Gun Control is a Virtue Signal

Useless politics serving only as a virtue signal and tax shelter for people that don't know better and aren't interested in real solutions.

Policy aside, gun control is a virtue signal for people who are privileged enough not to understand why anyone would want guns and aren't thoughtful enough to consider serious bottom-up societal reforms that would directly address the root causes of what they can only perceive as “gun deaths.” As long as equal and opposite reactions from gun advocates exist, prohibitionists will always claim to be on the “sensible” side without ever fixing anything.

The louder the cries for stricter gun control, the stronger the ivory tower vibes: Politicians, celebrities, and wealthy people with armed security whining about the “need” to ban items like “assault weapons” “high capacity clips” or “weapons of war” when said security is using exactly those items.

Given these firearms “have no place on our streets” why is it acceptable for police and security personnel to continue to have them?

When questioned about the firearms carried by his security detail, Mike Bloomberg thought he was making a valid point by explaining his paid protectors were “retired law enforcement and fully trained.” Presidents enjoy similar protection. Click to watch:

I fully support Mr. Bloomberg, every President, and anyone else’s right to have armed security, whether hired out or done as a DIY (Do It Yourself) option.

How about this: If it’s a training and skill issue, as stated in the video above, every American who can demonstrate shooting skills equal to or better than Mr. Bloomberg’s worst guard or the lowest-scoring member of the Secret Service receives a formal endorsement from Everytown For Gun Safety to own and carry the same guns these security have. Only a hypocrite would push policy to ban the same items for millions of gun owners who are demonstrably as or more skilled but don’t happen to be in their employ.

Also, here’s a friendly reminder that Congress has established federal law to sell military weapons to individual American citizens and have them be trained in their use. Click to watch:

https://rumble.com/v4keizz-congress-sells-military-weapons-to-american-citizens.html

Meanwhile, when statisticians study gun control they find prohibition schemes are useless.

My colleagues and I spent months researching all gun deaths in USA (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths) and our work kept convincing me that there's not as much plausible policy to reduce gun deaths as I had believed. I say plausible as in even if the anti-gun folks had relatively free reign, there still wasn't much I was confident would help.

I was all for banning silencers, assault weapons, etc. until I researched gun deaths for FiveThirtyEight. Now, I'm better informed and frustrated at how politicians sold me soundbitable solutions that are (at best) not backed by data, and at worst are incoherent and could only be written by people ignorant about basic gun mechanics. There are better solutions to tout, but they're not simple bans.

I found the most hope in more narrowly tailored interventions. We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.

Prohibition policies have historically been failures. The Temperance movement gathered momentum for nearly a century sufficient to garner support to pass a Constitutional Amendment only to have it become the only Amendment ever rescinded about a decade later. Gun control is pushing a similar failed policy as if it were a solution while ignoring narrowly tailored interventions that help reform potential killers and prevent potential victimization.