'We Have to Do Something'
Ben Shapiro
2/21/2018 12:01:00 AM
The gun control debate is complex. It pits rights against duties. It pits individualism against communitarianism. It pits gun owners against anti-gun activists, and law-abiding citizens against one another. Most of all, it pits "common sense" against evidence. The vast majority of gun control proponents keep talking about "common sense" gun control, as though Americans could simply blue-sky some ideas about curbing highly sporadic acts of violence and fix the problem immediately -- and as though Americans were suffering from lack of will, rather than disagreement about method. That's simply not the case.
But there are things we can do.
Let's begin with the easiest thing: We can insist that our law enforcement agencies actually enforce the law. The Parkland, Florida, shooting occurred because the FBI failed to do its job. Not once but twice, the FBI was warned about the shooter. And not once but twice, it ignored the warnings. That isn't rare. We know that law enforcement screwed up in the South Carolina black church massacre; we know it screwed up in the Texas church massacre; we know it screwed up in San Bernardino. We know that, as of 2013, out of 48,321 cases against straw buyers -- people who buy guns for others, including those who aren't legally allowed to buy them -- just 44 had been prosecuted. We know that as of 2013, there were nearly 20,000 people in California alone who weren't legally allowed to own guns but owned them anyway. Giving the government more legal power to confiscate weaponry or prosecute those who are dangerous means nothing if the government blows every available opportunity.
more
https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2018/02/21/we-have-to-do-something-n2451895
