Three weeks ago, anti-gun marchers blaming the Second Amendment and gun rights organizations for firearms-related violence rallied in Baltimore, Chicago and elsewhere, but weekend shootings in both Democrat strongholds demonstrated once again demonstrate the disconnect in common sense: Criminals don’t obey the law and they pay no attention to gun control marches.
In Baltimore, WBFF, a local Fox News affiliate, reported that “13 people were shot throughout Baltimore City, leaving five dead, from Friday through Sunday afternoon.”
The Chicago Tribune reported that “one person was killed and at least eight others were wounded by gunfire” in the Windy City over the weekend, bringing the total number of shootings to more than 600 so far this year. And the mayhem continued Monday and early Tuesday as three more lives were claimed among at least seven people who were shot, the newspaper subsequently reported.
During the first three months of this year, according to U.S. News & World Report, Chicago logged 109 slayings, and by that city’s standards over the past couple of years, it is good news. That number is “down sharply from the 144 at this point in 2017 and the 145 seen in 2016.”
However, the publication quickly added, “The figures are still well above what Chicago experienced earlier in the decade, when the total for the first quarters of 2014 and 2015 did not break triple digits, but officials lauded the progress made in bringing the totals down from their recent highs.”
Second Amendment activists will be quick to observe how unlikely it is that any of the shooters in this crime wave are members of a gun rights organization. Yet such groups and their law-abiding members are consistently blamed for the carnage, and penalized with new gun control efforts.
Over the weekend in many cities, gun rights activists gathered to push back against the gun prohibition lobby that has seized on the Feb. 14 high school shooting in Florida to push its agenda. The turnouts were not as big, but those in attendance were no less enthusiastic, rain or shine.
Anti-gunners repeatedly call for “compromise” so here’s one suggested by one gun rights activist: Agree that these crimes aren’t the work of law-abiding gun owners, and leave them alone. Target criminals by enforcing laws already on the books.
So far, people committing the violent crimes in Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Detroit, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle haven’t been deterred by the law. Adding another law probably will not get their attention, either.
