Get the Facts Right

The problem with reading the news on the internet and being of Facebook is that sometimes friends post links to stupid articles. Since I don't give a shit about what celebrities think about issues I probably should have skipped this one. Unfortunately I didn't. It was the IJReview. The title of the article is "Liam Neeson Slams the United States & Absurdly Uses Paris Terrorist Attacks to Push Political Agenda". Let's start with the headline is just way to long. Why not something simple like "Liam Neeson and Obama Want to Take Your Guns". Or Liam Neeson is a Douche". Anyway on to what Mr. Neeson said.

"First off, my thoughts and prayers and my heart are with the deceased, and certainly with all of France, yesterday. I've got a lot of dear friends in Paris." He went on to say: "There's too many [expletive] guns out there. Especially in America. I think the population is like 320 million? There's over 300 million guns. Privately owned, in America. I think it's a [expletive] disgrace. Every week now we're picking up a newspaper and seeing, yet another few kids have been killed in schools."

The article goes on to question Mr. Neeson's credibility due to his use of guns in the Taken series of movies. Apparently if you use guns in a fictional setting you are disqualified from addressing the issue in the real world. They go on to quote the Washington Post which made the following statement about France's tough gun laws.

"There is no right to bear arms for the French, and to own a gun, you need a hunting or sporting license which needs to be repeatedly renewed and requires a psychological evaluation. Why didn't France's gun laws save the Charlie Hebdo victims?"

On its surface that seems to be a reasonable question. It may have been more difficult to get a gun in France but somehow these two killers ended up with guns. It does not follow logically for me that the introduction of more guns, being carried by members of the general public would have done anything to solve the problem. I know there are many out there who feel that an armed citizen would have come to the rescue, gun blazing and killed the killers and saved the day. It is the stuff of comic books and urban legend. I've shot lots of guns and in my younger days when my hands were steadier I was a decent shot. It was always shooting at something moving or still that wasn't going to shoot back. Add the other party into the mix with a gun shooting back and everybody tends to become a less confident and accurate shooter.

I think where the article went off track for me was in comparing the gun laws in Chicago to those in France and asking why there were so many shootings in Chicago. There are likely more guns in Chicago than there are in all of France. There will be multiple shootings in Chicago every day. The gun culture in America is different than the one in France. I have serious doubts that today the French people are saying. "If we had more people out there with concealed carry permits and carrying handguns this wouldn't have happened." That is a sentiment unique to the American experience. If a few guns are the problem then lots of guns are always the answer. The logic escapes me.