Shazam! It’s almost as if Americans are rational actors, responding to the threat of potentially higher costs, increased regulatory hurdles and more scarcity by stocking up on a given item. That’s USA Today’s Kevin Johnson’s incredulous takeaway from the news that August NICS checks were the highest since the system was created. The NSSF’s Larry Keane attempts to explain this mysterious phenomenon for the economically challenged: “Whenever there is a call for gun control, sales increase.” Eloquent in its brevity, no? You’d think that someone in the Obama administration could have explained this effect to the President’s admirers at the McPaper . . .
The good news is, Mr. and Mrs. Gun Owner, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
“We’re not at all threatening any one’s ability to get a gun,” (Virginia Delegate Patrick) Hope said. “What we’re talking about here is common sense legislation. I don’t think any one is threatened by background checks.”
I know I feel reassured. Then again, I live in Texas.
The man named Hope has obviously put dozens of minutes of thought and reflection into his next move in the wake of the televised Roanoke shooting. Yet shockingly, there’s no Change involved at all.
“I chose background checks, not because it would have prevented (the Virginia shooting) but because this would be easiest to pass,” Hope said. “We will not be able to prevent every single incident. We need to do something.”
So an “assault weapons” ban or perhaps a magazine capacity limit would have been peachy, but Hope knows they’re political non-starters. And coming out for a proposal like that might have hurt his reelection prospects. Better to practice the art of the possible (getting something done) and then move on from there.
One more time (with feeling): “injustice collector” Vester Flanagan bought his pistol legally. He completed an ATF from 4473 and was cleared by our regulatory overseers. So expanded background checks would have done diddly to prevent his narcissistic, ballistic cri de coeur. And unlike the bogus benefits of anything Delegate Hope would like to see enacted, gun owners’ (certainly those in the Old Dominion) concerns about their continued ability to keep and bear the arms of their choice aren’t illusory at all.
Keane said the gun purchases prompted by calls for new restrictions are “certainly legitimate to the person exercising their fundamental civil liberties protected by the Second Amendment.”
“The concern that anti-gun politicians are seeking to infringe and restrict the right to keep and bear arms is very real and well-founded,” he said.
Wait! It wouldn’t be a proper mainstream media article about firearms if we didn’t see what the Brady Campaign thinks of August’s gun sales blowout.
“When gun sales rise, more and more weapons find a set of dangerous hands to call home,” (Dan) Gross said. “There are people in this country, people like felons, fugitives, and domestic abusers who we all agree simply should not have guns.”
The part of Gross’s quote mentioning that felons, fugitives and domestic abusers are precisely the people least likely to be deterred by more background checks must have gotten left on the cutting room floor. If only USA Today had another column inch to devote to the story.