Anybody who has been involved in the gun rights movement for any length of time knows that advocates of gun control love to toss around the word loophole. Loophole, when used by advocates of gun control, simply means a legal method of an individual to possess a firearm. Shannon Watts, the head of Michael Bloomberg subsidiary Moms Demand Action (MDA), tweeted yesterday about needing to close the gun rental loophole because of its link with suicides:
The gun-rental loophole: The little discussed suicide problem at America's firing ranges http://t.co/tVVjCOIXgz #momsdemand #gunsense
— Shannon (@shannonrwatts) August 5, 2014
Because I’m a helpful guy I decided to read the linked article to see how this horrifying problem is affecting every man, woman, and child in the United States. As it turns out the problem this loophole is supposedly responsible for isn’t much of a problem:
Following a death this January at the Los Angeles Gun Club, the Orange County Register scoured coroners’ data from just three counties and found 64 cases of gun-range suicide over a 12-year period.
64 cases in 12 years? That’s an average of approximately five suicides per year. So far this year six people have been killed by lightning strikes in Florida. The reason the problem of suicides at gun ranges is seldom discussed is because it’s exceedingly rare. More lives would be saved by finding a way to mitigate lightning strikes in Florida.
Humans in general perform poorly at assessing risk. Proof of this exists in this week’s Ebola scare even though the risk of contracting Ebola is very rare. Like the people currently losing their shit over the non-threat of Ebola virus, advocates of gun control have been losing their shit over any non-threat they can somehow associate with firearms. I advise advocates of gun control to stick to issues that actually harm people such as American imperialism and police brutality… oh yeah, they never mention those, which is funny considering they want those agents of the state to have a monopoly on gun ownership.