MDA not interested in gun deaths, suicide prevention — only banning guns

A few days ago the Twitter user @deborahdouhner tried making some in-roads with Moms Demand Action and its founder, Shannon Watts. You can read about their story here.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that Ms. Watts and MDA really don’t care about reducing violent crime or suicides (which account for 61% of all gun deaths). Rather, they only care about getting rid of guns.
Ms. Watts isn’t some random person who supports gun control; she is the founder of a new anti-gun group that’s been getting a little bit of media attention. I think it’d be fair to say that she reasonably represents the aims of the group: neither she nor MDA are interested in reducing deaths, nor working toward any sort of compromise — they simply want to ban guns.
This should be clear from their website, where they list their objectives:

  1. Require background checks for all gun and ammunition purchases;
  2. Ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds;
  3. Track the sale of large quantities of ammunition, and ban online sales;
  4. Establish product safety oversight of guns and ammunition, and require child-safe gun technology;
  5. Support policies at companies and public institutions that promote gun safety;
  6. Counter the gun industry?s efforts to weaken gun laws at the state level.

Those points have been the objective of extremist groups like the Brady Campaign for decades. There simply is no “middle ground” or compromise with these groups. They must be opposed at every step.
Hat tip to mike, a commenter at SNBQ. The linked-to post at SNBQ is also quite telling: it turns out that Ms. Watts defines an “assault weapon” as any gun that can fire 10 shots per minute — that includes essentially every gun except muzzleloaders. Even lever-action guns and single-shot shotguns can fire more than 10 shots per minute.

“Military-style” no longer cutting it, now it’s “law-enforcement style”

[T]he suspect, Aaron Alexis of Texas, bought a law-enforcement-style shotgun ? an 870 Remington pump-action ? and used it on Monday as he rampaged through the navy yard, said the officials, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing.
[snip]

The gunman then perched himself above an atrium where he fired down on people who had been eating breakfast, officials said, adding that he used shotgun shells that had roughly a dozen large ball-bearing-like shots in them, increasing their lethal nature.

?When he discharged, the pieces of lead would spread the farther they went,? the one official said. ?It is similar to weapons used in bird shooting but on a more serious scale. These were not bullets but many small pieces of lead flying through the air.?

The New York Times

Evidently The New York Times is not satisfied with simply calling the Remington 870 “a pump-action shotgun” and had to slip “law-enforcement style” in there to make it sound particularly scary.?Also, they evidently haven’t heard of buckshot before and make it out to be some sort of special, unusual, extra-deadly type of ammo.

Is a shotgun loaded with buckshot dangerous? Absolutely.?It’s a gun. Putting black plastic furniture on one of the most popular shotguns in the country for sporting, self-defense, and yes, law-enforcement use doesn’t make it any more dangerous than the same shotgun with wood furniture.

NBC special on “youth violence”

NBC was showing a program called “America Now: Faces Against Violence” that depicted the people involved with trying to reduce violent crime in Chicago.
I was intrigued that they really focused on “gun violence”, and many of the discussions involved complaints about “easy access to guns” rather than a profusion of violent criminals.
I commented to my wife that we have incredibly easy access to guns in our condo (( the holstered gun on my waist, two old revolvers in a case on the coffee table, and a pile of long guns in the closet )), yet we’re not even remotely prone to violence (( Though we do take MarioKart for Wii quite seriously )). Clearly, there’s more contributing to violent crime than simple access to firearms.
The parts of Chicago they were discussing had serious issues with gangs, drugs, and economic depression. I suspect these issues are a bit more important than bad guys getting guns. Take the guns away, and the gangs will use knives, rocks, or boards with a nail through it. Get rid of the gangs, and violent crime goes away. Funny how that works. I truly respect and admire those who are willing to guide vulnerable youth on the good path, away from violence and gangs.
I’m also quite happy that the law-abiding people in Chicago have had the most egregious restrictions overturned, and are able to (even though they need to jump through some hoops) own firearms for their own defense. Hopefully the remaining infringements will be overturned shortly, without the need for time-consuming legal battles.