Obama v. Guns: Round 412

"First graders in [Sandy Hook Elementary]. First graders," Obama said, pausing to collect himself. "Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad."

But apparently, he’s not mad enough to actually try to solve the problem. Instead, he seems happy to just use his anger to push a worthless, politicized agenda that will have absolutely no effect on the problem he claims to be angry about. Does that make him a liar or just stupid? Who knows? In any event, Obama's back on guns. Once again, he has turned his lazy, brainless efforts to gun control because he somehow believes that imposing more laws on those who would obey them will somehow prevent crazy people and lawless thugs from misusing guns.

Unfortunately for Obama, (1) life doesn’t work that way, (2) his opponents aren’t going to sit still and let him do something to eliminate their rights in the name of not fixing a problem for which his people are to blame (i.e. news media, Hollywood, the thugs the left coddles and excuses).

Obama was also dishonest in his salesmanship. For example, Obama lumped suicides, domestic violence, gang shootings and accidents together to claim that every year more than 30,000 Americans die from gun shot wounds. That’s hardly an accurate assessment however, as suicide accounts for around 22,000 of those... or 74%. Those people did not hurt anyone else in their actions, and for people who advocate euthanasia, it’s rather hypocritical to count them. About a thousand more are shot by police. That leaves 7,000 people as victims of domestic violence, gang shootings and accidents. Seeing as how there are 2.6 million deaths a year, that means guns account for about 0.2% of unwanted deaths.

He also claimed that mass shootings have taken place as people “tried to exercise other rights, such as attending worship services or watching a movie” (which I didn’t know what a right), and he argued that “the right to bear firearms is not more important than the right to worship freely or peaceably assemble.” This is an intentionally misleading statement. First, these killers are not exercising their “right to bear firearms,” they are completely in violation of the law and they are not making any sort of political statement about guns. This is the equivalent of saying that lynchings are people exercising “their right to free assembly.”

Secondly, all the rights are co-equal. And what he’s suggesting is actually that certain rights have the right to eliminate other rights. This is like saying that it’s acceptable to eliminate the right to religious freedom to ensure that people of certain beliefs can exercise the right without having to hear opposing views. Are we to ban atheists’ first amendment rights to make sure that fundamentalist Christians can meet in peace?

Anyways, having started with two misleading dollops of horse poop, here is what Obama plans. His plan supposedly includes ten provisions, but I only found seven:

(1) Online gun sellers and gun show sellers must be licensed and will need to conduct background checks.

(2) Manufacturers who lose guns in transit must now report those to federal authorities.

(3) Obama plans to send $500 million to treat mental illness.

(4) Obama will hire 230 more people at the FBI to process background checks.

(5) ATFe will establish a new investigation center to track illegal gun trafficking online. This apparently including hiring 200 new ATF agents.

(6) Obama will send $4 million to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.

(7) Obama plans to get unnamed people to explore promoting magical new technologies that don't exist yet to prevent guns from going off accidentally. Maybe something like a cell phone app.

Interestingly, Obama admits that they have no idea how many people are actually buying guns without background checks, so number one is a shot in the dark. Moreover, not a single weapon used in any mass killing has come from such a sale, so it’s a bit like banning the sale of camels in the event someone decides to start using them as getaway vehicles.

Number two is not something that I’m aware of ever happening before. Why would a manufacturer ignore the loss when they can report it to get their insurer to cover the cost and can get the cops to find the guns for them? Number 3 is so unfocused as to be meaningless. “I will cure ill health to prevent NFL concussions!” Hiring more people is a standard response by government types. If it ain’t workin’, get more people to do the same thing! Yeah, that works. Number six sounds like something the police have probably been demanding for some time. And number seven is wishful thinking... “wouldn’t it be great if we had a perfect world? We should make that happen!”

All told, I am not impressed and I can’t imagine anyone left, right, or center will be. Are you?