It's Not About the "Gun"...

...it's about the "Control" that's important in "Gun Control."

Two dead, two injured in Jamaica Plain restaurant shooting

Two people were killed and two were injured after a shooting on Jamaica Plain’s bustling Centre Street last night, police said.

One of the victims was taken into police custody before he died, said Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. He suffered from “possible stab wounds,” she said.

This happened in Boston, Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Home of the "toughest gun laws". Where you are "more likely to live" because of those toughest gun laws according to the genius behind the AHSA. Massachusetts requires a permit simply to own a handgun - a permit that can be denied for any reason whatsoever, mind you. The City of Boston - and it's surrounding communities - does not issue concealed carry permits. Period. (Well, unless you're rich, famous, and/or well-connected, but that's fodder for another time)...

I'm not a betting man, but I'll put up $50, payable to the Joyce Foundation, that the person who did the shooting in this case did not have a valid unrestricted MA LTC.

It's about control, folks. Always has been, always will be. Making the good, honest people jump through hoops to get a magic permit from the government to exercise an enumerated right has nothing to do with curbing crime and everything to do with keeping the subjects in line. Every statistic out there shows this to be true - places with draconian gun control have out-of-control crime rates; those that have liberal concealed carry policies simply do not. Making someone apply for a permit to carry a firearm doesn't magically make them a better person; it's about damned time we stopped pretending it did.

Here's a question for you: How many Smith & Wesson J-frames are sold in Wisconsin and Illinois? How about Kel-Tec P3ATs? Unless every single one of them is going to an LEO, then you've got folks buying concealable firearms in states that - by decree - have zero provisions for concealed carry. I think we can all agree that if there were an epidemic of otherwise lawful folks getting involved in shootouts (the "Wild West" BS we see both in the linked article and in the myriad pro-gun-control drivel) that it would be front page news; it would be the irresistible concatenation of "if it bleeds it leads" and the liberal anti-gun agenda splayed out in black and white print for the world to see.

But it doesn't happen. A permit doesn't make someone any less inclined to go on a shooting rampage. Requiring a $100 "safety course" isn't going to turn a violent thug into a choirboy. Anyone not prohibited from owning a gun should be able to carry that gun - because the cold, hard reality is that they already can. If you can walk into a store and purchase a handgun, you can carry it - the legality of whether you should or shouldn't is your own personal risk assessment. The statistics do not in any way, shape, or form bear out the concept that folks start shooting each other over parking spaces or minor personal affronts - provided those folks are law-abiding, honest people to begin with (in other words, the very people who would go through the trouble to get a concealed carry license).

We're reaching the wrong audience in so many ways. The folks that get carry permits have been shown over and over again to be the most law-abiding citizens in the population. Making this demographic submit to further intrusions is beyond pointless - and yet the thugs and criminals continue to get firearms and use them in crimes with very little punishment. We blame the tool used - "Approved Firearms Roster"; "Assault Weapons Ban"; "Saturday Night Special" - while absolving the criminal of all guilt. And, more often than not, of most punishment as well - MA has a law on the books, the Bartley-Fox law, that requires a year in jail for any infraction of firearms laws. To the best of my knowledge there have been zero prosecutions.

Call it pessimism, but I fear there are more gun control measures in the works. We have seen nothing but contempt for the common man from the current administration, from the unwanted ØbamaCare to the many bailouts to the ever-intrusive (and ineffectual) reach of the Federal government - it's only a matter of time before they try to further disarm the peasantry. Øbama served on the Joyce Foundation, one of the many anti-gun groups actively working to effectively repeal the Second Amendment. He has repeated stated his views plainly and clearly that he supports Federal bans on concealed carry; that he supports handgun bans and arbitrary limits on how many firearms can be purchased in a period of time.

And yet the news reminds us, on a frequent basis, that gun control is a complete and utter failure. Those that wish to acquire guns despite criminal records to the contrary will acquire them by theft or fraud; alternately, Weer'dbeard has an entire category of posts devoted to stories of folks killed with weapons other than firearms. We as a species are remarkably adaptive and can either steal guns, make guns, or simply use other objects if we truly want to cause death or destruction to our fellow man. Passing pointless laws that only hinder the honest and law-abiding does nothing for safety, nothing for security, and everything for further eroding away our rights.

I mean, we peasants simply cannot be trusted with such dangerous weapons, right?

That is all.