Why Gun Grabbers Persist in Dancing in the Blood of the Innocents

Thomas Sowell as usual has a clear thinking article up at yesterday's National Review Online entitled The Colorado Shooting and the Media which points out that contrary to the MSM's constant harping that our "lax" gun laws are the problem, gun laws either don't make any difference whatsoever, or are in fact positive. But the facts have no effect when the media seem committed to a vision of society in which nobody carries a gun. A quote to get you over to the story:

You would never know, from what they and other gun-control advocates have said, that there is a mountain of evidence that gun-control laws not only fail to control guns but are often counterproductive. For those people who still think facts matter, it is worth presenting some of those facts.

Which he then proceeds to do.

Another great blog, run by a fellow just down the road a bit, is Sean Sorrentino's An NC Gun Blog which daily pounds out news story after news story showing the failure of gun control at every turn. Many posts expose the fact that the people doing the shooting, and the people being shot are often criminals engaging in what criminals do. They are not legal carriers, but still they have guns.  So, how effective was the gun control?  Then there are the stories out of (Formerly) Great Britain and Australia. I am always amazed that here we have island nations, with strict gun laws everywhere, and yet the rate of crimes committed with guns are higher than ever. In England, they are now making carrying knives illegal. What's next, one wonders.

Of course, I have to take issue to with the notion, often expressed when gun grabbers start talking about gun laws, that our laws are so "lax." To hear them tell it, you can walk into any of the millions of street corner gun dealers on a whim, decide to take home a cute little Kimber or Glock, and just walk out with it. No, there are no instant background checks, no paperwork, no questioning to see if you might be a straw buyer, and in some States, no waiting period. But the experience is quite different. Gun stores are not that plentiful. Nobody buys a gun on a whim. Everybody who buys a gun must prove to the satisfaction of some bureaucrat that he is a trust worthy individual who won't abuse the privilege granted to him. (Note, the present system assumes you are guilty until you prove a lack of evidence.  Even so, you are still held to be suspicious.) Then, and only then, may the gun dealer sell you that piece of hardware. Gun dealers have to keep the paper work, which includes your name and the serial number of the weapon forever, forming a sort of registry.  Since the right to own and carry a gun is always under attack, despite the clear meaning of the 2nd Amendment, one always has to make strategic purchases; for this could be the last gun one may be allowed to buy.

As for the so-called "gun show loophole,"  I have been to dozens of Raleigh gun shows, and a handful in Virginia as well. The procedures are the same, with the exception of people selling their own property. These are the people with one or two guns walking around the show, often with a "for sale" sign poking out of the barrel, and hoping to raise funds to purchase something else. Thomas Sowell concludes with:

The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs — and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.

The gun grabbers can only continue to push that agenda by ignoring what Sowell calls a mountain of evidence. And it is a mountain. John Lott, in his book More Guns, Less Crime presents county by county data over time, showing that where guns are allowed to be carried, violent crime rates fall. The evidence is overwhelming, and hasn't been refuted in the 14 years since its publication. There are, of course, the moral arguments, which hold more water, but in taking the Left in their lair, with utilitarian arguments, Lott has done a yeoman's work for the cause.

The other day, our resident Leftist, who in true Leftist fashion, calls himself a Liberal, started a conversation with me "Have you ever read Andrew Sullivan" "Yes," I replied. "Now there's a true conservative!" "Well, not so fast..." The nascent argument was quelled when the report of the death of a colleague was announced. Now, Andrew Sullivan is a gay, Catholic, British writer, who styles himself as a "conservative," but who at one time edited the very progressive The New Republic. Now, I note the gay aspect only because Sullivan is openly gay, and pushes the gay agenda. I note that he is Catholic because he himself seems to feel that is relevant. Andrew Sullivan may be conservative by British standards, but he is not a conservative in the American mold. Our resident Leftists also said at one point that Reagan couldn't get nominated today, which proved that Conservatives were off their meds, or something along those lines. The implication was that we have changed.

The whole thing reminded me of a piece Jonah Goldberg wrote back on June 15th entitled The Myth of the Good Conservative. Goldberg:

My daughter learned a neat rhetorical trick to avoid eating things she doesn’t like. “Daddy, I actually really like spinach, it’s just that this spinach tastes different.”

Democrats and the journalists who love them play a similar game with Republicans and conservatives. “Oh, I have lots of respect for conservatives,” goes the typical line, “but the conservatives we’re being served today are just so different. Why can’t we have Republicans and conservatives like we used to?”

The point of this little digression is that it is their ideology that prevents them form seeing the facts. There I stand before our resident Leftist, talking about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. but his ideology will not allow him to see, so he creates a straw man to knock down.  In the process, he drags out Andrew Sullivan as a TRUE conservative. I have no beef with Andrew Sullivan, but he is in fact a left of center moderate writer whose view point is decidedly British. Similarly with the gun grabbers, their ideology can not admit that those icky guns just might be what makes civilized society possible. Because then they would have to admit that the whole project to bring about Utopia is doomed to failure by human nature. Worse than that, if they accepted the facts, they would be forced to become...gasp...those stick in the mud, dull, icky Conservatives!