Senator's Reasons For Gun Control Are Why It's A Non-Starter :: 09/23/2020

We’ll always have to accept that, to some degree, there will always be those who seek to intrude on the freedom of ordinary Americans. Accepting that they exist, however, does not mean giving into their vile whims. Instead, that acceptance needs to come with a healthy dose of understanding that such people must be opposed at every opportunity.

One such person is Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Over at Townhall, Larry Keane decided to take a look at Murphy’s new book, and the central premise of that book is something I found rather interesting.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) encapsulated in 384 pages of his new book “The Violence Inside Us” one central theme: America can’t be trusted with freedom.

“You know, it’s called ‘The Violence Inside Us’ because the conclusion I come to is that America is a violent place. We have always been a violent place,” Senator Murphy explained to MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt.

The problem is Senator Murphy didn’t arrive at that conclusion, he started with it. He got there by cherry-picking historical facts, isolating them out of context, and wedging them to fit a narrative that American freedom is bad and must be restrained by a benevolent and all-knowing government made up of people like him.

However, there’s a problem with Murphy’s line of thinking on this.

Now, I don’t believe Americans are inherently violent. I believe some individuals are, but Americans as a whole? Not so much.

But let’s say that Murphy’s contention is correct, that America is a nation that is mired in violence and always has been. If that’s the case, then it would seem imperative that good, decent, law-abiding citizens have the means to defend themselves from the violent criminals that exist everywhere.

See, while guns do make up a large portion of the weapons used to take human life every year, somewhere around a third of all homicides currently use something other than a firearm, according to the FBI. For some, that’s somehow evidence that gun control is needed, but only a fool would believe that the other two-thirds of all homicides would simply not happen.

(It should be noted that many, if not most of the guns used for these homicides are obtained illegally in the first place.)

Because most of those murders would still likely be attempted regardless of the existence of guns, let me ask Sen. Murphy just what the hell their law-abiding victims are supposed to do to prevent these murders?

We’re talking about aggressive predators in many of these cases, people who will pounce on those they perceive as weaker and will capitalize on their advantages. They’ll prey on people and not think twice about it. It won’t matter if they have a gun, a knife, or a freaking rock, they’ll try to victimize other people because that’s what they do.

So where does that leave us?

Murphy would leave us to the mob. He’d leave us unarmed to face the predators. These are the same predators that lead him to believe that this country is inherently violent, but he’d leave us to them.

Yet that violence, the violence he believes is somehow built into our system, is precisely why gun control is a non-starter for millions upon millions of Americans.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/09/21/senators-reasons-for-gun-control/