Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears’s Powerful Statement on Gang Violence and the Richmond High School Graduation Mass Shooting

After this week’s shooting at a high school graduation ceremony in Richmond, Virginia, Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears spoke out on gang violence and the Richmond high school graduation mass shooting. Unfortunately, the media refuses to distinguish mass shootings involving gang fights from mass public shootings where someone is simply motivated to harm others.

Winsome Earle-Sears is exactly right that banning guns for law-abiding citizens isn’t going to stop drug gangs from getting weapons. One only needs to look at drug gangs getting guns in Mexico where guns are virtually completely banned, but their murder rate has more than doubled since the gun regulations went into effect since 1972 and in recent years their murder rate has been as high as six times higher than the rate in the US. She is right that if you want to stop these attacks, you have to make it risky for criminals to commit them.

Gabbie Giffords, who just came out for banning all guns, wasted no time going after Winsome Earle-Sears. But Giffords doesn’t explain why Winsome Earle-Sears is wrong.