Anti-gun zealots say their goal is to save lives. The more I know about what they do (or don’t do), the more certain I am that this is a lie, at least for the professionals like Michael Bloomberg, Shannon Watts and Mark Kelly. As I have contended in the past, if they wanted to save 20,000 to 30,000 lives each year in America, they could meet with certain success by advocating a nationwide speed limit of 15 mph. After all, it’s difficult to die in a crash at such slow speeds, and there would undoubtedly be fewer accidents in the first place.
Why don’t they do this instead of attempting to strip good Americans of their 226-year-old constitutional freedoms? The simple and obvious answer is that it would inconvenience them. They don’t own guns or benefit from them (outside of the ones carried by their high-rent bodyguards), but they do own cars. They can tolerate 30,000 Americans dying in their vehicles every year as long as it means that they can efficiently and conveniently make it to their next news conference across town to exploit the most recent mass murder and work to disarm those of us who had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
They have a choice every day when they go out to lobby and deceive the public through the complicit media. They could spend time saving lives, or endangering them by stripping citizens of their ability to defend against the violent criminals who walk among us. They know that every federal study ever conducted on the efficacy of the gun control they promote shows that it does nothing of consequence to reduce violent crime or save lives. This work is from the likes of the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Department of Justice and National Academy of Sciences, to name a few.
They can tolerate 30,000 Americans dying in their vehicles every year as long as it means that they can efficiently and conveniently make it to their next news conference across town to exploit the most recent mass murder and work to disarm those of us who had nothing whatsoever to do with it.There is another, more politically realistic way for the supposed do-gooders to save thousands of lives each year without making everyone drive at a snail’s pace on the roadways—a tactic I’d personally oppose because I like fast cars and believe most current speed limits are far too conservative. It is to ensure repeat or violent felony offenders are aggressively prosecuted and actually serve their sentences and remain segregated from the rest of us who are not proven dangers to society. Amazingly, this has become a controversial topic in America today. How our hearts bleed.
This entire issue most recently angered me when I learned more about Radee Prince, who murdered three co-workers in Maryland last week and seriously wounded two others. He then went on to shoot an acquaintance in Delaware two hours later.
From news accounts, the best guess is that he has been arrested 50 to 60 times. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to 15 felony counts and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was supposed to be incarcerated until 2028. He served only two years. He was freed to kill, and he finally did. Really, based upon his patterns, it is likely he has before, but just wasn’t caught for it. Those murders were probably part of the one-third of all murders that are never solved.
In March 2015, Prince was pulled over in a traffic stop and found to be a felon in possession of a handgun. Multiple firearms charges were filed but all were dropped a couple of months later. As an aside, if this had been a peaceable, otherwise-law-abiding Marylander or visitor from the Heartland caught up in the state’s complex, draconian gun control laws, prosecution would have been swift and the sentence severe. Between the 25-year sentence from 2003 and the recent arrest for serious weapons offenses, Prince should not have been free to kill his co-workers.
I’d bet you that no one who ever had any interaction with him in the criminal justice system was surprised that he was named the suspect in the murders less than an hour after they occurred. They could see it coming. It was only a matter of time. They probably only hoped it wouldn’t be their own loved ones who were the target of his predictable rage.
This is the story that is played out in America time and time again. The murderer who does not have a well-established record of violence against others is the radical exception. A U.S. Department of Justice study found that 60 percent of convicted killers had at least one prior felony conviction. 70 percent had some form of criminal conviction and more than 80 percent had an arrest record. For various reasons, it is safe to assume these numbers would be much higher if it were possible to account for those who commit the 35 percent of murders that go unsolved.
If we chose as a country to consistently incarcerate those who are known to be extremely violent, I would wager everything I have that the murder rate would be cut in half overnight. Whether one believes it is right, fair or whatever, incarceration works. An evil person can’t murder hard-working, law-abiding granite company employees from behind the walls of a penitentiary.
Of course, the opposite is happening throughout America, as is so sadly displayed by the Prince case. There are even states like California that spend freely on everything that is not a legitimate government responsibility, then use supposed budget shortfalls to justify dumping known violent offenders into our neighborhoods at alarming rates. It should be noted that a state like California is doing this while making it virtually impossible for good people to defend themselves from the released predators. This is immoral and repugnant.
A U.S. Department of Justice study found that 60 percent of convicted killers had at least one prior felony conviction.Before leaving office, former President Barack Obama entered into a commutation frenzy. Most who received commutations were supposedly non-violent drug dealers, which is an oxymoron because the lifeblood of that entire industry is violence and intimidation. Many of them were illegally carrying guns when they were arrested. What they were actually apprehended for might not have involved direct violence, but most were violent people nonetheless. Their artificially abbreviated stay in prison likely only made them more violent.
Is it going to be any surprise when the unprecedented decreases in violence experienced during the last two decades are erased in a relative blink of an eye? Does anyone really believe it is a mere coincidence that these decreases occurred during a period of aggressive incarceration policy throughout the nation? I’m sure that gun control advocates find it difficult to advocate for more gun control when violent crime is at historic lows and gun ownership is at historic highs. They look like the liars they are when dramatically less crime comes with tens of millions of additional guns being acquired by the “unwashed masses.”
Making sure violent offenders get to their prey outside of prison walls seems like it might promote the policy goals of gun-ban advocates. What other explanation could there be for their deafening silence when it comes to policies that we know, unlike their silly gun control, will save thousands of lives?
The fact is that they don’t care about saving lives. They care about taking power from the people. This is never more apparent than when they work feverishly to ban so-called “assault rifles.” The FBI reports that rifles of any kind are used in about 250 to 350 murders every year in the U.S. The scary looking guns the nuts want to ban account for some smaller number of these totals. See what I mean? All of this is a long way away from being about “safety.”
The Founding Fathers knew that the Second Amendment empowered Americans in a way no citizenry in the world had ever been empowered. It put the people on at least a level playing field with the ruling class. There were people who didn’t like it then, and there are people who don’t like it now. They are hiding in plain sight as what the media calls “gun safety advocates.”
All freedom-loving Americans must recognize this truth before it’s too late.
Darren LaSorte lobbied with NRA-ILA for nearly 14 years and now lives and works in Dallas. His passions are shooting, hunting and self-defense training.
