Posted on 02/03/2015 7:01:40 AM PST by shortstop
On Saturday, the police say, parolee Michael Morris dragged his ex-girlfriend halfway across the county – twice putting a gun to her head and threatening to execute her – before he crashed a birthday her family was holding and shot a half a dozen people, wounding some of them severely.
This was in Syracuse, New York, at an Irish bar in the old Irish neighborhood known as Tipperary Hill.
Twenty-two years old, out of prison in December after doing five years for a crime at 17 he committed while toting a stolen handgun.
On the plus side, the bar was able to hose out the blood in time for the Super Bowl. On the negative side, it all led to an anti-gun lecture from the liberal mayor.
Stephanie Miner, one-time co-chair of the New York Democratic Party, stood up, while some of the wounded were still fighting for their lives, and said that this situation demanded more gun control.
Which is insane.
One, that a politician would so quickly spin what was almost the largest mass murder in city history into a political talking point.
Two, that she would expect anybody with a brain to take her seriously.
New York, with the harshest statewide anti-gun laws in America, had already long since outlawed everything Michael Morris allegedly did – and yet he still did what he did. Does the mayor think that passing one more law will stop the likes of Michael Morris from breaking the laws that are already on the books?
He was a parolee, a felon, and the possession of a firearm was against the law. Kidnapping and terrorizing his former girlfriend was against the law. Shooting up the bar and half the people in it was against the law. Doing so with what apparently was a high-capacity magazine was against the law. It was all already banned, and this ex-con still reportedly did it with impudence.
He is a walking demonstration that gun control – laws limiting access to weapons by people who obey the law – does nothing to limit the behavior of criminals.
Yet progressive sweetheart Stephanie Miner wants more anti-gun laws.
Anti-gun laws which castrate the rights of good people while doing nothing whatsoever to control bad people.
This is preposterous.
It only makes sense if you see the world from that dark and unsanitary place where liberals keep their heads.
In fact, the reality of gun control is that it empowers and emboldens criminals by disarming their victims.
For example, it may well have been the prevalent gun-control passion of Syracuse’s power elite that allowed so many people to be shot at the bar. In Onondaga County, where Syracuse is located, almost no one is given a concealed-carry permit. In a process lorded over by a local judge, requests for carry permits are almost always denied.
Other counties routinely issue such permits, but not Onondaga County – equal protection and the 14th Amendment be damned.
That all but assured that as that family found itself under attack on Saturday that it was defenseless against the onslaught. The law-breaker had an unlawfully possessed, illegally equipped handgun in his possession. The law abiders had nothing.
And it was their blood that was spilt.
Had there been less gun control – if the powers that be in Syracuse hadn’t turned against concealed-carry handgun permits – perhaps one of the people in the bar could have defended his family and repelled the attacker.
Gun control has thus far done nothing but infringe the rights of the law abiding and empower the violence of the law breaking.
Which means people like Stephanie Miner have blood on their hands.
Speaking of which, another aspect of the mayor’s attack on the Second Amendment is the handy fact that by doing so she successfully turns the public discussion away from an issue in which she is culpable – increasing violence in the city of Syracuse.
As mayor, it’s her job to protect the city and its residents, to assure the public order and promote a sense of peace and safety.
That’s not been working very well lately.
Over the last couple of months, there have been steadily rising tides of violent crime in the walking neighborhoods near Syracuse University, in Armory Square and near the various parking facilities in downtown Syracuse, and at and around the massive – and massively important – Destiny USA mall.
The mayor’s response has been to say that everything’s fine.
That has proven to be little consolation to the victims.
And Saturday’s attack on the Tipp Hill bar came awkwardly just days after Stephanie Miner had assured the city, again, that all was well.
An incident in which six wounded could have been six dead with better aim or less-competent emergency departments is not indicative that, in fact, all is well.
What happened is that a politician covered for her own failure by attacking your freedom. Instead of saying something about a percolating crime problem, and how she was going to fight it, she went after the guns.
More correctly, she went after the legal guns and their law-abiding owners.
She sought to exploit tragedy for political gain.
If the question is "How do we enslave the peasants?" then it is the answer.
I am DONE talking about control of a right affirmed to me by the US Constitution. Just come and try to take them.
“In fact, the reality of gun control is that it empowers and emboldens criminals by disarming their victims.”
Uh......D U H .
Let’s make civilian bulletproof vests illegal, too, while we’re at it. /S
Try telling THAT to a Leftist...
Gun control is the equivalent of punishing all of your children for the misdeeds of one child.
Once again we see a prime example of the method by which the Socialist Gun grabbers on the nation’s left use to incrementally deprive the people of their Commonsense Civil Rights.
Note that it didn’t matter the number of law the perp violated – the call will always be for more of the same as though there is some sort of magic in just one more law being passed, one more freedom surrendered to the oppressive-left.
Gun grabbers will ignore all the law already on the books and pretend they are at the starting point – this is Step 1 in the gun grabber process.
When they have milked a tragedy for all it’s worth and eked out some more gradual infringements on our God given rights the clarion call will be that it’s just a ‘baby step’ - this is the 2nd part of the process.
Then after a short time the people’s attention will be distracted to something else, and these miraculous laws will be forgotten.
THEN, the next time a shooting takes place, the gun grabber return once again to step 1 as though the previous process did not take place.
Hey! Why didn’t New Yewk’s ‘SAFE’ act keep people.... Safe?
In my county we elected a new tax assessor and new commissioner, both tea party conservatives. There is a commissioner meeting tomorrow morning to pass a "memo" that whatever new gun laws the state legislature passes, the commissioners and sheriff will not enforce them, period! To date I think we are the 5th or 6th county to declare this! I am going to that meeting in full support of the "memo".
Jefferson said it best, “You won’t need the second amendment until they try to take it away from you.”
That should be your wake up call.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.