Gun Control

“We must do something to stop this gun violence!” — suburban women and Mr. Wimpples all across America

Every time some demented youth shoots up a venue ... for any reason ... the knee-jerk public shouts the above ... and suggests that more gun controls will fix things  ... “even if they save just one life.” The following are a few of the insisted solutions ... then some generally unknown or little-known facts about each:

Universal background checks — The gun grabbers often cite the gun show and Internet loopholes as the way that guns are sold without background checks. Not true. Federally-licensed gun dealers at gun shows (only ones allowed there) must do background checks on any gun sales. And any retail outlet Internet gun sales must ship guns purchased to a federally-licensed dealer who then does a background check before the purchaser can pick up said gun.

Yes, I can sell a gun to you, dear reader, without a background check. But how the federal government is going to restrict realistically such transactions is beyond me ... after all how are all the Chicago gang-bangers going to get their gats? No matter what federal restriction might next be put in place, the only ones suffering would be legitimate sales between known parties. The back-alley deals between bad actors will go on and not be restricted.

Banning “assault rifles” — This pejorative primarily refers to AR-15 and AK-47 semi-automatic  rifles ... which are also cleverly dubbed “weapons of war.” The rifles are both basically 22-caliber guns ... the lowest caliber there is. Yes, their bullets are higher velocity, but they never would be used in serious battle situations today where greater lethality is required. The real hit on these weapons is that they look “scary.”

However, hunters and target shooters love these weapons because they are light-weight and have little recoil. (They would also work against home invaders and oppressive government.)

Bump stocks — These devices convert semi-automatic (need a trigger pull for each shot) into fully-automatic weapons. They have been banned by the Trump administration by executive order.

High capacity banana clips — most semi-automatic rifles and pistols already logically have 16 bullet magazines as standard. Banning ammunition clips of higher capacity makes some sense ... but it is mostly illusionary because standard clips can be changed in a matter of seconds. If banning these larger capacity clips satisfies the rabid hunger of the gun grabbers (of course it won’t), then they might be outlawed. Then the next mass shooting will blame some other Second Amendment “loophole”  ... excepting, as always, the copy-cat shooter.