As Jordan Fabian of The Hill reports:
The president said this in Chicago a city where there have been:
But which also has “some of the strictest gun laws in the country.”
One presumes that Chicago’s gun laws are of the “common sense” variety and goes on to wonder why, if they don’t work there, they should be expected to work elsewhere. Or at the federal level. The president, of course, has an answer “pointing out [that] 60 percent of guns recovered from crime scenes in the city come from out of state.”
But, but … are they not still illegal or, anyway, in the hands of people who should not even be on the Chicago streets. There are other jurisdictions where guns can be easily and legally purchased and there is no need to publish a weekly body count. Vermont, for instance, which is represented by Bernie Sanders who, until he became a candidate for president, held some pretty “common sense” positions regarding guns. Will anyone of the South Side of Chicago feel safer walking the streets if the gun store in Vermont are closed down?
If the president and those who support him want to reduce the number of shootings in Chicago, they are going to have to get the guns out of the hands of the people who are doing the shooting. The passage of new laws won’t, by itself, accomplish that. The cops are going to have to go out into the streets and take the guns away from the people who have them and are not inclined to hand them over just because the law says they should. The police are not doing it now and, if they should start doing it, wait for the howls of protest. It will be “stop and frisk” on steroids.
The president dismisses the notion that he is out to take people’s guns away as fanciful. But, then, he once dismissed a lot of those people as “bitter clingers” and told them not to worry about health care because if they liked their plan, they could keep their plan. There is a reason why the NRA polls almost 60 percent favorable in spite of endless demonization by the mainstream media. Also a reason why guns are selling in record numbers. People in the American firearms industry say that Barrack Obama has been the best thing to happen to them … ever.
He doesn’t get it about guns … but, then, he is surrounded by people who are packing.
