do something gun control protest
Courtesy Twitter

Crime control is arguably a prerequisite for many items on the progressive policy agenda. Want people to support higher immigration? Reassure them that foreign gangs are not going to reassemble on American streets. Want people to move to dense, walkable urban neighborhoods where their carbon footprint will be smaller? Those neighborhoods won’t be very attractive if there are many criminals walking around, too. And of course, people are most likely to support a reformist criminal justice agenda when crime is low. If many people you know have been victimized, you tend to err on the side of keeping offenders in jail.

But it’s not just the progressive agenda that has benefited from the United States’ long secular decline in crime. In the wake of recent mass shootings, gun rights advocates have managed to block even overwhelmingly popular gun-safety measures, such as stiffer background checks. They’re able to do this because of a big gap in voter intensity: Gun owners are often single-issue voters, while most Americans care more about other issues, becoming interested in gun policy only in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy like Newtown, Conn.

Shocking as they are, the intensity of our fear over mass shootings nonetheless wanes quickly, depleting the political impetus for gun control. And because such shootings are rare, those anxieties are infrequently renewed. Ordinary crime, on the other hand, happens all the time — and when it is pervasive, people worry about it constantly.

Notice that the 1994 crime bill included a federal ban on assault weapons that would be politically unthinkable today. But one can imagine that more legislators might find it a lot more thinkable — along with other measures regulating and restricting access to guns — if D.C. were still the “murder capital” of a country in the middle of an unprecedented crime wave.

Regardless of your view of gun laws, or immigration policy, it is clearly in everyone’s interest not to allow that to happen. In the 1990s, we became the national equivalent of those nervous parents, so overwhelmed by anxiety about crime that they were afraid to leave their children at college. If we don’t get our streets back under control quickly, that could easily be our future as well as our past.

— Megan McArdle in Street crime has distorted our politics before. If we don’t get it under control, it will do so again.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

82 COMMENTS

  2. “…legislators might find it a lot more thinkable — along with other measures regulating and restricting access to guns — if D.C. were still the “murder capital” of a country“

    DC tried…very hard. Until the SC ruled for Heller and kept reminding them of that decision. Also, DC , Phila, Chi and NYC have plenty of unconstitutional gun laws in their books, and now with the addition of Soros DA’s and AG’s, crime continues to skyrocket.

    Perhaps removing women from politics is a worthy idea.

    • Why don’t we try the obvious and prosecute people who hurt others while standing up for the rights of those prospective victims to defend themselves?

      Nah, couldn’t do that.

    • Ah yes, women in politics is definitely the problem. After all, there are clearly not significant numbers of men in positions of power who hold statist views *eyeroll*

      • Not in this country at this time…

        Sarc or not, many high-profile mayoral, police and legislative positions are being held by women. Ditto public schools administrator positions and don’t even get started on college and university ones. State governors as well.

        The obvious national problem we face is simple: Among the nations and leaders who can cause real and irreversible problems with the US, none of them have much, if any respect for female authority. Putin, Xi, the raghead mullah, all laughing at us and hoping our trends continue.

        Or we want to act on our feelings, by all means keep this trend going. If we want things fixed, we may need to bring men back into the mix, and not those metrosexuals who were only raised by women with no men in the picture.

        In the US today, being some sort of flag officer in the military has little to do with one’s ability to fight, let alone create working strategy on the fly.

        • Lets assume you are 100% correct. Do you think you will be able to draw enough votes to repeal the 19th amendment? Either we need a constitutional convention without the excitement that has to offer, or we get 2/3rd of the house and senate and over half the states to independently vote to repeal it. fyi: Women would be voting on that as well.

          If, in fact, Women voting is the downfall of western civilisation than I think we’ll just have to ride the wave and pickup the debris as best we can at the bottom.

  3. Er…but many people are responding to the rise in crime and fear by buying guns. Violent crime rose throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and I peaked in 1991 for reasons that are still not well understood. Presidents were elected in part because of their “tough on crime” position. It was that crime spike, which looked to be unstoppable, that sparked the massive expansion of concealed carry laws, starting in Florida in 1986. Of course the politicians were late to the game, passing the assault weapons ban in 1994, which thankfully expired in 2004. If Obama and his near-super-majority in Congress couldn’t pass more gun control in 2009-2010 then it ain’t happening now, especially with so many new gun owners.

    Our society is at an inflection point. Things that cannot go on forever won’t. The world is going to look very different in 5 years…or maybe in 5 weeks. Nobody know when. May God help us all.

    • “Violent crime rose throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and I peaked in 1991 for reasons that are still not well understood.”

      Possibly a combination of things. One candidate is the elimination of leaded gasoline, and lead in paint. Another is advances in technology. Think about it, it’s a lot more difficult nowadays to get away with murder, due to the saturation of video cameras nearly everywhere…

  4. “Federal Gun Control Laws Become More Politically Possible the Longer the Crime Spike is Allowed to Continue”

    Then what we need is lots and lots of news coverage of non-law enforcement good guys with guns legally reducing the crime spike.

    One about 2% of legal legitimate defensive gun use against criminals is reported in police reports.

    • “One about 2% of legal legitimate …”

      Should have been

      Only about 2% of legal legitimate defensive gun use against criminals is reported in police reports.

    • Unfortunately, even when private citizens stop crime they have no power to arrest, try,
      convict and imprison the perp. That’s the duty of the state and many seem to be going out of their way to avoid their duty.

    • Big government has taken ownership of freedom like plantation owners took ownership of slaves. You need a permission slip to fly, you need a permission slip to exercise your 2A Right, etc.
      Unfortunately dumbbells like the male chauvinist ed who targets women sees no backdoor slavery going on because his head resides in his behind. So instead of waiting on slackers like ed to help pull the wagon little me emails my one congressman in DC because the other is not worth spit and I define Gun Control for him exactly as History Defines Gun Control. A noose may mean one thing to clowns like ed but it means another thing for those who see Gun Control, slave shacks, nooses, cross burning, concentration camps, gas chambers, swastikas, grotesque human experiments, etc. as one in the same…Because they are.

  6. ed…If deadwood like you removed women from politics America would never, ever see the following coming from an imbecile like you…

    1) The Second Amendment is one thing.

    2) The criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. is another thing.

    3) History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is a racist and nazi based Thing.

      • well, they obviously wanted to use all this crime as an excuse for more gun control…but the public ain’t buying it…

    • Easy, girl. Clearly that statement does not include conservative women. Meghan Mac and the rest of the femenazis in the culture and media have been the drivers of these policies/ views since the late 80s.

      • Believe it or not, McArdle isn’t Leftist Scum. She leans more to the Right than the Left…

  7. Something is different in the mindset of much of our populace now. That being the case, I believe rising crime levels will add significant difficulty if politicians want to make firearm laws more burdensome.

    What is different today from the 1970s through the early 1990s? The people who controlled politicians and election outcomes were products of the peace and tranquility of the 1950s and early 1960s. In their minds the world was a very safe place as long as you stayed out of a few “bad neighborhoods” in urban cores. Thus, they saw no need to be armed. In fact they saw being armed as a potential liability.

    And how has that changed yet again? The people who control politicians and election outcomes today are products of the crime wave of the early 1990s, more recent spree killers, and the much more widespread violent crime which can and does occur well outside of traditional “bad neighborhoods”. These people view being unarmed as a liability and being armed as an asset.

    So, go ahead Democrat party: do your best to increase crime levels and see what happens when you try to make it more difficult for everyday people to arm themselves for righteous self-defense.

    • Spree murders, school shootings, family violence are crimes that are seen across class lines. These are not normally done by repeat offenders, it is a one time snap. No amount of incarcerations will stop these shootings and violence killings.
      The murders over turf(spots to put the activities that profits the gangs), will not stop unless the profits are taken out.
      London has been#1 in the industrialized world for opiate addiction, since the opium wars. popular culture showed the most famous detective as a drug addict.
      In the 60s, they got a program of supplying junkies, who were otherwise doing what they could to be in society. It wasn’t free, but the drugs were affordable to people with a job. By the 80s, the drugs were not sold on the streets, junkies were 35 years old and up and then Margret Thatcher came in. She said this is “IMMORAL” and went to other means. The civil war in Lebanon was heating up and 3 factions had direct pipelines into London. The unemployed punk rockers started selling Heroin on the street and they, too became addicted. This was done purely to support a war, just like Reagan and his crack cocaine did. Supporting these wars made it worse on our countries.
      The point was that low cost drugs in proper moderation will calm the beast and keep him from taking bites out of your good parts.

    • rioting in the streets,looting and burning…with the police seemingly unable to do much about it…will certainly prompt a visit to the gun store…

  8. I don’t agree with the premise of this article. Polls show less support for those types of laws as more and more people arm themselves because of the increase in crime. Most thinking people realize that when you go easy on crime and defund the police the results are predictable. Most court actions as of late have supported gun owners. There are some critical issues being heard by the Supreme Court that could put a major dent in the gun control movement if they decide in favor of the Constitution and its intent.

  9. quote—————Shocking as they are, the intensity of our fear over mass shootings nonetheless wanes quickly, depleting the political impetus for gun control. And because such shootings are rare, those anxieties are infrequently renewed————quote

    Falsehood to the extreme. Many American have become so traumatized because of the almost daily mass murders that many fear to go shopping or even grocery shopping or even eat out at a restaurant or go to the movies.

    The Republicans are the ones most responsible for the drive for more draconian gun laws as they are the ones that have prevented passage of even the mundane common sense Universal Background Checks and Safe Storage laws that guarantee criminals will have all the second hand guns and stolen guns they want around the clock.

    Republican greed monger criminals also have prevented money being spent on community outreach programs, police reform, aid to education, reduction of income disparity, drug programs for the addicted, a livable wage, the right to form a union, funding of retraining for workers, and affordable higher education. When there is a great income disparity because wages have stagnated and a scarcity of decent paying jobs crime goes up and the guns always get the blame. It has been revealed that in the last 50 years the Capitalvanians income has increased 920 per cent while workers wages have increased at most less than 15 per cent. This factor alone has fueled unrest and extreme poverty and increased crime.

    Crime will continue to rise and there will be more and more calls for draconian gun bans. The Nixonian lock em up and the 3 strikes and you are out idiocy proved this did not work and crime actually increased as well as addiction to drugs that went up when people were imprisoned rather than being given help to get off of drugs.

    The root causes of crime and poverty are not being addressed because to do that the Republicans would have to use the tax dollars that they regularly steal for themselves and their masters the super rich and they are not about to lose even one penny of all that graft and stolen tax dollars that they line their pockets with daily. It is much easier to ban guns and lock up people for 20 years for stealing a $1.OO VCR tape which did indeed happen many times with the 3 strikes and you are out lunacy.

    • “…the 3 strikes and you are out lunacy.”
      Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Joe Biden.
      Are you paying attention yet, dacian?

    • Silicon Valley…….Hollywood…….DC Beltway…….and Urban Northeast Wealthy……….are overwhelmingly DEMOCRAT!!!!

      You can choke on your DNCCP Propaganda.

      • He’s a propaganda regurgitating machine. Notice he never talks about government-induced inflation. The propagandists hate talking about that because it makes Big Government look bad. When they finally acknowledge it’s existence, they try to blame it on something else. Inflation destroys wage gains. It destroys savings that people busted their ass for so they could have something for an emergency or retirement. Everyone doesn’t rely on Big Daddy Government to come save them.

        • Reading “Das Kapital” was his Jesus moment. He now evangelizes his new faith on to others.

          Shame he didn’t take a personality test.

    • The lunacy is people with two strikes would continue thier actions and risk it all for your one dollar vcr tape. You blame that on the far right?

      I thought you on the far left believed in a social contract. A pattern of breaking that contract demands punishment does it not? If you reward bad behavior you encourage and should expect more bad behavior.

      People should be given options for rehab. You can’t make them do it. Unless they want rehab the program will not help them. They have to admit they have a problem and many don’t think their drug abuse is a problem.

      What do you think the root causes are? There are many people who live in poverty worldwide and the vast majority of those people do not commit crime. Poverty cannot be the root case. There are more firearms today in civilian hands than there were in the 90s when violent crime was more prevalent. Can’t be firearms.

      My opinion it is cultural. People are not being held responsible for their actions. That goes back to rewarding bad behavior.

      • Crime is caused by immoral behavior, not poverty. It’s immoral to steal, vandalize, assault, etc. That’s another topic the propagandists don’t like to talk about. The propagandists like to make excuses for criminals. Notice their only solution is to make Big Government bigger.

        • quote—————–Crime is caused by immoral behavior, not poverty.————-quote

          Dud Brain no one but no one who even had just 1 year of college would have made that asinine far right statement. You really proved you never had even a day in college by that idiotic statement.

        • So they taught you in college that no one above the poverty line commits crimes? Which class was that? Creative writing?

        • dacian For all your education, you are as stubborn and dumb as a box of rocks on steroids. Poverty has very very little to do with crime. What does have to do with crime is human avarice. Just as Dude has said. Clearly you have spent too, too much time in our academia ivory tower and never spent a day in the street. Your academic theories have no real basic in fact other than erroneous supposition. More than like you though you are just parroting what you read somewhere in your Leftist books of “sociology”. You Lefties keep trying to claim that “sociology” is a “science? It is about as much a “science” as “political science” is, another Lefty misnomer.

      • to Paratrooper wannabe

        quote————People should be given options for rehab———-quote

        What a Dotard. Look Moron that was my point if your reading comprehension was beyond the 4th grade level. They have not been getting an option for rehab. You really live in an alternate fantasy world of the Far Right nut cases

        quote——————-There are many people who live in poverty worldwide and the vast majority of those people do not commit crime.————quote

        And nether do the majority of poor minority Americans you racist pig.

        Quote—————What do you think the root causes are?———-quote

        Do you want the answer to that question? Then get a fking 4th grader to explain my post to you.

        • You make sound as if the far right boogie man shut down all the rehab centers an left people to die in the streets. Rehab has been available and you know it. The options have never been removed.

          Nothing I stated interred racism. If you had the thoughts of racism examine your own heart and find where you are failing.

          You should take some ex-lax, your too full of shit to think properly.

        • dacian, Horse pucky! I’ve worked in the prison system. The system offers all kinds or “rehabilitation” problems and they are 66% INEFFECTIVE. We have the “Sex Offender Treatment” (LOL) program. It doesn’t work. A drug counseling. It is useless. “Alternatives to violence” programs. Another useless panacea. And you make references still to poverty when you refuse to take into account the real cause of crime. People wanting what others have without working for it the old fashioned way, through hard work. In spite of your radical racist allegations, race has very, very little to do with crime. It’s cause is pure and simple human avarice.

        • Wow dacian, FormerParatrooper said poverty worldwide. Is America not included in the world? And YOUR racist comment reminds me of racist Joe’s comment of, “poor kids are just as smart and talented as white kids.” It’s like you can only give one of three or four generic replies no matter what. Maybe you should spend more time outside of the hive.

    • dacian, Really? “Traumatized”? The victims yeah, they would be traumatized. But the average American is pissed that you Lefty adherents are proposing that we give lighter sentences to these criminals. Instead, you want to pass more laws making it more difficult for law abiding citizens to have a firearm to protect themselves from your criminals buddies.
      For about the 20th time, your “Universal Background Checks” are not universal in any way shape of form. 1st There is that HIPPA law which precludes putting mental patients in the data base. 2nd No criminal who wants to have a handgun or any kind of gun is going to go to the corner gun store and make a purchase. They do it on the black market which is already illegal. 3rd, The courts are NOT forwarding dispositions of the criminal cases in about 75% of the cases. 4th, there are so many errors in the NCIC system I don’t have that many fingers and toes multiplied by a million. A “Universal Background Check” solved not a damn thing. You have been told this about 20 times and yet you still try to aprostolicize this nonsense. You know there is an adage. “Stupid is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.”

      • Walter

        Quote—————–2nd No criminal who wants to have a handgun or any kind of gun is going to go to the corner gun store and make a purchase.———-quote

        You are either dumber than a rock or you are a masochist who loves to be humiliated. Universal Background Checks on second hand guns would cut back astronomically on bar room purchases, chat room purchases, flea market purchases, gun show purchases, face to face purchases, purchases at work and the examples go on and on because the majority of second hand guns are originally sold by the original owner the first time and then resold many more times. The first time buyer when he sells in original purchase that was new would never take the chance of getting caught selling one without papering it through a dealer because he knows if it ended up in a crime it would be traced right back to him.

        Now even a retarded Dotard would understand this Walter but you are not that advanced on the evolutionary scale.

        Passing Universal Background checks would not instantaneously show the full effect until after it had been law for a few years but then the supply of handguns would stared to dry up dramatically as most gun owners are not criminals and do not wish to become one so they would not be selling them by the tens of thousands anymore without papering them. Again this is so simple that anyone with half a brain could understand it.

        • How in the name of hades are you going to enforce any kind of back ground checks on private, parking lot, or bar room sales? If some damn fool decides he needs drinking money and sells a second, or forty second gun how do you propose to stop him? Next is with just the existing, unregestered guns, many sold long before the requirement of any transfer papers, how do you establish who has what? I have several antiques that there would be no paper trail for other than insurance records. How many hundreds of thousands of firearms are laying in grandads steamer trunk, in the back of the closet, in drawers, or lock boxes that have already changed hands several times over the past century? How would you track those weapons? And they can do just as much damage in the hands of a criminal as the latest wonder gun on the market.
          All back ground check accomplish is giving some bureaucrat a paycheck. Sorry, but murder has been illegal for a very long time. And people were happily killing each other long before firearms were even invented. Unless, as with much of the foolishness you spout, there is a fundimental shift in human nature, all of the crap you try to peddle will do nothing to srevent any person with criminal intent from getting a weapon, or using that weapon to cause harm. Unless we hold those who would choose to misuse a firearm accountable, and not try to blame an inanamate object, nothing will change. Even the what you call civilized Europe, criminals commit crimes. Remove the gang and drug related crime in select parts of major cities and our rate of violent crime would be amongst the lowest of any indutrialized country. We have a problem with a very small portion of the population whose alleged culture promotes and popularizes criminal behavour. Perhaps 5% of the population. And no amount of government money, rehab programs or social programs will make that portion of the population change. Those changes must come from the community they live in. Whether it be the rural white trash trailer court, or the inner city “hood”.

        • dacian, We have been over this and over this time and time again. “Universal Background Checks” you proposed probably 200 times are a anti-gun radical’s panacea. They would do NOTHING to take illegal guns from the street Criminals are not worried about your “Universal Background Checks” because for the simple reason, they are NOT “universal”. Black market gun dealers are not going to use them. And again, any person with mental problems is NOT included in NIC data And yet again, 70 or so percent of the courts do NOT follow up by entering the dispositions of criminal cases. And that’s just for starters. The only people who will be affected by your “Universal Background Checks” will be law abiding citizens. Most of the rejections by NIC are found to be false denials as the system flags people with similar last names etc. And yet your anti-gun radicals keep including them in the “success” of stopping gun sales. I gotta give it to you though, you are one suborn misguided individual. Dumb as a box of rocks but you sure do stick to your propaganda even though it has been discredited just as many times as you have spoken on it. Funny how you have never tried countering my points on your “Universal Background Checks”. Well, not really. You anti-gun radicals think that you will somehow take all the guns away from people and then there will be no more gun violence”. Even if you got your “Universal Background Checks” and then when that doesn’t work, you will go for gun confiscation. And that won’t work either. Just as it hasn’t worked in Australia.

        • dacian Your claim that “Universal Background Checks” would somehow stop second hand guns sales is pure unadulterated poppy cock 1st degree. Law abiding citizens who are selling guns are careful as to who they sell their guns to. Again, you don”t address the issues I’ve rasied about the accuracy of your vaulted “Universal Background Checks”. Now could it be that you have no response because my concerns and points are VALID? Your “Universal Background Checks” are not at all universal.

        • …except most folks don’t buy guns with the intent of selling them or giving them away for drugs…but rather just to add to their collections..they may be sold eventually..and often reluctantly…or simply traded for another firearm…or sold off to a dealer or another gun owner when the initial owner expires…but sinister intent rarely, if ever….enters the equation

    • Many American have become so traumatized because of the almost daily mass murders that many fear to go shopping or even grocery shopping or even eat out at a restaurant or go to the movies.

      When is the last time you left your basement, err Revolution Command Central?

      • people may be a little more cautious and wary or even choose to go around armed…probably worried more about some personal crime like car-jacking than a mass shooter that 99% of the population will never encounter….

    • poverty doesn’t equate to a crime wave in many parts of the country…draw your own conclusions..

  10. Can’t wait to see what happens when gun control groups start pushing all the racist imagery they used in the 80’s and 90’s to move their agenda collides headfirst with this most recent manifestation of progressive wokeness.

    Just imagine the BLM heads exploding as such staunch Democrats as Gore, Biden, Dodd and Feinstein run ads showing POC parading around cities with Tec-9’s and MAC-10’s all to the tune of some aggressive music popular with white kids.

    The AWB was effectively democrats threatening the suburbs that the negros were coming and they’re armed.

    • Suburbs are much more Multiracial today.
      Still, Over 60% of Violent Crimes are committed by Black and Hispanic Male Urban Gang Members.

      They’re being released back onto the streets in droves. After sacking the cities, they fan out to the Suburbs, which are much more “Diverse” than the 90s, but in the eyes of the Maoist, CCP Bootlicker Democrat Party, Suburban Minorities are “ruled by whiteness” so therefore, they aren’t really “Minorities” anymore. The Gangbanger Filth are going to the suburbs to “Cleanse them of Whiteness”.

      Of course, as has been the case since the 1970s, the overwhelming majority of victims of violent crimes are……….Blacks and Hispanics. Suburban Minorities who got themselves out of the ghetto aren’t going to tolerate “Hood Culture”, and they can see how these CCP Bootlicker Democrat Hack Prosecutors are releasing the Gangbanger Filth, back on to the streets on purpose with the intentions of spiking crime rates to take away our rights.

      East-Asians, Black and Hispanic Women, Suburban Soccer-Mom White Women, and then Black and Hispanic Men are invoking the 2nd Amendment as a response to what’s going on.

      Just like the “Bitter-Clingers” whom Obama recognized so well, the aforementioned Minority Gun Owner Demographics that have been growing in size for the last 15 years aren’t giving anything up. Just look at what happened in Virginia with the 2021 Gubernatorial Election.

        • That would start by taking Fox News broadcasting license away. That would cause you to jump off the nearest cliff.

        • dacian, Why would you take Fox’s broadcasting license? Because they tell it like it is rather than as you Lefties would like it? Maybe you should take your own advice and jump off the nearest cliff. But knowing you, you would not even be able to find one.

        • Not that Fox News is perfect or anything, but which major news network was the only one to accurately report on the Russia hoax from the beginning? Yep, just Fox. The NYT and Washington Post are still, this year, going back and revising some of their fake stories from four years ago. The damage has already been done. How many people are going to read a four year old story? It wasn’t a mistake. The MSM colluded with the FBI and DNC to attempt to take out a President. Where’s the ‘Attacks on Muh Democracy!’ crowd? It’s almost like they’re FOS.

    • more of an outgrowth of the drug wars of the eighties…where the cops were frequently outgunned…similar to the 1930’s….

  11. Bad news for the gun-banners is that law-abiding people from all walks of life see how the Democrat Hack, CCP Bootlicker, Soros Bankrolled, Political Persecutors whom range from local DA’s to Federal US Attorneys are releasing, overwhelmingly, Black and Hispanic Male Gang Members back onto the streets in the name of the Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Agenda.

    Black and Hispanic Male Urban Gang Members committ a bit over 60% of all Violent Crimes, and their victims are overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic. It’s too ugly of a scenario for people not to see, and people recognize it’s being done to purposely take our Rights away.

  12. It isn’t in their interest to fix the crime problem, just like it isn’t in their interest to fix the poverty problem. Why would Democrats want to turn a large chunk of their constituency into working, middle class Republicans? Why else would people feel like they needed Big Government to save them? To keep the temperature from rising half a degree in 80 years? That’s a good one! It looks like some people are catching onto that scam too.

  13. Just like today, the crime in the 70s and 80s was mostly driven by one particular demographic. In the nineties, Hillary could talk about “super predators” and everyone knew of which portion of the populace she was speaking. No Democrat could get away with that these days. In addition, more guns are being sold today in this country than at any time in history. The cat is out of the bag; the genie is out of the bottle. Every gun owner I know is fiercely protective of their rights. The more guns people buy, the less likely any sort of gun control will fly.

    What’s hilarious is New York State’s new “racism is a public health” initiative. Part of the effort is to track who is committing most of the crimes against identifiable minorities. It’ll be gut-busting hilarious when they confirm the obvious: most of the victimizers of minorities are blacks. They’ll twist the data every which way, but the the cause will be obvious.

    Despite the deaths and damage to society, this is epic level humor. If we had any real comedians left, they’d be making bank from this entire situation.

    • “track who is committing most of the crimes against identifiable minorities.”

      They don’t care who is committing crimes against non-minorities? Is crime against minorities worse? Identity politics is a disease.

  14. The problem with this author’s premise is that ALL federal (and States’) gun-control schemes are obviously unconstitutional and the people are finally beginning to wake up to that fact. The U.S. Constitution was established to limit the government(s) – and every state of this union is bound thereby its mandates. The Second Amendment (2A) clearly dictates that ‘the right of the people to keep (own) and bear (carry, possess on one’s person) shall not (an order) be infringed.’ by said government(s). Only laws “in pursuance thereof” the U.S. Constitution’s mandates are binding and valid law (re: Article VI). Therefore, ALL gun-control statutes are contrary to this “self-executing” constitutional mandate because NO positive language is contained in 2A that allows government(s) to regulate said right in any manner. “Public safety” will always be the excuse that elected traitors will use to justify their treason(s) (Warring on the Constitution, Cooper v Aaron, 358 US 1), but any statute enacted that is not “in Pursuance thereof” the express mandates of the “supreme Law” is ineffectual and therefore null and void (re: Marbury v Madison, 5 US 137). Therefore, the ONLY way to make gun-control laws lawful and binding is either to abolish 2A or amend it to include positive language that allows government(s) to regulate it. So be watchful of these movements to convene an Article V convention, because that is the only way the gun-grabbers will ever be able to sneak in such language to qualify their currently unlawful statutes.

    • “Therefore, the ONLY way to make gun-control laws lawful and binding is either to abolish 2A or amend it to include positive language that allows government(s) to regulate it.”

      Are you blind as to what the 2A states?

      “A well-regulated militia…”

      That’s the angle they use. It doesn’t matter that ‘Heller’, et. all stated that doesn’t mean rules and regulations, the upcoming 2A decision I hope Thomas writes a brutal slap-down…

  16. Geoff,
    Who were, and constitutionally still are, the militia? The Framers, George Mason in particular, is quoted, in writing, as defining the militia as:

    1) “That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”
    -George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12 1776

    2) “I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
    -George Mason – Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788.

    As for the term “well-regulated militia” – in the later part of the 1700s, that specific term was defined as: ‘that the militia was in an effective shape to fight.’ It had NOTHING to do with “regulations” (laws), or command structure. It singularly meant that one’s “Arms” were required to be in good working order and that said minutemen were ready to fight when summoned to do so.

    There you have it – ‘the whole body of the American people ARE the militia, they must be ready at all times to fight, and their Arms must be in good working order’.

    Geoff, my advice to you is that you study some history and adequately educate yourself before you spout-off on subjects of which you’re woefully ignorant.

  17. It’s equally dumb to continually spout off about the militia when the other side believes the 2A only applies to guns being allowed for militia service. Once it is established that the 2A restricts the govt from taking away people’s guns, it is important to establish those guns can be used for any lawful purpose.

  18. so-called “street guns” usually start out as a straw-purchase…simple fact..universal background checks would have no effect on guns changing hands in this crowd…so just who would they affect?

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