Ever notice how the Brady Campaign has stopped talking about "gun control?" [View all]

[derby378]

It seems like whenever anyone affiliated with the Bradys speaks up now, the new meme is "gun violence prevention."

Not that much of a stretch, honestly, seeing that the full name of their organization is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, but when you actually dig down and see how they actually propose to prevent gun violence, you begin to see a lot of the old familiar chestnuts that are soundly being rebuffed by the American people, not to mention the recent Heller and McDonald decisions by the Supreme Court.

And that tells me that the Brady Campaign is aware that it has an image problem. They're seen as the folks who want to confiscate any firearm aside from squirrel rifles and single-load shotguns. Recent activity by the Brady Campaign, including their well-publicized (but essentially fruitless) campaign to get Starbucks Coffee to ban concealed handguns from their establishments has increased their media visibility and given them some much-needed income, but they still have to fight the perception that they want to set fire to the Second Amendment and throw the burning parchment at the feet of the Statue of Liberty.

Which brings us back to "gun violence prevention."

Right now, the main focus of the Brady Campaign appears to be preserving and even strengthening background checks for firearm purchases. This is widely touted by Brady operatives as gun violence prevention, and all legal and Constitutional arguments aside, the current use of the NICS system appears to be yielding some overall desirable results. But many of the other ideas proposed by Brady luminaries under the umbrella of gun violence prevention still seem to fall under the same old paradigm of violating due process and weakening the age-old notion of "innocent until proven guilty."

You want gun violence prevention? Last I heard, many areas of America still have a huge gang problem. California, which arguably has the most draconian gun laws in the entire nation, is awash with armed thugs claiming loyalty to this colored rag or that particular number or whatever their logo happens to be. Flush with drug money and getting high on their own supply, often with minimal formal education and virtually no prospects for getting a decent career, they pull guns on each other for the most trivial and pointless of reasons, and it seems like the rest of society is being conditioned to accept their existence instead of doing something about it. Giving these kids a chance to excel at something that provides a decent wage and a chance to escape the cycle of murder and chemical addiction - that's what I'd call gun violence prevention.

John F. Kennedy spoke of going to the Moon "not because it is easy, but because it is hard." Some approaches to gun violence prevention are undoubtedly going to be quite difficult. But they will be much easier than law-abiding citizens trying to reclaim Constitutional rights once they are taken away. We can improve our record on gun-related crime. But if we sacrifice our rights in order to do so, then the whole effort is pointless.