WashPost Asks, With Straight Face: Why Didn't Strict Gun Laws Stop Charlie Hebdo Massacre?

Newsbusters ^ | January 9, 2015 | Tim Graham

[HammerT]

The next time newspaper reporters start making fun of how stupid some politicians are, they could always discuss Adam Taylor. The Washington Post foreign affairs writer was dim enough to ask “France has strict gun laws. Why didn’t that save Charlie Hebdo victims?”

It never sinks in, that trusty old maxim about if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns. Taylor not only asked a dim-witted question, he mocked Donald Trump for asking it, and then he asked it in all sincerity:

Trump, a perennial attention seeker, was likely attempting to score political points and insult liberals with his tweet. But behind the disingenuity, there is is a genuinely troubling question: Why didn't France's gun laws save the Charlie Hebdo victims?

In other words, “liberals are being mocked as morons, but seriously, why is it?” Conservative readers can keep laughing as Taylor tries to puzzle this out:

How did the attackers get the guns?

Almost certainly illegally. Bloomberg reports that weapons designed for military use, such as the Kalashnikov AK series, have been illegally flooding France over the past few years, with state bodies recording double digit increases....

Could more relaxed gun laws have changed the situation?

...Some, such as the National Review’s Jim Geraghty, have pondered how the event would go down in the United States, where more gun ownership could have prompted an “armed response from ordinary citizens.” Such an alternative reality scenario is hard to guess at, though it's worth noting that the evidence from the United States is far from clear, especially in shootings involving automatic weapons.

[HammerT]

If there is one thing it would be nice to get the leftists to learn is that criminals and terrorists have little regard for the law or silly little “Gun Free” zone signs....

BUT if they did learn that they would also know of the futility of people control.

[MasterGunner01]

The folks at the WaPo are absolutely breathtaking in their willful ignorance. Gun control laws seek to control the wrong people — criminals and terrorists — who do ILLEGAL deeds. These laws do not work against those they were supposedly written to combat. All they produce is disarmed victims. It really is THAT simple.

[HammerT]

Problem is – they don’t want to see that, even worse… they care more about their political agenda of disarming the people more than protecting them.