Two Hard Truths About Guns

Two reality checks about guns that everyone needs to acknowledge so we can move forward

Whenever there is a horrific shooting, the left pops their heads up for a few seconds, shake their fists, and talk as if there is some magic law that could be passed that could stop such things. They then soon settle down, as it never even gets traction anymore. If you look at gun laws, it has been over four decades of the left just plain losing on the issue, and yet they never try anything new other than maybe some different word choices (it’s not gun control, it’s now “gun safety”… no, wait, “gun reform”). They seem thoroughly demoralized on the issue and barely go through the motions anymore.

Good.

A fun GIF illustrating how things have only moved one way on right-to-carry, from it almost nowhere in the 80s to now a majority of states not even requiring a permit.

But there are still, of course, gun homicides, and it would be nice to do something about them. The problem is, the only gun laws they propose are really stupid things like, “Let’s ban assault rifles!” that all seem symbolic and are made just to annoy legal gun owners while having only negligible effects on criminals.

But if we are to tackle gun crime — the everyday variety and even mass shootings — what are we to do? I think first, we need to all accept a realistic attitude about guns, and that starts with everyone acknowledging two reality checks.

Here is the first one:

You can’t keep criminals from having access to guns.