President Joe Biden wants to make gun control one of the central pillars of his campaign. After all, he went into office with that as a pillar. Surely doing it again is a smart idea.
During his time in the White House, he’s most definitely pushed an anti-gun agenda. There’s absolutely no mistake about it and we know that if he gets another four years, it’ll be a term filled with assaults on our Second Amendment rights.
And the selling point for this is the claim that it’ll stop mass shootings.
It won’t.
That’s not just me talking. John Lott, writing over at Real Clear Politics, takes issue with some of the claims that Biden’s gun control policies have helped.
President Biden is making gun control a central part of his reelection campaign. In a new ad, Biden says that Trump did “nothing” when children were “gunned down in classrooms,” innocent people “killed in church,” and others “massacred at a concert.”
The Biden campaign is referring to shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; and an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. In four years, there were 18 mass shootings that occurred in public places and that did not transpire during another crime such as robbery or selling drugs. (A “mass killing” is defined by criminologists as involving four or more fatalities, not counting the shooter.)
But 23 mass public shootings have occurred so far under Biden – a 50% higher annual rate than under Trump. The deadliest shooting resulted in 21 victims at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas – four more than were killed in Parkland.
Besides touting the establishment of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Biden also points to his new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ regulations for background checks on the private transfer of guns. But these additional background checks wouldn’t have prevented any recent mass public shootings. For example, the Uvalde murderer didn’t obtain his gun through a private transfer, and he passed a federal background check. There isn’t one mass shooting in this century that universal background checks would have stopped. But almost no one seems to challenge the Biden campaign’s stance on this issue.
Lott goes on to address Biden’s claiming of credit for a drop in the murder rate this year, noting that none of the measures Biden touts as the reason for his success will show any impact until this year at best and that the homicide rate is still higher than in 2019, the year before everything went to hell.
He’s not the only one taking issue on Biden’s claims about gun control and mass shootings, either.
Over at GB News, podcaster Tim Young spoke on the issue of bump stocks.
Discussing the overturn of the ban, Young told GBN America that the decision by Trump to implement the ban in the first place “was a mistake”, claiming that had there been “another law that had banned bump stocks”, the Supreme Court “wouldn’t have overturned it”.
When asked by host Mark Dolan what the feeling across America is on gun control laws, Young revealed the attitude has been the “same for the last decade”.
Young explained: “No one wants anyone to die. No one appreciates any mass shooting, obviously, unless you’re a crazy person.
“This is an issue that polarises both sides, and it’s an issue – mass shootings affect everyone emotionally. And I don’t believe that there is a policy decision that can affect it, either right or left in our country. And so it’s stayed kind of the same level for years now.”
I’m not sure that the Supreme Court wouldn’t have overturned a legislative bump stock ban, but it would have been a very different ruling. Plus, the majority decision does say that it should have been a legislative thing, so I could well be wrong.
But the underlying issue here is that no, bump stock bans won’t do anything about mass shootings. Las Vegas was a black swan event. It was a combination of a large mass of people, a demented attack with a ton of guns, and an elevated position from which he could shoot down into that crowd. It’s pretty much the epitome of “fish in a barrel,” really.
And while Young doesn’t seem to get into it in this segment, bump stocks only really facilitate bump fire. Not only is that not a machine gun–the crux of the argument–it’s not even the only way to bump fire. Rubber bands and belt loops can also be used, but those aren’t likely to be prohibited.
Take bump stocks out of the equation and some enterprising psychopath can still replicate the horrors of Las Vegas just fine without them.
See, on every level, nothing being pushed or proposed will stop mass shootings. That’s because the issue is that mass shooters are vile, evil people who exist on rage and narcissism. Even if you made guns vanish forever, these individuals–I hesitate to even acknowledge them as people–will just find another way to kill innocent people.
And you’re not going to make guns disappear.
Biden’s push for gun control won’t have any impact on mass shootings, but the media won’t blink at pushing the idea that it will.
