I rest my case

My case:

My liberal colleagues don't know anything about guns. They do not know what the gun-crime rate is in America, what it's trendline is and they do not know that the most heavily gun-controlled cities in the country also have the highest murder rate. They do not know that one of those cities, Chicago, suffers an Orlando-equivalent every month. Every. Month. (And it's getting worse.)

They do not try to assess whether their same old ideas about banning "assault rifles" would be workable. They do not know what the effect of the 1994-2004 ban was. They cannot define what an "assault rifle" is except to parrot Obama's latest bumper-sticker-slogan, "military-style weapons." They do not know that Obama himself has said that the Second Amendment protects the right of individual Americans to own firearms. They do not know that the US Supreme Court has ruled the same in multiple cases (and the few who do know simply dismiss the rulings as wrong).

They do not know because they do not care. They just want firearms to be outlawed for everyone, everywhere. That being so, actual knowledge about the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, between clip and magazine, between the No Fly List and the Terrorist Watchlist and the Democrats' desire to dispense with due process to forbid people from buying guns -- all such information is irrelevant and unimportant. They just want everyone to be disarmed.

That's why the gun-control debate in the country is over.

It's done. Each side knows full well what the other wants and where they stand. There is no more "dialog" or compromise to be had. The two sides are not reconcilable. Period. 

And why I rest it:

Senator Murphy: Not Fair To Judge Gun Control Based On Whether It Works

During the June 19 airing of ABC’s This Week, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) dodged questions regarding the impotency of his gun control proposal by suggesting it is not fair to judge gun control based on whether it works.

Murphy made the suggestion in an exchange with host Jon Karl, after Karl pointed out that Murphy’s push to expand background checks to gun shows had no relevance to the details of the Pulse Orlando attack. In fact, Karl said, “Your proposal would have done nothing in the case of Orlando, it would have done nothing to stop the killing in San Bernardino.”  

Karl added that Murphy’s push to expand background checks to gun shows would not have stopped the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary either. He then asked why Murphy was spending so much energy proposing legislation that has nothing to do with the “massacre” in Orlando?

... Murphy responded by saying:

So first of all, we can’t get into that trap. I disagree, I think if this proposal had been into effect it may have stopped the shooting. But we can’t get into the trap in which we are forced to defend our proposal simply because it didn’t stop the last tragedy.

In other words, Murphy is saying it is not fair to judge gun control based on whether it works.

So there you are.

Update: "America Is Awash In Guns, And Crime Is At Record Lows"

What about so-called “assault weapons?” The FBI divides firearms into handguns and rifles, with the rifles category covering everything from the little .22-caliber rifles kids shoot at summer camps to the dreaded AR-15. In last year’s “Uniform Crime Report,” the FBI listed the number of homicides committed with rifles since 2010. (A few thousand homicides each year are committed with firearms of undetermined type — most likely handguns. These are numbers for confirmed rifle deaths.) The numbers are: 367 in 2010; 332 in 2011; 298 in 2012; 285 in 2013; and 248 in 2014.

This decline in confirmed homicides by rifle coincided with a massive increase in the number of “assault rifles” Americans own. From 2010-2014, sales of semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 rose 28 percent per year, the Los Angeles Times reported on June 13. So while the number of rifles in circulation was increasing dramatically, the number of confirmed murders committed by someone using a rifle fell by almost one-third. During the same time, the number of homicides committed with handguns fell by 9 percent.

The data produce one inescapable conclusion: The entire premise for a new “assault weapons” ban — that the proliferation of “assault weapons” has led to unprecedented carnage — is completely untrue. 

Yep.