After Sunday night’s horrific mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, some in the liberal media couldn’t help but try to politicize the awful tragedy that left 50 people dead and hundreds more injured. During MSNBC’s live coverage in the 9 am PST hour October 2nd, anchor Stephanie Ruhle and former NYC Police Commissioner William Bratton blamed Nevada’s “relaxed” gun laws to argue that if the state had more regulation, something like this couldn’t have happened.
Midway through the 9 am hour, Ruhle brought up Nevada’s gun laws to argue that the “relaxed” regulation made it impossible for police to do their job in combatting these type of situations. Ruhle cited a Newsweek article, before bringing on her liberal guest, former NYC Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, to make the plea for more gun control:
STEPHANIE RUHLE: I just want to read something to you quickly because many people are writing in asking us about the gun laws. I want to talk about Nevada for a moment. The source is Newsweek. Nevada has some of the most relaxed gun laws in the country. This state does not require firearms owners to have licenses. It does not require registration of weapons. It does not limit the number of firearms an individual possesses. People were asking about the 10 guns in the gunman's room. This state does not prohibit the possession of assault weapon, 50 caliber rifles or large capacity ammunition magazines. Before we go, I want to bring commissioner Bratton back in. When you hear this, these very relaxed gun laws in the state of Nevada. How do the police protect against this?
Bratton answered dismally that the current laws in Nevada “defy sanity” and the country was going down the wrong track by passing more guns rights laws:
BILL BRATTON: They don't. In terms of what you just described, is, in some respects, a reflection of insanity, but that's the reality.
RUHLE: One more time. The description of insanity.
BRATTON: Description of insanity in terms of what the police are up against. And what the 20,000 people were up against in the state. Right now before Congress, I'll make a prediction sitting here, there is a bill to allow silencers that would muffle the sound of a gunshot to be sold openly. Right now they are very restricted.
RUHLE: What is the rationale?
BRATTON: Who knows. I've been a police officer for almost 50 years. I'm not a gun lover. I appreciate that many people enjoy weapons, but the lack of regulation in this country defies sanity.
Ruhle and Bratton then claimed that gun silencers would “hide” what a shooter was doing, and “effectively silence a weapon” so criminals could not be caught in a violent act. This ludicrous claim is easily disputed by anyone who has even an elementary knowledge of how gun silencers work; a gun equipped with a silencer will still project an audible sound when the gun is shot. Even then, the government has shown that silencers are rarely used by criminals:
RUHLE: Could even a gun lover, a gun enthusiast, what is the rationale behind need, wanting a silencer if not to muffle or hide what you're doing?
BRATTON: The NRA claims it's to protect the ears of hunters so that when they're out there killing a deer, which is basically a historic thing in this country, hunting, but the idea is under the ruse of protecting the ears of hunters, they're going to authorize a device that will effectively silence a weapons. So imagine if this individual had a silencer If you had a silencer on the end of some of these weapons, he would not have even known this was happening but for the sounds of the gunshots. He would not have heard those gunshots.
RUHLE: Protect the ears of the hunters. How about the lives of the innocents?
BRATTON: I suspect that bill will pass Congress despite these events. guaranteed.
RUHLE: I'm going to have to leave that there. Commissioner, thank you so much
Bratton is frequently trotted out by the left-wing media when these tragedies occur. Why? Because he has been a vocal proponent for gun control for years, calling for the elimination of certain types of firearms from society and insisting that high crime cities like Chicago would greatly decrease its violence if only it had more gun laws. But as it’s almost too obvious to point out, Chicago is certainly more well-known for it’s reputation for gun violence than the entire state of Nevada is.
