Watching Fox News Sunday this weekend Chris Wallace had two Senators on the show (Pro-gun Ayotte and anti-gun Blumenthal).
I hear this ALL the time, and it drives me crazy. Chris Wallace raised the topic in a manner that basically put the argument in the context of "Can we get these safety measures past the gun lobby's friends in congress"?
We know their narrative is "more guns = more crime so we need to reduce the number of guns".
My problem is that Senator Ayotte's response came across as evasive on gun control. She said something about people's rights, and changed the subject to mental health. Don't get me wrong, discussing mental health is valid, and so are our rights. The issue is that she didn't make any attempt to challenge the flawed assumption.
I'm in favor of gun rights, and for me it's easy to find pro-gun editorials, studies, youtube vids, etc... But most people don't go looking for that info to make an intelligence decision.
Imagine the power of one of our national leaders (preferably a knowledgeable pro-gun Democrat) standing up and saying:
"Listen, folks are telling you the country is awash in assault weapons, they're flying off the shelves in stores across the country and something must be done for the public safety. It is simply NOT TRUE. They want an easy answer by telling you that an AWB will solve a large problem so they can claim to have done something. I challenge my [insert interviewer, or debate opponent here] to look at this FBI crime data, and then look the public in the eye and state how an AWB will have any impact on crime!
In the absence of any statistically measurable impact on crime, can they look you in they eye and tell you that a madman with 15-20 minutes in a classroom full of helpless victims would be able to kill fewer people with any regular firearm, than with an AR15?
The key factor to keeping folks safe is keeping the killer out, and if they get in, having someone with the tools to take action against them as quickly as possible.
Hysterics and rhetoric aside, using their logic we should be discussing banning hands, feet, and hammers rather than assault weapons. Let's talk about solutions that may do some good rather than encouraging a witch hunt by blaming millions of responsible gun owners for the acts of violent criminals"
I just feel like many of our spokespeople accept the narrative and rebut by saying "We shouldn't sacrifice freedom for safety". Which says to the layman that they would be safer without semi-automatic rifles and standard mags which is demonstrably not true.
I hear this ALL the time, and it drives me crazy. Chris Wallace raised the topic in a manner that basically put the argument in the context of "Can we get these safety measures past the gun lobby's friends in congress"?
We know their narrative is "more guns = more crime so we need to reduce the number of guns".
My problem is that Senator Ayotte's response came across as evasive on gun control. She said something about people's rights, and changed the subject to mental health. Don't get me wrong, discussing mental health is valid, and so are our rights. The issue is that she didn't make any attempt to challenge the flawed assumption.
I'm in favor of gun rights, and for me it's easy to find pro-gun editorials, studies, youtube vids, etc... But most people don't go looking for that info to make an intelligence decision.
Imagine the power of one of our national leaders (preferably a knowledgeable pro-gun Democrat) standing up and saying:
"Listen, folks are telling you the country is awash in assault weapons, they're flying off the shelves in stores across the country and something must be done for the public safety. It is simply NOT TRUE. They want an easy answer by telling you that an AWB will solve a large problem so they can claim to have done something. I challenge my [insert interviewer, or debate opponent here] to look at this FBI crime data, and then look the public in the eye and state how an AWB will have any impact on crime!
In the absence of any statistically measurable impact on crime, can they look you in they eye and tell you that a madman with 15-20 minutes in a classroom full of helpless victims would be able to kill fewer people with any regular firearm, than with an AR15?
The key factor to keeping folks safe is keeping the killer out, and if they get in, having someone with the tools to take action against them as quickly as possible.
Hysterics and rhetoric aside, using their logic we should be discussing banning hands, feet, and hammers rather than assault weapons. Let's talk about solutions that may do some good rather than encouraging a witch hunt by blaming millions of responsible gun owners for the acts of violent criminals"
I just feel like many of our spokespeople accept the narrative and rebut by saying "We shouldn't sacrifice freedom for safety". Which says to the layman that they would be safer without semi-automatic rifles and standard mags which is demonstrably not true.
