Do We Need More Gun Laws?

Every time there is a shooting, the gun grabbing leftists come out from under their rocks and promote more gun control legislation.  Like most leftist efforts, they just don’t work and one of the reasons is rarely mentioned by the left.

Between the years 2021 and 2023, Dion Cooper illegally “straw purchased” 133 firearms and then provided the firearms to convicted felons or juveniles who couldn’t legally purchase or possess the firearms on their own.

Cooper, of Kent, Washington, pled guilty to multiple federal firearm charges, including trafficking in firearms, making a false statement in connection with the acquisition of firearms and straw purchasing firearms.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg, who prosecuted Cooper’s case, said: “Dion Cooper was the largest known straw purchaser in the history of the western district of Washington…Fifty-four of the guns that Dion Cooper purchased were linked in and used in violent crimes – a homicide, drive-by shootings, armed robberies, bank robberies, assaults – this wasn’t theoretical at all, these guns caused immense harm in our community.”

After all that, and not including any consideration for crimes that might still be committed with firearms Cooper illegally provided, the federal judge gave him just three years in prison.

Washington is an uber-Democrat state with strict gun laws.

On June 11, Hunter Biden was convicted in federal court of three felonies stemming from an October 2018 firearm purchase.

Federal law (18 USC § 922(g)(3)) prohibits the possession of firearms by anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”

 A Department of Justice press release explained: Biden knowingly made a false written statement on the ATF Form 4473 when he certified that he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug or any other controlled substance…during an 11-day period between Oct. 12 and Oct. 23, 2018, Biden possessed a firearm while knowing he was an unlawful user of or addicted to any stimulant, narcotic drug or any other controlled substance, in violation of federal law.

President Biden pardoned his son in a broad ranging pardon stretching back to 2014 and it covers just about every other possible federal crime.

Biden is a politician who has spent his career championing more gun control legislation.  Yet, the above two cases are examples of why the gun control legislation isn’t effective. An ever-growing web of statutes, regulations, and enforcement policies make it harder and harder for conscientious, law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights, while those who brazenly violate the law often go unpunished or receive mild punishments.

What is the point of making decent law-abiding Americans comply with the onerous and ridiculous federal gun control laws, other than to inconvenience and burden Constitutionally-protected conduct.

Passing more laws does not deter criminals when those criminals see that existing laws are not enforced or end in light sentences.