Drop that gun!

Let’s face it: the Democrats are not going to recover much representation if they are perceived as just another version of the Corrupt and dishonest Republicans. The Republican lie machine can not easily be countered by a group that tells even one lie. It’s time to re-examine some of the shibboleths of the Democrats; to take another look at the things we believe without evidence.

I once participated in an online Women’s rights group that was very supportive of a “Million Mom” march against guns. One of the things repeated endlessly was a figure of more than 400 gun related deaths of children; not 400 per year, but per day. Now I’m no mathematician, but that would add up to 146,000 dead children in a year and that’s fiction on a grand scale.

In 2003, there were just under 12,000 firearm homicides and 730 accidental fatalities in a population of nearly 300 million. The overall trend is not up. The Republicans know this quite well and the NRA knows it better and yet we continue to look like shrill and irrational extremists; easily dismissed as liars.

Yesterday I received an envelope containing the “2006 Grassroots Survey of Democratic Leaders.” The questionnaire contained a question about another favorite shibboleth: the Assault Rifle Ban. Nearly any Democrat I talk to believes that the late, lamented ban was what kept military weaponry from private ownership and that now that it has ended, the police will be faced with a horde of machine gun toting madmen firing armor piercing ammunition of incredible power.

“How would you characterize our gun laws in America?”

“We need stronger laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children and to keep military–style assault weapons off our streets” is the answer they assume you will prefer, thinking you’re not actually familiar with existing gun laws, guns or children.

The Assault weapon ban did not ban assault weapons. It banned weapons that look like military weapons but are not and at that, it banned only foreign made versions. All during the ban, you could walk into any gun shop or sporting goods store and find racks of AK-47 clones that ban or no ban, are not automatic weapons. They are no more deadly than a hunting rifle and they differ only by virtue of appearance. There are so many millions of them in circulation that although the ban didn’t actually ban them, it could not have done anything meaningful anyway since criminals hardly buy guns at gun shops. Machine guns are not found in your corner gun shop, nor is armor piercing ammunition, they are restricted under existing laws and have been for 70 years. No guns were added to or removed from the “streets” by this ban or by its demise. Crime is already illegal and passing crime bills or stronger laws never seems to help. Look at the availability of drugs if you disagree.

There may be loopholes in current gun laws that need to be plugged, but the fact remains that the Democrats are loosing votes because of issues like these. The NRA is well supplied with money and lawyers and publicists and it has yet to be demonstrated that Americans as a whole want to defy the 2nd amendment. Let’s stick to reality and stay closer to the truth. A coherent plan to clean up the mess left by the Republicans should become the new focus because that’s what we can all agree is needed, otherwise we the Democrats are forced to play the Republican game in which the dice are loaded, the cards are marked and the outcome is certain.