Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. That\u2019s how I\u2019d sum up all the recent calls for tougher gun laws in the wake of the recent mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left nine people dead.<\/p>\n
But if I had to pick out the five dumbest calls to action I\u2019ve heard thus far, here they are:<\/p>\n
\u201cSome reporters took it as resignation. I\u2019m not resigned,” Obama said<\/a> Friday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “I have faith we will eventually do the right thing. We have to stop being confused about this. … You don\u2019t see murder on this kind of scale, this kind of frequency in any other advanced nation on Earth.”<\/p>\n Why it\u2019s dumb:<\/strong> False comparison. Apples to oranges as crime data in Europe isn\u2019t reliably tracked nor tracked like it is in the U.S.<\/p>\n “A single American life is worth more than all the guns in the United States,” said the former Maryland governor while giving a speech<\/a> at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco. “How many senseless acts of violence do we have to endure as a people before we stand up to the congressional lobbyists of the National Rifle Association? How many more Americans have to die?”<\/p>\n O\u2019Malley also called for reinstating a federal ban on so-called assault weapons.<\/p>\n Why it\u2019s dumb:<\/strong> Guns save American lives everyday. Without them, more good people would be victims of assault, robbery, rape and murder.<\/p>\n \u201cGuns don\u2019t protect anyone from anything,\u201d wrote Gopnik in a recent article<\/a>\u00a0(I highly suggest you read it, you won’t believe how absurd it is). \u201cTheir presence simply increases the odds of domestic tragedy, of a domestic altercation turning into a homicide (or a suicide). The data confirms what common sense suggests: not even the most desperately paranoid among us could possibly be perpetually prepared for an actual home invasion\u2014as very rare as such incidents actually are\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Why it\u2019s dumb:<\/strong> Guns don\u2019t protect anyone from anything is about the dumbest statement I’ve heard in a long time. \u00a0But don’t take my word for it, consider this statement from a CDC study <\/a>on the number of defensive gun uses (Guns being used to protect someone from something) per year:<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n A follow up to his previous comments on twitter, “\u201cUntil responsible gun owners support responsible gun control laws, innocent blood will continue to flow. How many times must we see this?\u201d King tweeted this:<\/p>\n The Confederate flag flying over a state capital is disgusting, but it's a sidetrack. The real problem comes with a 30-shot clip.<\/p>\nDemocratic presidential candidate Martin O\u2019Malley<\/h2>\n
New Yorker Writer Adam Gopnik<\/h2>\n
Author Stephen King<\/h2>\n
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