Rep. Rashida Tlaib Seeks To Mandate Firearm Dealers Attempt To Sell A Lock With Every Gun

From the department of redundant redundancy departments comes “The Squad” backbencher, Congressnon-man Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), pushing legislation that would force gun dealers to have locks available for every firearm they sell. Not included with the firearm, mind you, just available for sale and the store must also offer said lock or safe storage device at the time of the gun purchase.

Apparently she's unaware that all handguns sold in the U.S. already must come with a secure gun storage or safety device, which is usually in the form of a cable lock. It's Federal law. Some states require the same for long guns, and some states such as California go above and beyond these laws by requiring secure storage in state-approved safes / lockboxes.

Even when not required by law, most manufacturers find it easier to stuff a $1.85 cable lock into the box with every single long gun that goes out the door than to change their packaging practices on a state-by-state level.

Furthermore, groups like Project Child Safe provide locks completely free of charge to anyone who requests one. They've provided hundreds of thousands of locks to police departments around the country, meaning there's almost a 100 percent chance that your local PD will also provide you with a free lock upon request.

Then again, it's neither the horrific hurdle of a $3.75 gun lock nor education about the lock's availability — putting aside the fact that the vast, vast majority of firearms already come with one in the box in the first place — that leads to Tlaib's shock and horror in the following Tweet:

Seems like those children are much better educated than Rep Tlaib. Further claims made by her and other representatives that this legislation, despite being entirely redundant on multiple levels, will save the lives of hundreds of children every year cannot be factually accurate. How do we know this? Well, just ask the CDC:

The most recent data available shows 54 accidental firearms deaths nation-wide among children in 2018 (zero in Tlaib's Michigan, for the record, despite her Tweet sensationalizing the danger). That's 1.4 percent of all unintentional deaths, making it one of the very least likely causes of accidental deaths that has a category for CDC tracking rather than being lumped into “other” because it's so incredibly rare. So that's 4.6 million children apparently living in homes with loaded and unlocked firearms, and 54 annual deaths that may or may not be associated with some of those homes or have anything to do with the clear implication that the child found an unlocked firearm and discharged it.

Each and every one of those deaths is a horrible tragedy, of course. But whether we're speaking of children or adults, the risk of unintentional injury or death from a firearm is being blown way out of proportion. In fact, the shooting sports (including hunting) result in lower injury and death rates than most common sports like skiing, swimming, football, golf, etc.

Click on the image above to enlarge it. Note that the “hunting with a firearm” injury figures include things like falling from tree stands and every other way you can hurt yourself while out enjoying the dangers of nature. You're over 7.3 times more likely to get injured golfing than you are hunting with a firearm.

I know what you're thinking. “But what about golf with a firearm?” Yes, yes! That's called sporting clays and I highly recommend it. It's safer than regular golf, apparently.

…And when compared to other causes of unintentional deaths:

ll of the stats images are pulled from the NSSF Firearm-Related Accident Statistics annual report, which compiles official data from the CDC, FBI, and other sources.

Putting on my overly-charitable hat, it seems like Rep Tlaib's heart is in the right place but her brain is AWOL. Chalk it up to ignorance on the topic that has lead her to create and promote legislation so impressively redundant that it's not only effectively already in-place (in many cases with far stronger requirements than her proposed law), but it's targeted at dealers who are already intrinsically motivated to sell accessories like storage solutions with every gun purchase (Tlaib is no fan of the free market, so it's no surprise she doesn't understand this, either) and it's targeting a problem that barely makes the top 20 list of concerns to consumer safety by any stretch of any statistic.

Though it is politically controversial, which helps her get her name into articles like this one. I guess if she's trending on Twitter then she's fundraising and therefore winning. Much better than doing anything useful. She can put the money toward her rampant antisemitism.

More on this topic can be found in a Fox News article here.

Read the original article in its entirety at The Truth About Guns.

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