Moving quick to exploit the tragic Sunday afternoon mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, the billionaire-backed Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America fired off an email blast declaring that “shootings shouldn’t happen” at such events.
Any Second Amendment advocate could justifiably observe, “Well, DUH!”
In the message, over the name of Moms founder Shannon Watts, there is also a mention of a weekend incident at the Old Timers Day block party in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. One person died and 11 others were wounded when two people opened fire.
What was missing from this narrative is any mention of the restrictive gun laws already on the books in both jurisdictions that were willfully violated. California has restrictive gun laws, but the killer there reportedly bought his rifle in Nevada earlier this month, brought it to Gilroy where the festival was being held at Christmas Hill Park – a “gun-free zone” – entered the Garlic festival by cutting through a fence and thus easily avoiding security checkpoints. In the process, he violated the law by transporting the rifle, initially identified by Fox News as a “WASR 10 semiautomatic” but subsequently identified as a different type of rifle, into California “where the firearm violated the state’s assault weapon ban.”
New York City has very restrictive gun laws. Yet two people were carrying guns, almost certainly illegally, in what was essentially a “gun-free zone,” to unleash mayhem.
In both states, murder is against the law and so is aggravated assault with firearms.
Anti-gun New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared, “We will do everything in our power to keep this community safe and get guns off our streets.”
His approach is to disarm law-abiding citizens.
Almost at the same time Everytown was essentially admitting that its gun control agenda has been a failure, the Seattle-based, and billionaire-backed, Alliance for Gun Responsibility was appealing for contributions with this message:
“The gun lobby’s lawyers are still coming after I-1639—and if their lawsuit is successful, this groundbreaking initiative will be in serious trouble. The gun lobby doesn’t care about voters’ sweeping mandate to end gun violence. They’re more concerned with firearm manufacturers’ profits than lives lost to gun violence. Especially after a weekend marred by mass shootings in California and New York – in which 26 people were shot in total and 4 killed – it is crucial that we send a message to the gun lobby that enough is enough…”
There have been no new developments in the Initiative 1639 federal lawsuit since U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton in Tacoma denied a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case, so now the lawsuit is moving forward, same as it was the last time the Alliance sent a “beg” email.
The federal lawsuit, filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association, challenges provisions of the controversial, multi-faceted initiative on the grounds that it violates the commerce clause by banning sales of rifles to non-residents, and that it unconstitutionally impairs the rights guaranteed by the First, Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and Article I Section 24 of the Washington State constitution by preventing the sale of certain rifles to otherwise qualified adults under age 21.
The Alliance, which is supported by a handful of Seattle-area billionaires and wealthy elitists, could be accused of unmitigated gall for complaining, “We’re up against the NRA’s bottomless resources,” especially in the wake of reports that the organization is in the throes of internal warfare over alleged financial woes.
Beyond that, I-1639 has absolutely nothing to do with crimes in New York or California, unless one somehow tries to draw a parallel between the 19-year-old shot dead by police at the Garlic Festival and the 19-year-old in Washington State whose misuse of a legally-purchased firearm three years ago was used as a reason to pass the restrictive initiative.
Gun prohibition lobbying groups have identified the problem with violence unintentionally. Laws they have demanded and gotten passed have proven impotent against violent criminals, just as Second Amendment activists had predicted. Instead of admitting their mistakes, anti-gunners want more gun control laws, evidently thinking that if they try the same thing over and over, eventually they will get the desired results.
Some might argue that is the definition of insanity.
