Missing the Point

Those saying things like, “Gun makers are holding the country hostage” are missing the point, entirely. The danger from guns does not come from guns legally sold, over the counter, at a gun store, as a general rule. The danger comes from people who buy their guns ILLEGALLY in a back alley somewhere, or just steal them. What that means is that sellers of LEGAL guns rarely sell guns to those who shouldn’t be allowed near a gun—unless somebody screws up, as somebody did in Canada recently, when a convicted felon passed a background test and bought the gun LEGALLY, that he used to kill a few people. The point is, for the most part, legal gun owners or sellers are NOT he problem, and nothing is being done to stem the sale of guns ILLEGALLY, or their theft of potential shooters. All these laws do is make the law-abiding into “easy targets” for those who just IGNORE laws they don’t like. There has been not a single law passed that will do anything about this, and none are on the table for future passage. Every anti-gun law now on the books ONLY applies to the law-abiding, who are not, as a rule, the problem. And laws that MIGHT work, such as the ones mandating longer prison sentences for using a gun in a crime are routinely dropped, after using them as “leverage” to get convictions in other crimes—which, to me, is just lazy police work. There are other ways to get convictions. (New Statesman)