I had planned to write this two days before Orlando.
There is a predictable series of events associated with mass shootings and gun sales. It goes like this.
1. The media report the shooting.
2. Gun control advocates within minutes — not hours — go online and call for gun control.
3. If there was an AR-15 involved, the critics will say “assault rifle.”
4. Within a week, gun sales rise.
When President Obama does this, the sales are higher, faster.
Bellefonte, Centre County, Pa.
A gun shop owner in Centre County says that he has sold between 13,000 and 15,000 semi-automatic rifles on his website since the Orlando mass shooting.
They know about the cause and effect relationship, which is a law of American politics. It literally never fails.
If these people really cared about gun sales, they would stay discreetly silent. But they don’t. They won’t.
President Obama was on the air within hours. He could not resist.
Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.
(For the rest of my article, click the link.)