“Outlaws don’t get guns legally.”
That’s what U.S. Representative Louis Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, said yesterday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Gohmert was making the argument that there’s no sense in passing gun control legislation, because outlaws never obey the law in obtaining their guns anyway.
The married couple that murdered 14 people in San Bernardino last year, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, obtained their guns legally.
In October last year, Christopher Harper-Mercer murdered 9 people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. All of his guns were purchased legally.
In July last year, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez murdered 5 people in Tennessee, using guns that were purchased legally.
Even Breitbart News, the extreme right wing web site that is rabidly pro-gun, admitted just one month ago in an article written by Awr Hawkins that “Over 80% of Mass Shooters Got Their Guns ‘Legally’”. The data that Hawkins referred to originally came from Mother Jones in 2012, but was updated to include data from 2013, 2014 and 2015 as well.
The criminal gang of right wing militants that is currently occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, vandalizing it and threatening to shoot anyone who tries to stop them, bought its guns legally.
Whether you agree with Representative Gohmert’s opinion that gun sales don’t need more serious regulation, the premise that Gohmert uses to reach his conclusion is clearly false. Outlaws DO get guns legally, and they do it quite often.
