Red Flag Gun Laws Wouldn’t Have Prevented El Paso Massacre

190206-N-IG696-0092 WASHINGTON (Feb. 06, 2019) James Rose and Devrine Jones, Naval District Washington Fire and Emergency Services personnel, treat volunteers at a triage station during a mass casualty drill at Naval Support Activity Annapolis, as part of Citadel Shield-Solid Curtain 2019. Citadel Shield-Solid Curtain is an annual two-week anti-terrorism force protection exercise conducted by U.S. Fleet Forces and Commander, Navy Installations Command. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jason Amadi/Released)

While everyone was getting outraged about the Dayton and El Paso shootings, Journalist Zaid Jilani pointed out that there were two mass shootings overnight in Chicago.

He notes that the violence in the Windy City “has become so normalized it doesn’t even make national news.”

https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/1158107865678323712

According to CBS Chicago, three people were killed and 40 were wounded during shootings this weekend in Chicago.

Four shootings took place on August 2, 12 shootings on August 3, and five shootings on August 4.

CBS indicated that there were “two mass shootings overnight in Chicago — both in the West Side’s Lawndale neighborhood.”

Curiously, the state of Illinois has a cornucopia of gun control on the books, including red flag gun confiscation laws. Even with these laws in place, shootings still occur frequently.

Nevertheless, lawmakers on the GOP side of the aisle like Congressman Dan Crenshaw and Senator Lindsey Graham are calling for “red flag” style measures.

Pro-Second Amendment researcher John Lott has repeatedly argued that these laws are useless against criminals.

When he looked at data from 1970 through 2017, “Red Flag laws appear to have had no significant effect on murder, suicide, the number of people killed in mass public shootings, robbery, aggravated assault or burglary. There is some evidence that rape rates rise. These laws apparently do not save lives.”

In a similar vein, Connecticut was one of the first states to pass a red flag law in 1999.

Even with that law on the books, Adam Lanza carried out his atrocity at Sandy Hook.

So, there may be more behind mass shootings than gun control or lack thereof.

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