This week, I’ll be discussing the gun show loophole and waiting periods for gun purchases, why the former shouldn’t exist, and why the latter should be extended.

First, the loophole.

Many right wingers call out the loophole as being falsely perpetuated and grossly untrue, saying that all gun shows have policies of thoroughly background-checking every potential purchaser before being sold the gun. While a majority (two-thirds, in fact) of nationwide gun show sellers are federally licensed (and hence subject to the mandatory background check), a third are not! Neither are legal private sales without any supervision.

This unsupervised and unlicensed sale of guns is the driving force behind the mass shooting epidemic in America. Many shooters obtain their weapons through legal purchases, which calls for increased regulation in a way I’ll discuss later, but others get them from family members or friends. These are people that either give weapons as presents or sell them simply because they think the purchaser isn’t insane.

Now onto the rest of the show!

The Charleston shooting at the predominantly black Emmanuel AME Church stands as a crystal clear example of the failings of current federal regulations. In purchasing the murder weapon, Dylan Roof was subject to wait a total of three days in order to lawfully purchase the handgun in South Carolina.

These three days are supposedly plenty of time to process a background check, but time ran out for the responsible agency after the mere 72 hours. The mandatory waiting period to let the background check be processed by the government expired, and Roof was given the gun anyway.

Waiting periods are an essential part of “gun control” and don’t take away liberties or rights or anything that the right claims. If a citizen wants a gun, they go through a process to make sure they’re not crazy, and they are given the gun. Within the bounds of reason, it doesn’t matter how long that process takes. Whoever is responsible for ensuring that the citizen is a responsible and secure owner and operator of a firearm should be given as much time as they need to read through any minute detail upon which they stumble. God forbid a purchaser in South Carolina has to wait four, or even FIVE whole days for his or her godforsaken gun.

The person who just wants and needs a gun RIGHT THIS SECOND should NOT be given a gun, ever.

This pathological obsession with instant gun gratification is a bright red flag among bright red flags. The circumstances couldn’t possibly be more suspicious. Why do you need a gun by lunch time? Do you need emergency protection? Call the police! Don’t you always support the police and their duty to protect and serve? If you don’t already have a big or sexy enough gun on your basement fortress’s wall to defend yourself, then another big and sexy gun just won’t do. If situations are different, then you can wait for your damn gun.

Hiya folks! Last time around, you read about my position to repeal the Second Amendment. Now, moving away from opinion and into the factual realm, I’m going to be debunking a certain myth around the gun control debate.

I’m sure we’ve all heard Republican politicians, NRA members, or plain conservatives shouting about how Chicago has some of the highest murder, gun violence, and miscellaneous violent crime rates in the nation. Also, you may have heard that such figures are so high either because of gun control, or even with the relatively strict gun control laws that they have in place. I’ll address two main points that have been exaggerated and used against gun control action, the first has to do with the availability of guns.

Have you ever heard of state lines? Those things that pretty much anyone can cross with no limitations? Those things that don’t stop the transport of guns across them? Yeah, those. A common misconception about Chicago’s gun problem is that “criminals are still able to get guns while law-abiding citizens are stuck with no means to defend themselves.” It is true that access to firearms in cities where gun laws are stricter than average is limited to an extent, and it is also true that handguns, semi-automatic rifles, and other classes of weapons have their own black market for sale to criminal affiliates; what is not true, however, is that citizens have no means of defending themselves (even though the lone-hero good guy with a gun vs evil ((black)) villain with a gun trying to rob the heroic ((white)) guy fantasy for gun nuts is in a perpetual state of statistical nonexistence) and that criminals have no hindrance on their ability to obtain firearms illegally. States have the most impact on gun control legislation that occurs in their state, so it logically follows that more left-leaning states will have more gun control and less-easy access to firearms, whereas more right-leaning states will have less control over firearms in their states and far easier access to firearms. In the context of Chicago, there are fewer legal weapons but not illegal weapons. This is the result of the State Line Problem. Chicago is in the northeast corner of Illinois (a state with stricter gun laws) and right in between Wisconsin and Indiana (red states with much looser regulations). This increased availability of loosely-regulated firearms causes criminals to go through the minimal effort of buying weapons across state lines, importing them to Chicago, and selling them on the black market of weapons for the evil doers that the right points out. It’s a free pass for getting high-powered weapons.

The second issue is that gun statistics for Chicago are not shown relative to other cities. Statistics are always cited for the greatest city in the U.S. in the context of saying what unbelievably high and unprecedented the violent crime rates are. While the rates are higher than average, they do not compare to cities like St. Louis or even my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio where the violent crime and murder rates are twice or three times higher than Chicago. These places are not necessarily known for their violent and gun crimes, partially due to the political background of Chicago. President Obama and Rahm Emanuel are both directly related to the city and to Illinois in general, meaning that the right attacks them with vigor due to their association with the Democratic party and not because Chicago represents an objectively good example of gun control failure.