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Dennis Henigan (courtesy extra.globo.com)

Dennis Henigan (above) used to be the guy at The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence — before Michael Bloomberg threw down $50m to assume the mantle of Civilian Disarmament Czar and propel the oddly named Everytown for Gun Safety into the gun control spotlight. Mr. Henigan is now the Director of Legal and Policy Analysis at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. You could say he’s lowered his sights, but then…gun metaphor. Anyway, Henigan was sitting around in his orange shirt (not in jail) celebrating National Gun Violence Awareness Day and decided to throw down a hoary old chestnut at huffingtonpost.com: guns make killing too easy! And away we go . . .

Yada yada yada recent firearms-related deaths (paraphrasing). The scenarios were varied, but the terrifying descriptions point to a conclusion common to all: if no guns were available, violence may have ensued, but countless lives would have been saved and serious injuries avoided.

No guns available! Why, that sounds like civilian disarmament! I thought the Bradys et al. support the Second Amendment — aside from the fact that they don’t. I guess time away from the Brady Campaign has emboldened Mr. Henigan.

Typically, the violence was sparked by the most banal of offenses, like one person shoving another in a bar, or a Facebook taunt, or a disagreement over the music at a house party. They occurred mostly outdoors, at virtually any place groups of people gather; at neighborhood barbecues, family reunions, music festivals, basketball tournaments, Sweet 16 parties, public parks. Only about one-third were gang-related or were drive-by shootings typical of gang violence. Even those that were gang-related were prompted, not by criminal activity like drug dealing, but by eruptions begun by a boast, an insult or some other sign of disrespect. Take the guns out of the picture, even if the combatants had been armed with other weapons, like knives or baseball bats, there is no doubt countless lives would have been spared.

Only a third of recent firearms-related injuries and deaths were gang-related? Gang-related ballistic beefs have nothing to do with drug dealing? It’s just playing the dozens gone homicidal? It would be nice to see some sort of evidence for these assertions. Not surprisingly, the only citation Mr. Henigan recognizes is Mr. Bloomberg’s private jet. And I bet he’s really jealous.

And while we can argue about the gun-free parallel universe of Mr. Henigan’s imagination, that’s not the world we live in. And a good thing too, given that there may be as many as a million defensive gun uses per year in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. [Note to Mr. Henigan: that’s how you link.] Speaking of opinions masquerading as facts . . .

The National Rifle Association and its allies will insist that no laws will prevent dangerous people from getting guns, invoking the bumper sticker slogan that “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Yet we know that every gun used in those multiple shootings started out in the legal gun market and that even modest regulation of the legal market can help to deny violent individuals access to guns.

And we know that “modest gun control regulation” has an inhibitory effect on firearms-related crime because…we don’t. I’ve got one word for that theory: Chicago. You know, the city with some of the nation’s toughest — sorry, a lot of “modest” gun control laws. The same city on its way to record firearms-related injuries and deaths.

And now a word from Mr. Henigan’s sponsor. Himself.

As I argue in my forthcoming bookGuns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People and Other Myths About Guns and Gun Control (Beacon Press, publication date August, 2016), when the Brady Law background checks began in 1994, there was an immediate and substantial drop in the percentage of violent crimes that involved guns, inaugurating a long-term decline in gun crimes and homicides.

Oh now he figured out how to link. And claim credit where credit’s not due. But all credit to Mr. Henigan for crafting a by-the-numbers anti-gun diatribe that bears no resemblance to reality.

We simply cannot afford to continue to allow the simple-minded slogans of the gun lobby to dictate national gun policy.

Yes. Yes we can. In fact, thanks to the Second Amendment Mr. Henigan and The Huffington Post can afford to publish sheer nonsense dressed-up as rational thinking. You’re welcome.

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60 COMMENTS

  1. Take guns out of the picture and we would all be serfs (unless we could train for 10 years and become an English bowman)

  2. Guns make killing easier… okay yeah that’s a feature not a bug. If we go back to strength based weapons then the physically strong rule over the weak and frail, as they have since the dawn of time. The gun is the only thing that can prevent mob rule or allow an average woman a reasonable defense against an average man. We really need to push this point harder.

    • I am reminded of all the old American westerns where a single brave sheriff with a double-barrel shotgun and a Colt .45 backs down a vigilante lynch mob to ensure his prisoner gets a fair trial.

      Seems like people back then understood the value of “guns make killing easier”.

    • Personally, I’d rather deal with a gun shot than a broadsword, battle axe, or arrow wound…

    • This! You dont need a damn thing to kill anybody. Reminds me of george carlin talking about airport security and letting guys with big hands onto airplanes.

  3. Ooh there’s a thought. Facebook taunts result in homicides, eh? I wonder how many violent acts/murders one could attribute to facebook. I have a sinking feeling that number would wreck their often parroted “gun death” statistic. Ban Facebook!

  4. The logic breaks down because the Brady Bill didn’t reduce the number of guns in the least. During the same span that gun crimes and homicides has been plummeting, gun ownership has been soaring. Less and less violence; more and more guns available. That’s the exact opposite of Henigen’s thesis.

    • The Brady Bill was never expected to reduce “gun violence” by anyone with any understanding of what it did. The antis knew this as much as you and I, they just pretended it would. But you can keep your doctor and you can keep your health care plan; just another leftie lie.

  5. Yeah, Your right, guns don’t kill people.

    People with guns kill people.

    All “bad guys” started out as good guys.

    I like how your perpetrating the “DGU” that claims legal citizens stop crime which is nothing but a debunked MYTH!

    Illegal guns or not, They came from a legal manufacture.

    I’m surprised how the author doesn’t mention how the NRA was responsible for providing weapons to the charlie hebdo and paris attackers.

    I don’t see europe turning into a police state.
    I don’t see the people of Australia being taken off to death camps.
    I don’t see japan turning into a Orwellian nightmare.

    Pro-gun states have higher violent crime and suicide rates than strict gun control states.

    Pro gun states are even known to fudge their crime stats to make as if everything is ok when it’s really not.

    The only reason “gun crime” happens in NY, CA, IL, NH, NJ, DC is because guns have been coming from states with lax laws when said lax law states have the violent crime and suicide rates of a 3rd world heck-hole.

    This is nothing but recycled tinfoil hat brigade garbage that the gun lobby as usually likes to spread to it’s brainwashed sheep.

    • THANKS, Debuking! (Did you mis-spell ‘debunking’?)
      I’m gonna pop some popcorn, or maybe wait until this evening, when I’ve got Jack and ice. Then I’ll relax, come back, and enjoy the verbal and logical beating you are so clearly seeking!

    • Why waste your time Debuking (Or Debunk)

      I’ve destroyed these idiot’s comments and beliefs all the time and they continue to run their mental gymnastics.

      I laugh at every-time they post every bull-crap statistic, study or claim which in turn was heavily discredited and debunked.

      These people are nothing but paranoid cranks fearful of a imaginary threat when they’re too moronic too realize they’re the threat themselves.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if they deleted any opposing links or censor comments that debunk their bullshit like they always do in some crappy attempt to make it look like were in the wrong.

        • I support just about everything i read here except when people resort to medical bigotry..retardation is an involuntary medical condition.
          Lets stop?
          Your better than that.
          I’m all good with well thought out wit and sarcasm……i have family with certain medical conditions.
          I find it difficult to respect misuse of this term, for me it hits home.

      • Umm, I’m pretty sure comments tend to be disabled on the anti-firearm group pages and videos, not here. Here you’re entitled to your opinion, no matter how close-minded or stubborn it is.

        • Or how much paste he/she might have eaten to be able to perform such contortions of logic.

      • Leave some links for your and ‘Debuking_the_lies’ clams and we all will know if you’re telling the truth.

        I would be happy to read them, I am being sincere.

    • AS someone who travels a lot for work and I am frequent visitor of there regions you listed, let me answer since you have no clue

      >> I don’t see europe turning into a police state.
      Europe pretty much is a police state. Go there now for the Euro-cup and you will see how much a police state it is. London has more cameras then any place on earth. The UK even bans people from taking pictures of public buildings. Dissenting speech on US campuses is bad, but in parts of Europe and much of south America, it is pretty much outlawed. IN Europe, right now in Brussels there is a bill going through to research what it would take to put a micro-chip on everyone’s arm and without that chip you cannot get any public services nor even be allowed to travel. No, that will never happen — Estonia, in Europe already has that requirement and the EU wants to see what it would take to put into the rest of Europe. Sounds like a damn police state to me.

      >> I don’t see the people of Australia being taken off to death camps.
      Australia never had death camps, but look up the rate of assaults and rape in Australia. Here is the headline from 2014 from Australia and it has only become worse “Australia’s sexual assault shame: One in six women a victim, putting Australia way above world average” Google it and learn something. The criminals are embolden and while you do your research, see how many criminals are using guns. No, no death camps but the once prison colony has criminals running rampant

      >> I don’t see japan turning into a Orwellian nightmare.
      The Japanese trust zero outsiders. They have zero immigration and are not open to any. In less than 10 years, they will have a negative birthrate. Everyone in Japan is a clone. Order determined by the government is what they have. They may have zero guns but that has not stopped suicide. I am told that if all the guns go away, so does suicide. Hmm, let see Japan. “Suicide in Japan has become a significant national social issue.[1][2] In 2014 on average 70 Japanese people committed suicide every day, and the vast majority were men.[3] Japan has a relatively high suicide rate, but the number of suicides is declining and has been under 30,000 for three consecutive years.[4] Seventy-one percent of suicides in Japan were male,[2] and it is the leading cause of death in men aged 20–44.[5][6]” Oh, about Orwell — See the article “Japan’s 10 most intractable problems ” It might as well be 1984

      Next time, try facts versus emotions especially if you want to argue here.

    • You know what?

      Even if everything you write is correct… I don’t care.

      The law says I can own a gun, so I choose to do so. Don’t like it? Bite me. Work to get the law changed if you don’t like it. Until then, I don’t give a flying fig what you believe.

    • “I’m surprised how the author doesn’t mention how the NRA was responsible for providing weapons to the charlie hebdo and paris attackers.”

      Uh, what? Either this is some serious Illuminati-level conspiracy I haven’t yet heard about, or you’ve just gone full tin-foil-hat here. Considering the rest of your diatribe, I’d guess the latter, but hey, I’m an openminded man.

      • I’ve seen this claim elsewhere on the internet.

        Near as I can tell it has to do with the fact that one of the guns found in the Paris concert shooting was linked to a US gun dealer. Basically it was a Charter Arms PAP M92 made in Serbia and legally imported to the US and sold to a dealer in Florida in 2013. After that, at some point the gun disappeared and then, years later, resurfaced in Paris in the hands of ISIS terrorists. The dealer is someone known to be a big supporter of the NRA.

        Somehow this story, in the heads of mentally unbalanced Leftards has become “the NRA supplied the weapons for the attacks in Paris” which contains both unsubstantiated allegations and at least one outright falsehood which is pretty impressive for a 10 word sentence.

        I suspect it all started here:
        http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gun-paris-terror-attack-linked-florida-dealer-article-1.2462573

    • We all know you antis hang out here puking up your BS. What are you trying to prove, that you can paste the exact same comment into a world record number of posts? What is the record BTW? I’ve seen this exact same comment at least 2 dozen times (so far)…

    • Must be difficult to get out of your safe space and venture out to a very pro Second Amendment and very pro personal responsibility corner or the Internet. I do hope you learn that violence is human condition perpetrated by humans with low respect for life. Suicides will occur whether a building, bridge train, rope or firearm is the method. I get it the whole “worried about meeting a violent human” though and there are two way to deal with that. Cower and piss yourself or defend yourself. Chose wisely.

    • “I don’t see europe [sic] turning into a police state.”

      Then apparently you’re not paying attention. In the UK people have been arrested for going to Trafalgar Square and reading Churchill quotes in public.

      Perhaps you also missed the stories about people being arrested for “hate speech” based on things they’ve posted on social media merely suggesting that a country like Germany shouldn’t take in more immigrants.

      Perhaps you missed the story where Merkel enlisted the help of Zuckerberg and Facebook to “crack down on hate speech” which she apparently defines as anything she doesn’t like.

      Perhaps you missed the story about a German citizen who’s currently standing trial for saying some disparaging things about Mr. Erdoğan over in Turkey?

  6. Yeah, we know! Remember reading about the “Louisville Massacre” at the NRA National Convention last month? Neither do I!

    • I actually saw maps and crime stats for a 20 square block area around the convention center for several weeks before, during and after. Seems crime in the area dropped to record low numbers for that weekend. Maybe the thugs did not like the odds of finding an armed “victim”.

  7. Someday someone is going to invent the ray gun. Suddenly you will be able to own all the machine guns you want just like bows and swords. But ray guns must be banned for the children! *Sigh*

  8. Guns make killing easier? Never been hunting with me. Went coyote hunting a couple weeks ago and got a yote. With my 4runner.

    By my count that toyota has 2 doves, a quail and a yote to its credit. Murderous fucking machine.

    • Huh. You’re right. My pick up has a higher kill count than all my hunting rifles and shotguns combined. Wow. I need to hunt more…

    • Interesting point. I’ve been driving trucks for 14+ years and to date have a score of 9 birds of all types, a wild turkey, a rabbit and a feral pig. Never had to draw my pistol.

      So far no bad guys, or innocent civilians, but I did help a Utah Highway Patrol car force a fleeing vehicle onto an off ramp once. Never had to draw my pistol.

    • I got a small bear and zebra at the same time last fall…

      To be fair, it could’ve been trick-or-treaters. Don’t know; didn’t stop to find out.

  9. If only America would adopt strict firearms laws like in Europe, then you’d never see incidents like this:

    “BRITAIN-BOUND migrants in Calais are becoming increasingly armed and dangerous, French police warned today, as more than a dozen were treated at local hospitals for gun wounds.”

    “They issued the dire warning after a dozen migrants had to be treated for bullet wounds following a mass brawl between 200 Sudanese and African migrants, during which witnesses reported hearing repeated gunshots.”

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/676783/Calais-migrants-armed-dangerous-gun-bullets-wounds-police-France

    What terror! What horror! If only they had laws like Fra…

    oh.

  10. “Not surprisingly, the only citation Mr. Henigan recognizes is Mr. Bloomberg’s private jet. And I bet he’s really jealous”
    Beauty of a joke, but Bloomy wouldn’t be caught dead in a Citation. Out of his fleet of jets his personal choice is said to be( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3419714/The-36-BILLION-candidate-edges-closer-Michael-Bloomberg-money-houses-planes-fewer-ex-wives-Donald-Trump-votes.html ) a Dassault Falcon 900 jet which costs him $24 million each to buy and $6 million a year to run. By way of contrast the Cessna is the bottom of the jet barrel, ‘only’ a couple million a pop. 🙂

    • A Dassault 900? How plebian. At bare minimum, anyone with means flies and Gulftstream G650 ($65MM if I recall). Or is at least on the waiting list. Especially If they prefer a low profile ride and like the takeoff/landing flexibility of a small aircraft and not say, a 737/747. Some would consider a customized 747 a bit showy…

      • Not Bill Bixby. It was the built in garage ramp in the back of his 747, with the white corvette that was the showy part!

        • Egads, the horrid cheesy awfulness that was a ‘Vette, back in the days of the Countach when one had taste.

  11. Well, OF COURSE guns make killing easy in Mr. Henigan’s mind. He simply can’t acknowledge the reality that 99.9999% of all gun owners, legal or otherwise, never discharge their weapons in anger, because they’re human beings with a little thing called a conscience. It’s a hard heart that pulls the trigger that kills. Who’d a thunk it?

    Tom

  12. Men shooting anything bigger than 9mm out of a pistol are just compensating for lack of sexual prowess. Sigmund Floyd said that on his best album, “The Dark Side of the Id.”

  13. How is it Mr. Henigan lands these really cool jobs? I’m curious to know what being a gun control advocate has in common with tobacco free kids. I wonder if the money from his pay checks come from the same account?

  14. Where ifs and buts are fruits and nuts this guy will never starve.

    If I had wheels I’d be a wagon.
    If my sister were a boy he’d be my brother.
    If if wasn’t a thing unprovable hypothetical prognostication would be rare.

  15. What that fool wants is a world ruled by large, strong men armed with edged weapons and clubs.

    I believe we tried that.

    It was called “the Dark Ages”…

    • No, what he wants is a world where he and his buddies have armed security and can do as they damn well please while the rest of us grovel at their feet.

  16. Maybe his book will be made into a fiction movie, Katie Couric and crew willmbe available if not in JAIL!!!

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