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Gun Control Debate A Farce As Democrats Staged Sit In And Republicans Labeled It A Publicity Stunt

By Jinger Jarrett
Published on: 22:30 PST, Jun 24, 2016

After a night club shooting in Orlando where 50 people were killed and another 53 were wounded, the gun control debate is once again raging in America. Gun control advocates and Democrats in Congress are pushing for stronger measures to prevent further gun violence and penalize law abiding citizens.

As Senate Democrats staged a sit in to protest, their efforts to keep firearms out of the hands of law abiding citizens became a farce. Instead of targeting the real culprits driving gun violence in America, Democrats have chosen to target law abiding citizens in order to disarm Americans and destroy an absolute right outlined in the Constitution.

BBC News reported that the Republicans said that the Democrat sit in was a publicity stunt. House Speaker Paul Ryan said that the Democrats were more interested in making headlines than they were in dealing with gun violence. Republicans adjourned early for the Fourth of July holiday, and there would be no more votes on the issue until after the holiday.

Real Clear Politics reported that Dr. Thomas Sowell said that the gun control debate is a farce. Sowell, in his column, asked the question: Do tighter gun control laws reduce the murder rate? One of the issues Dr. Sowell pointed to that gun control advocates frequently ignore is the amount of empirical data that can be used to answer this question.

For gun control advocates, demonizing the National Rifle Association and the 2nd Amendment is often seen as the answer rather than consulting the facts. Gun control advocates often cite the higher murder rate in the United States compared to England, which has much more restrictive gun control laws. According to Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm’s empirical study, Guns and Violence: The English Experience, she cites relevant empirical evidence rather than cherry picked facts.

Malcolm pointed out that when comparing New York City to London, New York City had a much higher murder rate than London even though both cities had very relaxed firearms laws for over 200 years. Another statistic she cited was that up until 1954, when England had no restrictions on shotguns, there were only 12 robberies in London. By 1974, when much tougher gun control laws were in place, armed robberies went up to over 1,400. While the number of firearms went down in England, the number of crimes went up. During the period of 1973 to 1992, when the number of handguns owned by Americans doubled, crime went down.

National Review reported that the gun control debate was nothing more than a distraction to keep America from looking the real enemy in the face. In data received from the New America’s Foundation International Security Program, the facts point to a different problem: ISIS fueled terrorism.

Since ISIS burst on the scene in 2014, the number of people killed in terrorist incidents worldwide has tripled. Seventy three American men and women have been killed in two years. Not only has America been attacked, but there were ISIS attacks in Brussels, Paris and Russia. The left continues to demand more gun control against law abiding citizens rather than addressing the real problem, and it is terrorism.

Where Al Qaeda staged elaborate attacks and Americans woke up and were able to protect themselves, ISIS is different. They are willing to use whatever weapons are available to kill people, and so more gun control won’t prevent more attacks. France has some of the strictest gun control measures in place worldwide, and it didn’t prevent the attacks by ISIS that took place there. Taking away firearms from Americans won’t protect them against the real threats, and one of them is terrorism.

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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