We often quip about how the gun control crowd doesn’t actually understand the topic they’re pontificating on. For example, them talking about assault weapons can be downright hilarious.
No, they often don’t know the specifics of firearms. They don’t understand how some things may just look scary but are about as harmless as a firearm can get.
Yet their understanding of existing gun laws is often terribly lacking as well. It’s often so bad that it seems like they’re backing gun control because they bought into a lie. Or a series of them.
There have been 156 mass shootings this year alone — and it’s only April. In 2020, there were 610. Most recently, three people were killed and three were injured in Kenosha, Wis., on April 18. This month alone has seen at least 24, one hitting home in Bryan on April 8. And by the looks of the data, we’re due any minute now for another. It’s a harsh statement that has somehow become our reality.
No one seems to want to blame the lack of both gun restrictions and education for the thousands of avoidable deaths and injuries a year.
The U.S. has one of the worst gun violence incidents of any high-income country. It makes sense why out of 100,000 people in America, 12 die by a gun. To buy a gun at any large box store, like Walmart, it’s required to have a background check sent to the FBI. They look for things like criminal convictions, domestic violence and citizenship status. However, denials only occur less than one percent of the time.
But then there are gun shows, which are honestly free-for-alls. The government has no requirement on registration or background checks when purchasing a gun at these shows. You can also buy and sell from friends without any sort of documentation or trouble. And on top of all of this, the federal government doesn’t require gun buyers and owners to have a license.
The first lie is the Gun Violence Archive. While the site is upfront with its methodology, they still twist the definition of a mass shooting in such a way that it artificially inflates the total number of such shootings to an insane degree, knowing full well that most media outlets will simply present the numbers without clarification.
While we seem to have had a lot of mass shootings lately, the truth of the matter is that the Gun Violence Archive numbers include a number of incidents where no one was killed. They include a number of incidents where the people shot were shooting at each other as well. Now, does that sound like your typical definition of a mass shooting?
No, and for good reason.
However, that’s not the biggest lie the author believes. No, that’s the idea that gun shows are “free-for-alls.”
There’s this warped idea that applicable gun laws disappear at the gun show’s doors, and that’s simply not true.
Licensed gun dealers are still required to conduct NICS checks on all firearms sales. While private individuals selling their firearms aren’t required to do any such thing, that’s hardly unique to gun shows. Furthermore, those private individuals account for the tiniest of fractions of firearms sold at gun shows, meaning the vast majority of sales are subject to background checks.
But when you only get your news from a biased media, what can you expect? President Joe Biden said pretty much the same thing and there’s been little pushback on that comment from the mainstream media. It’s entirely possible that they simply don’t know to push back, but if so, that’s because they’re too deaf or stupid to bother listening because we’ve told them.
No, I think they know the truth. They’re just doubling down on the lie because they know that if people understand what gun shows are really like, what gun laws in general are really like, then they won’t back still more gun control.
It’s easy to see why people support gun control. They hear the lie, don’t examine it critically, and then push onward as if it’s absolute fact. The truth might just be illuminating for these folks.
