U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “As Massachusetts shows, strong gun-safety laws work,” a Thursday Boston Globe editorial by columnist Scot Lehigh claims. “Other states should follow suit.”
Evidently two “reports” from sources we are supposed to accept as unbiased, the Centers for Disease Control and Michael Bloomberg’s focus group-tested “Everytown” brand, are being used to promulgate a correlation = causation logical fallacy. They want Americans to believe “commonsense gun safety laws” deserve credit for Massachusetts having “the least amount of gun violence per capita [and] the lowest-in-the-nation per capita costs from gun violence.”
If it were true that access to guns is the key metric, the confiscation lobby wouldn’t have to avoid the inconvenient truth that the five million or so NRA members, arguably the most heavily-armed civilian population on the planet, are also the most peaceable, rivaling any “gun-free” society they’d care to name when it comes to “gun violence.” Were that not so, you can be sure Lehigh would tell us.
In addition to the two reports, we are given the views of two “authorities.” Naturally, both are veteran gun-grabbers with long histories of hostility to the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
The first is Democrat Senator Ed Markey, who “hopes to make the Massachusetts approach to guns the model for other states.” He’ll do that by relying on his time-proven tactic of swindling ignorant constituents out of their birthrights. Case in point, consider his pitch about “legislation… to crackdown on children’s access to ‘military-style weapons’ in an effort to prevent accidental gun deaths [that] would ban people younger than 16 from having or firing a machine gun or assault weapon”:
“The small hands of children and big power of machine guns are a deadly combination,” Markey said in a statement. “Assault weapons are weapons of war and should not be allowed in the hands of children.”
Apparently, Markey would rather see pitchfork murders. He also would ban children who have proven themselves quite capable of handling firearms from training and practicing safe shooting. And, of course, he happily exploits one full-auto incident of negligence to then mix, and thus conflate, the deliberately created public “confusion” over semiautomatic firearms and machineguns, a stated propaganda goal of the Violence Policy Center.
And 16? Isn’t that when Democrats want “children” to start voting?
The second “authority” is perennial private gun-grabber and Boston megadeveloper John Rosenthal, “co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence and a longtime force for strong gun laws,” with the obligatory “himself a gun owner” insertion added for calculated credentialing effect. What’s left unsaid is Rosenthal was also the man behind the curtain of the abortive Astroturf American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), a deceptive collection of elites and Fudds along the lines of Gungrabby Gabby’s phony Gun Owners for Safety, or the even more ludicrous Sportsmen and Sportswomen for Biden.
“Take all that together, said Rosenthal, and it shows that tough gun laws work, even while giving the lie to the gun lobby’s claim that the real goal of gun-safety advocates is banning the manufacturing, sale, or ownership of firearms,” The Globe propagandist gushes on. “The only firearms that can’t be sold in Massachusetts that are available other places are military-style assault rifles and so-called Saturday night specials.”
Of course, that is the real goal, and it’s been stated time and again over decades, along with the outlined strategy of pushing the infringements through in increments until they get to total bans. The problem is, unless you frequent niche sites for gun owner rights advocacy, you’ll never be informed of this by the DSM (Duranty/Streicher Media). And you’ll notice the citizen disarmament zealots never commit to when their interminable infringements will ever be “enough.” That’s because ultimately, useful idiots aside, the real motivation has nothing to do with “safety” and everything to do with the government securing a monopoly of violence for itself.
As for the bans only affecting “military-style assault rifles and so-called Saturday night specials,” such an assertion could only come from someone who is either willfully ignorant, deliberately fraudulent, or both. The Second Amendment literally requires military weapons ownership by citizens. As for banning inexpensive handguns, that is, denying the means of defense to the economically disadvantaged who live in the most violent crime-ridden neighborhoods, The Globe’s use of racist terminology is telling:
Since the 1700s, laws and legislation targeting small, less expensive handguns have sought to disarm Blacks. “The name is sufficient evidence – the reference is to `n[…..]-town Saturday Night.`” (B. Bruce-Briggs, “The Great American Gun War,” The Public Interest, 1976.)
“So what makes this state’s gun laws effective?” Lehigh continues. “Two elements are key: All gun sales, even those from private sellers, incorporate a federal background check at some stage in the process. Secondly, to purchase a gun, someone must first apply to the local police chief for a renewable license; even if the applicant passes the federal background check, the chief can deny a license if, based on reliable information, he or she deems the applicant a risk to public safety or to themselves.”
Prior restraints, they say. On the “law-abiding.” And denial without due process by some politically appointed (which in Massachusetts means by a Democrat) anti-gun “Only One.” That’s the ticket!
And the “proof” that this not only works but must be imposed on the rest of the Republic?
“In the latest available CDC data, from 2019, Massachusetts had 3.4 gun deaths per 100,000 residents. Worst-ranking Alaska had 24.4 deaths per 100,000 people.”
Rates are not the same as total numbers. Low population areas with fewer incidents can have significantly higher rates than high population areas with more incidents. And there’s the elephant in the room about which populations have the greatest impact on totals and statistics, but exploring the responsibility of government policies and programs for social conditions neither fits the prevailing political narrative nor helps advance the disarmament agenda.
The truth about the prevalence of such violence is it’s not about guns (or the made-up political term “gun violence”), but about the inevitable fruits of “progressive” fraud that keeps charlatans in power through an endless cycle of dependency and manipulation. Yes, race is a factor—not as a cause of violent crime, but as an indicator of populations most influenced and ultimately victimized by a continuing history of destructive collectivist controls over the economy, over education, and over the lives of those who never escape the trap of a corrupt system with the ultimate purpose being to keep them voting Democrat.
And, of course, since The Globe is promoting the visions not of those trapped by the system, but of elites who are above it all like Bloomberg, Rosenthal, and media owners, the discussion would not be complete without talking money:
Everytown’s new study estimates that gun carnage costs the nation some $51 billion in lost income, another $10.7 billion in police and criminal justice expenditures, and $3.5 billion in medical costs.
“Gun carnage.” There’s a new loaded term for us!
What the “study” can’t factor in is what the costs would be if people were denied the means to defend themselves, including remaining lifetimes of income lost from lives cut short. Also unknowable are the economic and extended life “benefits” society reaps when predators are stopped, often by victims merely presenting a gun, but also when they’re taken “off the streets” for good, either in justifiable police or armed citizen defensive gun uses, or more often, when taken out by rivals.
Does that sound harsh? Nature often is. There can be repercussions for bad choices in this universe and the most likely way to avoid them is to make better choices.
“Now Markey is introducing legislation to offer federal grants to reward states that adopt laws like ours,” Lehigh concludes. The answer to all our troubles is Markey’s “The Making America Safe and Secure — that is, the MASS Act.”
Even Obama paid lip service to the admission that “what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne.” No more. One size fits all. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Ed Markey says so.
“[T]here is going to be no better case for removal of the filibuster,” Markey declared, anticipating what to do if his bill fails in the Senate — again.
That, of course, is a Democrat goal they are pushing regardless. As Gun Owners of America warns:
“In an apocalyptic environment where the filibuster has been eradicated, you can expect to see a Democrat Congress ramming through gun bans, gun owner registration and more. And to make sure that everything they do is ruled ‘legal,’ anti-gun Democrats have threatened to pack the U.S. Supreme Court.”
If that happens, it will be game over for political “solutions” and we will have reached that most dangerous situation President John F. Kennedy, an NRA Life Member who understood the importance of the Second Amendment as a safeguard against tyranny, by the way, foresaw:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
While Markey and Rosenthal, and Bloomberg, and the idiots from The Globe’s editorial department are busy trying to set that up, shall we look at the types of headlines we can come to expect if they succeed in implementing the MASS Act, which for all the promises has somehow failed to impress criminals who laugh at fools who obey gun laws:
- Homicides and shootings are on the rise nationwide. Boston is no different.
- In the year of COVID-19, Boston homicides and shootings spiked. Why?
Hey, those are Boston Globe headlines. Don’t the editorialists talk to the news guys?
In any case, if they try imposing Markey’s tyranny on “Deplorable” America, look for new headlines reflecting the citizens’ answers.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
