CHAMBERSBURG — After remarks from President Biden yesterday about how his administration is going to combat gun violence, a lot of people are wondering, didn’t his administration start the ball rolling in the first place?
The president said, “If you willfully sell a gun to someone who’s prohibited from possessing it. If you willfully fail to run a background check, if you willfully falsify a record, if you willfully fail to cooperate with a tracing request or inspections, my message to you is this: we’ll find you.”
Carl Hill from Hill Top Arms joined Pat Ryan and Michele Jansen on First News this morning to discuss the latest from Washington.
Hill said, “What you have here is major cities, Democratic-controlled areas, have seen 20 to 115 percent rise in crimes, most of which have nothing to do with guns. He fails to address the issue that criminals are just emboldened because they’re not afraid of the police because they’ve demonized the police. They’ve tied their hands on what crimes they can actually go after and attempt to stop a criminal from committing. Criminals aren’t afraid of the legal consequences because they slap their wrists. They don’t enforce the existing laws as is. they condone the riots and they condone the looting and they refuse to prosecute the ones they catch.”
Additionally, Hill said “criminals in these democratic controlled areas aren’t afraid of armed response from their victims because the democrats have made it so hard for people to defend themselves to get legal firearms. That’s the root cause here. Criminals just aren’t afraid of consequences from anybody. Mostly because of Democratic policies. And then attempting to try to deflect the blame back on the gun industry is ludicrous.”
The average time it takes a handgun to turn up at a crime scene is close to eight years.
Hill said, “This is not being caused by dealers not running background checks. Of course we run background checks. Nobody wants guns to be in the hands of criminals. To say that it is the fault of dealers not running background checks it’s a complete fabrication.”
Ryan wondered, “Is anybody bringing up these activist judges that have been put in place and you’ve got a DA with a touch of an agenda. A lot of surface but not a lot of depth.”
Hill said, “That’s clearly a problem. What we really need is judges who are going to go and make criminals who understand there are consequences for breaking the law. Right now it’s a slap on the wrist. We hear cases all the time where people who do commit serious crimes getting away with absolutely minimal consequences and that’s what’s got to change.”
There’s been a recent report of a Daytona Beach shooting involving a police officer who is in grave condition after being shot in the head by a criminal.
Ryan said they should, “Fast track that guy right to the electric chair. I don’t want that in the rest of society.”
Hill added, “If you demonize law enforcement you’re going to embolden criminals to attack law enforcement and that’s something we just can’t have. It’s one of the reasons why we’re so strongly in favor of average citizens learning how to use firearms, carrying a firearm so they can not only protect themselves, but also perhaps help protect their community. I certainly feel safer in this area than I would in any major Democratic city because I happen to know probably one out of six people in this area are actually carrying a firearm and probably know how to use it.”
