While the gun control crowd laments the lack of regulations in this country. However, even they have to concede that there are still laws that restrict firearm ownership and purchases in every corner of the United States.
Well, they should concede it, anyway.
Many refuse because guns are still traded illegally, which is kind of our point about how these laws really just don’t work. Still, they insist they do until they claim they don’t.
Enter New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Back in 2015, then President Obama misleadingly sought to describe the “availability of guns” by proclaiming that “you can go on into some neighborhoods, and it’s easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable.” He repeated a variant of the claim even after the Washington Post’s fact checker determined that the statement was a three-Pinocchio rated falsehood. Not only was the president “playing fast and loose with his language,” the fact checker ruled that the statement was “just a very strange comment that appears to have no statistical basis… As far as we know, there are no areas in the United States where background checks are needed to buy vegetables.”
It’s hard to drop such a catchy, if completely bogus, talking point, which may explain why a local paper quoted New York State Attorney General Letitia James as saying, recently, “What’s so tragic is that in some parts of New York State, you can find a gun more easily than you can find an apple.”
Problem is, New York State is flush with apples. According to the U.S. Apple Association, out of the 32 states that grow apples commercially, New York State is the second largest producer of the fruit in the country. Last year, for example, the yield was an estimated 1,385,000,000 pounds of apples. The New York Apple Association even has a “find apples” search feature on its website.
Of course, we all know that New York is a heavily gun-controlled state.
Oddly, though, she may be right, but not in the way she intends. See, New York City is knee-deep in violence. They also have food deserts in some low-income communities. I suspect many of those same neighborhoods are awash in illegal guns despite New York City’s draconian gun control laws.
So sure, in those parts of the state, it may be easier to find a gun than an apple.
Yet unless James is pushing for more grocery stores to open in the city, I don’t see what she thinks she can accomplish. As noted, the Big Apple already has gun control, possibly the most restrictive gun control measures anywhere in the nation, and yet this persists. New gun control laws won’t change that fact.
I’m pretty sure she’s saying nothing of the type.
After all, James is well into her own anti-Second Amendment jihad. To shift gears and focus on food would be a bit too much, especially with a reference to guns like this.
At no point, though, can anyone buy a firearm lawfully easier than they can buy a firearm. That remains out of reach, even for the most convoluted “reasoning” you can care to manufacture.
I’m sure James will try, though.
