Dems Coalescing Around Second Amendment Elimination
To accomplish gun control, leftists are citing bogus evidence and carefully choosing which tragedies to exploit.
Democrats are so perturbed by the Second Amendment that they are resorting to the distribution of fraudulent data. For example, during a recent congressional meeting with President Donald Trump, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) presented findings from professor Louis Klarevas, whose analysis points to a homicide-through-mass-shooting reduction rate of 37% between 1994 and 2004 — when the 10-year Federal Assault Weapons Ban Feinstein championed was in effect. Even if we ignore the reality that this claim is an extreme outlier — it has virtually no peer backing — there are still some major issues with Klarevas’ assessment. According to Ars Technica co-founder Jon Stokes:
> There are few actual “assault weapons” of any type in his dataset, either pre- or post-ban. Klarevas and his allies are taking an apparent drop in fatalities from what are mostly handgun shootings (again, pre-ban as well as post) and attributing this lowered body count to the 1994 legislation. … Had Klarevas chosen a “mass shooting” threshold of five fatalities instead of six, then the dramatic pause he notes in mass shootings between 1994 to 1999 would disappear too.“
Columnist Burt Prelutsky makes a cogent point when he observed, "Those on the Left seem to view all murders through a prism of their propaganda value.” There is no better example than the Left’s demonization of so-called “assault weapons.” Back to Stokes’ point about handguns, they are the primary tool by which homicides are inflicted. According to the FBI’s Crime in the United States data, “Handguns comprised 64.6 percent of the firearms used in murder and nonnegligent manslaughter incidents in 2016.”
More precisely, of the 11,004 homicides by firearm that year, 7,105 involved a handgun, whereas just 374 — or 0.03% — involved a rifle of any type. You read that right. In fact, the number of homicides committed with rifles is outpaced by “blunt objects,” which accounted for 472 murders in 2016. The bottom line? Rifles unfairly get most of the flak despite criminals’ relatively rare use of them.
Nevertheless, Democrats are increasingly belligerently opposed to citizens possessing rifles. According to The Hill, “Democratic senators seen as possible contenders for the White House in 2020 are all taking positions in strong support of an assault weapons ban, pressuring their colleagues up for reelection this year.” Those names include Elizabeth Warren (MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Kamala Harris (CA), Cory Booker (NJ), Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Chris Murphy (CT).
The piece adds: “Support for the ban on assault weapons has grown among Democrats over the last 11 years. In 2007, 67 Democrats supported a ban. That number continued to grow in 2013 with 83 Democrats co-sponsoring legislation. The number grew to 149 in 2015 before settling on 167 co-sponsors this year.” Alarmingly, the Democrats’ true vexation actually runs even deeper than that. At the national level, a new poll finds that the complete elimination of the Second Amendment has the support of one-third of the Democrat Party and almost one-quarter of all Americans.
Clearly, the party is moving further left — to the point that they think this is a winning campaign issue.
Regarding Democrats, Prelutsky writes, “If they thought they could get more mileage out of church shootings, the endless homicides in Baltimore or the attack on the Republican congressmen at the baseball field in Virginia, they would focus on those crimes. But they realize they can better utilize school shootings emotionally because of the age of the victims.” To accomplish gun control, leftists are citing bogus evidence and carefully choosing which tragedies to exploit. Another ban on semiautomatic rifles with certain cosmetic features wouldn’t just fail like the first one did; it would also be a gateway to broader restrictions on and the eventual elimination of the Second Amendment.
James Madison said, “Power is of an encroaching nature.” The Left’s encroachment on the Second Amendment is Exhibit A. Leftists won’t stop until guns are completely outlawed. To prevent it, constitutionalists need to be effective in opposing lies, damned lies and statistics.
