Two men charged in connection with the shooting murders of two police officers in Hattiesburg, Miss., Saturday night are convicted felons, according to local press reports, which means that they were barred by federal law from owning, possessing or even touching any firearm, anywhere, ever.
Yet despite a total ban on felons possessing firearms—let alone murdering police officers—Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree suggested on CNN that Mississippi’s Right-to-Carry law was somehow to blame for the murders.
We see this same kind of “mistaken” or deliberately misleading “blame guns” tactic on an almost daily basis. Just last week The New York Times tried to blame last Saturday’s murder of NYPD Police Officer Brian Moore on “loose gun laws” in Georgia, despite the fact that the gun used in that murder was stolen, a situation in which no law—“loose” or otherwise—can do anything. That’s dishonest, and it’s despicable.