Putting the Blame Where It Belongs
The SIG SAUER MCX, the gun used to take 49 lives June 12 in Orlando. This graph tells a story: It comes from an article in The Economist dated August 10, 2015, so it lacks data from the Santa Barbara and Orlando shootings; but even without those numbers, the statistics are stunning: the number of people killed or wounded in mass shootings has increased significantly since 2004, when the Assault Weapon Ban was permitted to expire. Here's another graph that tells a parallel story: Since the election of Barack Obama, gun sales have gone up while, simultaneously, the number of gun owners has gone down. A minority of Americans is amassing personal arsenals. From time to time, one of those gun owners opens fire in a crowded place, and these weapons of mass homicide carry out the function for which they were designed: quickly, efficiently slaughtering multiple innocents. In the wake of the Orlando shooting, anyone with a constituency has been making pronouncements....