Re: John R. Lott, Jr. and Andrew Pollack: Dems and gun control -- they want it whether it works or not

[Hoplophobia‏]

In article <t2uoa9$3si52$3...@news.freedyn.de>
<governo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Democrats want to control your lives.
>

The two Democratic presidential debates last week in Miami were
marked by calls to remember Florida’s Parkland High School
shooting, which occurred only 50 miles away from where the
debate took place. The Democrats agreed on two solutions to stop
these attacks: impose background checks on private transfers of
guns, and ban “military-style” “weapons of war.”

Even when the questions weren’t about gun control, candidates
still found ways to bring up the topic.

Many Democrats have a hard time believing that their opponents
want to save lives. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., claimed
during the debate, “It’s the greed of the NRA and the gun
manufacturers that make any progress impossible.” Congressman
Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., argued, “The NRA is taking orders from
the gun manufacturers, that’s the problem.”

But it isn’t a question of who is getting paid off by gun
makers. Some people think that banning guns makes people safer,
just as others sincerely believe that such bans will disarm and
endanger law-abiding citizens.

Many terrorist types want to kill as many people as possible,
and are drawn to gun-free zones where regular citizens are
prohibited from being able to protect themselves.

One of the authors here, Andrew Pollack, experienced first-hand
the disastrous consequences of gun-free zones. His daughter died
in the Parkland massacre.

While all the candidates endorsed full health care coverage for
illegal immigrants, none talked about providing funds to help
cover mental illness for Americans. Gun control was their only
solution.

Despite focusing on Parkland, none of the candidates addressed
the issue of school safety, aside from pushing gun control. No
one mentioned the unsafe environment created by leniency, given
by both liberal educators and the police, to troubled youth.
While all the candidates endorsed full health care coverage for
illegal immigrants, none talked about providing funds to help
cover mental illness for Americans. Gun control was their only
solution.

It would have been great if one of the debate moderators had
asked a tough question on guns. For example, could background
checks on private gun transfers have stopped Parkland or any
other mass public shooting? The answer, unfortunately, is that
such a law wouldn’t have prevented a single attack in this
century.

As to assault weapon bans, banning “military-style” guns won’t
come close to stopping these attacks. Apparently, all of the
Democrats in Thursday’s debate want to buy back and destroy
every gun that they consider to be an assault weapon.

Killers fired handguns in 80 percent of the mass public
shootings since 1998. In 54 percent of attacks, handguns were
the only weapons used. By contrast, semi-automatic rifles were
used exclusively in just 13 percent of cases. And given the
various definitions of what constitutes an assault weapon, not
all of these rifles would qualify.

Here was Bernie Sanders’, I-Vt., definition on Thursday night:
“Assault weapons are weapons from the military.” But many rifles
bear only a superficial resemblance to military weapons. The oft-
maligned AR-15 looks like the M-16, which began being used by
the U.S. military in the Vietnam War, but as a semi-automatic,
it only fires one bullet per pull of the trigger. It isn’t a
machine gun.

No self-respecting military in the world uses semi-automatic
weapons. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg knows that,
but he’d rather give people the impression that military weapons
are pervasive. “As someone who trained on weapons of war, I can
tell you that there are weapons that have absolutely no place in
American cities or neighborhoods ever,” he said on Thursday
night.

The vast majority of firearms in the United States are semi-
automatics, and are very useful for protecting people and saving
lives. Single-shot rifles that require reloading may not do
people much good when they are facing multiple criminals. Or,
for that matter, if the first shot misses or fails to stop an
attacker. People trying to protect themselves and their families
might not have the luxury of time to reload their guns.

Former Vice President Joe Biden also pushed “smart guns,” a
suggestion not offered by other Democrats. “No gun should be
able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that
trigger,” he told viewers. But this technology is no more
reliable than your smartphone’s fingerprint reader. These guns
can be jammed if they rely on radio signals, and the technology
is limited only to small-caliber handguns because sensitive
electronics can be damaged by the gun’s recoil. The technology
is also extremely expensive, adding about $900 to the price of a
gun. Biden’s proposed measure would ensure that only the wealthy
can own guns.

People like us who disagree with gun control advocates aren’t
motivated by greed. We have kids, too, and we also want them to
be safe. We recognize that the police won’t be there all the
time, and that people sometimes have to be able to defend
themselves. Democrats would be more effective debaters if they
weren’t constantly demonizing half the country.

Andrew Pollack was the father of Meadow Pollack who died at the
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and he can be followed on
Twitter at @AndrewPollackFL

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-r-lott-jr-and-andrew-
pollack-dems-and-gun-control-they-want-it-whether-it-works-or-not