The first rule of dealing with any form of terrorism is to not give the terrorist what they want. You don’t want to encourage more such attacks. If people think terrorism works, more people will carry out terrorist attacks in an effort to push for the change they want to see.
It seems the Buffalo shooter wanted, at least in part, to spark calls for additional gun control.
New York politicians seem happy to oblige.
Let’s start with the mayor of Buffalo:
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (I) said on Sunday that he wants to see more “sensible gun control” following the mass shooting at a supermarket in his city on Saturday that left ten people dead and three others injured.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” moderator Chuck Todd asked Brown how Congress should respond, noting lawmakers haven’t listened to mayors’ complaints on the issue in the past.
“Well, I would like to see sensible gun control. I would like to see ending hate speech on the internet, on social media. It is not free speech. It is not the American way,” Brown told Todd.
It seems Brown doesn’t really value anyone’s rights, but we’re going to focus on “sensible gun control” for a moment.
Brown apparently didn’t get into specifics on the issue, but it should be noted that New York has stringent controls on who can carry a firearm lawfully and an assault weapon ban in place, neither of which really seemed to make much of a difference.
But Brown was far from alone in his desire to see new gun control laws passed. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also called for new infringements on our Second Amendment rights.
Gov. Kathy Hochul promised to advance new gun control legislation following Saturday’s mass shooting at the Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo.
An 18-year-old white male allegedly killed 10 people and injured three others at the grocery store located on the city’s predominately Black East Side in an attack that authorities say was a hate crime.
Hochul arrived in Buffalo and addressed the media several hours later and shared some information about the gunman’s weapon. She said the firearm was legally purchased but modified with illegal magazines.
“We’re going to find out where they came from, but they’re actually for sale legally in the state of Pennsylvania. So it’s not that hard to make that modification,” she said.
Do you mean New York’s assault weapon ban didn’t actually work as advertised? Shocking.
And, for the record, slapping a different magazine in a weapon isn’t “modifying” a damn thing. Those magazines are actually the standard for that weapon–a weapon that’s already heavily restricted in New York state. Clearly, that accomplished nothing, so now Hochul wants to do more of what failed.
What’s that term for doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result?
Oh yeah, that.
Anyway, it seems likely that we’re going to see new gun control laws introduced. We’ll have the debate on them and I suspect that any opposition to them will, of course, be labeled racist.
I can’t help but believe that kind of thing is what got us here in the first place, but that’s not going to change anything.
Yet by giving the alleged shooter what he wants, both Brown and Hochul are setting the stage for future attacks, even if they don’t know it.