Posted 4/09/2009 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

I wish The New York Times would just come straight out and say "We want to take all your guns away from you, idiots, because we know better than you." But they won't. So they have to keep printing ridiculous editorials like this to garner support for "common sense" gun laws. Guess what "common sense" means? Yep, you guessed it, "total."

In this historical context, Binghamton is yet another reminder of America’s terrible gun problem and a summons to lawmakers to insist on common-sense gun laws. Yet Congress responds with a collective shrug.

Well, that's horrible, but about 770 people died that week, and every week of the year due to car crashes. The point being, we've done a lot of work to reduce the number of each, but no matter what we do, neither of those numbers is ever going to be zero. Cars are here to stay just like guns. But as usual, the anti-gun nuts allow their visceral ignorance get in the way of any meaningful policy discussion:

There was a moment, after Columbine, when the nation engaged in a promising conversation about gun violence, and it briefly seemed as though Congress might rise above the extremists at the National Rifle Association. In May 1999, the N.R.A. lost a showdown in the Senate over closing the loophole that allows unqualified buyers to purchase weapons at gun shows without a background check.

That victory was illusory; the gun show measure died in conference in the House, and the post-Columbine urge to do something meaningful evaporated.

Here we go again. When all you have is nothing, pretty soon everything starts looking like a gun show loophole. News Flash: There's no such thing. Any licensed firearm dealer, at a gunshow, swap meet, gun store or highway overpass is required by law to require the purchaser to fill out the form affirming they're of sound mind and not a fugitive from justice, and call in to the FBI's NICS database for verification. If you're too stupid to lie on the paperwork or the FBI's got a sheet on you, guess what, no gun. Period.

The so-called "gun show loophole" is a complete bullshit term derived from the left to scare people (shocker). If your state doesn't require each firearm to be registered, you can sell it to whomever you want, so if you bring it to a gun show and you happen to run into someone who wants to buy it, they can, and with no background check. But keep in mind, this is no different than a want-ad for people with guns who choose to focus their product in a concentrated market of those that might want to buy them. What's wrong with that? And there's more abject horse shit to dispel:

So far, the Obama White House has not been a profile in courage either. Witness the chilly reception to recent calls by Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to reimpose an assault weapons ban to make it harder for American gun traffickers to arm the Mexican drug cartels.

The so-called "assault weapons" ban was a joke, outlawing cosmetic functions of a few rifles and giving them the menacing nomenclature of "assault weapons," again, in an attempt to scare old people. It worked under Clinton, but Bush let it expire. There's no push to revive it because it's totally fucking meaningless, and Holder and Hillary know they don't have the momentum, at least now, to push for a meaningful ban because it would blow up in their face. What's sensible about that??

Then there's this. How bad could it get?

In the aftermath of one of these atrocities, nothing is more chilling than a gun advocate racing before a camera to embrace a lunatic’s right to carry and kill.

Refresh my memory again? What "right to kill" are you referring to? I missed that day in civics class.

If it was peanut butter or pistachio nuts taking down people by the dozens every week, we’d be all over it. Witness the recent recalls. But Glocks and AKs — can’t touch ‘em. So we’re awash in guns: 280 million.

Well I hate to pass judgment on a thing like this before all the facts are in, but I'll bet there are more than 280 million peanuts in the country. But that's not the point. The point is that they're both out there and we can't un-ring the bell. Using demonizing language, "assault weapon," "Saturday night special" or whatever, doesn't make a gun any more or less dangerous. Which leads to my favourite anti-gun argument of all time:

The assault weapons ban, outlawing 19 military style guns that no hunter with sense of fair play would ever use, should be reinstated.

Ah yes, because if a hunter doesn't want it, it has no place being legal on American soil. What a compelling argument. Help me out and point to the word "hunting" in the second amendment. Yeah, it's not there.

No one, and I mean even the most ardent gun nut, is going to advocate shooting people in the street. But a White House victory for the Democrats and The New York Times hitting F-9 on their keyboards (or whatever key automatically ejaculates their anti-gun rants) is more than enough to make the millions of rational American gun owners out there realize one thing:

A gun is a lump of metal.