The first minute is dedicated to the idea that "we can't talk about gun control" after an incident. First, no one can stop a national conversation about gun control. Second, we did have a huge national conversation about gun control (led by Biden) and the biggest overhauls to federal gun control since 1968 were on the table. They didn't make it through the Senate, but it happened. He must have forgotten or not been paying attention.
A few years later in 2016, both Democrats and Republicans offered improvements to background checks and no-fly, no buy legislation after the Orlando massacre. Democrats voted against the Republican measures and Republicans voted against measures by the Democrats. The conversation happened, the bills happened, but Congress wouldn't cooperate.
These bills were the results of national conversations and legislative conversations. We are talking about guns and gun violence all the time. Bills are proposed. It's just that he doesn't like how the conversations end that is the problem. And that's his right, but I don't see how he can say we don't talk about gun violence and legislative responses.
The weird comparison of all Americans dead from combat in wars versus civilian homicides with guns sounds impressive at first until you think about the base rate of a 100s of millions of guns across 1/3 to 1/2 of the population.
He compares the US homicide/suicide rates to other developed countries, but we are a lot more like the BRIICS countries that have very diverse populations and histories of official and unofficial violence.
I don't feel terrorized by these mega-mass shootings. They are rare. Horrible and tragic but relatively rare. I know others are the way some people focus on crashed planes.
He says he's not trying to take away guns and yet hokey "Assault Weapons Bans" are on the lips of many gun controls. Weird that.
Most people are for universal background checks and that will come soon. Private gun sales were the deal that gun controllers made with the RKBA types in the 1960s. It is not surprising they are resistant to changing the deal. Universal background checks wouldn't have stopped most of the mega-mass shootings, but that's not important to a lot of gun controllers.
"Can't you hear the children scream" is an emotional ploy. Can he hear them?
Having said all that, no one wants these mega-mass shootings to happen or any unjustified shooting to happen. I hope we can work together to reduce the carnage without reducing the civil liberty protected by the 2nd.
For example, I support treating bump stocks as a special case for free NFA registration especially if this restriction is coupled with lifting the sporting clause for semi-auto imports.
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