The Cognitive Dissonance of Gun Control

Rick Moran, writing at PJ Media, warns that "Among Democrats, 'Mandatory Gun Buyback' Plan Gains Traction." He writes:

      It's always a challenge to make radical proposals sound reasonable. Both O'Rourke and Swalwell aren't concerned about reasonableness as much as they care about gutting the Second Amendment. In order to make gun ownership illegal, you must first win the point that the subject is open for debate. Gun groups have successfully blocked that notion for years, but it's becoming harder to do so.

      While the gun issue will surely fade into the background before the 2020 election -- as long as there are no more mass shootings -- Democrats appear willing to push programs that will lose them far more votes than they might gain.

     But for Democrats, the risk is worth it.

But why is the risk worth it? What does it gain Democrats to lose more votes than they gain by pushing gun control? Moran does not answer those questions.

      We know it isn't about saving children. I've written before how the number of children that drown in swimming pools exceed the number killed with firearms; and ditto for children dying from falling furniture or playing sports. Other common dangers kill more children than die from firearm related injuries. Ammo Land recently pointed out that more children die in bicycle accidents than are killed with firearms. In fact, that latter article lists a whole lot of other things that kill more children annually than firearms.

     The focus on so-called "assault rifles" is also very strange, given that "[t]he most recent FBI crime stats show that more people were killed in 2017 with hammers and clubs than were killed with rifles of any kind." Also, "nearly four times as many people were stabbed to death as were killed with any kind of rifle."

      And various studies have shown that either more guns equals less crime or, at worst, there is no correlation between firearm ownership and homicide rates.

     So why is this issue so important to Democrats?