Signs of desperation abounded elsewhere. In my home state of Virginia—a state with so deeply-embedded a gun culture, it has a gun fashion named after it—newly-minted Gov. Terry McAuliffe has proposed a set of gun-control measures that are, to say the least, absurd: he wishes to re-enact the one-gun-a-month limit, a law that did nothing to prohibit violent crime in Virginia, he wants to revoke concealed carry permits for people who are behind on their child support payments, and he wants to close the “gun show loophole” in spite of gun shows’ tenuous link to gun violence. Given that these measures would arguably have no effect whatsoever on gun crime, it’s easy to conclude that McAuliffe is, like the rest of the anti-gun movement, desperate to gain at least some ground in the gun control battle. In the face of an indifferent and perhaps even hostile constituency, you can understand why the governor would resort to such pitiable measures.
The list goes on. A recent anti-gun public service announcement was released on YouTube showing a young child stealing his parent’s gun, taking it to school, and handing it over to his teacher: “I don’t feel safe with a gun in my house,” he tells her. The child in the video violated virtually every gun safety measure we teach children: he steals a gun, brings it to a school with nobody’s knowledge, and lays it on the teacher’s desk with the barrel facing toward her. “Our children deserve a safe world,” the PSA announces. Of course they do—which is why responsible gun owners teach children how to be safe around firearms. The gun control movement knows this and is determined to hide it—hence the unserious and comical “public service announcement.”
Earlier this year, Georgia passed a bill that greatly expanded gun carry rights throughout the state; the response was predictable. Cliff Schecter at the Daily Beast announced that Georgia’s new law “flies in the face of all public health statistics, common sense, and modernity.” He provided no evidence whatsoever for these histrionic claims, but then again the gun control movement is not lately interested in facts or empirical evidence. As more and more Americans come to support a robust regime of gun rights in the United States, commentators like Schecter will probably grow more and more shrill, insisting that liberalized gun laws are dangerous and refusing to engage in any actual research.
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