On Gun Laws and Tragedy

I have some notes for any anti-gun individuals who might read this post, and a couple for the people on my side.

For the Anti-gun folks:

1. Police were called to the Parkland shooter's (I refuse to learn the names of these assholes) home MULTIPLE times. As in 39. He posted credible threats on the internet UNDER HIS OWN NAME. People called the FBI twice about him. The armed school resource officer, rather than do his job, decided to sit the shooting out. For all intents and purposes, Law Enforcement at every level failed to do their jobs. These are the same people who'd be enforcing any new gun laws that get passed. What makes you think that they're competent do do that?
2. If you read the Second Amendment, the operative clause says, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." There's a distinct lack of "unless it'll make people safer" or "unless it saves one child."
3. Even if the Second Amendment did allow for that, the problem isn't guns. Here are some data points:
1. 19 dead in a knife attack in Japan
2. 33 Dead in a mass stabbing at a Chinese train station
3. 22 stabbed outside a school (according to this article, knife attacks are apparently not uncommon in China)
4. 334 dead in the Beslan School Siege
5. 87 Dead in Happy Land arson
6. 168 dead in the Oklahoma City Bombing.
7.   
   
8.  If guns were the problem, our murder rate would make Honduras' look like kindergarten play. In fact, if there is a correlation between guns and homicide, it's a negative one.
9. If you refuse to accept Honduras' homicide rate as relevant, you're admitting that it's more complicated than "Guns cause crime".
4. Bump stocks aren't the problem either. They've been used once for a mass killing - mass killings are more likely to involve arson, explosives or trucks, than they are to involve a bump-fire stock. And yet people are getting all worked up about a piece of plastic that any chump with a 3d printer (and, if you're willing to do the assembly yourself, 3d printers are surprisingly affordable) can push out by the dozens or hundreds, depending on how committed he is. And you don't actually need a bump-fire stock to bump fire - it just makes it more comfortable.
5. Do you really want to give Trump more power?
6. Luty, Metral, Sten, Uru. Do you know what all those names have in common? They're all submachine guns that can be built with minimal tools and hardware store components. The Luty SMG was actually designed with that in mind. Variants of all those guns (except, AFAIK, the Luty) get mass produced by illegal arms factories in various nations and sold to criminals. most of these nations have very strict gun control. 
7. Gun control is not the answer, not even a part of it. There is, in fact, no simple answer. Allowing qualified teachers to carry, and putting armed LEOs in as many schools as possible is a start, but it isn't a complete answer in and of itself.

For my side:

1. Specifically for those who voted Trump in the primaries: now that Trump is advocating a useless ban on bump-fire stocks and raising the buying age of guns to 21, do you feel stupid? I hope you do. Just because someone says they're on your side doesn't mean that they actually are.
   EDIT: I'm not blaming anyone for voting for Trump in the General Election. Maximilien Robespierre is a more attractive choice than Hillary.
2. For the NRA - You quisling fuckweasels. I hope you're happy with yourselves for proposing a ban on a piece of plastic. The president apparently agrees with you.

They won't stop

Well, It's a Start

Today the Supreme Court denied an appeal concerning non-violent misdemeanor offenses and gun rights, letting a lower courts decision stand. This makes it so that you can't be denied your gun rights for a non-violent misdemeanor. I don't support having any misdemeanor turn someone into a prohibited person - if a person's crime is so bad that they shouldn't be allowed to own firearms, it should be a felony - and I'm ambivalent about prohibiting felons, particularly non-violent felons, for a variety of reasons, ranging from the massive number of felony laws on the book, so many in fact, that no one even knows how many there are, let alone how to avoid committing one, to the fact that a reformed felon is just as prohibited as an unrepentant felon, and the unrepentant one won't have any issues with using the black market or other illegal means (i.e. theft) to obtain a firearm.

So the fact that the crimes that can lead to becoming a prohibited person have been significantly reduced makes me more than a little happy.

Moderates

For all those talking about how horrible the NRA is, I want you to consider something:
The NRA are the squishy moderates of the Pro-Gun crowd.
The NRA has a past record of being willing to "compromise" or, if you go back far enough, straight up sponsor gun control (See the 1934 National Firearms Act). The NRA, in fact, has a very strong contingent of "Fudds"*, and WILL accept some gun control - although we're pretty close to the limits they'll tolerate, and it's quite rare for the politicians to propose the sort of gun control that the NRA would be willing to support.

Of the other major pro-gun groups, almost all of them are significantly more hard-line than the NRA - for example, Gun Owners of America (GOA) which emphasizes their "No Compromise" stance on gun control. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all those gun owners who aren't in the NRA are going to side with you. Oh, some of them will - there are plenty of Fudds who don't even care enough to be in the NRA - but many, perhaps even most of those gun owners view the NRA as being anything from "good, but not enough" to "barely better than quislings".

So the next time you complain about the NRA blocking a piece of gun control, you might want to consider something: Why are the Squishiest, most moderate of the gun owners  opposing this? If the moderates on the "pro-gun" side are so worked up about "common-sense gun legislation", how do more extreme groups feel? Are they actually serious about "from my cold dead hands"?

*Fudd, a hunter/recreational shooter of a single gun, who supports or fails to oppose most gun control for a variety of reasons including:

1. They don't think that their gun will ever be banned
2. They believe ownership of firearms should be limited to hunting weapons 
3. They just don't care 
4. Rank hypocrisy.