Soap Box

Some of the Democrat presidential candidates wasted no time in blaming the mass shooting at the Walmart in El Paso on President Trump.

That is both dumb and stupid and tantamount to blaming all the police shootings on Barack Obama for his careless remarks about the police acting “stupidly,” or blaming Bernie Sanders for the attempted murder of then Majority Whip, Steve Scalise and other Republican lawmakers at a softball game practice because the perpetrator was one of his supporters, or blaming the Dayton shooter because he was a supporter of Elizabeth Warren.

No, this is simply political desperation by also-rans trying to get a little more face time on TV to bolster their faltering campaigns.

This attitude, this approach and these kinds of opportunistic politicians are the very reason there has been no movement on gun legislation, because law-abiding gun owners know that this kind of attitude that immediately grabs the low hanging fruit and never the roots of a problem skews to overkill, that in reality, does nothing about the real dilemma and ends up being a futile exhibition of asinine hyperbole and rhetoric about how the opposing side wants to see mass murders and school shootings.

Nobody with enough gray matter to tie their shoes really believes that the proponents of the second amendment want to see gun violence and that kind of gross incendiary dialogue is totally counterproductive to doing anything about sensible gun laws or the insanity on our streets.

Actually, the first thing to do, and what would make a world of difference, would be to enforce existing gun laws, the cities with the most stringent firearm laws have the highest murder rates.

Unscrupulous gun dealers and black-market gun dealers need to be taken off the streets and face serious jail time.

Secondly, the very “geniuses” who want to blame Trump for El Paso, advocate a policy that actually imports violent gang members and other criminals across our southern borders every day, look at the statistics dealing with MS-13 and how many violent crimes have been committed by people who crossed into this country illegally.

The problem with getting legal gun owners on board is the government’s habit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and their “give us an inch and we’ll take a mile” approach.

Actually, the master plan on the radical side is an incremental outlawing of all privately-owned firearms, second amendment be damned.

They oppose placing well-trained security personnel at schools, probably because President Trump supports it.

There are enough qualified military veterans and off duty police officers to set and execute the kind of security it would take to make our schools much safer.

The difference in the murder rate in El Paso and the one in Dayton was due to the presence of police officers in Dayton who were on the scene in 30 seconds and brought the killer down before he could carry out the number of killings he undoubtedly planned to do.

Even if the anti-gun contingent had their ultimate way and were successful in removing legally owned guns in America, nothing would be done about the illegally owned ones. One more law is not going to turn criminals into law-abiding citizens.

And even if they were successful in getting most of the illegal guns off the streets, there would be a thriving black market, the cartels in Mexico are very diverse and if there’s big money involved they will find a way.

So where does that leave us?

Actually, right back at square one where we started with the apparent need to deal with the facts, not the fiction.

Let’s expose the myths perpetrated by the anti-gun lobby.

First of all, background checks.

In my home state of Tennessee, we have a thorough background check system, and not just the first time you purchase a firearm, but every time.

Every state I’ve bought a gun in have these same kinds of requirements, especially for buying handguns, and yes, even at the “gun shows” you’ve heard so much about.

We can’t have meaningful politically correct gun legislation, police have to be given the latitude they need to clean up the violence in the streets and have to be backed by city hall, state capitals and the federal government.

A mayor who can’t even vigorously condemn throwing water on policemen carrying out their duty or has a “let them destroy” attitude or turns a blind eye to the crime in their cities for some ill-perceived political expediency are not servants of the people, but self-serving political hacks
part of the problem, not the solution,

The roots of our gun problem run through the political process, the biased media, the dealers who allow straw purchasing of firearms, the alley dealers and the crime community’s black market.

One place it does not run is through the locked gun cabinets of the millions and millions of legal gun owners who have never used their guns for anything except sports and protection.

They have a right to own guns, criminals don’t, apply the medicine to the diseased areas, not the healthy ones.

What do you think?

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

— Charlie Daniels

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Check out "Mexico Again" from Beau Weevils - 'Songs in the Key of E'