We're going to be talking about the Apalachee High School shooting for a while, I suspect. That's because anti-gun zealots can't let go of something and it's been a while since we've seen a true mass shooting like this. While some entities like to pretend they're happening all the time, most of those don't meet the definition of a mass shooting, particularly as most people think of it.
But this was most definitely one.
So, we're talking about it, and the cable news outlets are going to talk about it. Channels like MSNBC are most definitely going to talk about it, and a recent guest did what you kind of expect. She blamed Georgia's gun laws for the shooting.
Dr. Annie Andrews, former Democratic congressional candidate for South Carolina's first district and founder of the Their Future PAC, said appearing on an MSNBC broadcast Wednesday to discuss school shootings, prevention, and her assessment of gun laws throughout the country.
Her appearance comes in the wake of the shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia that claimed four lives and injured several others earlier Wednesday morning.
We have failed our children so deeply and so devastatingly on this issue.Dr. Andrews, currently practicing as a pediatrician and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University in Washington D.C., was highly critical of what she calls Georgia's "weak" gun laws. She says Georgia has the 46th weakest gun laws in the country, citing their lack of background check expansion, secure storage laws, and red flag laws.
Dr. Andrews went on to say:
These three laws we know reduce the incidents of gun violence in communities. There is a direct, clear link between a state's gun law strength and the rate of firearm injury and mortality in that state.Georgia ranks 46th in the nation in gun law strength according to Gun Law Rankings published by Everytown for Gun Safety. Dr. Andrews is a senior advisor with the organization, according to her social media.
Shocking.
First, let's understand that there isn't actually any such link between strict gun laws and much of anything else. There may be a correlation, but that's not the same thing. Especially since firearm injury and mortality rates include self-inflicted gunshots. Suicides and suicide attempts still happen even in societies where guns aren't common. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world as well as some of the strictest gun control laws.
So throw that out and look at homicides, and there the CDC's numbers show that most of the states with the fewest homicides are also pro-gun states. Funny how that never makes it into the discussion, isn't it?
And let's look at her proposals here, which sound an awful lot like something else we heard recently.
Now, let's note that the FBI interviewed this kid in 2023 and did nothing at all. Planning a mass shooting and threatening one--which is precisely what he was accused of doing--are criminal acts and can be prosecuted, but he wasn't. He couldn't lawfully buy a gun regardless of the background checks required and no one is selling to a 14-year-old and thinking it's a lawful sale.
As for red flag laws, he was too young to own guns. How was a red flag law going to address this without infringing on the rights of adults in the house who had no part in planning an attack?
Isn't it also amusing, in a sad way, how these proposals are supposedly a panacea of solutions for every one of society's ills?
Honestly, after such "thinking" displayed here, there's absolutely no doubt why South Carolina voters rejected Dr. Andrews for Congress.
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