Dallas Morning News: ‘Clamor Over the Second Amendment’ Prevents Gun Control Conversation

The Dallas Morning News (DMN) editorial board lamented on Saturday that “clamor over the Second Amendment” prevents a gun control conversation from taking place.

According to DMN,  “guns are astoundingly more likely to be the cause of death [in the U.S.] than elsewhere.” And they bolster this claim by suggesting “33,000 Americans” are killed each year with guns. Hillary Clinton also made this same claim and was proven wrong. Michael Douglas and Alec Baldwin made this same claim to voice their opposition to the NRA, and they were proven wrong as well.

Yet DMN not only makes the claim but ups it with “more than 33,000 per year.” In reality, the number of firearm-related homicides range between 10,000 and 11,000 annually, on average. DMN, Clinton, Douglas, and Baldwin push the figure to 33,000 by adding in suicides, which average about 20,000 to 22,000 a year.

The DMN admits the high number of suicides included in their number, but only after stressing the “more than 33,000 per year” and letting that figure have its desired effect. The editorial then moves from this front loaded opening to lament that Congress and America generally will not come together to pass more gun control.

They blame conservatives and the NRA particularly for preventing a gun control dialogue. For example, following a mass shooting, DMN claims “[conservatives] tend to wave the [Second] Amendment like a battle flag, digging in their heels around an absolutist view of gun rights in this country that is dangerous, disingenuous and relatively recent.” And the NRA just keeps fighting, as exemplified by Wayne LaPierre’s statements about Clinton in the waning days of the presidential campaign:

There is no red line that President Hillary Clinton will not cross when it comes to attacking your rights and forcefully taking your guns and she dreams of twisting a knife in the heart of the one freedom that separates our nation from the rest of the world.

In the end, the DMN believes so much focus is placed on defending the Second Amendment that no room is made for discussing and passing more gun control.

DMN’s editorial board wrote:

A never-ending clamor over the Second Amendment has cast a deadly quiet over all talk of reforms that might make America and its gun owners safer. It’s a quiet we can no longer afford to permit.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.