

We Must DO Something! Well, Maybe Not.

Same old cycle. Some nutjob, in this case two nutjobs and one or two likely gang members, shoot dozens of people in El Paso, Dayton and let’s not forget Chicago, killing over thirty. Instantly came the cries, “We Must DO Something! We must do something; anything—even though it will likely not work. We must propose the very things that have failed in the past and will likely fail in the future. We must DO something!

This time is no different. We had three different mass shootings last weekend. The media and the Democrats, along with their RINO enablers are focused on only one of them, the shooting in El Paso, Texas. More on that in a moment.

The shooting in Dayton, Ohio was of interest to them, until it became apparent to the public that the shooter was a stone cold leftist and a supporter of Elizabeth Warren. So that event was quietly disappeared from the public discourse.

The third shooting, wasn’t hardly mentioned at all outside of local reporting. The Chicago mass shooting, likely gang related, occurred that same weekend. What did we hear form the national media? Crickets.

Back to El Paso. This is the one that the Democrats and the Media are focusing on—and they are demanding action and right now! Along with their opportunistic efforts to silence the President, the Democrats are also using the absolutely false narrative that there has been some massive increase in hate crimes committed by “evil white men.” The actual numbers show that such shootings have actually declined, as have the overall shooting numbers.

That’s not stopping the Democrats from moving even farther left in their gun control stance. Many of the 2020 Democrat Presidential contenders, are calling for outright confiscation of all Modern Sporting Rifles, which they inaccurately and misleadingly call “Military Style Assault Weapons.” More on terminology and controlling the debate in this coming Monday’s column.

Along with confiscation, the Democrats, once again assisted by weak Republicans who wish to curry favor with them are also demanding universal background checks and most dangerous of all, “Red Flag” legislation. Red Flag laws would allow your guns to be confiscated merely on the say so from friends or family that you constituted a danger. Constitutional protections during the enforcement of these laws vary from state to state, with some allowing confiscation before you have a chance to make your case. You are put in a position of having to spend your hard earned dollars on legal fees to prove you are not a threat before getting them back. Last time I checked, it’s supposed to take a judge and jury to abridge your Constitutional Rights, especially one that’s specifically enumerated in that powerful work of prose.

The point is, none of what any party to this discussion has yet proposed, would have stopped any of the three (remember it was three) mass shootings last weekend. Everything proposed so far, is just a feel good exercise. Look at us! We’re doing something!

What’s worse, in the greater scheme of things, rifles as a category of weapons, used in the commission of a murder constituted just 403 out of a total 15,129 according to the 2017 DOJ/FBO Uniform Crime Report (UCR). That’s 2.67 percent. One study claims that semi-automatic rifles were used in just 25 percent of mass shootings.

According to the UCR the following instruments were used more often to kill people than rifles of any type: Knives (1,591); Blunt objects, hammers, bats etc (467); and finally, Hands/Fists & Feet (696).

One more little data point. There are somewhere between 15 and 20 million Modern Sporting Rifles in America. Using the low number and assuming for the sake of argument that all the rifles in the 2017 UCR were Modern Sporting Rifles, 403 divided by 15 million means that less than 3 thousandths of a percent of the Modern Sporting Rifles in these United States, were used in the commission of a murder.

To wrap all of this up in a tidy bow, we are allowing the Leftists to use the emotion of the moment to manipulate the public into supporting legislation that will abridge the Constitutional rights of law abiding Americans with “solutions” that have already been proven ineffective. We are doing this in order to solve a statistically insignificant problem. Yes, I realize that if it were my two lovely daughters who were the victims, then emotion would likely color my thinking too. That’s why when it comes to the Enumerated Constitutional Rights of U.S. Citizens, we need to keep the emotion out of it.

Minor footnote: The last time the legal sovereign attempted to unlawfully confiscate weapons from Americans, it didn’t end well for that sovereign. On a cool Massachusetts morning, April 19, 1775…

Mike Ford, a retired Infantry Officer, writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.

Follow him on Twitter: @MikeFor10394583

You can find his other Red State work here.