You can’t buy that pistol, son, but how about this AR-15?

Here we go again, talking about a school shooting in America.

The fact that they continue to occur with such alarming frequency proves once again that the sight of crumpled, bloodied and bullet-riddled bodies of six- and seven-year-old children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School wasn’t powerful enough to overcome the tug and pull of our country’s well-financed gun lobby.

More than five years later, we continue to argue that if the atrocity at Sandy Hook didn’t bring about a change in our gun laws then nothing ever will, while acknowledging both that it didn’t and that it won’t.

Something is seriously wrong in this country and everybody knows it, including, I believe, the lawmakers who take millions of dollars from the NRA and give back nothing more than their thoughts and prayers whenever another innocent child – or maybe 17 of them – die inside a school. Oh, they know, alright. How could any of them not know? But still they do nothing but blame it all on mental health while they accept the checks from the gun people, shake hands and smile and say “thanks.”

   

By now you’ve no doubt seen the list of legislators who receive the largest gun lobby contributions, and you may also have seen video clips of them offering condolences and prayers for the families of dead children. There’s nothing meaningful that I can add to those images that absolutely speak for themselves.

There are, however, a couple of things I can add to the debate.

First, I’m sure you’ve been hearing that there have been 18 school shootings so far this year. The organization dispensing that information is a non-profit foundation known as “Everytown for Gun Safety,” founded in 2014 to advocate in favor of stricter gun control and to rail against gun violence. They send me text messages frequently urging me to take some action against guns.

While their hearts may be in the right place, their statistics are significantly skewed. There have not been 18 school shootings this year if you consider a school shooting to involve gun violence during school hours that results in injury or death. On the contrary, The Guardian web site reports just eight such shootings so far this year, and The Washington Post goes even further:

“Just five of Everytown’s 18 school shootings listed for 2018 happened during school hours and resulted in any physical injury. Three others appeared to be intentional shootings but did not hurt anyone. Two more involved guns – one carried by a school police officer and the other by a licensed peace officer who ran a college club – that were unintentionally fired and, again, led to no injuries. At least seven of Everytown’s 18 shootings took place outside normal school hours.”

So that leaves five school shootings in just 46 days of 2018. That’s one every 9.2 days – still far too many – but also far from the 18 we’re supposed to believe. This kind of statistical manipulation to prove a point is exactly what the Left accuses the Right of doing. One could rightfully call it “fake news,” and it doesn’t help Everytown’s credibility while trying to make a case for better gun laws. They may be on the side of the angels, but they need to be better than that.   

My second point is even more troubling. I read that the 19-year-old Florida shooter bought his AR-15 legally because he was over the age of 18, but under federal law he would have needed to be 21 to buy a handgun. Are you serious? He couldn’t legally buy a revolver that would have shot six to 12 bullets at a time but was cleared to buy an assault rifle that enabled him to fire off more than 100 rounds in six minutes?

I’m not a gun guy, so could someone tell me the logic in this? Who thought this was a good idea? Why does any person under the age of 21 who is not in the military need a military-style assault rifle and the large-capacity clips that go with them? Please, tell me…I really want to know.

For eight years during the Obama presidency gun sales skyrocketed because gun-rights advocates were sure the government was coming for their guns. In reality, no one ever intended to do that…and no one ever did. Clearly, no one intends to do that now under President Bone Spur, so given that everybody gets to keep their weapons, at least for now, can’t we all agree that raising the age to buy an AR-15 makes sense? Shouldn’t it be at least as hard as buying a target pistol, if not harder?

Gun lobby or no gun lobby, is this really too much to ask?