Left shoots itself in foot in gun debate

Following the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the response from many on the left was predictable — gun control, gun control, gun control. What’s dispiriting about these responses is not just the absence of logic in many instances, but that many gun-control advocates were simultaneously self-contradictory.

The most obvious problem is that many proposed gun-control measures would have done nothing to prevent the massacre in Vegas because the shooter would have still been able to legally obtain weapons under most proposals. That’s also true of many other mass shootings.

Some on the political left understand that reality, and thus increasingly argue that gun ownership should be mostly illegal and highly regulated. Even setting aside constitutional challenges, it’s worth noting that the Congressional Research Service has estimated there are roughly 300-million guns in this country. Any effort to outlaw and seize those weapons would face major logistical challenges and require more intrusive measures than those enacted to better monitor and prevent terrorism after 9/11.

Many Democrats who are among the loudest supporters of strict gun control also have been critics of antiterrorism efforts. How can one oppose bulk collection of telephony metadata to target terrorists, but support more intrusive measures to identify people whose only “crime” is owning a gun?

Confiscation is advocated by many who also support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. While that movement embraces many causes, some of its most vocal advocates effectively argue that police routinely kill innocent black men. So if one supports gun confiscation and all aspects of the BLM movement, one has to simultaneously believe police can’t be trusted but that the solution to gun violence is a more robust police state. Oklahoma City, October 8.