U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- An MTV interview with anti-gun-rights Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy that attempted to tie the Nov. 14 Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, Calif. to a gun control bill pushed by Murphy and fellow Sen. Richard Blumenthal blows some big holes in their effort to pass H.R. 8, the federal “universal background check” measure.
The story noted how Blumenthal learned of the shooting while “speaking to the Senate about why they should pass the law.” At that point, according to MTV, Blumenthal declared, “As I speak on the floor right now, there is a school shooting in Santa [Clarita], California. How can we turn the other way? How can we refuse to see that shooting in real time, demanding our attention, requiring our action? We are complicit if we fail to act. It is not just a political responsibility; it is a moral imperative.”
But wait a moment. At that point, Blumenthal had no way of knowing anything about the shooter, how he got the gun in a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation—including its own “universal background check” requirement—or how H.R. 8 might have prevented the shooting. As it became quickly clear, no background check requirement would have made a whit of difference, and the Murphy-Blumenthal effort is merely exploiting the tragedy to press an old agenda.
Murphy subsequently told MTV, “We do know that if we pass a universal background check bill, we are going to save lives. Less dangerous people will get guns and there’ll be less shootings.” He cited the Odessa, Texas shooting earlier this year in which the killer obtained a gun without a background check, and subsequently murdered seven people.
“That’s why we need to close these loopholes,” Murphy insisted.
Alan Gottlieb, founder and Executive Vice President of the Second Amendment Foundation, had an interesting observation.
“With each new gun control law,” he said, “California citizens were assured that the new restrictions were necessary to stop deadly crimes. But the only people to suffer the consequences are law-abiding gun owners and innocent victims.”
Murphy acknowledged to MTV, “There’s no one piece of legislation that’s going to stop all shootings, whether it be in schools or in neighborhoods.”
A moment later, he further noted, “There are some mass shootings where the individual got the gun without a background check.” This certainly appears to be the case with the now-deceased teen who opened fire at Saugus High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “was examining a cache of unregistered weapons seized from the home” of the teen gunman. The newspaper also said authorities “remain unsure about where the .45-caliber handgun used to carry out the attack…was acquired. They are trying to determine whether the gun was made from parts purchased separately and then assembled.”
No legislation, including H.R. 8, is going to prevent a determined would-be killer from obtaining a firearm, and the uncertainty about the origin of the .45 used at Saugus High School underscores that. The Los Angeles Times also noted Tuesday, “Investigators found several firearms during a search of the teen’s home, and some were not registered.”
During his MTV interview, Murphy exhibited what many in the firearms community have come to regard as a “Pollyannaish” attitude about how gun control works.
“If we ban these assault weapons and if we ban these high-capacity magazines that hold 30 or a hundred bullets,” Murphy said, “[I believe] we’ll cut down on the number of people who are killed in these mass shootings but will also probably cause some of these mass shooters to not actually do it in the first place.”
This is reflective of what former Democratic presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke said during an interview about his proposal to “buy back” so-called “assault rifles.” He maintained during the interview that he believes American gun owners are law-abiding citizens who would simply obey the law and turn in their guns without incident. That contention drew heaps of criticism from the firearms community.
Meanwhile, Gottlieb, who also chairs the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, responded to anti-gun billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s apology over the weekend to a church group for championing the “stop-and-frisk” program while he was in office.
Now apparently preparing for a presidential run as a Democrat, the party-switching Bloomberg told his audience, “I got something really wrong” with stop-and-frisk. Gottlieb quickly fired back in a prepared statement: “You also got my gun rights wrong!”
“For years,” the gun rights leader said, “Bloomberg has treated the constitutionally-protected Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens like they are a regulated privilege. He’s weaponized his vast wealth to erode those rights in every corner of the country by supporting anti-rights initiatives and anti-gun politicians. He has waged a war on people who have committed no crimes, harmed nobody and merely wish to be left alone to mind their own business. To protect our guns and 15 round magazines, we need to ban Bloomberg’s billion round checkbook before he assaults our Second Amendment with it.”
“Bloomberg’s confession belies his treatment of American gun owners as second-class citizens,” Gottlieb added. “If anyone deserves an apology, it is the law-abiding firearms owners whose rights Bloomberg has tried to trample while he enjoys the perks of a wealthy lifestyle, including armed security that keeps a healthy distance between the former mayor and the people he treats with such disdain.”
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.