Dec 6^th

George Will tells us that after the shooting in Southern California some 180 thousand people went out and bought guns. Will claimed that these people “voted with their feet.” Will doesn’t tell us how many of these purchasers were new owners and how many were just adding to an already existing arsenal. Then we have Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, suggesting that all of the university students there should carry concealed weapons.

John Kasich, the governor of Ohio says that he would have voted against banning those on the terrorism watch list from buying guns. He provides a new and interesting logic for his decision. Most of the right wingers who suggest not enforcing such a ban maintain that the list is flawed, that some are on the list that don’t belong there. (See Carly Fiorina’s comment about this.) Of course no test is perfect. The fact that there are a few false positives shouldn’t lead us to abandon such lists but to improve them. Kasich suggests that if we ban anyone on that list from buying an AR-15 or an AK-47, then they will know that they are on the list. So which is worse, having a couple of terrorists get AK-47s and shoot up a mall someplace or stop the gun purchase and in so doing reveal that they are on the watch list. Is Kasich serious that this is a choice?

Then we had a right wing Trump fan on a morning talk show who handed out the same curious information on the inadequacy of gun control laws we’ve heard over and over again. She claimed that California had strict gun control laws and that is spite of that, these terrorists had no problem getting weapons. Nonsense! California is just next door to Nevada and no one checks packages coming into California from Nevada where guns are easily obtainable. We get this same nonsense from right wingers about Chicago’s gun laws; just go outside the city limits and buy all you want; or Washington D.C which has strict gun laws, but is a ten minute cab ride from Virginia where buying is easy.

(Now it can be told: I got a Marksman medal in the USAAF during basic because the guy standing next to me was shooting at my target. We had three 5 shot clips for our .45s and my target had sixteen holes in it. The sergeant asked me what happened. I said I didn’t know…but I was mightily tempted to tell him that I was one helluva shot.)