Gun control advocates repeatedly argue that if you restrict guns, criminals won’t be able to get guns.
No, it doesn’t make any sense to me.
I mean, I think I understand the argument–if regular folks have a harder time obtaining guns, that will sort of trickle down and impact criminals’ ability to obtain guns because not only will straw buys be harder, but there will be fewer guns to steal. Or something.
The problem with that argument is that it’s stupid.
Honestly, I could leave it there and not add any more.
I won’t, though. Mostly because it seems at least one public television entity is willing to admit that they’re not working in Washington state.
In June, 17-year-old Garfield High School student Amarr Murphy-Paine reportedly tried to break up a fight between two boys. One of them allegedly took out a gun and fatally shot him.
Murphy-Paine was not the first nor the last Seattle-area youth impacted by gun violence this year
In January, a 15-year-old was fatally shot at the Teen Life Center in West Seattle. In July, 13-year-old bystander Jayda Woods-Johnson was fatally shot in Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood after a fight broke out between two groups of teens. police said. And just last month, two teenagers were arrested in connection with shooting two 16-year-olds and an adult, who died, at a house party in Sumner.
Prosecutors and activists say that without access to firearms, some of these shootings could have been fistfights.
Washington ranks ninth in the country for gun-law strength, according to Everytown for Gun Safety this year, making it one of the strictest states. The Legislature passed a law earlier this year which requires gun owners to report stolen firearms to law enforcement within 24 hours or face a fine of up to $1,000.
Yet despite Washington’s relatively strict gun laws, children are still obtaining guns.
In the past school year, the King County prosecuting attorney’s juvenile office said about 100 students were convicted of a felony, and the office notified their schools. Of these notifications, “every single one of them” was firearm-related, according to Jamie Kvistad, King County senior deputy prosecuting attorney in the Juvenile Division and lead of the Safer School Strategy program.
In short, tons of gun control laws aren’t stopping people from getting guns illegally.
I know, you’re totally shocked to learn this.
See, these are kids. Even if Washington were Missouri so far as gun control laws go, kids would have to obtain guns illegally. The prohibition on them buying guns is federal, so it applies across the nation. Everyone is impacted by it.
So additional gun laws were never going to stop that from happening.
All it did was shift where the guns came from. Additional laws would, at most, shift where they come from still further. It won’t stem the tide or anything.
That’s because where there is a market for something, even if it’s illegal, someone will step in and sell to that market. The Law of Supply and Demand is an economic law for a reason. It doesn’t just describe behavior with legal goods, but any goods that can be bought or sold.
So while they won’t come right out and say that the gun laws are an abject failure, they do at least acknowledge that there are a ton of gun control laws on the books in Washington and it doesn’t seem to be doing a damn bit of good.
