American politics is kind of strange. While you have people of all ideologies scattered everywhere, you also tend to see far more support for gun control in cities rather than in rural areas.
As a result, mayors of these cities also tend to push for gun control as well.
Yet our friends over at The Truth About Guns have a piece by NSSF’s Larry Keane talking about what these mayors actually have in common.
Dozens of mayors from America’s biggest cities are demanding the U.S. Senate pass more gun control. “We write to urge the Senate to pass during the lame duck session gun safety legislation that has passed the House…,” the mayors’ letter states.
An answer to the crime problem plaguing these cities might not be found in Congress. Rather the mayors should look closer to home for solutions. Or better yet, take a good long look in the mirror.
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The signers are a who’s who of gun control supporters, with one glaring similarity. Democrats make up 92 percent, or 68 of the 74 letter co-signers. The mayors of several of the Top 10 cities which had the most Americans fleeing them in recent years signed, including San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Chicago and Detroit. Surging crime and soft-on-criminals policies have been a significant issue in those cities.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed. He ran his campaign on getting tough on criminals, but has instead deflected action and pushed for national gun control.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler signed the letter. His city descended into chaos and saw a federal courthouse set on fire by rioters. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell signed too. Criminals in Seattle under previous mayor Jenny Durkan set up a “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” or CHAZ, where law enforcement was prohibited. That’s where “Raz the Warlord” was captured on video handing out AR-15s from his Tesla’s trunk, violating several of Seattle’s existing gun laws.
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What the mayors refuse to accept is that criminals don’t follow their laws. They should focus their efforts closer to home and hold criminals accountable instead of running to Washington, D.C., and passing the buck.
Of course, Keane also singles out Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for her inaction as well.
Keane is hitting on a point I’ve made more than once myself, namely that these mayors are blaming a lack of gun control for their inability to combat crime in their communities. They’re using it as a shield, a way to say, “It’s not my fault,” all while passing the blame onto others.
The thing is, many of these mayors run cities that have an oversized presence in their states. As a result, they live in gun controlled states.
And yet, that doesn’t seem to be doing all that much.
So, they blame elsewhere, say we’re the reason they have so much violent crime, often despite those other areas not having nearly the same crime rate despite far less gun control.
The truth is that these mayors aren’t interested in making communities safer. They’re interested in deflecting from their own failures in a manner acceptable to their political party and allies. That means gun control.
Yet gun control isn’t even close to the answer to their issues. The problem is that they don’t want an answer. They don’t need an answer, in part because so many of their voters have bought into the BS.
When times get better, they’ll downplay the role other factors may have played and simply pretend the issue never happened. Mayors are funny like that. They ignore reality whenever necessary to advance their own agenda.
But their cities are imploding and it’s their leadership–or the lack of it–that’s driving that fact.
