Between what I write here and over at our sister site Bearing Arms, I see a lot of stories involving guns and gun control. Every state has people who want to infringe on your gun rights, and a lot of that is based on a particular attitude.
I see it all the time, but this is about as good of an example as I'm going to see.
The story in question is about an upcoming fight to repeal gun control laws passed in the wake of Parkland. Lawmakers there freaked and figured they needed to pass something to keep their jobs, and now people are stuck.
But now the support for repealing them is growing. It's just not universal yet.
And then someone who disagrees said this:
Community advocates like Ricky Aiken worry they will end up in the wrong hands.
"Whenever guns are too easy to access, they're going to be accessed by the people who don't need them," said Aiken. “If you’re asking me rather we need more or less I think we need more restrictions not less.”
...
"It won't just be our kids that people have to worry about," said Aiken. "Every parent with a school aged child in the school system should be just as worried, because they’re basically sanctioning that kids that should not have access to guns will have access to them."
Aiken’s own niece was killedearlier this year to gun violence.
"A young man had access to a firearm illegally but if this proposal changes he would've been within his legal rights to have that firearm and probably still carried out what he did," said Aiken. "So, I think about all the other young women whose lives will be at risk just like my niece's was because of non-common sense policy changes like this."
The problem that Aiken has, though, is a poor understanding of things, and he's got fewer excuses than most.
"If we make it too easy to get guns, the wrong people will get them. I know because my niece was killed by someone who got a gun despite the laws I literally just said would prevent it."
I don't mean to pick on Aiken, but his attitude about guns is far too common.
The problem is that people legitimately believe that gun control works and that if we make it harder for law-abiding citizens to get firearms then criminals will have an even harder time getting them. That's simply not true. We know it's not because the Department of Justice itself has looked at where the guns come from and it's not from lawful gun sales. Most of them come via theft or buying a stolen gun from someone else.
How are you going to regulate that?
But one of the laws on the chopping block is a law that prohibits legal adults under the age of 21 from buying long guns. They're already prohibited from buying handguns by federal law, but with Florida's law, they can't even get a shotgun to protect themselves with while living in their first place--which, let's face it, are more likely to be in shady parts of town than they might otherwise be.
So what these laws really do is just disarm those law-abiding young adults, do nothing to stop criminals, and won't even stop mass shootings. After all, we're all talking about the shooting in Madison right now. That was a 15-year-old girl.
If she could get a gun, you'd better believe a potential mass killer over 18 could figure it out.
