My post on Facebook tonight...
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:11 pm
.. after I got tired of seeing people talking about no one "needing assault rifles" and such...
I bet that fires up a few folks on Facebook, but I'm in a BS-dispelling mood. This could be fun.Tonight's lesson in obvious facts could be entitled "Insanity" or "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
We'll start with a history lesson. Back in 1994, an assault weapons ban was proposed. Those who studied armed crime said that the data clearly showed that armed crime was almost never committed with rifles of any type, "assault" or otherwise. The reason was obvious, of course. Rifles are big and hard to conceal. They're designed for shooting things from farther away than almost armed crime occurs. They are entirely unsuitable for the task. Not deterred by the facts, those pushing the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 pressed on and got it passed by convincing those who did not know any better that it would do what they said it would. Shockingly (or not), it had no effect on armed crime. With no data to support extending it and no national outcry from the masses to "do something about gun violence", it expired ten year later. Without the ban, and with gun ownership on the rise across the country, armed crime rates have continued to drop.
Now we have another assault weapons ban being proposed. Again, the data shows that it will have no effect on armed crime, for the same reason as in 1994 and proven over the ten years during which the ban was in effect. Again undeterred by actual data, those pushing the new assault weapons ban are claiming that it will reduce armed crime. They rouse the masses and claim to be leading the battle against gun violence, gaining much needed time in the spotlight to further political careers. Like magicians at a summer retreat hoping that some of the audience is new and the rest won't remember the same old tricks from previous years, they stand on their stages and do their best to convince us that their magic tricks are real so they get to keep performing instead of going out and getting a job like the rest of us.
That brings us to title dilemma that I mentioned first. It is often said that insanity is doing the same thing the same way multiple times, yet expecting different results. In this case, an assault weapons ban has proven that it does not produce the promised result, yet we are being told that if we do the same thing again that it will produce those results this time. Unlike in 1994, this time around we don't have the excuse of not yet having tried it to find out if it works. We've been fooled once. If we get fooled again, it's not just those who are trying to fool us for their own political gain who are at fault. This time, we would have to choose to be fooled and are therefore partially at fault for it happening.
So which title is more appropriate for this post, and for the assault weapons ban that we're currently being told will reduce armed crime this time? Both are appropriate here, just as I believe that "insane" and "fool" would both apply to anyone that believes (again) that an assault weapons ban will do anything meaningful to reduce armed crime.
If you have made it this far through this and retain only one thing from all of it, make it this. If someone tells you that an assault weapons ban will reduce armed crime, either he is a fool or he thinks that you are one. If you believe it, it's you.