The debate over gun control in America, if “debate” is the right word for it, has become stale and predictable to the point of parody—but a sad, bitter parody, not a funny one. That’s true largely, if we may be permitted to generalize, because the measures gun-control supporters propose after mass shootings don’t actually prevent mass shootings or, indeed, any kind of shootings. And since they don’t prevent shootings, opponents of those measures assume, not unreasonably, that if they drop their opposition and allow a gun-control measure today, the restrictionists will be back tomorrow asking for more, the former measures having proven ineffective—and this routine will keep repeating itself until liberals, unable to admit any error in logic, at last propose a full-on nationwide gun ban.
Our liberal and anti-gun friends will dispute this characterization, but consider a news story in the New York Times of November 11, just after the Thousand Oaks shooting in which a former Marine killed 12 in a bar: “California Is Already Tough on Guns. After a Mass Shooting, Some Wonder if It’s Enough.”
The state has also banned assault weapons and regulates ammunition sales—all part of a wave of gun regulation that began a quarter century ago with a mass murder at a San Francisco law firm.
California may have the toughest gun control laws in the nation, but that still did not prevent the latest mass killing—a shooting on Wednesday that left 12 people dead at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks.
The community of Thousand Oaks is just starting to grieve its losses, and investigators are still combing through the background of the gunman, who was found dead after the shooting. But gun control activists and politicians in the state are already weighing what more can be done, and whether existing measures could have prevented the killing.
The piece goes on at some length, analyzing state-by-state statistics on gun violence and quoting California politicos and activists about the practical likelihood of passing new gun laws. We were optimistic that someone—either the authors of the piece or one of the people they quoted—would suggest the possibility that perhaps more gun laws aren’t the surefire solution liberals assume them to be. No luck.
Hands up, who’s excited about more stale and predictable “debates”?
