This is certainly a depressing chronicle of death and tragedy. But Rubio’s statement stands up to scrutiny — at least for the recent past, as he framed it. Notably, three of the mass shootings took place in California, which already has strong gun laws including a ban on certain weapons and high-capacity magazines.
December 11, 2015
WaPo's Fact Checker bestowed its highest award, The Geppetto Checkmark, on Marco Rubio.
Rubio said: "None of the major shootings that have occurred in this country over the last few months or years that have outraged us, would gun laws have prevented them." And Glenn Kessler checked it out, looking at the San Bernardino massacre, the Umpqua Community College shootings, the Chattanooga shootings, the Charleston church murders, all from 2015, and 8 more incidents going back to 2012. He concludes:
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So when do they take on Hillary's statement that all of the families of the dead at Dover AFB she talked to are lying? All of them.
And while gun ownership rose 56% in the last 30 years, homicides by gun dropped 49% over the same period.
A colleague pointed out this statement by Marco Rubio as a possible fact check
So, a colleague wanted a Hit Piece on Rubio, but it failed. Better Luck next time.
In the meantime, keep on advocating for Hillary!!! No need to suggest fact checks on her, she always so truthy.
So more gun control laws don't work and Obama wants more. Perfect.
I think the fact checker should find a new job. The statement of Rubio may or may not be true but there is no way to know. What non-existing gun laws are we talking about? Suppose hypothetically that the "new gun law" required everyone to turn in their semi-automatic rifles and handguns. How can you know whether such a law would have prevented one of the mass shootings? You can't.
"None of the major shootings that have occurred in this country over the last few months or years that have outraged us, would gun laws have prevented them."
Then clearly we simply need more laws.
"None of the major shootings that have occurred in this country over the last few months or years that have outraged us[sic], would gun laws have prevented them."
How do they define "major shootings" - by amount of news coverage?
On the other hand, "mass shooting" has a definition.
Anyone outraged by Joseph Jesse Aldridge killing 5 people?
Sudheer Khamitkar killing 4?
"Unknown " killing 5? Killing 4,4,4...?
353 of 'em in 2015; and yes, I'm aware that Obama lied about this being unique to the US.
How come anybody doubted Rubio's statement?
If some proposed gun-control law had prevented any massacre, the public would hear about it all the time.
The new proposal to use the terrorism watch-list is ludicrous. Even so, the very President of the USA is publicly acting as if it's serious.
Dems are going through convulsion over Trump partly out of envy. They realize that Republicans are rejecting their establishment candidates and they secretly wish that their party would could the same.
Bernie Sanders could have caught the same populist wave that Trump did. He has a more reasonable stance on guns than Hillary does.
Almost too late to change now though. She is the hair apparent.
A colleague pointed out this statement by Marco Rubio as a possible fact check, suggesting that it was almost certainly incorrect.
This says something about the left wing media bubble. Every knowledgeable person knew this was true. It's the first point made every time the left tries to use a shooting to justify confiscating guns.
Good. Now, what about the claim that mass shootings tend to be in "gun-free" zones? That seems to be a very important point and I wonder if it's well sourced.
The whole idea that we need stricter gun laws is ridiculous. And, esp. so with something as absurd as CA's "assault weapon" ban. One of the big things there, apparently, is the ban on normal magazine releases for AR-15 type firearms. Instead, you have to use a crippled one that can be activated with a bullet. Something like that. The basic problem there being that the AR platform is highly modular, so manufacturers swap in the crippled magazine release before selling such in CA, and then the gun owners just swap in a regular one after they have the guns. As for the standard 30 round magazines, also apparently illegal in CA, you just need to cross the state line to pick up the usual ones. I think that it was a Sportsman's Warehouse, or something like that, in Phoenix, where I saw probably better than 50 AR magazines for sale, most 30 round, some larger, some a bit smaller. And, they were dirt cheap = maybe $20 per magazine (which is what I pay for (much smaller) after market magazines for handguns). So, while you can't legally cross state lines to buy firearms, there is nothing legally stopping a LA area resident from driving to PHX, and filling up his trunk with 30 round magazines. Now, he isn't supposed to drive them back across the CA border.... but he isn't supposed to murder people either.
Not to mention inner city gang-bangers with fully automatic AK-47s, which have been illegal for 80 years. But Glenn Kessler doesn't live on neighborhoods where he has to worry about that.
Bottom line: unenforced laws waste everyone's time, and in this case waste lives as well.
Interesting, I already assumed that was the case but I never expected the Washington Post to admit it albeit reluctantly with much gnashing of teeth and wailing from the editorial staff.
I generally despise Fact Check articles; their purpose seems to be to add a veneer of legitimacy to the normal anti-Republican news article bias.
Examples of this ("what the Republican said is factually true but we don't like the implications to five Pinocchios awarded") abound.
That this is an article about 1) a Republican; 2) a Republican presidential candidate; 3) A RPC talking about gun control measures: well, you know that they looked for any excuse to print the headline "Rubio Lies About Gun Control."
Unfortunately, that they couldn't / wouldn't doesn't make me feel better about their honesty, or about Mr. Rubio's honesty.
It makes me wonder what their game is.
This is what fact checking is supposed to be about: get all the facts, analyze them in an unbiased way, see where they lead. Frankly, I was geeking out a bit reading it, which in hindsight actually seems a bit morbid given the subject matter but actually also a sign that the fact checker did his job properly. If all the newspaper fact checking was of this quality, it would be a great value to society. Alas, it is rarely this well done which is why most newspaper fact checking is useless.
It's a setup for "Calif strict gun laws did not stop the San Berdoo shooters because of looser restrictions in neighboring States. Therefore we need stricter national gun laws."
MOLON LABE
I don't know how this got printed. It certainly doesn't exist. The narrative doesn't allow for this kind of information and therefore I don't know why you waste our time with it.
I started to read it, then realized that it was contra-narrative and ceased immediately. I am considering removing you from my reading list as I do all such sites that insist on wasting my time by printing non-narrative material. I begin reading this stuff, thinking that it will reinforce my proper beliefs with a minimum of time investment and then have to suffer the irritation of wiping my mind of the inconsistent material. I ask you; how is one to maintain appropriate thoughts if one must constantly deal with inconsistent and disturbing information? Please stick to the NYT-approved model as do all of the other fine publications that receive my attention. I am a good person and intend to remain so.
For years, I have been suggesting a ban on mass shooters. Deport them I said.
Nobody will listen.
what are the odds they would have given this if Trump hadn't made his Muslim proposal. Now the WaPo is terrified Trump will be nominee, so they have to prop up the least scary Republican.
what are the odds they would have given this if Trump hadn't made his Muslim proposal. Now the WaPo is terrified Trump will be nominee, so they have to prop up the least scary Republican.
what are the odds they would have given this if Trump hadn't made his Muslim proposal. Now the WaPo is terrified Trump will be nominee, so they have to prop up the least scary Republican.
Sarah's mind once again slipped wistfully into the past, to that One Hot Summer in 1957 in Madison County...
"Miss Sarah, I has a secret to tell you..."
"You can trust me, my Mandingo."
"Miss Sarah, I now got a gun."
"No, Mandingo, no! Madison County has strict gun laws!"
"I know: no Negro can own, possess or even touch a firearm under penalty of Death."
"So why would you do such a thing?"
"Because if the white folks take to lynching me I can defends myself."
"But if you defended yourself from a lynching they would surely lynch you for that for sure."
"It's like the Negro can never win in this world..."
"The Lord makes the rules, Mandingo. You know that."
"Miss Sarah?"
"Yes?"
"If the white folks in town tried to lynch me you would stand up for me, right?"
"Oh, my silly Mandingo: you know I couldn't do that. The folks in town would call me a nigger-lover."
"But I am a Negro, and you love me, right?"
"I love you as a Negro in private, my Mandingo. But in public..."
"You can't be a nigger-lover."
"I'm glad you understand, my Mandingo.
"I understand a lot, Miss Sarah, but what I understand sometimes don't make no damned sense...
I am Laslo.
Kessler's going to have to pay for that...hopefully all the Holiday party invitations have already been given out, so it will be too late to exclude him.
Is it just me, or is that a bizarrely-constructed sentence?
"Fact checkers" are all leftwing propaganda.
I think I'm getting too cynical.
I read this and think: Journolist has decided that Marco Rubio is the candidate to push on GOP primary voters.
Therefore we need stricter national gun laws
Except that they aren't going to get them. The Dems somehow seem to think that this is the time to resurrect this issue. It isn't. Clinton's AWB helped lose the Dems Congress. And, things have only moved on from there. A lot of pro-gun-rights people are no longer scared to come out and push their narrative. Back during Clinton (1?), it seemed like a lot of gun rights people/NRA members were almost embarrassed to be opposing "reasonable gun control" legislation. Everyone thought of them as uneducated hillbillies, who wouldn't give up their guns because their granddaddies had used them to fight the evil Union Army, or for hunting deer from the backs of their pickups. In the near future, whenever they try, they are going to lose probably every Republican, as well as some of the Democrats. And, the Dems aren't retaking the House anytime soon. (And, don't deserve to, after enacting ObamaCare, the "Stimulus", Dodd-Frank, etc. when they did have the power).
Steve uhr
Well bless your heart!! You think murderous criminals obey the law. You think our brethren in San Bernadino would have hauled themselves and their now illegal guns down to the PD.
Bless your heart.
"It's a setup for "Calif strict gun laws did not stop the San Berdoo shooters because of looser restrictions in neighboring States. Therefore we need stricter national gun laws.""
Weren't the S.B. terrorist's guns purchased in CA? Not that the facts will give them pause.
"Suppose hypothetically that the "new gun law" required everyone to turn in their semi-automatic rifles and handguns."
When I use to deer hunt, a semi-automatic rifle was the thing to have. That way, you could get off a second shot at the running deer without losing your sight on the target. But then I read in the NYT that semi-automatic rifles have no use in hunting. I'm so confused now. I mean, with all their fact checkers and stuff, me and my buddies must not have understood what we were doing.
"Is it just me, or is that a bizarrely-constructed sentence?"
I'm glad someone else noticed.
"The Dems somehow seem to think that this is the time to resurrect this issue. It isn't."
Instapundit is arguing that they're bringing up gun control now to divert from the atrocious record Obama has on terrorism. Gun control is not a winning argument for them, but it's being used to hide a bigger failure. I think there's a lot to that argument.
This is why the NYT, among other rags, is now openly calling for gun confiscation. Because gun laws don't work, because gun statistics don't support the theory that more guns = more death, and because the most restrictive areas for guns tend to have the highest levels of gun violence in this nation.
I have a very basic mindset here:
- Guns are tools of warfare, tools for hunting/feeding, and tools for defense against both humans and animal threats (i.e. bear, coyote, wolf, snake, etc.)
- Everyone, definitively, starts life with the right to obtain tools that aid them in hunting, feeding, and defending themselves.
- The U.S. in particular established that as important as the ability to freely express yourself is the ability to arm yourself including for the purposes of rebellion against the state and to provide local militia services (i.e. protect a neighborhood in the wake of Katrina).
Short of an honest conversation that represents exactly that - that when you confiscate guns you restrict freedom and inherent individual rights in exchange for a greater sense of group safety - then it's just intellectual dishonesty.
How did Hammond Gritzkofe @9:32 know the correct diminutive of San Bernardino is San Berdoo? If more people realized that then San Berdoo Two would be the tagline du jour.
Fullmonn has nailed it. Please feed this to Trump. They want to prevent those on the no fly list from legally buying a gun. Hell, we already know who they are, they're on a list. Deport them. Genius!
The WaPo guy forgot that the guns kill people like the Massacre victims. He erred in thinking people kill.
How did Hammond Gritzkofe @9:32 know the correct diminutive of San Bernardino is San Berdoo?
Hammond used to fly in/out of Norton (back when it was Norton).
Sarah's mind once again slipped wistfully into the past, to that One Hot Summer in 1957 in Madison County...
"Miss Sarah, do you think that -- fifty years from now -- the Negro will be allowed to own guns, just like a white man can?"
"Oh, my dear silly Mandingo: of course not! Even fifty years from now white people wouldn't be that careless."
"Is it because white people are afraid that Negroes would shoot them?"
"There is truth to that, yes. But mainly it's because giving guns to Negroes would be like giving guns to small children. Or Retards. Heck, the Negroes would probably end up just shooting themselves, mostly."
"Miss Sarah, I don't think that. I don't think that at all. I can'ts even imagine Negroes shooting one another. Why would they do such a thing?"
"Oh, it could be any reason. Could be as simple as a Negro shooting another Negro over a piece of watermelon."
"That''d be an Ugly World, Miss Sarah."
"Mandingo, that is why the white man rules: without white leadership the Negroes would inevitably fall back to the Laws of the Jungle."
"Well, I'm glad that will never happens."
"Mandingo: being white has a heavy responsibility…"
I am Laslo.
Let's see them put repeal of 2A on the ballot in a few deep blue states. Get serious.
Michael -- I was not expressing my personal opinion on gun laws other than to say that some laws do have a deterrent effect and hence it is not possible to fact-check Rubio's hypothetical assertion. Suppose the "new law" quadrupled the number of police used to monitor for gun violations and allowed them to search homes and remove all guns, etc., or imposed a $1,000,000 fine and life sentence (or the death penalty) for violating gun laws. Don't you think the death penalty deters some potential killers? I do.
Laslo Spatula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
12/11/15, 12:26 PM
Gotta be a first!
Conclusion to Rubio's point about gun control: it isn't about guns, it is about control.
Steve Urh,
In answer to your question about a law that could have stopped any of the recent "mass murders", yes, it is possible that a law might have stopped them, but in light of the facts that a) Thousands of laws have been tried over the course of the last 100 years
Testing the political limits of such laws and b) some of your proposals are clearly unconstitutional, it is unlikely that such a law really exists.
There are no indications that these laws would be honored and they have no indication that they stop gang violence, suicides (the most common cause of death by firearms) or domestic violence deaths.
I don't think that anyone on this board is for the types of gun violence talked about here, but most of us are aware of the complicated legal, political and policy issues inherent to the simple gun control measures offered by the left.
"allowed them to search homes and remove all guns, etc., or imposed a $1,000,000 fine and life sentence (or the death penalty) for violating gun laws."
So what you're saying is that you feel no need to tether your hypotheticals in reality.
David Begley: "So more gun control laws don't work and Obama wants more. Perfect"
You are operating with a set of assumptions and objectives that are a universe apart from what the left assumes and seeks.
You are thinking logically about how to deter terrorist acts.
The left is thinking about ways to negate any investigations into radical Islamic groups, lie about terrorist actions by these radical islamists, and simultaneously move to confiscate the weapons of all law abiding citizens.
TreeJoe said...
This is why the NYT, among other rags, is now openly calling for gun confiscation.
They're calling for it now because he's a lame duck and their preferences require someone willing to go against the majority of Americans.
Not only did Obama mock as paranoid Americans who said he wanted to confiscate guns but the left-media including the NYT did also - Jeffrey Goldberg are you reading this? Their actions now demonstrate not only that they were lying about their desires at the time but also that they ridiculed people they knew with 100% certainty were correct.
These are people who believe they are reasonable and others are extreme. Lying is as everyday occurrence.
The only way to prevent violence with any reasonable level of certainty is to disable the individual before their orientation is expressed as an action. This would require continuous monitoring of individual's context, observation or sensing of an individual's mental state, then identifying and modulating aberrant brain patterns.
As for gun, knife, skillet, etc. control, self-defense is a moral right, and it is still a legal right. Also, most people still oppose preemptive prosecution and deprivation for thought crimes and future crimes.
Thanks for the honesty. Rubio is telling the truth and the dens are liars.
Not only that, they also keep harping on the question of people on terrorist watch lists getting access to guns. Why do they keep bringing that up, considering the suspects are not in fact on a watch list.
And a watch list is not legally binding. Do we really want to deprive people of rights simply because they are in a list?
I could certainly see someone on a list causing the govt to be notified that they are trying to buy guns. But to deny someone outright seems to smack into due process issues,
If Republicans were as devious as Democrats, they would be funding a group right now to put repeals of 2A on various state ballots.
Hammond used to fly in/out of Norton (back when it was Norton).
Ah yes. I did some work on converting Norton AFB into San Bernardino Int'l Airport before the city & commission hired a man banned by the FFA from working at airports to be the manager of SBIA. This latest tragedy isn't the first to befall the city. It's been plagued by bad democratic management for years. Kinda like New Orleans without the water and good food. Corruption and self-dealing all 'round.
steve uhr
The death penalty does not deter the islamist. As we have seen. A million dollar penalty would make no difference.
Now, if you are talking about taking guns away from law abiding citizens, then of course they would comply with these draconian penalties. Leaving guns in the hands of those who are not law abiding citizens.
What interests me is that there was plenty of wiggle room in the facts for Kessler to have given Rubio 3 Pinochios. You know, Yes that's technically true but misleading . . . . Instead, it's actually a fair and honest evaluation. From the Washington Post! Is Kessler angling for a job as Pres. Rubio's Press Secretary?
Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Unknown said...
what are the odds they would have given this if Trump hadn't made his Muslim proposal.
Hey! You're the guy who's on that list of "mass shootings" about 100 times!
Muslims have killed civilians in the U.S. with bombs, knives, cars, guns and the old box cutter/airliner combo. Wasn't there an axe-wielder once?
Why do you want to take away my natural right to armed self-defense that comes before the existence of the American state and is codified in our Bill of Rights?
As they said at Goliad: Come and take it!
Milwaukie Guy
"allowed them to search homes and remove all guns, etc., or imposed a $1,000,000 fine and life sentence (or the death penalty) for violating gun laws."
Why not just shoot them on spot, steve? I mean, as long as we're blue skying.
The basic problem there being that the AR platform is highly modular, so manufacturers swap in the crippled magazine release before selling such in CA, and then the gun owners just swap in a regular one after they have the guns.
Bushmaster, a major AR 15 manufacturer will no longer sell guns in California. They are so busy they can write off 10% of the population and sell elsewhere. I bought another brand.
@ Bruce Hayden: Remember, things started quickly heading south world economy-wise after Dems won the Congress in 2006. No excuses made for those spendthrifts that preceded them.
@n.n.: If you'll recall from your Minority Report viewing, because of free will, there can be no such thing as pre-crime. We thus must rely on some of our oldest technologies: high walls and distributed firepower with training and a will to quick violence for the benefit of the rest.
@ Steve Uhr: "allowed them to search homes and remove all guns, etc., or imposed a $1,000,000 fine and life sentence (or the death penalty) for violating gun laws."
Oh, I dunno Steve. That sounds like it might fall disproportionately on the poor. Not sure if you can do huge crippling fines plus life in prison for the same offense in the US either, so, just spitballing this, we might have to tear a couple more paragraphs out of the Constitution and discard some judges' opinions. Let the amendment process begin.
Also, please do not use the word "allow" when referring to searches by police. These are commands issued by the government without consent of those commanded.
Remember too, capital crimes for minor offenses multiply during empire decline. We may not stave off the collapse of this one, but let's not willy-nilly suggest new capital crimes which just might give the game away. What could be more minor than your regular Joe just having a gun with which he'd never violated anyone else's rights, but that he just disobeyed some bureaucrat's confiscation order? Just to be clear, would you be advocating death for such a Joe?
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