From time to time paid lobbyists ask for “gun control” as if this phrase could somehow cure the ills of society. Yet they never provide any facts or honest statistics for their claims. The reason is the facts refute their claims.

In 1968, the movie “Targets” created a mass shooting then asked for passage of a Federal Gun Control Law because 7,000 people were killed each year. More than forty years later there are about 12,000 murders each year, and about 31,000 people are killed by firearms (mostly suicides). What does that show about Federal Gun Control Laws?

Murders are not caused by guns or knives, which are inanimate tools. Murders are caused by love and money (or lust and greed), which are the emotions that drive human behavior. Even when more people had good jobs at good pay (as in the 1950s and 1960s) there were still murders, but fewer of them.

Those who want fewer murders should ask for more good jobs at good pay, and less regressive taxes (double the standard deduction). Murder has been going on since Cain slew Abel with an unregistered assault weapon.

– Ronald A. Sobieraj