After the recent mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and California, the media, Democrats and the leftist cabal in Hollywood went on their usual rants of demanding something be done. the knee-jerk responses to any shooting came as expected, with all the usual suspects putting out their same-old press releases, tweets, and editorials. All they need do is change the date on them.
It’s hard to take them seriously when gun-grabbers continually demand that “something be done” but never say what the ‘something’ is. They never get specific because they don’t have a clue what to do. It’s always interesting to me that lefties continually blame the availability of guns for mass shootings, but never want to discuss the decay of society that has fostered an environment friendly to those bent on mass murder. They never want to discuss the decay because their leftist ideals and programs are responsible for it.
So they blame the guns and demand “something be done.” More gun laws? The ones we have aren’t working so why would more gun laws do anything? Some of the mass shootings in recent memory involved shooters who obtained their weapons illegally. Sure, more gun laws would have worked. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that people follow the already-existing gun laws. That should solve the problem!
Universal background checks are frequently mentioned but would solve nothing. Since 2000, all the mass shooters obtained their guns without a private transfer. Universal background checks would not have prevented even one mass shooting.
The mythical gun show loophole is also a usual scapegoat, in spite of the fact that not even one mass shooter obtained his weapon at a gun show. I’m not sure if gun-grabbers screaming about the fictional gun show loophole are just ignorant of the facts or if they know their claim is bogus but make it anyway in the hopes that uninformed people who listen to them will believe it. The truth is that there is no law exempting a purchase at a gun show from the laws normally applied to a gun sale. Dealers with federal firearms licenses are required to do a background check to complete the sale, whether they sell you the gun at a gun show, in a retail store or out of the trunk of their car in a vacant parking lot.
Even the New York Times admits that the majority of guns used in recent shootings were purchased legally and with a federal background check. What law would the left propose that would have prevented these shootings? I know, I know. Something. Must. Be. Done.
But what?
Allow me to introduce you to that rarest of creatures – an honest liberal. David Scharfenberg of The Boston Globe has penned a column appropriately titled Hand Over Your Weapons in which he attempts to make the case for mandatory gun confiscation. His main argument is that gun confiscation was done in Australia after a mass shooting, so of course, we should do it here.
After a 1996 mass shooting that killed thirty-five people in Tasmania, the Australian government led by Prime Minister John Howard responded.
It took just 12 days for conservative Prime Minister John Howard to announce a full slate of gun restrictions in a nation with a long tradition of frontier firearms. There was a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons and shotguns, an extensive registration system, and a 28-day waiting period between getting a permit and buying a gun.
But the centerpiece was the mandatory buyback, with a temporary tax financing the multimillion-dollar purchase of hundreds of thousands of weapons deemed illegal under the new law.
Some feared resistance. Howard, at one point, wore a bulletproof vest during a speech to a group of gun rights supporters. But the buyback went forward peacefully, and it claimed an estimated one-fifth of Australia’s gun stock – one of the largest gun confiscations in modern history.
The seizure and the other gun control measures seem to have had a significant effect. Since passage of the law, the country hasn’t had a single mass shooting – defined as a killing of five or more people, not including the gunman.
What Scharfenberg doesn’t mention is that in the decades before 1996 there were no other mass shootings in Australia, so it should not be surprising that there have been no others since. There were several spree killings and rampage killings when men killed their entire families, but no other mass shootings such as the one in Tasmania. But let’s not let facts get in the way of a narrative that mandatory confiscation of guns worked.
And even some in Australia don’t believe the confiscation had any effect on gun violence.
National Review – University of Melbourne researchers Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi concluded their 2008 report on the matter with the statement, “There is little evidence to suggest that [the Australian mandatory gun-buyback program] had any significant effects on firearm homicides.”
“Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears,” the reported continued, “the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.”
A 2007 report, “Gun Laws and Sudden Death: Did the Australian Firearms Legislation of 1996 Make a Difference?” by Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran similarly concluded that the buyback program did not have a significant long-term effect on the Australian homicide rate.
The Australian gun-homicide rate had already been quite low and had been steadily falling in the 15 years prior to the Port Arthur massacre. And while the mandatory buyback program did appear to reduce the rate of accidental firearm deaths, Baker and McPhedran found that “the gun buy-back and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia.”
When Australians can’t even agree about the success or failure of their own confiscation program, it isn’t recommended to endorse this program as the solution to mass shootings here in the United States. And that isn’t even taking into consideration what the response from the populace would be, should a government-mandated confiscation occur here.
After the Sandy Hook shooting, the state governments in New York and Connecticut both imposed new regulations on guns, among which were requiring the registration of ‘assault’ rifles. Hundreds of thousands of gun owners in both states refused to register their weapons, automatically making them lawbreakers. And this is in two of the most liberal states in the country. What do you think the response would be to mandatory registration in states like Oklahoma or Texas?
And that is just registration; not confiscation. Mandatory gun confiscation in the United States would be extremely bloody. Thousands of armed federal agents would be in protracted gun battles all over the country as people refuse to give up their guns. Any proposal that the U.S. adopt the ‘Australian solution’ to mass shootings is advocating for armed rebellion, and the left knows this.
I also find it very curious that many on the left label the police as “Nazis” and think President Trump is running a fascist administration. And yet, with gun confiscation, would it not be these “Nazis” and “fascists” who are the only ones with guns? Where is the sense in that?
Scharfenberg ignores all this while admitting that confiscating guns in the U.S. is extremist.
Ultimately, if gun-control advocates really want to stanch the blood, there’s no way around it: They’ll have to persuade more people of the need to confiscate millions of those firearms, as radical as that idea may now seem.
Meanwhile, back here on planet Earth, there will never be gun confiscation in the United States and the gun-grabbers know it. The only reason they propose it is because they are devoid of any other solution and they think shouting “Australia!” sounds better than “do something!”
If they really want to do something constructive they’d help ensure that more of the populace becomes armed. One of the things most mass shootings have in common is they all occur in gun-free zones. For some reason, evil men set on mass murder don’t want to start shooting in a place where it’s possible they might get some return fire.
While it might sound counterproductive to suggest that more people should be armed, it isn’t meant to be a solution to stop mass shootings, but a way for people to defend themselves when the next one happens. And the next one will happen. And the next. And the next. And so on.
It’s the society we live in now that such occurrences are expected and we have sunk too far down as a society to be able to stop the wicked from perpetrating their evil deeds. Demanding more gun control laws doesn’t work. Demanding laws to prevent things that are already illegal doesn’t work. Promoting confiscation doesn’t work. And the left knows all of this.
The only solution to mass shootings, if one could call it a solution, is to hope that when the next one starts there is someone there with a gun who can end the carnage. The shooting at the church in Sutherland Springs could have been much worse, were it not for an NRA instructor with a gun who stepped in to confront the shooter.
Leftist, gun-grabbers like David Scharfenberg think they’re helping when they push for mandatory gun confiscation. It’s their best idea. In reality, it’s a horrible idea that would never work, would result in much bloodshed, and would have no effect on mass shootings. But, we must do something! If you want to do something constructive, start carrying a concealed weapon.
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