MSNBC completely off mark with subway shooting optics

AP Photo/John Minchillo

If there’s one thing I respect MSNBC for, it’s that they’re a blatantly left-leaning news outlet that doesn’t try to pretend to be anything else. It means that just about anything you hear from them, you know to filter through that knowledge.

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However, some people are still kind of oblivious to that, somehow.

So, that’s why when I see an op-ed titled, “Subway shooting makes GOP’s stances on ATF and ‘ghost guns’ look worse,” I kind of feel obligated to respond.

Futility and fury. That’s what I experienced in the 24-hour period starting Monday morning. It began with President Joe Biden’s attempt to do something — anything — to counter gun violence and ended with a gunman in a Brooklyn, New York, subway firing 33 rounds, hitting 10 people, with another 13 injured.

appeared on MSNBC on Monday to discuss Biden’s announcement of new restrictions on the manufacture and sale of “ghost guns” and the announcement of his second candidate to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Tuesday, I was on the air once more, this time to discuss yet another mass shooting, this one occurring during the chaos of the morning rush-hour commute. I expressed how furious I am at those who remain unwilling to take commonsense steps against gun violence, and I was reminded of the seeming futility of piecemeal measures that fall short of broader federal legislation.

Except, what the author fails to recognize in his diatribe is that this shooting took place in New York City,  the gun-controlled city in the country, and allegedly involved a firearm the accused purchased a decade ago from a licensed dealer following a passed background check.

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In other words, it doesn’t make opposition to “ghost gun” rules look bad. If anything, the rules themselves look completely stupid in light of what just transpired.

After all, the vast majority of violent crimes including mass shootings take place with traditionally manufactured firearms.

So how does acknowledging that homemade firearms are a non-issue change anything?

The truth of the matter is that the author is more interested in simping for President Biden’s gun control plan than he is in facing the harsh truth–that bad people do bad things all the time and blaming the weapon used isn’t particularly helpful.

Oh, but the author claims that people like he , his fellow MSNBC gun grabbers, and the president are trying to do something about violent crime, and we on this side of the debate aren’t.

My response to this is brought to us today by the letters “F” and “U.”

I’ve lost someone I cared about to a mass shooting. I know the pain better than he does. To say that because we disagree with the solution, we’re doing nothing is an absolute lie.

We’ve come to recognize that restricting guns simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t reduce crime–take a look at how the homicide rate spiked after the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed for an example–but it does make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves.

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Once gun laws started liberalizing at the state level, we also saw a decrease in the homicide rate.

Now, I’ll admit that correlation isn’t necessarily causation, but when you see homicides go up after a gun control law passes but go down after states passed pro-gun laws, it’s kind of hard to swallow the idea that gun control is the answer.

He can say what he wants on MSNBC, but he’s completely wrong on every level.

 

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