Guns: Bad Journalism and Bad Politics

Are you opposed to “common sense” gun laws? These are what liberals like Hillary Clinton are always proclaiming their support for. In their telling, expanding background checks, closing the “gun show loophole,” and restricting Internet sales will, in the words of liberal columnist E.J. Dionne, “(limit) the carnage on our streets, in our schools and houses of worship, and at our movie theaters.” That’s not an argument — it’s moral grandstanding, and not a word of it holds up under scrutiny.

As someone who doesn’t love guns, and who believes that the Second Amendment does not forbid all regulation of gun ownership, I am open to the idea of gun control. The facts, though, are stubborn things. We’ve always had plentiful guns in this country, but we haven’t always had the frequency of random, mass shootings in public places that have so disturbed us over the past couple of decades.

As many critics, including the fact checker at the Washington Post, have observed, President Obama’s suggestion that “A violent felon can buy the exact same weapon over the Internet with no background check, no questions asked” is rubbish. “A gun dealer must comply with federal laws that require gun sellers to have licenses and perform background checks … without regard for whether the sale is arranged on the Internet or in person,” quoth The Washington Post.

None of the reforms proposed by President Obama would have prevented the awful mass shootings in Newtown or Roseburg or Aurora or San Bernardino. As the AP showed, the killers in those cases legally purchased their weapons and passed background checks; or used straw purchasers (already illegal); or used weapons owned by family members. The Charleston killer should not have passed the background check (he had a drug arrest on his record), but government bungling allowed the purchase to proceed.

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