NY Times Opinion piece starts of good then derails
Posted: Tue, 19 Jan 2016 06:59:29
Some Inconvenient Gun Facts for Liberals
What that paragraph should say is that 40% of firearms that change hands these days aren't required to, of have a method for, have a background check performed. And this 40% are, for the most part, in the hands of law abiding, non violent, citizens.
The statement that REALLY stood out for me was this:FOR those of us who argue in favor of gun safety laws, there are a few inconvenient facts.
We liberals are sometimes glib about equating guns and danger. In fact, it’s complicated: The number of guns in America has increased by more than 50 percent since 1993, and in that same period the gun homicide rate in the United States has dropped by half.
Then there are the policies that liberals fought for, starting with the assault weapons ban. A 113-page study found no clear indication that it reduced shooting deaths for the 10 years it was in effect. That’s because the ban was poorly drafted, and because even before the ban, assault weapons accounted for only 2 percent of guns used in crimes.
Unless I'm totally unaware of a secret group of gun manufacturers and importers I'm pretty well sure that 100% of NEW firearms are transferred to their owners after they pass some sort of background check.That means universal background checks before somebody acquires a gun. New Harvard research confirms a long-ago finding that 40 percent of firearms in the United States are acquired without a background check. That’s crazy. Why empower criminals to arm themselves?
What that paragraph should say is that 40% of firearms that change hands these days aren't required to, of have a method for, have a background check performed. And this 40% are, for the most part, in the hands of law abiding, non violent, citizens.
