some CS (common sense) amidst all the BS?

The article talked about below was written by a journalist working for a public interest journalistic group of people (that means they are left leaning??) Bad things are happening out there and worse yet is the problem of trying to prevent more of them from happening. Perhaps the best people can come up with is solutions that may not make sense. 

Article highlights: 

 OVER the past two decades, the majority of Americans in a country deeply divided over gun control have coalesced behind a single proposition: The sale of assault weapons should be banned. ..."That idea was one of the pillars of the Obama administration’s plan to curb gun violence, and it remains popular with the public. In a poll last December, 59 percent of likely voters said they favor a ban...But in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference."...."Annually, 5,000 to 6,000 black men are murdered with guns. Black men amount to only 6 percent of the population. Yet of the 30 Americans on average shot to death each day, half are black males."

read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/the-assault-weapon-myth.html?_r=0

TWW's soapbox:

• Is reality as seen through the lens of the media reality?
• Airplane crashes scare people because of the large number of deaths but car crashes are run of the mill unless you know someone involved.
• 'Mass shootings' scare people but murders especially in the ghetto are also run of the mill unless you know the victims
• When a relatively small number of white people die it is a much bigger deal than when a much bigger number of black people die (do the Black Lives Matter people ever talk about this?)
• Laws need definitions. When the government defines something and makes it illegal people work to get around the law legally. During the pretend ban on assault weapons (nobody confiscated the existing guns) during the Clinton years the gun makers got around the law and introduced more weapons.  
• Gun free zones only allow criminals the ability to protect themselves in the zones