If you set a pistol on a table in front of you right next to a coffee mug and a bag of peanuts, nothing will happen. In the wrong hands, each of those things is a deadly weapon – the pistol is obvious, but someone could easily beat someone else to death with the mug or use a broke piece of it to cut an artery, and with the prevalence of peanut allergies, that bag could be a weapon of mass destruction. Unless and until someone with evil intent picks up any of those things and uses them for evil, they are simply paperweights. But one of those inanimate objects is being blamed for evil while the actual perpetrator of evil is mostly ignored.
In the coverage of the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, the gun is (forgive the analogy) in the crosshairs. Sure, in Buffalo the left was focused on the shooter’s declared racism, ignoring his environmentalism and other left-wing politics, but that has shifted more to be in line with Uvalde and become, mostly, about guns too.
The New York Times’s editorial board wrote of Buffalo as “the gun massacre in East Buffalo.” Did the gun walk into that supermarket? No, it did not. Did it control the monster (who I won’t name) and force him to do its evil bidding? No, it did not. It just existed, safely, until an evil person used it to commit murder. Not according to the left, however.
It is shocking how few Democrats understand just how many hoops one must jump through in order to legally purchase a firearm. You see these leftists insisting their uterus is more regulated than guns, or it’s easier to buy a gun than it is to vote. Try buying a gun without a photo ID. It’s stupid and those who espouse it should not be taken seriously.
But they all espouse it, from the president on down.
Buying a firearm is not an easy task, and it’s tougher in some states. The federal government making it more difficult won’t change anything. Focusing on mental health in this country would, but they aren’t interested in making an actual difference.
Honestly, we have tried all levels of gun control and it hasn’t worked. Why, if you were actually serious about preventing as many horrible tragedies as possible, wouldn’t you try something else, something related to mental health? Because it might work.
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The gun control push has never really been about guns, it’s been about control. People who can and want to defend themselves don’t need government, and liberal government needs to be needed. It also needs to squash others who aren’t needed so there is no example of self-reliance. People who can and do take care of themselves don’t need government. They can’t be addicted to government handouts, and therefore can’t be counted on to obey while “voting properly” to empower those who “give” them those benefits.
Cynical? Probably. But I’m not wrong.
Democrats need to push collective guilt to advance the gun control agenda they want. If they were serious about preventing the next mass shooting, they would consider mental health, but that might work, and it doesn’t help them long-term. What’s a few dead in the name of a progressive agenda?
But mental health is the issue. There is no need to punish or curtail the rights of all Americans because one monster abused theirs, unless that was your goal from the jump.
The Times concludes their long editorial with, “We Americans all share this vast country and need to figure out how to make it better and keep one another alive and thriving. Right now, we’re failing at that primary responsibility. There are glimmers of hope, especially at the state level, that things are changing. But even there, progress is agonizingly slow and won’t be enough for the hundreds of Americans who will be shot today and tomorrow and every day until action is taken.”
Action for the sake of action is pointless, and the deliberately wrong action would be, too. Democrats have no interest in saving lives or preventing the next mass shooting, they want to be better positioned to exploit it. Which might make them the biggest monsters of them all.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily nationally syndicated radio show, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter
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