The latest mass carnage this time in Lewiston Maine, once more brutally, heinously, and nightmarishly underscores one tormenting fact. Congress remains just as totally paralyzed as ever on passing any meaningful gun control legislation. Even when Democratic-controlled state legislatures in such states as California and New York pass tough gun laws there are always two glaring problems. The first was that the SCOTUS and other federal courts would keep knocking those laws down as being too restrictive. This rendered them virtually ineffectual.
The second and even bigger problem is that it will make absolutely no difference if one state passes a tough gun control measure. A juvenile, an unstable individual, or a criminal can simply go to usually a neighboring state with minimal or no restrictions on the sale of guns and
purchase a gun and transport it across a state line.
Then there is the illicit sale of guns within cities and states that managed to keep a restrictive gun law on their books. The traffic in guns, both legal and illegal, goes unabated. The absence of a national uniform,
mandate, and fully enforced comprehensive gun control measure ensured that guns would always be freely trafficked, bought, and sold to any buyer.
After every mass shooting there followed the inevitable public outcry and demand for congressional action on gun control. In response, congressional GOP leaders and more than a few Democrats give the same three answers to why gun control laws were eternally stonewalled.
The first was that restrictions will not deter the shooters from obtaining their favored weapon of mass mayhem such as the AR-15 rifle. They would restrict law-abiding gun owners from possessing guns.
The second retort was to dutifully cite the Second Amendment.
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