The morning after the Sandy Hook shootings, Shannon Watts, a mother of five and a former public relations executive, started a Facebook page called “One Million Moms for Gun Control.” It proved wildly popular and members quickly focused on renewing the federal ban on military style assault weapons.
“We all were outraged about the fact that this man could use an AR-15, which seemed like a military grade weapon, and go into an elementary school and wipe out 26 human beings in less than five minutes,” Watts said.
Nearly two years later, Watts works full-time as the head of the group, now named Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, is a significant player in a coalition financed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But while polls suggest a majority of Americans still support an assault weapons ban, it is no longer one of Watts’ top priorities.
“We’ve very much changed our strategy to focus on public safety measures that will save the most lives,” she told ProPublica.
It’s not just that the ban proved to be what Watts calls a “nonstarter” politically, gaining fewer votes in the Senate post-Sandy Hook than background check legislation. It was also that as Watts spoke to experts and learned more about gun violence in the United States, she realized that pushing for a ban isn’t the best way to prevent gun deaths.
A 2004 Justice Department-funded evaluation found no clear evidence that the decade-long ban saved any lives. The guns categorized as “assault weapons” had only been used in about 2 percent of gun crimes before the ban. “Should it be renewed,” the report concluded, “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
With more information, Watts decided that focusing on access to guns, not types of guns, was a smarter approach. She came to the same conclusion that other gun control groups had reached even before the Sandy Hook shootings: “Ultimately,” she said, “what’s going to save the most lives are background checks.”
When the statistical arguments go against them, they fall back on the old reliable: Logical fallacies like appeal to authority (Experts agree that an assault weapons ban would drastically reduce crime), emotional arguments (How can still oppose an assault weapons ban when 26 kids are dead because of an AR-15??), soundbites (You don’t need an AR-15 to hunt a deer), speculation (if the Founding Fathers knew that assault weapons were going to be invented, the 2nd Amendment would have never passed) and lies.
Give me a call when this retard figures out criminals will always get guns, and guns in the hands of law abiding citizens actually save lives.
When they stop focusing on guns, cars and knives and start focusing on criminals and dangerous people, then we can try and make some actual progress.
They are half way there with the realization that “some people” shouldn’t have guns. Problem is they are focused on keeping guns away from those people rather than keeping those those people away from everyone else. A person who would be a violent criminal with a gun, will still be a violent criminal with or without a gun.
The tide has been turning in our favor for 30 years. We’re in the process of watching it end well. With a few exceptions(MG’s and imports being the big ones,) we’re living in a much more liberal society regarding guns than at any point in most of your lives. Concealed carry swept the nation. NFA items at ranges are commonplace. The industry is bigger and healthier than it has ever been. AR’s are no longer niche, they dominate new rifle purchases across the spectrum of gun owners. Action shooting occurs at almost every range in the country. There are television shows showing responsible use of those guns(Top Shot, 3-Gun Nation, and so forth…we’re all going to ignore the rapist.)
While we can’t ever stop being vigilant, or pushing for more freedom…every gun control measure at the federal level has been stopped cold and even those that are quite liberal like Reid didn’t want them going to a vote. The states that are lost have been lost for decades. Everywhere else? We’re winning, and we’re winning big.
Of course the next time there’s a big push the fear mongers will be here stating that the best case scenario is that AR’s wind up as NFA items and other ridiculousness.
In a way, the liberals outsmarted themselves with the 1994 AWB by allowing it to sunset in 10 years as an incentive to get it passed. Once actual data existed that it did little or nothing to change crime statistics, that law was moot. Even though the attempt to extend it narrowly got defeated IIRC, now in the aftermath we can point to the law’s ineffectiveness every time it comes up for a vote, and that’s a hard point to argue against.
If Hillary wins and we get more progressives on the court, it will be a moot point because they’ll rule the 2A only applies to disassembled guns in 22lr that are single shot.
If Hillary runs she has to get the Democrat nomination. If she wins the Democrat nomination she will then have to win the Electoral College. I want to believe that after the bungling George W. did in office that people would be opposed to Dynasties.