In Monday’s Herald, Larry Simoneaux, in his usual folksy but eloquent column, hits on some of the important points in the gun control debate, and explains some of the reasons the proposed measures to curb gun violence will be ineffective. (“A question of balance in seeking solutions.”) But he doesn’t go far enough. Lately, several Herald opinion page writers attempt to paint the average gun owner as a conspiracy nut because of fear that gun control measures may eventually lead to gun confiscation.
Maybe I can shed some light on this fear. In Mr. Simoneaux’s, column, he explains the fallacy of the focus on magazine capacity, the misplaced attention on a gun’s appearance rather than its capability and the fact that the genie is well out of the bottle at this point.
With these facts in mind, we seem to be left with three troubling lines of thought:
•The politicians and the media-fueled gun control crowd are morons (not pejoratively, but actually) and ignore the simple truths.
The politicians and the media-fueled gun control crowd believe the masses they’re playing to are morons and will be mollified by the actions they propose.
There is another, unspoken agenda in play.
Personally, I don’t think the first one applies. Only highly capable people get to those positions.
The second is likely and probably in action in some combination with the third.
But there is a bigger problem. While we focus on these ineffectual measures, real help will not be forthcoming. Since those proposing the “gun control” measures know this, one has to wonder if they prefer it that way.
Chris Johnson
Marysville
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