At least they admit it’s not only the guns:
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (KMOX) – They are asking the same questions in East St. Louis. “How do we reduce violence.” One answer, hold a gun buyback program…
St. Clair County State’s Attorney, Brendon Kelly says you have to attack the problem from all sides.
In addition to personal choice and environment, one factor in gun violence is the presence of guns, if you try to reduce the opportunity and availability of guns, common sense will tell you you’ll have some impact.*
In addition to personal choice and environment, one factor in obesity is the presence of spoons. So I’d like to propose that one solution to the problem of obesity is for the government to establish a program that will buy spoons – especially unregistered spoons – from the public. Common sense will tell you you’ll have some impact.
Common sense will also tell you that the presence of spoons might be a factor in obesity, but it is certainly not a significant one when compared to “personal choice,” i.e. the choice to eat a bucket of ice cream.
Or in the East St. Louis example, the choice to hurt or kill someone you don’t know for fun and profit.
I thought about that yesterday at the gun show.
There we were in a big room with hundreds, even thousands of people who own guns, use guns, carry guns, love guns. Every table was full of guns.** People were carrying guns around.
A few private citizens were buying, selling, and trading guns with each other without even showing ID, much less filing paperwork with the government. Some of them even wore clothing with words on them that might be considered incendiary.
And yet the whole two days I was in the presence of thousands of guns, I didn’t see anyone get shot. All those guns available, and not a single instance of gun violence. It was the weirdest thing you ever saw.
* For journalism’s sake, I hope this paragraph was supposed to be within quotation marks rather than a run-on assertion of journalistic “fact.”
** except for the ones that are full of knives, ammo, or red hats obviously.
