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 hey're
baaack. Just when you thought you were safe from Rosie and the anti-gun
nuts because their candidate Al Gore
got Bushwhacked, the Million Mom March folks are back, planning
a series of Mother's Day events peddling the same lies and about
kids and guns as last year.
This year things are a bit different, however. Last Mother's Day,
they and their sister organizations such as Handgun Control and
the Violence Policy Center organized the march on Washington to
promote "sensible gun laws." Boasting an attendance of 750,000 and
reinforced with Hollywood star power such as Rosie O'Donnell, they
exploited the tragedy of the then-recent killings at Columbine High
by bemoaning the "12 kids a day killed by guns." They called for
closing the "gun-show loophole" and passing a host of federal gun-control
legislation including licensing and registration, all in the name
of gun safety. They had the media with them and some big-time momentum.
Until Election Day, that is. Many working-class Democrats, fond
of both hunting and their guns, deserted the party and voted for
President Bush, putting normally Democratic states such as Arkansas,
Tennessee, and West Virginia in the Republican column. A year later,
most of the Million Mom staff has been laid off; the crime rate
continues its dramatic drop; and the National Rifle Association's
membership has soared to 4.3 million.
But these gals never give up. Since there is little likelihood of
any new gun legislation coming out of Washington, they've decided
that this year there will be a series of state and local rallies
instead, all promoting "gun safety," of course, and including everything
from a blood drive in Kentucky to "Family Day" in Morristown, N.J.,
to "crafts and play activities for the children, singing groups,
and presentations by local celebrities" in Alexandria, Va. Gotta
hand it to them; these ladies know how to have a good time.
Except for one thing. They're still lying about kids and guns. That
is not a good thing. It sets a bad example for "the kids." On their
website they still talk about honoring "the memory of the 10 children
who die from gunfire every single day in America." This is simply
not true. According to the National Center for Health Statistics,
in 1998 there were 609 firearm-related fatalities among children
up to and including 14 years of age, and of these, 121 were accidental.
The number of children accidentally killing other children with
handguns could be counted on two hands. More kids drown in backyard
pools or from accidents involving space heaters or bicycles than
die in gun accidents. In fact, the number of gun accidents are
at record lows, so one would think that Moms everywhere would
be celebrating. But not these Moms. They're on a mission.
So they embellished the numbers by throwing in teens up to 20 years
of age. That adds 2,184 "kids" murdered, 1,241 suicides, and another
262 killed accidentally every year. Ahh, much better. That gives
us 3, 751 "kids" a year killed by guns. What they don't tell you
is that most of those murdered teens are not shot on the way from
a hayride. Many of them are involved in gangs, drugs, or crime,
and many are themselves cold-blooded killers, the very perpetrators
of gun violence so bemoaned by these sanctimonious Moms. Nearly
three quarters of these murder victims have criminal records. Most
crime is, in fact, committed by a very narrow segment of our population.
The idea that anyone can become a murderer simply because there's
a gun lying around is simply balderdash. It seems to be designed
to instill fear. Fear of your family; fear of your friends; fear
of yourself. Not a very sunny view of the world.
The Moms also don't tell you that virtually every academic study
done shows that restrictions on guns do not affect the overall rate
of suicide, only the portion committed with guns. As Prof. Gary
Kleck has observed in his book, Targeting Guns, after summarizing
the academic studies, "There is no statistically significant association
between gun availability levels and total suicide rates." The causes
of teenage suicide apparently have much more to do with Moms than
with guns, but everyone loves a scapegoat.
Like gun shows. After Columbine, gun shows became Public Enemy No.
1 among all "right thinking people," and closing the "gun-show loophole"
remains their number one priority in Congress. The "gun-show loophole"
has been bemoaned by Bill and Hillary, by Sarah Brady at Handgun
Control, and by good Moms everywhere. Why, if we didn't have the
loophole, they reason, the massacre at Columbine wouldn't have happened.
The "loophole" they keep talking about refers to the fact that a
small number of non-commercial dealers who sell guns at gun shows
are not required to run background checks on buyers, just as private
citizens are not required to do so if they sell a gun to a family
member or friend. All commercial dealers at shows are
required to run the checks, just as gun-store owners are. What the
Moms forget to tell you is that the girlfriend who bought the gun
for Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had no criminal record, and would,
therefore, have been able to buy the gun even if the background
check would have been required. It was already illegal, of course,
for either of the teens to purchase guns, as it was for them to
build bombs and kill 13 people. Somehow these facts seem to escape
notice.
So this Mother's Day, tell your Mother you love her, take her to
dinner, and pray that these Million Moms stop lying about kids and
guns.
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