Monday night’s presidential debate and Washington State’s gubernatorial debate underscored a serious problem that Democrats cannot seem to overcome.
They can’t put the words “gun” and “control” together in the same sentence. Instead, it’s “gun safety.” Both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gov. Jay Inslee used that term, created by the gun prohibition lobby to mask what is really being discussed.
Viewers watching the presidential debate saw Clinton stammer for just a second when she brought up the subject of guns following a long dissertation about unequal justice for minorities that seemed scripted and well-rehearsed. It was as if she almost said “gun control” but caught herself and made the correction.
Inslee was smoother, talking in reaction to the first question out of the gate regarding the Friday attack at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, about 65 miles north of Seattle. Five people were murdered by a shooter using a .22-caliber rifle, identified as a Ruger 10/22. The suspect in that case, Arcan Cetin, now faces five counts of first-degree premeditated murder.
Inslee declared that he is “proud to be supported by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.” That’s the same organization that pushed Initiative 594 into law two years ago with a multi-million-dollar campaign for so-called “universal background checks” that were supposed to prevent this sort of crime.
But the suspect apparently didn’t bother with a background check. According to the Skagit Valley Herald, his step-father told investigators that the rifle was missing. As reported earlier, the suspect had been ordered back on Dec. 29 by the Island County District Court that he was not to possess firearms.
The Bellingham Herald noted today that, “After the shooting, the gunman placed the rifle with a 25-round magazine on top of a cosmetics counter, exited the store, and fled the Cascade Mall in his car, according to police.”
He also has a history of physical violence and crude behavior, various published reports indicate. As reported earlier, he had been ordered back on Dec. 29 by the Island County District Court that he was not to possess firearms.
The Cascade Mall shooting is the kind of incident that is exploited by gun prohibitionists and politicians to press for stricter gun control laws. In this case, nobody can call the rifle an “assault weapon” and the incident could easily be used to demonstrate the fallacy that gun control laws prevent tragedies.
Instead of acknowledging that their strategies haven’t worked, gun prohibitionists invariably double down, demanding more restrictions on law-abiding citizens.
Clinton is supported in her White House run by major gun control organizations. Trump was endorsed by the National Rifle Assocation.
Inslee is backed by a wealthy Seattle-based gun control organization.
That says it all for Second Amendment activists who will soon be filling out their ballots.
