They forget to ask one little, but important, question
Opinion: Finally, a president takes on America’s epidemic of gun violence
ON MONDAY night in Brooklyn, a man went to his daughter’s 9th birthday party and shot and killed the girl’s mother and two sisters before going outside and killing himself. On Tuesday morning in Frederick, two Navy sailors were shot, one critically wounded, by a Navy medic who was shot and killed by police. Wednesday in Rock Hill, S.C., five people — including a prominent doctor, his wife and their two young grandchildren — were shot and killed, and the neighbor suspected in the shootings died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a standoff with police. And on Thursday, one person was killed and five people were injured when a gunman opened fire at a warehouse in Bryan, Tex.
These are horrifying events — and they represent but a tiny sliver of the nation’s gun carnage. Each day in the United States, more than 300 people are shot and more than 100 of them die. Some lose their lives in mass shootings that garner national attention. Others — the vast majority — die as the result of suicides or domestic homicides or street crime. In the week between the shootings at Atlanta-area spas that killed eight and the mass shooting at a Boulder, Colo., supermarket that killed 10, there were more than 850 shootings in which more than 250 people died, President Biden said Thursday.
“An epidemic . . . an international embarrassment,†Mr. Biden rightly said as he announced a series of executive actions addressing gun violence. The measures include rules to help stop the proliferation of so-called ghost guns, untraceable weapons that can be constructed from parts purchased online; tightened regulations on stabilizing braces for pistols of the kind allegedly used in the Boulder mass shooting; and publication by the Justice Department of model “red flag†laws for states to use as guides. They are modest — yet still likely to be challenged by gun rights activists who predictably see any effort to advance gun safety as an infringement of the Second Amendment.
Neither the WPEB nor anyone in the Credentialed Media is asking the question “will this make any difference?” Would any of these moves by China Joe have stopped the shootings in the initial paragraph? Did any of those people use ghost guns? Stabalizing braces (I don’t know anyone who has one)? Did they show any red flags? New York, Colorado, and Maryland already have red flag laws.
Kudos, though, to Mr. Biden for using his limited unilateral authority, for calling on Congress to do more and for nominating the well-qualified David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency has not had a permanent director since 2015 and has been hobbled by the national gun lobby and its Republican allies. Mr. Chipman, a former ATF special agent who now serves as an adviser to the gun safety organization founded by former Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, could face a fight in the closely divided Senate because of his prior advocacy of an assault weapons ban and other gun safety measures. That the Senate has been unable to move ahead with legislation that would strengthen background checks — common-sense measures supported by a majority of Americans and already passed by the House — underscores the challenges Mr. Biden faces as he pushes for more aggressive action, such as stripping gun manufacturers of protection from lawsuits.
Chipman is an anti-gun nut, who wants to ban all “assault weapons” and require forced registration of all the others. Oh, and remember when Lefties like the WPEB were calling Trump a dictator when he would use his “unilateral authority”? They also forget that we have this thing called the 1st Amendment, which restricts the federal government from stopping people from protesting peaceably and petitioning for redress of grievance, to go with Free Speech.
“We’ve got a long way to go. It seems like we always have a long way to go,†Mr. Biden acknowledged. But his resolve was heartening as he stood in the Rose Garden and said “enough, enough, enough, enough†of these shootings. “The idea that we have so many people dying every single day from gun violence in America is a blemish on our character as a nation.†Indeed it is.
Weirdly, the WPEB is rather unconcerned with blacks shooting each other willy nilly in Democrat run cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, NYC, LA, and many more, including Washington, D.C. They rarely mention it. I wonder why? There was no criticism from the WPEB about all the shootings in places like Seattle and Portland with their autonomous zones, nor over the people carrying the icky assault rifles. Regardless, the who point here is that none of these measures will stop any shootings, particularly in Democrat run cities like Washington, D.C.
It’s simple. nuCons believe that “the right to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed” applies to homicidal lunatics. Clearly MeCrimon should never have had a firearm but what are you gonna do? We have hundreds of millions of guns in America passed around easily with no way to stop it. 4 million guns were sold in January alone! We just have to live the fact (or die with it).
But that’s OK. The fact is, dead children, dead shoppers, dead teens, dead grandmas and on and on are a small price to pay for our freedoms. Get used to it, snowflakes. If you are scared of bad guys, you can’t rely on Big Gov’t to save you, you need to arm yourself and shoot first!
Sure, occasionally a toddler will access your S&W and shoot herself, a sibling or you, but that’s a small price to pay for knowing you’re keeping your family safe from harm!