The gun debate runs along mostly predictable lines. Something terrible happens, then the anti-gunners step in to tell us all about how they just want some gun control because that will equate to safety. If I can’t have an AR-15, you see, then no one can have one. Of course, I can’t have a full-auto conversion device for my Glock, and yet those are supposedly everywhere and massively deadly. That doesn’t matter.
See, the gun control groups like to frame everything in the context of “safety.” They even call themselves gun safety advocates, because gun control turns a lot of people off. They know it, too, so they rebranded years ago and continue to perpetuate the idea that this is what they stand for.
But take Massachusetts (please?) for a moment. In particular, the shooting in Cambridge.
Earlier today, Toby Leary wrote here at Bearing Arms about the perpetrator in that incident and the plethora of charges that were leveled against him in 2020 and, perhaps most interestingly, how the sentencing went out.
It comes as no surprise that Tyler Brown was a convicted felon in possession of a gun while committing another crime. His prior record stems from a 2014 case involving witness intimidation and assault with a dangerous weapon. That felony conviction made him legally ineligible for a firearms license in any state — yet it didn’t stop him from obtaining and using one during his 2020 shootout with Boston police.
That brings us to the 2020 sentence and how egregious it really was. Under the Massachusetts Career Criminal Act, there are severe sentencing guidelines, called stacking, that the judge completely ignored.
Brown should have been in jail as a repeat offender for wielding a high-capacity firearm (Glock .40 Caliber pistol in 2020). It should have aggregated into a functional life sentence, starting at a baseline of 30 to 45+ years of mandatory time before parole eligibility even becomes an option.
Clearly, he was out well before then.
Leary finishes up his piece by saying, “Don’t let anyone confuse you. Gun control is only about control…they don’t care about your safety.” He’s absolutely correct.
Following the shooting, we heard some of the usual suspects talk about how we need more gun control. Others had the good sense to at least remain silent rather than rattle their usual sabers, but none stepped up to talk about how the criminal justice system failed completely with Brown, that he never should have been on the streets, much less have been able to get a gun despite Massachusetts’ strict gun control laws.
What is public safety if it doesn’t include putting dangerous, violent people away for long stretches of time where they can’t hurt the general public?
It’s amazing how many people want gun control, but also want to abolish prisons. Criminals, you see, aren’t responsible for their actions, but God forbid you have the means to protect yourself from them.
For them, safety is a euphemism. It’s branding that some marketing mind told them would play better with middle America than saying they just want control.
The problem is that they’ve never taken a stand on sentencing, enforcement, or literally anything else that might ultimately make the nation safer, unless it’s to actively oppose those things.
As Leary said, it’s about only about control.
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