Another mass murder. Liberals call for a ban on assault weapons. Conservatives push back. The cultural divide between rural and urban, coast and heartland, widens. Another mass murder. Calls for a ban on assault weapons. Pushback from …
We liberals have more responsibility for this ongoing tragedy than we’d like to admit. This has to do with our tendency to do wrong things for the right reasons. There is something almost genetic to the liberal delusion that the laws of physics, economics, and biology go away if we can just pass a few laws of men.
Example: On March 22, 2021 a man carrying an assault-style “rifle” killed 10 people in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. After Boulder, much has been written in the nation’s two primary liberal newspapers, the New York Times and Washington Post, about assault weapon bans.
The Guardian, a British publication, had a prominent story about how Boulder’s ban on the purchase of assault weapons was recently blocked by a court, as if that block was a cause of the tragedy. Buried was the fact that it was unknown where the weapon was purchased.
Excuse me. The shooter murdered 10 people. Do we think that a city ordinance forbidding him to buy an assault weapon in Boulder would have been a deterrent?
In Atlanta, last week, a man murdered 8 people in little over an hour at three massage spas. Because six of the eight were Asians, cries of “racism” dominated the Liberal news establishment and social groups. Call for laws against hate proliferate like flowers in spring.
Excuse me. Seven of the eight were women. Do we think more laws against racism would have been a deterrent? Isn’t misogyny a more likely motive, or something more complicated that doesn’t fit the liberal agenda?
Let’s look at the similarities. Mass murder of anonymous people by 21 year-old White men with mental disorders and a gun. In fact, a good proportion of our mass murders have been perpetrated by young White men with mental disorders and a gun. It’s as if they were shooting at shadows, killing people instead.
“Let’s take all the guns away,” we liberals might say. Yeah, that’s not going to happen, right? No “why not” here, okay? Because it would turn America into Sweden. Yes, that might be a good thing, but it’s not going to happen. America was not founded by Swedes living in Sweden.
What about a national ban on assault weapons? Or a ban on large magazines? Or a limit on ammunition? Liberals, we just don’t get it. Guns are access to quality purposefulness at an affordable price. Guns convey seriousness of intent. Values. Responsibility. They feel good in the hand. They are a legitimate means of self-protection for men and women both, especially women. Guns are a significant part of the culture of a lot of Americans. You are not going to take them away.
Oh, and guns are pretty simple. Easy to make. Cheap. And, there are a lot of them. Banning them will be no more effective than banning pot for all those decades. You seriously want to go there? There are at least 400 million guns already in circulation in the U.S. and something like 5 million first-time gun owners in 2020 alone. You are not going to take them away.
And if we try to use our “non-majority plus one” to pass the wrong legislation, all of America will pay dearly for that hubris. Don’t bother with the “those murdered have already paid the ultimate price” non-argument. We are talking civil war.
We liberals really hate the saying, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” But wait a minute. Tucked in there is possibly a way to reduce the carnage. All the better for liberals, it comes from conservatives and conservatives are likely to hate it.
Let’s do whatever it takes to keep young White males with mental disorders from acquiring guns. Oh, that’s racist, you say? Okay. I’ve not seen any stories of young Asian men committing mass murder, or many women for that matter, but I’m willing to go along with the crowd on this one.
Let’s require background checks. Interviews. Mental evaluations. Profiling. Sellers licensed like pharmacists, and a limit on purchases. All costs paid up front by the buyer. No, I don’t care if it’s intrusive. You want a gun, deal with it.
But liberals, let’s look for realistic solutions. To do this, we have to focus on actual causes, and not create a cause out of our own cultural bias. For as long as we do that, we’ll continue to read about another mass murder. Calls for a ban on assault weapons. Pushback from conservatives… and we’ll be the ones shooting at shadows.