A pro-gun article in the New York Times? Has hell frozen over? Oh, and the assault weapon ban was a joke. -New York Times.

New York Times/Cleon Peterson

In an op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times, an author examines some of the myths behind the assault weapon ban.  The article points out that the 1994 through 2004 ban did almost nothing to prevent crime. The vast majority of deaths from firearms come from handguns. In 2012, of the roughly 11,000 people murdered by an person with a gun only 322 were killed by rifles of any type. They also point out that over half the people that are killed by gunfire in this country are black men. Even though handguns are used more in crimes, they haven't been targeted like assault rifles have since they are viewed as defensive weapons and have been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. Assault weapons have been in mass shootings but even then mass shootings are a tiny fraction of the gun deaths in America. And gun deaths have been falling drastically across the country anyways. The author argues a better way to reduce gun crime is to handle inner city unemployment, poverty and drugs. 

My Comment:

I never thought I would see the day. I knew everything in the article already, and if you are reading this you probably did too. Still, kudos on Lois Becket for getting a pro-gun article in the New York Times. 

Anyways, there isn't much else to discuss here other then the facts cited in the article are valid. Everyone should know this stuff already. The assault weapon ban was stupid, gun crime is dropping anyways, gun crime is a inner city and largely minority problem. Dozens of studies and hundreds of articles have proven that point already. Too bad pro-gun control people have willful blindness. Of course if their goal was to actually save lives they wouldn't be pushing for gun control in the first place. It's all about controlling people and making sure that their political enemies don't have any power.