For many people, the answer to violent crime is gun control. Of course, I've pointed out a far more likely culprit that likely plays a factor in all violent crime, not just so-called gun crime. Still, the media persists in sending out reports that lead people to believe gun control is the answer.
There's just a problem with that, and it's something the media tries to gloss over.
See, many of those who commit those shootings? They're too young to buy guns in the first place.
That's something we've talked about here before, and over at Ammoland, Dave Workman touches on that as well.
No law anywhere allows people as young as 14 or 15 to carry a concealed handgun. Not even at 17 years of age can any of these characters, who occasionally have criminal records, be legally packing. Politicians who write gun control laws should be frequently reminded of this fact, say many rights activists.
Yet the reaction from editorial writers and anti-gun politicians is almost invariably the same: Crack down on the constitutional rights of adult gun owners. Call sanctions against law-abiding adults either “infringements” or “impairments,” they all amount to the same thing. Honest armed citizens are penalized for crimes they did not commit, nor do they ever condone.
Background checks, waiting periods, training requirements, permits-to-purchase; none of these sanctions against honest gun owners and purchasers have not, and will never, prevent a single criminal, regardless of their age, from getting his or her hands on a gun.
Case in point: Authorities in Renton, a suburb of Seattle—which is headquarters to the billionaire-backed Alliance for Gun Responsibility—have arrested two people, one age 20 and the other 18, in the shooting of a 52-year-old at a Metro bus transit center. According to KOMO News, this shooting culminated an incident which reportedly began when the older man allegedly struck the 20-year-old’s girlfriend with a small PVC pipe. Whether the suspect’s reaction falls within the parameters of the state’s use-of-force/self-defense statute remains to be seen, it still doesn’t explain what the two suspects were doing carrying guns. It’s a sure thing that neither had a concealed pistol license.
There are, of course, more examples in Workman's piece, and we've got about a thousand or so examples here. They're everywhere. Young people, often too young to buy any gun, walking around armed and using those weapons to injure or kill people.
This story from Renton at least has a version that could be argued to be self-defense--I'm not sure I buy that since a small PVC pipe isn't something I can see causing serious bodily harm, but that's also not my call--though many others have no such veneer.
Yet the gun control laws on the books should, in theory, keep them from getting guns. They're prohibited from buying them by federal law, and yet they somehow get them just the same.
We know how, too. The Department of Justice found that most of these guns are secured via illicit means. They're stolen or purchased from someone who stole them. They're purchased via illegal straw buys. They're obtained through illegal acts, and more laws won't stop people from committing already illegal acts.
But this fact gets glossed over because the anti-gun machine simply can't exist if it can't push for new regulations. It's not even enough to demand stricter enforcement of current laws--something that would be in keeping with their claims about wanting to reduce violent crime and believing gun control is the answer. No, they need new measures to pass so they can applaud themselves for getting something done.
So, they pretend the past laws aren't failing so much as simply being insufficient. They lie in order to rake in donations and pretend they care.
They ignore what's happening, present it as something else, and pray no one looks any deeper.
Sure, we do, but let's be real here. You guys don't need convincing. You're here because you already agree with us. You know the system is rotted.
But we need to beat it into their heads that we see the lies (metaphorically, of course).
Because it's far deeper than they want us to know, but we do.
