On Monday, the Georgia state senator went to the floor of the state senate to talk about a mental health bill. He instead rambled on about the topic of the nation’s gun violence.
“They killin’ people with frying pans,” Sen. Jackson told the gathered senators. “They killin’ people with hammers. There’s more murders with hammers last year than there was shotguns, pistols and AK-47s.”
The right-wing talking point he tried to remember says that “hammers and clubs kill more people than rifles.”
Sen. Jackson, while trying to minimize gun violence, stumbled over the precise crafting of this line that makes it true.
One real problem with the right-wing radio talking point that Sen. Jackson couldn’t remember is that it lumps a large group of weapons (blunt objects) together and then compares it to a single item (rifle) within another larger group of items (firearms).
They compare apples to oranges.
But an even bigger problem is how callously Sen. Jackson and his conservative colleagues dismiss the true violence of mass murders.
We’ve looked but so far haven’t been able to find a record of even one mass murder where the weapon of choice was a frying pan.
By dismissing the problem, these conservative lawmakers are avoiding an honest conversation about solutions.
These lawmakers are out-of-step with Georgia voters.
Current state and federal laws allow anyone to buy a gun — even a military style assault weapon without a background check or any sort of safety training.
Georgia’s gun laws are among the most lax in the nation.
Georgia voters strongly support sensible gun laws, including 62 percent support for mandatory background checks on all gun sales. Only 29 percent want to keep the laws as they are now.
If our lawmakers continue to say they are more concerned with frying pan violence than gun violence, it will be impossible to have that much-needed honest conversation.