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Gun Control Tag

Wednesday, Trump met with a bipartisan group of legislators to discuss yet-to-be-drafted legislation meant to address the ongoing scourge of school shootings. Hoping to hash out which policies and current legislation could be lumped into one, comprehensive, passable bill, discussion ensued, some in front of the media. Several sound-bites from the meeting have been plucked out as though they're indicative of some greater scheme.

The last time we visited Stockton, California, the city was gearing up to test "Universal Basic Income". Let it not be said that the municipality's insanity is confined to fiscal matters. The educational system has a heavy emphasis on social justice, so it is little wonder that hundreds of the area's school students turned out for anti-gun protests.

Bill Nelson, the Democrat Senator from Florida, seems to think the gun control debate is going to help his party in the midterms. Gun control is normally a loser issue, but you have to understand that when Nelson says 'gun control debate' what he really means is the coordinated smear campaign against Republicans and the NRA that began with CNN's town hall event.

During a math discussion, a student being helped by another student with a math problem was told the square root symbol he'd drawn looked like a sketch of a pistol. (NARRATOR: But it was not a pistol). It was a principal square root symbol. One of the students then popped off with something along the lines of, "well, let's get to work before I shoot you with a pistol!" A horrible game of telephone later and the cops were called, the student was removed from campus and his home investigated.

Tuesday, Trump announced he'd signed a memorandum, requesting the Department of Justice draft regulations that would ban bump stocks and any attachment that would turn a semi-automatic firearm into an automatic-like weapon. Trump has been open to regulating gun modifications like the bump stock since the Vegas shooting, which left 58 people dead. After the Vegas shooting, Trump asked the DOJ to review whether devices like the bump stock were legal under current law.

If you've spent any time on the internet, you know that school shootings bring out the worst in people and in supposed constructive discourse. If there's any "at least" this time around, it's that the conversation has largely passed up gun control advocates seeking to capitalize on tragedy and has shifted to "this is how we need to discuss these things with one another" and "this is how the system has failed our children." The latter is more deserving of our time and attention, but the former is necessary if we're ever to get to the point where we can rationally and earnestly discuss solutions.

Remember when late night hosts did comedy? Jimmy Kimmel doesn't. He has made it his mission to use his platform to bash Trump and Republicans whenever the opportunity presents itself. The shooting in Parkland, Florida was horrific, no one disputes that. No one expects Kimmel to make jokes about it either.

When Trump won the election, most people believed that the Obama inspired boom in gun sales was over. Early gun sales statistics in 2017 seemed to support that theory. Now the final numbers are in and it turns out early speculation was incorrect. 2017 was a fantastic year for gun sales.

I fully recognize that every year, someone dies a senseless death from a bullet falling back to the ground. That said, every time I hear a warning about firing guns into the air, I think first of ¡Three Amigos! and Chevy Chase's character, Dusty Bottoms, accidentally shooting the Invisible Swordsman in an attempt to fire into the air.