Media Matters for America
During an appearance on NRA News, Jim Wallace, the executive director
of Gun Owners' Action League, the state firearms association of
Massachusetts, suggested that strict gun laws did nothing to curb gun
violence in his home state of Massachusetts. Wallace, who is also acandidate in
this year's National Rifle Association Board of Directors elections,
went on to deny that crime guns are trafficked into Massachusetts
from states with weaker laws.
According to trace data
from 2011, 669 of the 1,020 firearms for which ATF was able to
determine a source state came from outside of Massachusetts. The top
four trafficking states -- New Hampshire, Maine, Georgia and
Florida -- accounted for 328 weapons. All four of those states also
received extremely low marks in the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence's annual ranking of state gun laws, each receiving less than 10 points out
of a possible score of 100. In fact, 11 of the top 15 crime gun source
states for Massachusetts received a score of 16 or less on the Brady
Campaign scorecard.
Did you catch the most important point? Why are Massachusetts criminals so loyal? Why do travel so far to get a gun, only to return to their home state to commit a violent crime? Another good question would be why those guns don't stay in the states with good gun laws and commit crimes there.
ReplyDeleteLet me guess. MikeB's idea is: Massachusetts gun control would finally work if we could just get all the other states to have tough gun control laws like Massachusetts. He couldn't be more wrong.
ReplyDeleteNobody knows why some of the guns recovered from criminals or crime scenes originated from other states. Maybe criminals from other states flock to Massachusetts because strict gun control means fewer armed citizens -- a hugely attractive environment for criminals. And it doesn't matter. Criminals will get guns the easiest and cheapest way they can. If guns from out of state are currently the easiest and cheapest to acquire, that will be their preferred source. Remove that source and they will find another. That is what criminals do. Their entire existence revolves around circumventing society's laws. Criminals are like toddlers or small children who study their parents 24/7 looking for weaknesses that they can exploit.
Make no mistake. IT IS UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR SOCIETY OR GOVERNMENT TO DISARM CRIMINALS. IF CRIMINALS CAN ACQUIRE GUNS AND KNIVES IN PRISONS, THEY CAN SURELY ACQUIRE THEM ON THE STREETS. All the gun control laws in the world are worthless when you can bribe, blackmail, or coerce a person who controls or enforces access to firearms. And how about simply making a single shot firearm yourself for less than $20 in parts from a local hardware store?
Who benefits from gun control? Criminals and no one else. If you choose to be unarmed and defenseless if a criminal attacks you, I wish you the best of luck because you will need it. I am not forcing you to do anything. Don't force me to be unarmed and defenseless.
Yes, SOME criminals will always get guns. But the numbers would be so much lower with proper gun control that everybody would benefit. Are you so biased that you can's see that?
DeleteWe've shown you how "proper gun control" would fail in its goal and would harm good gun owners. Are you so biased that you can't see that?
DeleteYou have not shown any such thing. What you've done is expressed your complete refusal the consider simple measures that would not affect you much at all and would impact criminals' ability to get guns.
DeleteI've repeatedly shown you how your proposals would affect me. Must I do that again? I've also shown you the dangers that your proposals create. The simple fact here is that you don't believe that I have a right to own and carry guns, so your restrictions are no big deal in your mind. When you see guns as a right, you'll understand why we fight you.
Delete