I won't entertain any arguments for gun control except within the context of ripping them to shreds for our purposes here. The right to keep and bear arms is a right that the Founding Fathers wanted no one to infringe upon. For me, their words are law--literally, in this case--and that's the line in the sand.
But I won't pretend there isn't a problem. Way too many people are being shot each year.
Even if we ignore suicides, which I tend to prefer, we see scores of people shot and killed every day, which adds up. Count them with those who are injured as well, and it's clear there's an issue.
Over at American Thinker, Michael C. Hurley talks a bit about the problem, especially within the context of Charlie Kirk's final words.
Just as Charlie Kirk was shot, he was answering a question about what percentage of mass shootings have involved transgender shooters, the questioner’s intended point presumably being that the percentage is rather low. To this question, Charlie was heard to ask, “counting or not counting gang violence?” Charlie’s life ended with those words, and that is the very place where we should begin the present debate about gun control.
America’s gun crime is not a problem of Cousin Jerry taking his deer rifle down to shoot up the local Piggly Wiggly. Our high rate of gun violence is greatly skewed by the rate of inner-city gang violence. These casualties arise mostly from turf-wars among gangs selling narcotics and using unregistered or stolen guns, which is to say they would be completely unaffected by any law or “good citizen” program to register or confiscate firearms. Anyone convinced of the power of gun-control laws to stop gun crime should ask whether laws against possession of narcotics have stopped the influx of illegal drugs over the last sixty years.
The best way to reduce gang-related gun crime is to imprison the gangbangers, which big-city Democrat mayors have long refused to do because of the racial optics involved, and which President Trump is now attempting to do over the howling objections of many on the left because of the racial optics involved. But as Charlie Kirk surely knew, once the rate of gun crime in America is corrected for gang-related violence, the overall incidence of mass shootings becomes less remarkable and the relative number of transgender shooters somewhat more remarkable in turn.
Now, the person who was debating with Kirk at the time has spoken out since this happened. He was hoping to prove to Kirk that the left is peaceful. He's kind of beside himself over what happened because of it, and I understand it entirely. I feel bad for the poor kid, really. That has to be a blow to the system.
But the point from this section is perfectly valid and worthy of discussion.
Gang violence and other forms of criminal violence are the lion's share of the homicides in this country. They account for the vast majority of the so-called mass shootings that sites like the Gun Violence Archive count. They're all tied to an inner city culture that sees violent retribution as not just the reasonable response to insults, but as the only acceptable response. Failing to act is to be labeled "a punk" or something similar.
These aren't people getting guns lawfully. They're not going to the gun store and passing NICS checks. They're getting them off the streets, either stealing them or buying them from some guy who doesn't care if they're law-abiding citizens or not.
Then, when they feel the need, they open fire.
This problem becomes even worse when you realize that none of these people know how to shoot worth a damn. They apparently follow the Divine Marksmanship Principle, which states that you just fire enough bullets and whoever God wants to be hit will be hit.
Because they can't shoot for crap, though, a lot of innocent people get hit before they can ever hit the person they're trying to shoot, which racks up the numbers and keeps the lights on at GVA and other gun control groups.
And yes, as Hurley notes, a lot of Democratic DAs and judges buy into "restorative justice" where criminals are given a slap on the wrist, and admonishment to be nice, and then end up back on the streets before you know it. This puts more potentially violent people in our inner cities at any given time, often with those folks now with a desire to seek revenge for whatever slight may have landed them in handcuffs in the first place.
I don't want to hear gun control arguments being slung around. Just prosecuting the offenders sufficiently would do wonders for our communities.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member