I’m not holding my breath, and neither should you.
Anyone hoping the failed assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump will reignite the gun reform discussion and lead to common sense changes and restrictions is wasting their time.
If the slaughter of 20 kindergarten-age children at a Connecticut grade school in 2012, along with all the other subsequent mass shootings, wasn’t enough to steer the conversation into saner waters, why would this episode be the turning point? Even the attempted killing of another president 43 years ago wasn’t enough to inspire sweeping, meaningful reform.
Rabid gun owners and the gun lobby, will fight to the death—literally— to keep all manner of firearms open and flowing freely. And given that the Supreme Court just recently ruled that a device that makes a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun is perfectly legal, there’s every indication that sanity may be long gone.
Guns and bullets are good for business. One industry organization, the National Firearm Industry Trade Association, estimated the contribution to the economy was roughly $70 billion a few years ago, though the figure includes manufacturing and affiliate industries, not just firearms sales. Another industry organization claimed the gun game contributed more than $1 billion to conservation efforts. Presumably hunters and casual gun users want to preserve the great outdoors so they can continue to shoot things in it.
In some cases gun violence is good for business. Alex Jones made a ton of money based, in part, on his assertion that the Sandy Hook School slaughter was fake. And just days after Trump survived his own near-death experience, sneakers and T-shirts commemorating the event were already on sale.
Forty years ago this week, a little more than three years after someone tried to kill President Ronald Reagan, James Huberty massacred 21 people at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro.
In light of that event a lifetime ago, and Sunday’s Pennsylvania shooting which left one dead at a Trump rally, ask yourself if this country has a problem with gun violence. Are we better off now than we were then?
You know who can’t answer those questions? The thousands who this year were killed in gun related violence.
