OPINION:
Sen. Chris Murphy, in a recent CNN interview with Jake Tapper, admitted that if bump stocks are banned, the next gun control step Democrats will take is to press for national background checks.
Apparently, the goal is for us all to become like Chicago.
Illinois has background checks for all gun purchases; Chicago, meanwhile, saw 762 gun-related homicides last year. How’d that happen?
Of course, anti-Second Amendment activists blame neighboring states.
“With no gun stores in Chicago and no background check loopholes for private sales, one thing is clear,” wrote one Chicago Tribune columnist. “The guns being used to kill people on the streets aren’t originating in Chicago. They’re coming from someplace else. … When it comes to gun laws, big cities are only as strong as the states that border them.”
That’s the logic the left is using to sell its Second Amendment crackdowns. And just because there are Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and just because the White House is led by a Republican, doesn’t mean the Democrats don’t have a chance to press forward their gun control.
A bump stock ban is step one.
The door opens wider after that’s accomplished.
Tapper, to Murphy, asked, as Breitbart noted: “Is universal background checks the next step, though? … Is universal background checks, closing the so-called gun show loophole requiring background checks for private sales? Is that the next step for people in your philosophical camp and Senate?”
And Murphy’s answer: A long-winded yes.
“It should be the next step,” he said. In large part because it is the most popularly accepted change. And it has the biggest effect. What we know is that in states that have universal background checks, gun crime are reduced by as much as 40 percent. … We have plenty of data to tell us that in fact if you have tougher gun laws, you will have lower gun crime and what we know is that the most important intervention is background checks, its is the intervention supported by the largest number of Americans and so, yes, that would be the clear next step. That should be our north star as we try to figure out how to proceed.”
Lies.
The NRA has put out scores of information about the truths of controlling access to firearms, and whether doing such leads to drops in crime. And so have other more independent-minded organizations. The conclusion?
Lies.
But the left already knows this. And here’s how we know the left already knows this. If the left truly believed stripping guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens would stop or dramatically decrease instances of gun-related violence, then those on the left advocating for such would get rid of their own guns first — they’d get rid of their own armed security teams and guards.
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