The horrific shootings in El Paso and Dayton are driving the left to not let the crisis “go to waste.” As a result, the Democrats and the media are demanding action without having all the facts.
Who needs facts when we have emotion, after all. So the left wants a new gun law – any law! Something! – in order to make them feel better. Democrats are demanding that Mitch McConnell call the Senate back into session to vote on a universal background check law.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on the Republican leader to end the chamber’s break to vote on a universal background check bill after the two shootings — one in Dayton, Ohio, and another in El Paso, Texas — left at least 29 dead and 53 injured in a matter of just 13 hours. The Senate is currently in recess until September.
“One awful event after another. Leader McConnell must call the Senate back for an emergency session to put the House-passed universal background checks legislation on the Senate floor for debate and a vote immediately,” Schumer said in a statement.
Here’s the problem: according to authorities in El Paso, the shooter obtained his firearm legally. Which means he passed a background check. How would another background check law have stopped him? The same goes for the Dayton shooter, who also got his firearms legally. When there is no criminal history, no court orders, and no mental health holds, how was an additional background check law supposed to stop either of these killers?
That is not the answer the left, or those in the crowd, wants. They want SOMETHING done.
A crowd at a vigil honoring nine adults killed and others wounded by a gunman in Dayton interrupted a speech by Ohio’s Republican governor with shouts of “Make a change.”
As Gov. Mike DeWine told the crowd Sunday evening that the families’ pain can’t be erased, many started chanting: “Do something!”
Mayor Nan Whaley sought to calm them, saying the vigil was intended for the victims and there will be time later for dealing with policy issues.
There is this nagging, driving impulse to fix the problem when something terrible happens. But how? Maybe there were patterns to be seen that those closest to the shooters did not see and did not report. Maybe accepting that evil is evil is just too much within the moment, but it shouldn’t drive Congress to pass yet another law in the hope that THIS WILL FIX IT. Just ask Great Britain how crime is, now that all the guns are gone.
The left continued its dishonesty when it came to hearing from President Trump. The president gave a quick statement to the press while on his way back to Washington on Sunday, promising a longer address later today.
The president’s statement was perfectly appropriate. Yet the left began to agitate because Trump hasn’t SAID ENOUGH. Can we be honest about what they really want? The Democrat primary candidates have already spent their time blaming him. Now the media wants him to go on a Tweet-storm in order to blame him further. And here is the president, actually taking time to consider fully what he wants to say to the American people. The left, which says they want Trump to act more “presidential,” doesn’t really mean it. They want him to react, not act, so they can trash him some more.
So, the left wants a condemnation of white supremacy from someone within the Trump administration or family? Here.
White supremacy, like all other forms of terrorism, is an evil that must be destroyed.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) August 4, 2019
Is there anything wrong with Ivanka Trump’s statement? No. But when has that ever stopped the left from spitting in the face of what they asked for, because what they REALLY wanted was the ability to keep yelling?
“but we still can’t just admit it?”
*admits it*
“FUCK YOU IVANKA” pic.twitter.com/xHc0RWof76
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) August 4, 2019
How on earth can we have any kind of rational discussion when the left demands the right call something bad, the right agrees that it is bad, and then the left cusses them out for saying it? “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” is no way to move forward in any kind of unity to fix any problems. But this is where we are.
If the president gives a measured, rational address today, the left will be upset because they want to stay mad. If the president agreed with them and said “pass the background check law,” they would be mad because it didn’t happen sooner – even though in El Paso and Dayton, it wouldn’t have changed anything. There is no winning here because the left keeps changing the rules. When everything is the Kobiyashi Maru, what’s the point in even trying to compromise?
Featured image via Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license
GWB says: any law! Something!
I’ll stand in support of the conservative call to action: Don’t just do something, STAND THERE!
First responders need to do something. Fellow citizens need to do something. The only thing the legislature needs to do is UNdo some things – like gun-free zones.
How would another background check law have stopped him?
But it would be DOING SOMETHING! Even if it’s a bad thing or thoroughly pointless thing.
Oh, and of course, it would ratchet down the controls on firearms so the next incident they could do more. Then more. Until they can take them away.
A crowd … interrupted a speech
Perhaps. They were loud, but were they the majority? Or were they just what the leftists/big-gov’t folks on stage wanted to hear so they had an excuse?
Can we be honest about what they really want?
Hell, they want what they’ve always wanted: Power, Control. And they’ll get it by hook or crook, no matter how many people they have to kill.
When everything is the Kobiyashi Maru
It’s Calvinball.
It’s not so much the left demands what they don’t want, it’s that they demand what they don’t care about. Because it’s simply a means to an end. They want it – but not for the reasons they claim. The leaders know damned good and well a universal background check won’t do anything but ratchet things closer to gun confiscation. That’s the only thing they care about. Though, even there, it’s really the control it gives them once guns are finally out of the hands of the hoi polloi and the peasants, not the gun confiscation itself. (After all, they’re still going to keep their guns.)
Lloyd says: The cry must change from “DO SOMETHING!”….to “WHAT CAN WE DO?”
Toastrider says: I seem to remember a former President saying something… something about…
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Poor randy bastard would have to run as a Republican these days though.
GWB says: I apologize, ladies, but I’m going to assert myself here and post a minor rant not directly in answer to the post, but related. Here goes….
Having seen a lot of 2A defenders on Twitter and other platforms, I need to tell you some things you’re not going to like.
1) No, automatic weapons are not banned. They are effectively banned, as you can’t import or really manufacture new ones, and it takes a lot of gov’t paperwork (and a tougher background check), and lots of extra money to buy one. (Most folks are getting this one, it seems – but not all.)
2) A shotgun is NOT more deadly than a 5.56. At least not in a “kill lots of people quickly” sort of meaning (you know, since folks are talking specifically about mass shootings). Unless you have a magazine-fed shotgun (and those are still not a large share of the market) you’re generally limited to a handful of rounds. Even magazine-fed shotguns are primarily a handful of rounds – mostly because 12ga shotgun shells are BIG, and a stack of them is much larger than an equivalent stack of 5.56/.223.
(The newer ‘short shells’ or ‘minis’ give you more rounds in a tubular load, but they don’t bear as much energy as the regular or magnum loads. So it’s a trade-off.)
2a) Neither your most common 12ga, nor a lever-action, nor a Colt Peacekeeper, nor a bolt-action rifle can easily kill 9 people in 30 seconds. OK, 30 seconds is actually a long time when lead is flying. But, don’t brush off totally the need to reload – it does take time away from trying to hurt people, especially if you’re not trained. (Oh, and the Dayton guy ALSO wounded 27. That’s 4 times 9 people shot at least once in those 30 seconds.)
3) Yes, Virginia, there IS such a thing as an “assault rifle”. It’s a medium caliber carbine (meaning a rifle with a shorter barrel) with the ability to select between single fire (semi-automatic) and fully automatic (or burst, which is fully automatic for 3 to 5 rounds). No, you are right in saying civilian AR-15s are not assault rifles, but you are wrong if you insist the phrase has no definition or that it is a made-up term. (Yes, the anti-gunners use the term incorrectly.)
4) Yes, the original AR-15 was actually invented as an assault rifle. It was adopted as the M-16. What we now call the AR-15 was the civilian (including cops) semi-automatic version Colt then sold. Most “AR-15s” are NOT actual AR-15s, but “AR-15 style” – 5.56 semi-automatic, with the sort of reload system the M-16 uses, and most of the features found in the main portion (the receiver) of the actual AR-15 (magazine well, pistol grip, type/placement of safety, etc.). But NOT the ability to fire automatic or burst fire.
5) So, yes, the AR-15 (either one) was built to effectively stop people that need to be stopped. That does not necessarily mean dead. But any firearm will likely leave you dead if the user handles it correctly and it functions properly and you don’t get immediate medical trauma attention. Some will make that happen more quickly than others.
Yes, the other side is more ignorant than you as it relates to firearms. But you might want to put some anti-shatter film on your windows before throwing stones.
/rant
Feel free to correct me.
Scott says: GWB, as a big supporter of the 2nd Amendment, nothing you said above is news to me in the least, including, sadly, the fact that some who defend the 2nd ARE ignorant of the facts you stated. One area that I will offer some.. elaboration.. on is 2 / 2a above. a possible point of confusion for some people might be that a single center mass hit with a 12ga round, at close range, likely would be more deadly than a 5.56. That being said, that’s a VERY narrow set of circumstances, and under most others, the 5.56 would be far more deadly, especially to multiple targets.
As to the time to reload, without question, it does take time to reload, especially for the untrained. The trade off is that the high capacity magazines (30 rounds is STANDARD capacity, contrary to what the left would have you believe), but the 40, 60, or especially the 100 round drums are much more prone to jamming (as happened in the Aurora theater shooting, causing the scum to switch to a secondary weapon, the shotgun i believe). As to the number killed / wounded,especially in a packed crowd, ammunition may well play a factor, as a FMJ (full metal jacket, ie:non-expanding) bullet is very likely to continue through one body, and into another, which can increase the number killed / wounded.
While I, as I believe you do as well, understand that none of the laws being proposed would have any impact on these crimes, and are in fact just steps towards a total ban on private ownership of firearms, I also believe that if the arguments we use in defense of the 2nd Amendment are factually inaccurate or distorted, we have lowered ourselves to the level of the gun banners. The facts are on our side, in every aspect of the argument, so ensuring that all our arguments are factually correct is of the utmost importance, when confronting those who run on pure emotion.
Thanks again for your reasoned information on these subjects.(and also for posts long enough to hide the fact that I often post novels…hehe)
GWB says: As to the 12ga, they were speaking in terms of the mass shootings. So, yeah, not as clear a case as they were claiming.
I’m not sure I would say “we lower ourselves to their level”, but it’s certainly lazy (if done without ever bothering to look at the facts vs hearsay) and that’s never a good look.
I will also confess to misspeaking over the years on some points. So, all the above is in order to further knowledge, not to cast stones.
Scott says: GWB,
As always, thanks for the reply, and yeah, lazy is probably more accurate than lowering to their level. Quite obviously, I have the capacity to misspeak as well, and my reply to your original post was in the same vein as you mention, to further knowledge, not cast stones.
It’s nice to have adults to rationally discuss things with, as opposed to the lefty trolls that just screech about the FEEELZ!
GWB says: Oh dear sweet ….
Now here’s the ignorance on the other side:
https://twitter.com/rob99711/status/1158544544109072384
(via Twitchy)
This graphic is just… horribly wrong. A “modified” AR-15 can shoot 1,250 rpm?!? That’s 21 rounds per second! Even the Browning M2 could only achieve that in its final incarnation. To achieve that with a warplane, you need multiple barrels on a gatling gun (the GAU-30 gets 3 times that with its 7 barrels).
Even the idea that a revolver is significantly slower than a semi-auto pistol is a bit crazy. (It is slower because the action to move a round to firing position takes place during the trigger pull, rather than during the trigger recovery phase, so you have a bit of ‘wasted motion’ compared to the semi-atuo.) And, a semi-auto pistol would seem to not be that much slower than a rifle. (Again, there is some slowing because recoil with a pistol has more effect of moving the muzzle off the target, and it must be moved further back into position than a rifle – generally.)
Then, of course, the AK-47…. It is not a semi-automatic ‘assault rifle’. At least not, just a semi-automatic rifle. It is also the designation for an actual assault rifle (one that can be set to automatic fire).
*smdh*
BTW, Twitchy reports the graphic is now gone from the BBC article.
GWB says: And, yet again, pro-gun ignorati….
Someone responds “semi-auto weapons all have the same rate of fire – one time for every time the trigger is pulled.”
*facepalm*
That is NOT a “rate of fire”.
And someone else says “that AK-47 on full automatic will overheat in seconds.” Oy vey.
Another also mentions “melting down the gun.”
One mentions a “bumper stock”.
I know you’re on “our” side, people. That’s why I’m begging you to PLEASE. STOP.
370H55V says: To paraphrase that great philosopher Mick Jagger, you can’t always get what you don’t want, but if you try sometime, you’ll find you don’t get what you need.
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