Monday, May 15, 2006

A Good First Step

Why looky here:
Clamping down on straw purchases would stem the flow of illegal guns into the city.

A good first step would be to enact a state law limiting handgun purchases to one a month per buyer.
And what did our good pal Tom Ferrick Jr. have to say about "straw purchases"?
No one is pretending that this one-handgun-a-month ban is the cure-all, but it is a start.
This is actually a dusting off of an old argument. I first wrote about it seven years ago, in "Smart Guns–-Dumb Lawsuits":
But for the gun controllers, that's not all bad-- because based on results, each tragedy provides a new opportunity to exploit, a new press conference to hold, a new law to enact, or a new lawsuit to file. They'll propose further restrictions under the bald-faced pretense that it's "a good first step." They won't tell you that there are already over 20,000 gun laws on the books at the federal, state and municipal level that are consistently ignored by all but the law-abiding.

"A good first step...…" the clueless segment of our victim pool populace will drone back at the proposal of law number 20,001.
A good first step to ensuring this lie will be a non-starter is to be aware that it's being employed--and to expose it as a coordinated talking point whenever it is used.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting, how we've taken over 20K "first steps". Seems to be a small disconnect in logic in there somewhere.

Then there's the fact that it's a step--not an end in itself. This, of course implies a journey. Where does this one end? I know. Do you?

E. David Quammen said...

The article stated; "Those numbers don't even count the many people who were shot but survived, often maimed and incapacitated, thanks to the advances in emergency medicine."

My question is, are those that survived 'maimed and incapacitated' because of having been shot or due to the 'advances' in emergency medicine?

Anonymous said...

"It's a good start" is a cathartic phrase intended to give hope to those who feel emotionally overwhelmed and believe that their pathetic actions will start them down a path of remedy.

God, it's almost as bad as "If it saves one life" argument that I hear to justify more d*mn gun control laws.