On Monday, CNN cast off any remaining vestiges of impartiality (and any reputation for fact-checking) when it published a patently ridiculous op-ed by Philip Alpers, founding director of GunPolicy.org.
The red flags showed themselves almost immediately: “Since 1934, U.S. federal law has mandated licensing and registration for machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and rifles.” Really? When was the last time you remember registering a rifle?
Alpers then goes on to parrot the anti-gun talking point regarding a ban on gun-violence research. Again, no.
But the real kicker here comes at the end, where Alpers claims that “countless lives” can be saved by implementing a “range of long-term public health initiatives”—all four of which have been tried with little to no success.
We’ve discussed the problems with so-called “universal” background checks at length, and even proponents admit they won’t affect criminals. Micro-stamping has been abandoned as an expensive failure just about everywhere it’s been tried, and the list of crimes it’s helped solve is … well … nonexistent. Smart guns “that only the owner can fire” can, in fact, be fired by anyone unless paired with expensive companion technology, and there’s yet to be a single example of one that is even marginally reliable. As far as licensing and registration … well, how can he suggest they’ve been proven to work, when they’re ignored by criminals, and in many cases, the law-abiding?
