A Real Scare Tactic

Political ads are rife with scare tactics this year. “Kamala supports free sex change operations for prisoners!” “Your children will go to school one gender and come home another!” “Do you want a convicted sex offender in the White House?” Actually, Donnie would be far from the first horn dog to sit in the Oval Office.

A scare tactic we have not heard is “The overall rate of firearms deaths in Mississippi is twice that in Haiti!” Haiti, as you recall, is that “shithole country” where the prime minister was assassinated last year and where criminal gangs control the streets. “You are more likely to get shot in a Jackson, MS bar on a Saturday night than walking down a street in Port au Prince” would open some American eyes.

Colombia is pretty much run by its drug cartels. Yet its rate of firearms deaths is less than that of Montana. We need to send more AR-15s to Medellin in exchange for all that good cocaine so the Colombians can catch up to The Yellowstone State.

Louisiana, Alabama, Wyoming, Arizona, and Oklahoma all have higher rates of firearms deaths than Mexico. If we are to believe “Breaking Bad” and “Sicario”, dead bodies are stacked on street corners in our neighbor to the south.

Political scientists might draw two conclusions from the absence of these statistics in both current presidential campaigns:

1. The NRA and the Gun Lobby still have influence. Even a whisper of gun control is political suicide.

2. Mississippi, Montana, Louisiana, Alabama, Wyoming, Arizona, and Oklahoma all have essentially zero firearms control and no one in those states cares. “You want to open carry an AR-15 in a Mississippi bar? OK by us.” “Your records show a Protection From Abuse Order from an Alabama court. That’s OK. You can buy this gun anyway.”

I am less frightened by a transgender prisoner than by some wacko with a gun.

By Ed Dufton