Gun Control Information For The Low Information Voter

If you are someone who gets most of their information from the three major network evening news broadcasts, CNN, one of the major metropolitan newspapers (e.g. New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post), The Daily Show (yes some people actually believe this is a news program) or even the Sunday morning talk shows, then contrary to what you might think, you are a Low Information Voter. I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just trying to give you some perspective. These media outlets are committed to giving you one point of view - the liberal point of view. Ordinarily, when one gets corroborating answers or opinions from several "independent, reliable sources" that is a pretty good indication you are getting good information. This assumes that the sources are independent. However,  on several occasions these main stream media types have been caught coordinating their message. Most recently while discussing the debt ceiling on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman said, "I get calls" and George quickly interjected, "from the White House." So instead of getting independent ideas from the likes of Krugman and Stephanopoulos, what one gets is coordinated talking points. This used to be called propaganda not news. Prior to one of the presidential debates, liberal reporters who were there to ask questions were caught on open mike coordinating their questions in order to make Mitt Romney look bad. This isn't what the media is supposed to do. The value of having a free press is supposed to be as an objective watchdog against both political parties not as a promoter of either the Democrats or Republicans. I recommend that, as distasteful as you believe you would find it, you add Fox News, National Review, The Weekly Standard, or The American Spectator to your sources of information. I mention this as a introduction to my discussion on gun control and in particular the problems I have with the Administration's new gun reform proposals.
At the beginning of his press announcement, the President said, "If even one child’s life can be saved, then we need to act." I find this a bit disingenuous coming from a man who, as an Illinois State Senator, voted three times against bills requiring hospitals to provide medical assistance to babies who survive botched abortions. This was reported in the Washington Post article "Is Obama Guilty of 'Infanticide'? of 10/24/2008 by Michael Dobbs. In fairness, the article does quote Mr. Obama as saying that he would probably vote differently now. I guess this is another case of his view "evolving".
Another accusation made by the president regarding gun control is that the Congress has failed to confirm a permanent Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for the last seven years. While this is technically true, it is deceptive because this it allows the listener to draw the wrong conclusion. The use of the word Congress implies The House of Representative and Senate which may lead one to believe the Republican controlled House played a role in blocking the confirmation of B. Todd Jones as the permanent director of the ATF. However, only the Senate is responsible for confirming presidential appointments and Democrats have had control of the Senate for at least the last five years.  They have a majority of members of the Judicial Committee which requires a majority vote to send the nominee to the full Senate for a vote. Even if the Republicans attempted to filibuster the full vote, the Democrats could have gotten around this using reconciliation as they did with the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obamacare). Or had he chosen to, Mr Obama could have made a recess appointment like he did recently with three members of the National Labor Relations Board. In that case which is being challenged in federal court, he didn't even wait for the Senate to be in recess as required. His deceptive, lawyerly choice of words is intended to shift blame, at least in the minds of some Americans, from the Democrats where it belongs to Republicans and is just plain wrong!
Next, in the new policies to control gun violence, "The Administration is calling on Congress to help schools hire up to 1,000 more school resource officers, school psychologists, social workers, and counselors, as well as make other investments in school safety." This makes it appear as though Mr. Obama is compromising on putting armed security in our schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2010 there were 98,817 public schools in the US. Only the resource officers (read armed police officers) would have possibly helped prevent the Newtown shooting. Since the shooter, Adam Lanza, wasn't a student at Sandy Hook Elementary, the presence of additional school psychologists, social workers, and counselors would have had no effect in this case and might have just added more potential victims. Even if all 1000 new positions are resource officers, that is only a 1% increase which isn't exactly a major step in my opinion. Apparently, just like with school choice which would allow poor and middle-class children to attend better performing public and private schools, only the children of elites in Washington and New York who can afford to pay, deserve a better education and secure schools.
One of the other proposed new measures calls for stricter penalties for gun trafficking. I find this particularly ironic from the Administration responsible for the ATF's botched Fast and Furious program that allowed known Mexican Drug Cartel members to buy assault weapons in the US and transport them back to Mexico where they were used to kill thousands of men, women, and children not to mention US Border Agent, Brian Terry. In Fast and Furious, our government was supposed to track the weapons as is being proposed in the new measures but they failed to do so. In fact, they never even made a good faith effort to do so. I'm sure under these new proposals, the government will do a much better job. I guess the only Mexicans that really count are those living in the US illegally and who vote Democrat.
Look, I'm not saying that there should be absolutely no rules regarding guns. My point is that any new laws should help solve the problem and not just be a "We have to do 'something' response. And anyone opposing more rules, regulations and executive orders that do nothing to help prevent another Sandy Hook Elementary type tragedy have valid views regarding restricting the rights of the 99.999% of law abiding citizens who own guns. When coupled with the statements of prominent Democrats like Rahm Emanuel who said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." measures that won't achieve their stated purpose, should be received with a healthy degree of skepticism.