Trotting Out Gun Control

Yesterday, there was a press conference in the White House, held by the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.  It was a pretty emotional time.  Chuck Schumer can do his fake tears at this or that invented slight, but Mrs. Sanders was clearly struggling through her introductory remarks, especially when invoking the Gospel to salute those who would lay down their lives for their fellow man -- and in Las Vegas Sunday night, had.

Almost to the expected moment, there was the obligatory chirping from one of the assembled press hacks, asking if President Trump was going to change his stance on gun control.  I want to say that was the second question from the press ... OK, actually, I'd want not to have to say that, but the press is the press, and they did, and it was.

I'm going to grit my teeth and say that I probably should have expected that, because if it hadn't been the second question, it would have been a later one; one of those clowns would have gotten to it (and another one actually did, apparently not hearing the original answer, which was that there was a time and a place for everything and this wasn't it).

OK, I know that the reporter asked the question because someone would have, but really.  What did he actually expect the answer to be?

I say that because there is no such thing as a logical "gun control" law or proposal.  As with every single law, there needs to be a desired effect, and there needs to be an expectation, presumably based on history, that the law will accomplish the desired effect.  History, of course, in Chicago and elsewhere, shows an inverse relationship between strict laws and firearm felonies, but when did facts ever stop the left.

Press hacks are free of that.  Had I been Mrs. Sanders, I might have taken a deep breath and replied with a question.  "What law", I would have asked the reporter, "do you propose that would have prevented the Las Vegas massacre?"

I certainly would have wanted to have heard that question answered by the reporter.  I would have wanted that simply because none of the reporters knew what the weapons were, where they were acquired, whether they were acquired legally by the shooter, etc.  If you don't know what happened as far as the firearms, you can't possibly know what would work to have prevented it.

[And Hillary Clinton, of all people, blathers out a tweet -- oh dear, how many more people would have died if a silencer had been on that gun, that the NRA wants legal! -- before even knowing what weapon was involved, and probably not even now knowing that you can't put a silencer on an automatic weapon.  In fact, the answer is "fewer people", since a silencer would have melted, but that's Hillary for you.]

We have already had that "gun-control" response after the murders in the school in Connecticut, where the anti-gun types were right there, proposing all sorts of strictures on the purchase and ownership of firearms, none of which would have prevented what had happened.  Then why, one would ask, pass such laws in the first place?

This is where we go from here, when it indeed does become time to discuss what happened in the context of the acquisition and ownership of the firearms involved.  I particularly want to see what happens if the weapons and/or ammunition were acquired or modified illegally, in which case it becomes an issue of enforcement as opposed to needing new laws.

What leftist anti-gun type is going to say, if it turns out that it was an illegal purchase, that OK, fine, nothing new needed; we need to enforce the laws we have on the books?  That's what we have been saying for a long time.   But I have to point out that we don't know yet if the firearms were illegal in the first place.  And if you don't know, you really can't raise the whole gun control debate -- after a few days, maybe, when it becomes reasonable to do so.

I just hope against hope that when it comes to that, the reasonability of legislation will be tested against a "would it have prevented this" kind of standard.  And I hope that if that standard is not raised, that it be immediately applied.

Because "reasonable" is a word needed here.  Desperately.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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