As a complement to last week’s post, I’ll continue to applaud the NY Times’s analysts for their publication of America’s deadly gun stats. Not only that, but in last Sunday’s article, “4 Laws Might Have Saved Lives in 35 Mass Shootings” (6/5/2022), it’s clear that the Fascist Party of America aka the Good Ole Piranhas really don’t have the moral ground on this issue, even if one gives them their incorrect Scalia-ish interpretation of the Second Amendment, which I refuse to do. I’m not sure I understand the title of the Times’s article, though, because they actually list six proposals; and I agree with all of them!
First, let’s look at the proposals (you can check my tally of which proposals would have prevented how many massacres—this wasn’t easy because the Times didn’t do that!):
Raising the minimum age to purchase guns to 21. (3 preventable incidents) The Times actually says ‘certain guns,’ but that’s too obscure and less useful. Any gun that can kill more than ten people in thirty seconds should be banned! Period. My first (and only!) rifle was a single-shot twenty-two at my father’s insistence—he believed that private citizens should only own rifles and shotguns for hunting and target practice. He didn’t abide by that age rule (I was twelve at the time), but he also taught me and was a stickler for gun safety. Different era too. I’m sure he’d be aghast at how guns are misused now as killing machines. I inherited my grandfathers deer-rifle and shotgun and sold all three weapons to a gun collector long ago. Fanatic morons with guns scare me, and kids of gun owners can confuse them with toys (thanks to our gun culture!)
Expanding background checks to cover private sales. (4 preventable incidents) Buying guns at gun shows doesn’t require a background check; neither does Jim’s sale of his gun to his neighbor Joe. This is a loophole gun buyers often use to create arm caches that would be the envy of any gun fanatic, bank robber, or terrorist, from the usual haters and bigots to ardent believers in replacement theory.
Encouraging safe gun storage and punishing people who fail to secure guns from children and criminals. (8 preventable incidents) I’m sorry, Times reporters, I’d use a stronger term than “encouraging.” If someone commits any crime with a gun stolen because its owner failed to secure it properly, the owner should be punished for aiding and abetting the crime as well. Period. (By the way, the last is why I sold my three guns! I had no safe storage available.)
Banning the sale of large-capacity magazines. (23 preventable incidents) Interesting that this has the largest number of preventable incidents. A Glock might be considered a household tool for protecting a family, but a Glock with a large-capacity weapon is another killing machine. Walther PPK. Whatever. (I don’t have any pistols, but I’m fairly certain a Glock can have an large-capacity magazine, as well as some “ghost guns.” The Times didn’t mention the latter, by the way, which should be completely banned!) And this proposal acquires more weight when one considers that most military-style weapons already come with large-capacity magazines (see the discussion below).
Expanding the red-flag laws to remove guns from people in crisis. (0 preventable incidents) I’ve always found this proposal obscure. Who’s going to define what is a crisis? Mental health issues? Road rage? Zeke doesn’t like being bullied by Andy? A pair badly in need of marriage counseling? This proposal should be (and is in some states) limited to requiring psychiatrists and psychologists to report psychotic gun owners. (Of course, one could argue they all are psychotics.) Such a proposal is largely unenforceable otherwise, which might explain the zero count.
Banning assault weapons and other military-style arms. (0 preventable incidents) The Times uses “so-called assault weapons.” Again this is obscure language. Arms designed for rapid killing on the battlefield shouldn’t be in the hands of private citizens. Period. (Note that many of these weapons already come with large-capacity magazines. Some of these proposals overlap.) I’m sorry. I refuse to pander to men and women wishing to play pretend-soldier. That’s asking for trouble because some will just want to make play into reality for a lot of sick reasons. (Same goes for the macho male who wants to extend his powerful penis or his woman who wants one. Penis envy isn’t a good argument for gun ownership!)
You might have noticed a discrepancy probably caused by Times staffers trying to avoid duplication. The last two incidents in their list of incidents occurred at that Buffalo grocery store and Uvalde elementary school. These counted both as an attacker being under 18 and using an extended magazine, yet they weren’t counted as a use of assault weapons and should have been. (It’s hard to argue for common-sense gun control when the stats analysts don’t use common sense! The Times dropped the ball here!)
Nevertheless, these stats along with the list of thirty-five mass shootings are bloody evidence that those incidents could have been avoided or at least mitigated with common-sense gun control. Everyone of these proposals is reasonable and doable. The problem is that NRA members and the politicians, mostly from the Fascist Party of America, are unreasonable and don’t want to do a damn thing. They don’t care that we have the worst gun-control record of any developed country; they don’t give a rat’s ass about how many innocent Americans and outgunned law enforcement personnel are killed, including innocent little kids. Do you?