Chris W. Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action says that gun control laws will do nothing to prevent terrorist attacks.
In an op-ed posted in Tuesday's USA Today, Cox breaks the NRA's recent silence and goes after President Obama's and Hillary Clinton's call for more gun control.
They are desperate to create the illusion that they're doing something to protect us because their policies can't and won't keep us safe. This transparent head-fake should scare every American, because it will do nothing to prevent the next attack.
In fact, he blames the Obama administration for not doing anything about it:
The terrorist in Orlando had been investigated multiple times by the FBI. He had a government-approved security guard license with a contractor for the Department of Homeland Security. Yet his former co-workers reported violent and racist comments. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's political correctness prevented anything from being done about it.
According to Cox, “radical islamic terrorists” will not be stopped by a ban on assault weapons anyway (don't you remember Paris and Brussels?), so we might as well just have access to them. After all, semi-automatic rifles are very popular among gun lovers.
Radical Islamic terrorists are not deterred by gun control laws. The San Bernardino terrorist attack wasn't stopped by California's so-called “assault weapons” ban. The gun ban in Brussels didn't prevent the terrorist attack there. And France's strict gun control didn't stop the two attacks in Paris, committed with fully-automatic rifles and grenades.
Repeating the same thing but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Law-abiding gun owners are tired of being blamed for the acts of madmen and terrorists. Semi-automatics are the most popular firearms sold in America for sport-shooting, hunting and self-defense.
Congress banned their manufacture for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004. The law also mandated an independent study on its effectiveness. The study proved the ban had no impact because criminals and terrorists are not deterred by gun control laws. To suggest otherwise provides a dangerous sense of false security. We don't need false promises. We need real leadership.
It's time for us to admit that radical Islam is a hate crime waiting to happen. The only way to defeat them is to destroy them — not destroy the right of law-abiding Americans to defend ourselves.
Cox was not the only one who wanted to use the days following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history to explain why military-style assault weapons in the hands of civilians are not really the problem.
Sean Davis, co-founder of the influential conservative blog The Federalist posted an essay Monday and argued that the assault weapons ban is a stupid idea pushed by stupid people. He seems appalled by “silly people like Seth MacFarlane and Susan Sarandon” who went on social media to advocate for a ban on automatic weapons” after the Orlando massacre, and he believes that people's reaction “was as predictable as it was pathetic.” And that, he recalls, always “happens like clock work: as soon as there's a mere whisper of a terrorist attack or a mass shooting.”
Hillary Clinton tweeted the same message she had tweeted a day before, advocating for “gun violence prevention laws.”
Gun violence prevention laws might not stop every shooting or terrorist attack—but they will save lives. pic.twitter.com/raNqMJ4ez8
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2016
Photo credits: NRA News' Facebook page
