The Ghouls of Gun Control

A response to an Editorial by Eric Grunder, Stockton Record, 12/13/15


A literary pal of mine* once said, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." Welcome to the hyperventilating world of Eric Grunder! I don't know if he's gullible by nature, but if I met him, I might try to trade a handful of "magic beans" for his BMW!

I wonder if Mr. Grunder is possible of rendering a statistic from a first hand source, and then citing it? He cites a statistic "reported by" the BBC, but where did it come from? We saw Mike Fitzgerald** pontificate on gun control a few weeks back on a discredited study that was fifteen years old. Even though our own CDC spent $10 million dollars to study the problem right after Sandy Hook, but actual, provable statistics don't seem to favor the Ghouls of Gun Control. And then, he cites Vox.com! I see them mocked on an almost daily basis for the mind-numbingly stupid and erroneous things they say. Getting your facts from Vox.com is like getting survival tips from Gilligan's Island.

I haven't seen all the data, but according to that Uber Right-wing*** source "Mother Jones" last December, contrary to Eric Grunder, they were saying that automobile deaths were greater than firearms deaths. Go figure!

But let's do something the Ghouls of Gun Control don't like to do: break down what constitutes a "gun death". Let's do so, so that we can focus on the preventable gun deaths of innocents. Let's look at one of the "gun deaths" of 2013. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had just detonated bombs that killed and maimed men, women and children. Afterwards, he got into a shootout with police who killed him. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was named by a gun control group as a "victim of gun violence". Is there any "common sense" gun law that would have prevented this death? According to the FBI, in 2013, 461 felons were shot by law enforcement. Another 281 felons were shot by citizens. That's 742 justifiable homicides the Left uses to exaggerate their statistics. Tsarnaev was only one of them.

Suicide is a tragedy. The study cited by Mother Jones noted that there were more suicides by gun than homicides. This too may be part of the larger mental health problem we are having in this country, but is there any evidence at all that a suicidal person, denied access to a gun, will not still attempt to kill themselves? Is there a "common sense" gun law that will prevent this? If so, I'd like to hear it. Many countries with very few firearms, and many restrictions upon them, still have high suicide rates.

Accidental deaths by firearms are down. I recently read the material for the gun safety course one must pass in California before being able to purchase a firearm. The section on child safety read like it was word for word out of an old "Eddie Eagle" gun safety program that the NRA was trying to promote in elementary schools. For years, men like Wayne LaPierre "and his ilk", (to quote a contemporary Ghoul of Gun Control), have been trying to improve the safety of children, gun owners and non gun owners alike. Too bad the very mention of the NRA brings a reaction from liberals like the cross does to Dracula.

What about gang violence? Every week we hear the death tolls from places like Chicago with very strict gun control laws, where people who break the law to sell drugs and run in gangs ignore gun laws as well? One study, hoping to ratchet up sympathy for children who die from firearms, used statistics of "children" up to twenty-three years old, many of them shot because of drug or gang activity. Is there one more "common sense" gun law that drug dealers and gangbangers and even bomb makers will obey?

A hysterically emotional, left wing "bumper sticker solution" to preventable gun violence is not the answer either. Nor is accepting every statistic you hear as being accurate or from an unbiased source. If there is one more common sense gun law that will reduce senseless violence, I am open to hear it. But, ill informed emotional responses to over-inflated statistics will not sway those who hold to the principles of the Constitution and the rights you are asking them to surrender.

Eric Grunder would do well to base his opinions on genuine facts from reliable sources. If not, there's always a place for him at Vox.




* Mark Twain
** Another Record columnist
***sarcasm, in case it wasn't detected.