Where Piers Morgan goes wrong with gun control

Henry D’Andrea
Washington Times
January 12, 2013

Ever since the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, CNN host Piers Morgan has been on an anti-gun tirade. And as with most tirades, his lacks common sense and and ignores basic facts.

Let’s consider some facts: In 2011, 356 people were killed by shotguns and 323 by rifles (including “assault rifles”), according to the FBI. Knives and blades were used to kill 1,694, 496 were killed by blunt objects, and 728 by hands and feet. Total firearm deaths were 8,583. From 2007 through 2011, the number of firearm homicides fell steadily, from 10,129 in 2007. In the discussion of either homicide or gun violence in America, assault rifles are almost irrelevant. America’s gun violence is primarily a function of handguns, a category that is almost entirely ignored by Morgan and others in this discussion.

Consider this: In a country where over 8,000 people are killed with guns every year, we’re focused on a category of crimes – mass murders committed with “assault rifles” – so rare that you could invite every mass killer in the last 50 years to your SoHo loft for a party and have room to spare. Your child is more likely to be beaten to death in school than shot by an Adam Lanza.

Morgan claims that if assault riffles and high-capacity magazines were outright illegal to own, 27 people wouldn’t have been killed in Newton, nor 12 people in Aurora, Colorado. The more accurate statement is that if the shooters had been completely unable to acquire those items, the death toll might have been less, but perhaps not. Morgan fails to realize that criminals don’t follow laws they don’t want to; that’s explicit in the definition of “criminal.”

Connecticut has some of the strictest firearm laws in the nation. To obtain a gun there, you must be 21. You must apply for a local permit with the town’s police chief and be fingerprinted for a state and federal background check. The process includes a 14-day waiting period, and the state requires a gun safety course for anyone who purchases a handgun.

Full article here

This article was posted: Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 8:51 am

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