Remember when I said that from here out I will demand citations when anti-gunners make claims? Here’s an example of why I am now making such demands:
Guns are not being manufactured in our neighborhoods. Somebody brings them in. Yet our Legislature and Congress refuse to do anything about gun trafficking.
Why can’t they require background checks before gun purchases at gun shows? The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has called gun shows a “major trafficking channel.”
Where did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) say that? What study specifically? Because according to the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics less than 1% of crime guns came from gun shows:
In 1997 among State inmates possessing a gun, fewer than 2% bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show, about 12% from a retail store or pawnshop, and 80% from family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source.
The reason they say 2% in that paragraph is because they’re lumping gun shows and flea markets together. The raw data given shows gun shows being a source of only 0.7% of guns possessed by inmates. You know what else? The Bureau of Justice Statistics also isn’t smuggling guns illegally into foreign countries unlike the ATF. Just pointing that out.
On top of that background checks are required to purchase firearms from federally licensed dealers at gun shows and a vast majority of sellers are federally licensed dealers. If Mrs. Martens is so sure she can go and purchase a firearm without receiving a background check at a gun show I challenge her to try. From there she basically demonstrates that government regulations have lead to much of our social turmoil… while she’s demanding more government regulations. Hypocrisy thy name is Heather Martens:
We hear a lot about bad parenting, but less about the public policies that limit our ability to parent. The drug war has forced the mass incarceration of a generation of parents for drug offenses like possession of marijuana.
People of color are disproportionately sent to prison, despite similar rates of actual commission of crimes. Some parents can’t parent because they are in prison.
And when people come home after being in prison, they can’t get a job because most employers will not even look at an application from a person with any kind of prior conviction.
The result is that, for many people, it is easier to get a gun than to get a job.
So government regulations against the possession of certain substances have lead to parents being imprisoned which prevents them from being able to properly raising their children. Government regulations on the free market have lead to a collapsing economy which in turn has caused ever increasing unemployment. Yet if the government places further restrictions on firearms they will managed to not cause some kind of horrible series of side effects? That’s her logic? HA HA HA HA! I’m sorry I shouldn’t laugh but by Thor in Valhalla that’s a fucking hilarious attempt at logic if I’ve ever seen one. And she didn’t stopping shooting her argument in the foot there, not by any means:
The causes of gun violence are complex, while the effect of gun violence is very clear. It is devastating to families, communities and schools.
The causes of violence in general are complex. Yet with ever more liberal (using the classical definition of the word) gun laws violent crime has been on the decline nationally. On top of that violent crime in Minneapolis, the city where events have lead to the writing of the author’s article, is down.
That shows a negative correlation between stricter gun laws and decreases in violent crime but a positive correlation between more liberal (classical definition) gun laws and decreases in violent crime (again I’m not making the argument that correlation shows causality, I’m just pointing out that the author’s claims are wrong). Any person who had some basic cognitive capabilities would conclude stricter gun laws aren’t going to solve the problem. Finally she closes with the following:
It is time for us to stop assigning blame to others and to start looking at the policies we should support to make our communities safer.
If it’s time to stop assigning blame then why are you blaming inanimate objects? The blame is easy to assign, the person who initiated violence is at fault. Case closed.
Thanks for the post. I always enjoy reading a solid refutation of idiocy. Or stupidity as you put it. Simple logic, common sense, and any ability to reason more than a mouse will lead to the logical conclusion that restricting freedom does not lead to safety.
I have always found it rather telling as well that so often their arguments are either unsupported by any statistic, or they simply repeat the same things they hear within their own circles day after day. It’s the old adage that if you tell a lit often enough you’ll start to believe it.
But they FEEL that they are right, so how can they possibly be wrong?
So please just enact total firearms prohibition for the childrenz! Our community is bleeding! (…and we will feel so smug and good about ourselves if we can take away Second Amendment rights and uninvent those scary firearms). [end sarcasm]
Seriously though, they always seem to have to trot out the racist accusation. Here’s a thought, don’t commit a crime and you won’t have to do the time. That is good advice for everyone and every group.