So you do not think the pro-firearm/R-wing media has not also purposely distorted their play on firearms? What about the ridiculous, oft-repeated legend of “good guy with a gun”? Or, “the answer is not fewer guns, but more guns”. Another favorite is the insane notion that a collection of self-trained “warriors” armed with military-style weapons who gather periodically to “train” so that if the Fed Gov were to become tyrannical they could “fight the U.S. military” [one of, if not THE, most powerful military force ever fielded by humankind].
I haven’t even begun to list the extremes like Alex Jones, InfoWars, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Breitbart…while I am at it, for transparency & completeness I cannot omit the militant, fear-mongering of the ChristoFascist crowd of “loving christians”.
Yes, I am a liberal & I fully concede that there are elements within my camp that do everyone a disservice through their extremism — extremism serves no one well. However, it is ludicrous for you to assert that the L-wing media is the problem and the demure, introverted, shy & quiet R-wing are innocent <please my intentional use of sarcasm>. Let’s look at the political affiliations of the mass shooters…the ones you claim are not really an issue — with vanishingly few exceptions in the preceding 15~20 years, all R-wing [specifically angry conservative white christian male extremists].
Yes, of the total number of firearm related deaths, mass shooting comprise a tiny percentage. The reason that the % is so small is a mathetmatical artifact. It is the massive number of fatalities subsequent to firearms in this country that is so absurdly high [multiple orders of magnitude higher than all other 1st-world/G20 nations] that makes the percentage small. Were the same quantity of deaths due to mass shootings injected into any other G20 nation, that percentage would be ghastly high.
It is also a common twist [distracting ploy] for the Right to attempt to diminish the impact of firearms related fatalities by pointing out the fact that approx 2/3rds of them are suicides. If I may share a secret: they are still dead, still dead via a firearm & it is still a problem that needs to be addressed. They are human beings — someone’s child, brother, sister, husband, wife, child and their deaths count too.
Lastly, do not even go to the most favored hyperbolic BS reserved for this point in a discussion: the liberals are going to take away all of your firearms. Greater than 80% of people living in the U.S. <according to multiple polls> want reasonable, rational, legal controls on access to firearms. We regulated, standardize and license virtually every potential threat to the general public: personal driving, commercial driving, pilots as well as professions: physician, lawyer, plumber, engineers even cosmetology & <in many states> bartending are regulated & require demonstrated competence. Why in name of sanity did some of us decide that one of the most prolific and dangerous tools invented by humankind should be unrestricted and damned near free access?
Do not respond with tripe about the “2nd Amendment”. That clause includes “by a well regulated militia” [good ole boys in WalMart cammo do not constitute a ‘well regulated militia’]. Even more poignant, it was written when a musket >not even a rifled musket< was state of the art. A well-trained soldier could fire 1 aimed round every 2~3 minutes…”aimed” with a musket means shots beyond 100~150 yds is a crapshoot due to intrinsic inaccuracy of the platform. The authors could not even remotely fantasize about weapons capable of multiple rounds per minute with reasonable accuracy out well beyond 200yds.
