After every mass shooting, liberals call for more restrictions on guns. Generally speaking, I’m in favor of allowing people to arm themselves, but there are legitimate questions about what that means. For example, we all seem comfortable with the idea that citizens can have shotguns but can’t have machine guns, so it’s really a question of where to draw the line.
I don’t pretend that I know exactly where that line should be drawn, although I know enough about guns to know that the “assault weapon” talk is usually a display of ignorance. It has more to do with what a gun looks like than its actual capabilities.
America definitely has a gun obsession, although most of the time, people think it’s only the right that’s obsessed with guns. That’s not true. The left is equally obsessed with guns.
You can see that obsession in at least three areas.
- The fantasy that more gun regulation will stop these mass murders. It won’t.
- The refusal to look at any other ways to address this problem, like re-evaluating our mental health system, or to look at deeper sociological problems, like fatherlessness.
- Resistance to the idea of allowing citizens to protect themselves — as if the police can do that.
In addition to the gun obsession, the left has a very weird view of the use of government power. They have no problem with armed-to-the-teeth police raids on peaceful people they don’t agree with politically, but they’re often against police use of force against actual criminals. It’s very weird.
I recently saw a spot on some news program where Trey Gowdy — seemingly fighting back tears after some horrific murder — said he’d be willing to give up all his gun rights if somebody proposed a solution that would actually stop these horrible crimes. I think that’s short-sighted, but it highlights a significant truth.
None of the “gun control” proposals would stop these horrible events.