nd Amendment is an amendment, not a ‘right.”
Wait a minute, Mike. Sure, the 2A isn’t a right but it defines one. Recognizing that neither of us are Constitutional scholars, I think the Bill of Rights, aka those first ten amendments, was written to put limits on the powers of (the Federal) government, as the Founders asserted Back in the Day that certain individual rights were inalienable rather than granted by government. Later amendments expanded these enumerated rights to the states.
So the interplay on “rights” is taking the language of the Bill of Rights (aka the first ten amendments) and litigating laws, when needed, to see how the language of the law vs. the Bill of Rights works in practice. That is certainly how First Amendment jurisprudence has been evolving over the last hundred years, as successive Supreme Courts have bickered over where to draw the lines.
Nice piece, by the way. I tweeted it.
Jul 21, 2021 @ 10:23:19
If you are going to use a word like ‘rights,’ either you understand what it means legally or you don’t. My understanding comes from a Constitutional law textbook which is used in just about every law school in the United States. It was written by Louis Fisher, who happens to be a Libertarian, by the way, and the text is entitled ‘American Constitutional Law.’
You want to use the word ‘rights’ as a slogan, go right ahead. I don’t play that game. Because here’s what happens. The moment you let a word like ‘rights’ into the vernacular without understanding what the word really means, then you end up with what I get all the time, the idea that there are ‘God-given rights.’ Like the right to self-defense. Want to live in a country in which legal rights were determined to God? Move to Iran.
Jul 21, 2021 @ 11:07:59
“…use a word like ‘rights,’ either you understand what it means legally or you don’t.”
Can not agree more. Now let’s talk about ‘assault rifle,’ assault weapon,’ ‘military grade ammo,’ etc.
Definitions…definitions are important!
Jul 21, 2021 @ 12:07:11
I got my definition from the National Archives. I guess we will just disagree on this point.
“The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. It spells out Americans’ rights in relation to their government. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual—like freedom of speech, press, and religion. It sets rules for due process of law and reserves all powers not delegated to the Federal Government to the people or the States. And it specifies that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Jul 21, 2021 @ 14:16:50
But you’re missing the point. Anyone can use the word ‘rights.’ But it has a strict legal meaning and when we talk about gun laws, or any laws, we should use the word the way it is used in the law. You did exactly what all those gun guys do when they attack me for saying that the 2nd Amendment isn’t a ‘right,’ it’s an amendment. And then they go on to prove’ their point by quoting some statement that has nothing to do with legal definitions at all.
In 1865 we passed the 13th Amendment which gave Blacks their ‘civil rights.’ There was only one problem. Nobody knew what that meant in legal terms. And to define all those ‘rights,’ the Congress passed a ‘civil rights’ law in 1867, the first ‘civil rights’ law ever passed.
We have done exactly the same thing with guns. We have passed 4 laws – 1934, 1938, 1968 and 1994 which define what someone can and cannot do with a gun. Because in legal terms, the word ‘rights’ means ‘right’ versus ‘wrong,’ okay? And what do these gun nuts tell me? That we shouldn’t have any gun laws because they have a ‘right’ to defend themselves with a gun. Yes, they have such a ‘right’ if the Feds or the state in which they live passes a law which defines in what ways and with what kinds of guns someone can use to defend themselves. If there isn’t such a law covering the jurisdiction in which they live, they have no ‘right’ whatsoever to defend themselves, I don’t care what the Bible says.
Jul 21, 2021 @ 15:10:35
Well, sure, and I’m not trying to be obtuse, but I guess it comes naturally.
I agree with just about everything you said. A “right” only gets fleshed out when laws are passed defining the “right vs. wrong”, regardless of what the absolutists might say. I thought I said that the Bill of Rights and the laws of the land are in an interplay. The First Amendment says we have the right to freedom of worship and speech. But it doesn’t allow your religion to have human sacrifice or let you libel someone. Over the decades, several important 1A cases have smacked down laws as being unconstitutional. Nowadays, some are screaming for hate speech laws but that flies in the face of a century of jurisprudence.
Likewise, the Second Amendment says “… blah blah blah the right of the people to keep and bear arms…” but 240 some years of laws and jurisprudence have helped define that “right” and have demonstrated that Federal and state laws can define that “right” differently as long as they don’t go too far. But sometimes the Constitution pushes back, as in Heller and McDonald saying the DC law went too far. And we shall see what this court does with the NYS Sullivan Act. My guess is they will let most of it stand.
Jul 20, 2021 @ 12:40:26
“Of course, the guy doesn’t happen to live anywhere near those cities, but so what? And if you were to point this out to him, he would think for a second and then say, “Well, it could still happen where I live.””
I’m sure if you would have asked Mark and Patricia McCloskeys, prior to June 28, 2020 they would have had the same thought. (And it doesn’t really matter what and how you feel about this couple…)
What does matter is who would have thought several hundred Black Lives Matter protesters would march past signs marked “Private Property” and converge on the Central West End neighborhood, lined with million-dollar homes, on their way to the mayor of St Louis, Lyda Krewson?
The McCloskeys live on private property, Portland Place, which is private property owned by a trust. Residents pay towards it management and the upkeep of the street, as well as private security.
Who knows when or where violence will happen? I know some will say there was no violence except for how the McCloskeys reacted. However, there were ‘feelings’ of violence by some. So to those with ‘feelings’ of violence, there was violence.
I’m starting to worry about Mike…he’s had several recent articles that I can almost agree with. What’s going on?
P.S. The 2nd Amendment is just that, an amendment, which underscores the God given ‘right’ one has to protect themselves.
Jul 21, 2021 @ 06:47:05
The McCloskey’s weren.t indicted for having ‘feelings’ about violence. They were indicted for pointing guns at people who did not even come close to committing any kind of violence against them. And then they lied to law enforcement when the episode was investigated. Imagine that – two lawyers who both lied to the cops about what happened in front of their home. And even in Missouri, lying to a law-enforcement investigator is a felony, okay? Want to tell me how much the McCloskeys did the right thing? Get your facts straight, okay?
Jul 21, 2021 @ 10:43:54
WOW…someone didn’t have their Wheaties this morning.
One thing at a time.
Lying to a law enforcement investigator in Missouri is NOT a felony, okay! Show the Missouri statute. Now, lying to a Federal law enforcement investigator is a felony, even in Missouri. Maybe I missed the federal charge placed against the McCloskey’s for lying. My understanding was the charges were ‘unlawful use of a weapon’ and ‘tampering with evidence.’ (Not for “pointing guns at people”)
As for McCloskey’s not being “indicted for having ‘feelings’ about violence.” Listen to the news interviews of some of the Black Lives Matter protestors who were there that day. “There were ‘feelings’ of violence by SOME. Never, did I mention anything about the McCloskey’s feeling.
And as for lawyers…we all hate them, until we need one.
Now…it’s Wheaties time.