HR-8

“Gun regulations will make criminals out of Americans. Criminals, will continue to get their firearms the way they always have — through the black market, theft, and straw purchases. Forcing more government paperwork and additional fees on good people trying to exercise a constitutional right will do nothing to make Americans safer”.

Really? Is that provable? I am just wondering, because in 1984 Ronald Reagan ( a REPUBLICAN!) signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act into effect. States were free not to adopt it- if they wanted their federal highway funding to get cut by ten percent. But, I digress. The reason Reagan condoned the act was because until the late 60s most states had a drinking age of 21. Then at the tail end of the 60s into the 70s, most states lowered the drinking age to 18. This led to a huge increase in alcohol-related car accidents and drunk driving was deemed a public health crisis. In the mid-1970s, 60 percent of all traffic fatalities were alcohol related, according to the National Institute of Health(NIH). Over two-thirds of car accidents involving persons aged 16 to 20 were alcohol-related (Boston Globe). According to the NIH, drunk-driving accidents have dropped by 50 percent since the law was passed. The greatest proportion of this decline was among 16 to 20 year olds: approximately 37 percent of traffic fatalities in this age group were alcohol related in 2013 compared to more than 75 percent in the 1970s. So, making it harder to get alcohol didn’t stop drunk driving, and it did make criminals out of those under 21 who procured alcohol, but it also reduced tragedies by nearly forty percent. Is there something magical about guns that would somehow nullify results like these if guns were made harder to obtain?

Let’s take another example- the trans fat ban in New York. According to the Harvard School of Public Health “ Between 2007 and 2011, 11 New York State urban counties restricted the use of trans fats in public eateries including restaurants, bakeries, cafeterias, park concessions, and senior meal programs”. Guess what? It worked! Again according to Harvard “After 3 or more years following the implementation of this restriction, the study authors found 6.2% fewer hospital admissions for cardiovascular events (stroke, heart attack) in counties with the ban when compared with 25 New York urban counties without the ban. When looking at only heart attacks, there were 7.8% fewer hospital admissions. The results were similar for men and women”.

Now, I am nor Harvard grad, but it seems like when you make dangerous things harder to obtain, fewer people are negatively effected by them! Wow!

Who saw THAT coming?

Perhaps Harvard missed their chance with me.

HR8 , as Steve Kerr pointed out, “would expand background checks to be required on all firearm sales, closing the gun show and online sales loopholes.”

Why would anyone oppose that? Is doing something not better than doing nothing?

I wonder if the blood on the Senate’s hands bothers them, because the blood in the hallways clearly doesn’t .