The Moms Demand Action crowd keep demanding the same thing every time there’s an incident with a firearm that gains national attention: more restrictions on gun ownership. They don’t even bother to investigate whether their proposed action would have any impact on the tragedy they’re exploiting. They just assume that making it harder for Americans to own guns is the panacea that will solve the “gun violence epidemic” that they say is the biggest problem facing the country. There’s just one small issue: in this case, the shooter was a completely normal American with no criminal history or mental health issues . . .
From their Facebook page:
WHEN WILL AMERICA ACT? It’s not too soon to talk about gun violence after today’s shooting in Maryland – it’s too late. School shootings, theater shootings, mall shootings, mass shootings, random shootings… Today, three people are dead and one injured by a gunman with a shotgun at a mall in Columbia, Maryland.
One mall shopper said: ‘‘I truly never thought something like this would ever happen here. It’s really, really shocking.’’
Sadly, it’s happening in everywhere, in every town. Easy, unregulated access to guns means more shootings and more death. This will only change when we collectively demand it.
“Easy, unregulated access to guns” doesn’t exactly describe the situation on the ground in Maryland. The state has enacted some of the most restrictive gun control measures in the United States despite massive opposition from its own citizens. Oh, and that’s on top of the existing “assault weapon” ban and “enhanced” background checks through the State Police. It’s like Martin O’Malley and the legislature took the Moms’ talking points and used them as a checklist for how to restrict their constituents’ rights.
But even after enacting everything on MDA’s hit parade, it still didn’t stop this weekend’s incident. Why? Because the suspect in question didn’t raise a single red flag.
From the Associated Press:
The gunman who killed two people at a Maryland mall was a teenage skateboarding enthusiast who had no criminal record before he showed up at the shopping center armed with a shotgun, plenty of ammunition and a backpack filled with crude homemade explosives, authorities said Sunday.
Since the suspect didn’t send up any of the usual warning signals, that leaves us with two ways to explain the nonsensical statement from MDA about the shooting.
Explanation #1: Moms Demand Action believe that any access to firearms whatsoever is “too easy.” They don’t just want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, they want to keep guns out of the hands of as many people as possible. That means restricting firearms ownership to only the police and a handful of “trusted” (read: connected, rich, white, powerful) individuals, as evidenced by their desire for requirements like firearms insurance, “universal” background checks, and other schemes to make firearms ownership more onerous. It’s the typical nanny-state approach, believing that the object is the problem and that the poor and the minorities are too dumb for their own good.
Explanation #2: They’re delusional and don’t care about the facts. No matter that the mall was a “gun free” zone, or that background checks and waiting periods didn’t stop the shooter. Or that murder is already highly illegal. Any shooting in any context is obviously the result of “lax” gun laws. They truly believe that adding one more piece of paper to the pile of laws Darian Marcus Aguilar broke will finally put an end to the “gun violence epidemic.”
The truth is that nothing that the MDA crowd have demanded would do a single thing to stop the next shooting. No matter how many background checks you put in place, or how many “no guns allowed” signs you post, there will always be evil people in the world who will ignore all of the rules. But there is one possible solution to the problem that hasn’t been tried yet. It was proposed by the head of Interpol following the Kenya mall attack.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said today the U.S. and the rest of the democratic world is at a security crossroads in the wake of last month’s deadly al-Shabab attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya – and suggested an answer could be in arming civilians.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Noble said there are really only two choices for protecting open societies from attacks like the one on Westgate mall where so-called “soft targets” are hit: either create secure perimeters around the locations or allow civilians to carry their own guns to protect themselves.
“Societies have to think about how they’re going to approach the problem,” Noble said. “One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.”
If we can save just one life, wouldn’t arming citizens be worth it?