Henderson Mayor Proclaims Nat'l Anti-Gun Day

Credit: Craig Taffeta/Freelance

 Local news will feature tonight and tomorrow small crowds of mostly dour-faced older women in orange t-shirts. Everytown has for its third year now to co-opt the hunter’s safety color orange as a symbol for its annual gun control holiday. My sources reported that the event at Sunset Park, attended by a small open carry counter rally, had the atmosphere of a funeral.

Two proclamations from Nevada politicians were presented, one from Congresswoman Dina Titus, and another by Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen, made under the authority of the city, not individually. His support of this day is essentially an insult to the Second Amendment. One wonders if he would sign a proclamation for “National Hate Speech Awareness Day.”

The proclamation is terrible and one has to wonder if its wording is a clever joke on gun control supporters. With a little curiosity, some research, and critical thinking the “arguments” in the proclamation can be easily debunked and show the ignorance of anti-gunners in framing their side of the debate. The information would only satisfy uncritical minds. It would have been just as effective to express support for the civilian disarmament holiday and filling the rest of the proclamation with “lorum ipsum” or similar non-sense.

Let’s take a look.

Credit: Craig Taffeta/Freelance

First, the violence statistics intended to portray America as an incredibly violent place. To arrive at these statistics, suicide must be included as violence. 93 Americans killed by “gun violence” equals 33,945 deaths annually; this is roughly the total number of deaths by firearms, including suicide. Only about 30 people a day, 10,945 annually, are murdered in the US; a third of the manipulated figure.

Next, "developed countries" allows the anti-gunners to remove the countries with the most homicides and criminal assault with guns to suit their narrative simply because the countries are poor ones. Here's what Gun Facts says about the use of this "statistic": "60% of American 'gun deaths' are suicides and the U.S. has a suicide rate 11% higher than international averages. This accounts for most of the difference." Once again, the key is adding suicides to inflate the stats.

Hafen then goes on to declare: "mayors and law enforcement officers know  their communities best, are the most familiar with local criminal activity and how to address it, and are best positioned to understand how to keep their citizens safe in line."

In other words, only politicians and police know what’s good for their subjects. Hafen is pretty obviously one of those cops who feels that only his badged buddies are the only people worthy and capable of possessing guns. The arrogance in this statement is incredible and unforgivable.

Hadiya Pendleton’s death tells the uncomfortable truth about American gun violence: in 2013, 90% of black murder victims were murdered by other blacks; about 77% of those were murdered by gun. Hadiya was an innocent bystander killed in what was presumably gang violence. Sadly, it’s considered “racist” to say that black America has a gang and violence problem. Without naming the problem, how can we properly address it?

The 15 year old black girl from Chicago (need I say more?), was murdered by two men, one who had been arrested three times and was on probation for a weapons violation. Probation officials even failed to inform court officials that the man had been re-arrested and violated probation. Both of the killers were black and were trying to kill another man, as NBC reported. “The shooter and confessed to police that Hadiya was not the intended target, police said. The shooting was allegedly meant to be a retaliation for Williams, who was shot last year.” Seems the problem is gang violence and a broken criminal justice, not guns.

The anti-gun crowd and liberal politicians cannot speak the truth that “gun violence” is largely inflated in the US by black-on-black violence. Instead of looking at a history of broken policies that destroyed the integrity of black families and lead to increase in homicide seen dramatically from the ‘60s to the ‘90s, they look at guns. Mental health issues in the crazy white guys that go on shooting sprees are ignored too. Going after guns is “easier” because Democratic power bases aren’t offended by it as they would if the real roots of murder were targeted.

National Gun Violence Awareness day isn’t about anything other than political theater; it’s an excuse to get photos of small groups of the hardcore of gun control supporters in the local news. The speeches at these rallies are all the same pabulum of generic statements about gun control, pity parties of victimhood, and mumblings of support by public leaders who can’t be bothered to actually show up. No one every looks happy or enthusiastic at these things. They feel like a mandated loyalty meeting to re-affirm one’s support to the cult.

My suggestion is that next year, no one should show up and counter protest these sad, deluded folks. Let them look like the pathetic fools that they are, alone in a park, celebrating their willingness to be easy victims.