6 Common Media Myths About Gun Control

The latest mass shooting, this time at a Florida high school, was one of the deadliest school shootings since the Columbine massacre in 1999.

Americans are understandably searching for answers to stem this terrible epidemic.

But the often sincere and certainly passionate claims made by those calling for gun control frequently don’t add up.

Here are just a few of the more common ones.

1. There Have Already Been 18 Mass Shootings in 2018. Even The Washington Post said the Everytown number was “a horrifying statistic. And it is wrong.” “Everytown has long inflated its total by including incidents of gunfire that are not really school shootings,” according to The Washington Post.

2. Trump Signed a Bill That Makes It Easier for Mentally Ill People to Get Guns. Last year, Trump and Congress used the Congressional Review Act to overturn an Obama-era regulation that among other things could prevent those who received disability payments from Social Security from purchasing firearms. As Reason editor Scott Shackford wrote, the rule did not specifically prevent mentally ill people from getting guns. Instead, it threw a wide, potentially unconstitutional net over people who may be no threat to themselves or others.

“[T]he regulation was opposed not just by National Rifle Association (NRA) but by several mental health and disability groups and by the American Civil Liberties Union,”

3. More Guns Means More Crime. As gun ownership has risen to an all-time high, the nation’s total violent crime rate has fallen to a 44-year low and the murder rate has fallen to an all-time low.

4. It’s Easy to Buy a Gun. The fact is, there are numerous hurdles to gun ownership. It’s not something that can be done on an immediate whim.

5. Gun Control Works in Other Countries. Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.

While Australia experienced a dip in firearm deaths after passing the 1996 law, so has the U.S. since the early 1990s, even as we moved in the opposite policy direction.

6. The Second Amendment Is Obsolete and Doesn’t Apply Today. William Blackstone, a British legal theorist whom the Founders often relied on for guidance, wrote, “Self-defense … as it is justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the law of society.”

It was this reasoning that prompted the Founders to include the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

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