Gun Violence Prevention Movement?
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.) recently referred to his group as being part of the "gun violence prevention movement". What a laughable assertion.
Their focus is and always has been on gun control not violence prevention. If they were really interested in preventing gun violence then they would focus on the people who actually commit gun crimes: career criminals not your average law abiding person.
There's really no secret here. By the time someone commits a murder they almost always have a long criminal record. On the flip side, people who go through the process of applying for a permit and submitting to a background check rarely commit murders. It's not a surprise.
So, consider the following chain of events.
1. Straw purchaser agrees to fraudulently buy guns for a trafficker (a crime)
2. Straw purchaser makes the fraudulent purchase (a crime)
3. Career criminal buys a gun from the trafficker (a crime)
4. Career criminal owns and possesses an illegal gun (a crime)
5. Career criminal, while engaging in some other criminal activity [insert your choice here] (a crime, obviously), opens fire on another criminal (a crime)
6. Witnesses memories are strangely hazy, as if no one saw anything, because of a history of witness intimidation (a crime).
Most of us see this and say "Wow, there's a lot of criminal activity there. Let's nail the criminals." The Brady Campaign sees it and says "We need more gun control." They never quite get around to explaining why it is that the criminals will follow the new laws when they broke the other laws.
It seems to me that a better name for their so-called movement would be a "subvert the constitution, ignore the real problem and guarantee defenseless victims movement". Just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?