"...Or, of course, we can just get more guns. The implication is that there’s a kind of 'Laffer curve' of mass slaughter whose benefits are waiting to be enjoyed. After a certain inflection point of firearm ubiquity, the number of murders will reverse course and rapidly head toward zero.
"Conservatives don’t articulate it precisely that way. They say, 'The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,' or claim that even more guns will bring down crime. But the implication is the same: We are gripped by terror now, but there is a road to safety ahead of us, and it’s paved with yet more guns.
"Those claims are ludicrous, as even many gun owners would admit. But they give gun advocates something to say when the news is covered with stories of elementary school students gunned down with the instruments of mayhem Republican members of Congress pin on their lapels and pose with in their Christmas cards.
"They wear triumphant smiles in those pictures, and they have indeed triumphed. Our terror is their achievement." -- Paul Waldman in the Washington Post on the nightmare loop we're in because of the gun industry and their pet politicians in the Republican/ Shooter's Party. As Waldman notes in his op/ ed, Republicans are perfectly happy with the trade off between the "freedom" to own military- grade weapons (while pocketing contributions from the gun lobby) and the innocent lives lost. If Americans ever want to see this equation changed, they need to be one- issue voters and vote every mass- killing- enabling Republican out of office.
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