Election Year, Gun Control Politics

Well, it was to be expected.  With the Aurora, Colorado, Dark Night Movie Massacre, it was a sure bet that we would hear renewed calls for national gun control; mostly from the left.  In fact, before there were any real details of the shooting, the "control" cries were ringing out. This always happens.  Every time we have a single, serious shooting event, the gun control advocates hit the airways.  I personally remember L.B.J calling for gun control in 1966; following the Texas Clock Tower shootings.

But, all this is so much politics. Unless we get an amendment to the constitution, which limits gun ownership, we will always have guns in America; both legally and illegally.   Statistically, it is estimated that one out of every 4 Americans owns guns; with each possessing and average of 4.   So, in effect, there is one gun in America for every man, woman, and child in our population; or, about 312 million of them.  And, that's just the legal ones we know of.   So, logistically, with that many guns in existence, it would a literal impossibility to disarm the country.

What I really find interesting is that the Democrats, who are now calling for national gun control, have been silent over what has been happening in the Democrat-controlled, city of Chicago for months.  In this year, alone, that city is on track to clock 400 or more shooting deaths; mostly in the black communities of the city.    I ask you.  What is worse?  A single event where 12 people die or, multiple events where more there are more than 12 deaths every 12 days?  But, you see, politically, the Democrats don't want to talk about Chicago.  That's because Chicago has the strictest gun control laws in the country.  Yet, it has one the worst homicide records.   And, for sure, they don't want to highlight a problem like that in what is a bastion of Democrat politics.

We don't have a gun control problem in this country. We have a violent media control problem.  We now know that the Columbine shooters were heavily influenced by violent, first-person-shooting, video games.  And, I am quite sure, that, when it is all said and done, the Aurora shooter was heavily influenced by the Batman and Dark Night series of movies and/or comic books.   As a country, we foolishly seem to believe that, if we just label TV programs, movies, or video games as being violent, everything will be OK.  But, that's just as ridiculous as believing the health warnings on cigarette packages will wipe out smoking.  The fact remains that some unstable people will immerse themselves in violent media; ultimately wanting to act out that violence.  Gun control isn't going to prevent them from performing a violent act.  If someone like that can't get access to a gun, they'll find another means to kill.  It wasn't guns that Timothy McVeigh used to kill  people, and, certainly, it isn't guns that kill American soldiers when an IED goes off in Iraq. In countries that ban guns, all together, the murder rates by other means are actually higher, on a per capita basis, then in the U.S. for all means.

The bottom line is that we are losing our moral fiber, and, violent media contributes to this deterioration.  I just wish that our Democrat friends would start taking Hollywood and video game makers to task. But, unfortunately, the Democrats are too locked into campaign funds from these people.

Source on higher murder rates in counties with gun bans: http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/