Anti-gun U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) declared over the weekend that Americans are “sitting ducks” until Congress adopts more restrictive gun control laws, a notion Second Amendment activists consider to be another effort to exploit the tragedy at Apalachee High School to push an extremist agenda.
According to The Guardian, Warnock was appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday discussing the high school shooting in Winder, Georgia.
“We’re all sitting ducks,” Warnock asserted. “And any country that allows this to continue without putting forward just common sense safety measures is a country that has – in a tragic way – lost its way.”
But in a famous advertisement from about five years ago, the Second Amendment Foundation was telling people the same thing, about so-called “gun-free zones.” In a magazine ad appearing in several publications, SAF told readers, “Public safety is a critical part of the education campaigns of the Second Amendment Foundation, and with good reason. Without a self-defense option, we are all at greater risk.”
The foundation also stated, “The evidence shows that gun-free zones are not the answer. Truth is, they are an added danger because they prevent legally armed citizens from defending themselves and their neighbors. It’s time to get rid of gun-free zones. The U.S. has tried them for more than 20 years and evidence shows that gun-free zones actually increase the danger. Nobody wants to be a sitting duck in a maniac’s shooting gallery.”
This advertisement appeared a couple of years before the July 17, 2022 attempted mass shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana. However, a major tragedy was averted when a legally-armed private citizen, 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, drew his pistol and, from a distance of about 40 yards across the mall’s food court area, he fatally shot the gunman, who had already killed two people.
Dicken’s action was hailed by officials, mall management and the public, while the gun prohibition lobby remained silent.
Warnock reportedly alluded to an April 2023 poll by Fox News showing broad public support for background checks, raising the minimum age for buying a gun to 21 years, required mental health checks on gun owners and a 30-day waiting period on gun purchases. No other constitutional right is subject to such restrictions.
The senator, who is also a minister, said “large numbers of Americans” support a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” But millions of citizens who own those firearms—modern semiautomatic rifles—oppose such a ban. The “mandatory buyback” strategy espoused by Vice President Kamala Harris amounts to “compensated confiscation,,” according to gun owners.
Congress has not moved on such a ban since the original 10-year-ban passed during the Clinton presidency was not renewed when it ended in 2004, and research since then suggests there was no appreciable effect. According to Wikipedia, “A 6.7% reduction in homicide rate was found but the result was not statistically significant.”
FBI Uniform Crime data consistently shows rifles of any kind are used in a fraction of all homicides in any given year.
Warnock blamed the inaction on his Capitol Hill colleagues who allegedly are beholden to the firearms industry. He said the country is at “an impasse” on the gun control debate, and he asserted politicians who “are doing the bidding of the corporatist gun lobby even as they line their pockets with the blood of our children.”
