The Tornoe spin

Gun control is one of those tricky political subjects that is rarely debated honestly and most often used as a wedge issue to divide voters and garner political favor.

Take some recent gun control bills proposed by Governor Markell that have begun to make their way through the General Assembly. The bills include provisions that no one should oppose, like reporting information on mentally ill people who are prohibited from owning firearms and closing the so-called “gun show loophole” which currently allows individuals to purchase weapons at gun shows without criminal and mental-health background checks. Still, with the powerful lobby of the NRA fighting against even the slightest change in gun control laws under the guise and rhetoric of “protecting our freedom,” even modest changes such as these become difficult to pass. We need to get past the black helicopters of big government and silly slogans like “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” and do the things in our modern society to make gun ownership safer for everyone.