After every pro-gun move, some anti-gunner will claim that the world got less safe and that "the streets will run red with blood" or some variation on that theme.
They said it after the Bruen decision, yet ignore that their predictions didn't come true in the least, and they're doing it again.
Following the Bruen decision and its killing of subjective permitting schemes, anti-gunners claimed violence would increase as now, routine arguments would escalate into gunfights, only to see homicides hit record lows. Now, Brady's Kris Brown claims that while violence is dropping, the Trump administration's restoration of gun rights will change that.
America is in the middle of a major decline in gun violence. Firearm homicides have fallen almost 30 percent since their peak five years ago. Baltimore’s homicide rate has plummeted to a 50-year low. This progress is not by accident; it is the product of years of investing in effective policy solutions.
But the Trump administration's latest all-out attack on federal firearms regulations threatens to unravel all this progress and increase gun violence nationwide.
One outcome from this attack—a fury of over 30 proposed regulatory changes in total—would dismantle the safeguards governing how guns are bought and sold—substituting a barely regulated online gun marketplace, or so-called “Amazon for Guns,” that would end background checks as we know them and deliver firearms straight to your doorstep. Other measures loosen regulations of highly lethal firearms, including machine guns, and let sellers destroy sales records, making it harder for law enforcement to solve crime and putting lives at risk.
What’s worse: the ATF in one of its proposed rules even notes that law enforcement lives may be put at risk if the rule is adopted. I’m not exaggerating: one measure says it could “hinder” law enforcement’s efforts to stop violent offenders, and another explicitly warns that the consequences could include “mass casualty events.”
As per usual, Brown has misrepresented a proposed rule change that would allow gun dealers to connect with customers in the same state as the dealer to buy and ship guns within the state after taking steps to verify eligibility and identity. Brown invokes Donald Trump Jr.'s GrabAGun business as an example of someone who will profit from this, but since that store is based in Texas and I live in Georgia, it won't be like I could buy from there without going through the same process I do today.
But that's not really relevant, is it?
No. You see, what matters is the opportunity for Brown and company to engage in their typical doomsaying, then pretend they never said anything when it turns out their predictions were false. They never accept any accountability for being wrong.
The thing is, crime fluctuates regardless of the gun laws. Look at New York City, for example. Pre-Bruen, the Big Apple had the strictest gun control laws in the country and had for a century. During that time, the city ranged from one of the most dangerous big cities in the world to one of the safest. Gun laws clearly didn't stop it from becoming dangerous, and as there were no real changes, they didn't make it one of the safest. They were just there, doing nothing, as per usual.
But what about the ATF claims?
Well, let's look at the "hinder" claim. This is about gun dealers not having to retain records indefinitely, instead capping at 20 years. Here's precisely what the ATF said:
While inference on risks to public safety are difficult to make definitively, and most traces occur within the first 20 years as shown above, the remaining traces that would be unsuccessful as a result of the proposed rule could delay or hinder federal, state, and local law enforcement efforts to track and stop violent offenders.
I'm sorry, but after 20 years, the chances of tracing data doing much is minimal, which the ATF acknowledges, but they also seem to have done a lot of covering their collective butts on this. They're saying it "could delay or hinder" tracing efforts, rather than anything else, because if there's a delay and they don't acknowledge it, people like Brown are going to lose their minds.
However, since we haven't seen a single example of gun tracing actually breaking a case wide open for law enforcement, well, let's just say she's wiffing here.
As for the "mass casualty event" claim, I don't know what she's talking about, because that phrase doesn't show up anywhere at that link, so I'm not sure if she's hallucinating or if she's using AI to compile her links and it hallucinated.
So, at the end of the day, we've got Kris Brown losing her mind over what might be, all while we know that when this doesn't pan out like she claims it will, she'll just pretend she never said a thing.