Why Punish the Weapon? By John Steele

     Here is a great article by our freedom-loving, gun-carrying American friends smashing with the bullets of reason the Left notion that the weapon must be punished. I wish that I could write as well, but who cares when one can quote the magic:
  https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/blog/guns-knives-and-accelerant-control-why-the-weapons-are-not-responsible-for-the-crimes/

“An attacker screaming “Drop dead!” and “DIE!” recently murdered 34 people and injured three dozen more in a brutal attack. This terrible tragedy occurred only a few months after another rampage in which a man attacked 17 elementary school children and two adults — leaving two dead. It followed yet another mass killing in which a deranged individual wrote a letter claiming that “all disabled should cease to exist.” He then went on to murder 19 people and wound 25 more, the youngest 19 years old and the oldest 70, at a facility for the mentally disabled. The mainstream, anti-gun bandwagon would claim that these are just three recent examples showing the need for “common-sense laws” and stricter gun control. Surely red flag laws and background checks could have played a significant part in thwarting these evil men. If assault weapons were out of the picture entirely and wait lists were enacted, these horrific attacks could have been prevented … and 55 innocent lives would have been saved.

The Location
Oh, but wait. Here’s something you should know: These mass murders did not take place in the USA. These terrible atrocities occurred in Japan, a country considered one of the world’s safest. According to a United Nations’ global study on homicide, fewer than one person is murdered for every 100,000 in the population of Japan (compared to 4.8 in the United States and 445.7 for Belize). Business Insider reported that Japan’s murder rate has been declining since the 1950s. It is often attributed by some researchers to “a greater chance of detection (according to police data, 98 percent of homicide cases are solved), the rejection of violence after the Second World War, the growth of affluence without the accompanying concentrations of poverty common in many highly developed countries and the stigma of arrest for any crime in Japanese society.”

The Weapon
There’s more. These horrible mass murders were not carried out with firearms. The 34 dead and 30+ injured? The weapon was fire. The 41-year-old attacker from this sickening crime went to an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, doused the place in flammable liquid and set it ablaze. The New York Times reported that within minutes, the studio “was a scene of horror: a man hanging from a ledge as flames licked the walls; a pile of bodies on a staircase leading to the roof; a barefoot woman so badly burned that all a bystander could do was spray her with water and wait for help.” A BBC Report called the attack “one of Japan’s worst mass casualty incidents since World War II.” The 19 injured and two dead? The weapons of choice in this terrifying scene were knives. A 51-year-old man wielding blades in both hands stabbed 16 schoolgirls and two parents as they were waiting for the school bus one early morning in Kawasaki near Tokyo. According to witnesses, the suspect slowly approached the children and shouted, “I’m gonna kill you.” Police retrieved two knives at the scene and found two more in a backpack believed to belong to the suspect. And the 19 dead and 25 wounded at the facility for the disabled? That was also a violent act carried out by an attacker with knives. The 26-year-old murderer claimed he had the ability to kill 470 disabled people in what he called “a revolution.” He targeted innocent lives at his former place of employment, going on a 40-minute killing spree in which he slashed the patients’ throats, claiming them a “mercy killing.”

The Response
You may be wondering why you didn’t hear about these terrible mass casualty events. Well, the U.S. media did not pay much attention. They couldn’t point to these examples as reasons to demand strict accelerant-control laws or blame knife violence. In these cases, they couldn’t demonize guns. And sadly, those 55 innocent lives went mostly unnoticed. James Alan Fox, Northeastern University professor of criminology, law and public policy (who is NOT pro-gun, by the way), has commented that while the tragedies themselves are atrocious, what should not be overlooked is that “whatever the reason, the lesser attention given to mass killings that do not invoke guns is disrespectful to the victims whose lives are tragically cut short. Is the crime any less serious if there were no gunshots? Are the victims any less dead? In fact, victims of burns, suffocation or stabbing often suffer a much slower and more painful death than gunshot victims. “It is surely fruitless to assess the relative severity of mass killings on the basis of weaponry. Our sense of outrage and concern for the victims should be the same whether they died from a firearm or fire.” Thus, the agenda of the Western media is well seen by only splashing gun-related events, while either not mentioning at all, or minimalising killings with other weapons. This is true even with the knife crimes in England, which while having a migrant aspect, get discounted. It is  never taken to  show that there is something wrong with the system. And, if they want to go down the line of blaming the weapon, then here is the next problem, noted with her usual wit by Ann Coulter:
  https://vdare.com/articles/ann-coulter-labor-day-safety-tip-watch-out-for-drunk-driving-illegal-aliens

“As we head into the long Labor Day weekend, here are two tips to make your holiday even more cheerful. First: Remember to watch out for drunk driving illegal aliens! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued report after report showing that Hispanics are wildly overrepresented in drunk driving accidents (but also contribute so much to our cultural life, musical heritage and landscape!). Or, as the Huffington Post puts it: “Latinos At Greater Risk of Dying From Driving While Intoxicated.” They’re victims of the drunk driving epidemic! German Concentration Camp Guards At Greater Risk of Dying From Accidental Inhalation of Zyklon B. One NHTSA report [PDF] elaborated on the inebriated Latino driverproblem:

“The authors found that some Latino parents actively promoted drinking among their sons as a sign of masculinity or machismo. (A focus group) indicated drinking among Hispanics might be motivated by the need to prove their manhood within the Latino culture: ‘Everyone thinks they can handle alcohol, especially men.’ ... ‘A lot of Hispanics think that way. It’s the macho male and the woman gives in to the man. Machismo causes this behavior.’” The report also stated, “Mexican-American DWI offenders vastly overestimated the number of drinks required to make them unsafe drivers (eight to 10 drinks).” It’s unclear if the NHTSA’s methodology took into account the effects of Cinco de Mayo. Naturally, it would be outrageous to conclude from this that drunk driving is the national sport of Mexico. However, last year alone, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 80,730 illegals for drunk driving, the majority of them Mexicans. As the Houston Chronicle delicately put it a few years ago: “Young Hispanic men not getting message about drinking, driving.” ... crashing, burning, their ashes being spread across Cuernavaca ... Thanks to its proximity to Mexico, Texas leads the nation in fatal drunk driving accidents, including those involving a blood alcohol content of 0.15 or greater—nearly double the legal limit. In 2014, young Latinos were responsible for about one-third of all DUI accidents in Houston—535—though they made up only 8 percent of the population. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell sneered at President Trump’s June 2018meeting with family members of Americans killed by illegals, saying most of their dead kids were killed in traffic accidents. As if that doesn’t count.

Why did we have to hear endlessly about O’Donnell’s car accident in Tortola a few years ago, which he described as his “brush with death”? Yeah, that must have been rough, some real Brian Williams stuff there. But Don Rosenberg finding out his 25-year-old son had been run over,backed over and then run over again by an illegal alien—well, that’s just a “traffic accident.” Our media have no idea who Don Rosenberg is, and no interest in finding out. Their concern for "children” is limited to the ones they can exploit to get their way on illegal immigration. They wail about “children separated from their parents,” but it would be a dream come true for the “Angel Mom” parents if their kids were merely separated from them for six months—or six years!—if only they could see them again, ever. You know what else is kind of traumatic? Being wedged into the false panel of a truck with a breathing tube before traversing hundreds of miles of rough terrain to make it to the U.S. border. These parents did that to their kids.

The New York Times, too, nonchalantly mentioned that the kids of some of the families at Trump’s White House meeting “died in car accidents.” They just died. Car accidents happen all the time. Yes, traffic accidents can be caused by anyone—especially a sh*t-faced illegal going 80 miles per hour on a residential street. Internet scams happen all the time, so, let’s take in more Nigerians! The point is, these particular drunk drivers never should have been here in the first place. Tricia Taylor didn’t die, but the 18-year-old had to have her legs amputated almost to the hip after a drunk driving illegal alien from El Salvador swerved his car onto a sidewalk in Pontiac, Michigan, and rammed her against the wall. It was a miracle that she lived, suffering through multiple surgeries and a lifetime of pain medications. At Jose Carcamo’s sentencing, Taylor said, “What you give him won't come close to the sentence he gave me for the rest of my life." D.J. and Wendy Corcoran began 2019 by burying their 22-year-old son, Pierce, senselessly killed when a 44-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, Francisco Eduardo Franco-Cambrany, swerved headfirst across a double yellow line, straight into oncoming traffic. Echoing the media, Alexander De La Espriella tweeted of Pierce’s horrible death, “Accidents happen, by anyone to anyone ... ”—as quoted in the Knoxville News. At least we didn’t have to hear about the great tacos this time. Six-year-old Annie Cumpston was walking hand-in-hand with her mother in 2003, after attending the Ringling Brothers Circus in Baltimore with her family, when a drunk Mexican plowed into the crosswalk, killing the little girl. The intoxicated illegal, Guillermo Diaz-Lopez, fled the scene, dragging a pedestrian on his truck, and was finally apprehended while trying to break through a police barrier. Today, you can visit “Annie’s Playground,” a beautiful 60,000-square-foot wonderland built in the victim’s honor in Fallston, Maryland—at least until Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris demand its demolition to show their support for “undocumented immigrants.”

     Second friendly holiday tip: Always remember—diversity is a strength!”

     Yes, diversity is a strength, that we all know. But our interest is in banning the objects that harm. So, since illegal migrants are sacred, it looks like either alcohol or motor vehicles will need to be banded. That follows from the “logic” of the Left. But, don’t worry, for no matter how good the opposing argument, it will be like water off a very dirty duck’s back.