Pulling Up the Tent Stakes - Reason #7,229

You think the Boston Globe would ever print anything remotely resembling this article from today's Union Leader?

The M&M Show: Another mayor shifts blame to guns

ONE MONTH after Boston Mayor Tom Menino blamed his city’s rise in gun-related crime on looser gun laws in northern New England, Toronto Mayor David Miller blamed Toronto’s, and Canada’s, recent spike in gun crime on looser American gun laws.

Welcome to The M&M Show, starring mayors Menino and Miller! Watch in wonder as they deftly blame outsiders for their cities’ crime problems! Sit in amazement as they ignore criminals and attempt to rid the streets of inanimate objects!

Like Menino, Miller didn’t bother to explain how the differential in gun laws, which has existed for years, all of a sudden caused Canadian shootings to rise. Did Canadian criminals just now figure out they could get guns more easily south of the border?

He did, however, spread the blame. If only the Canadian government had more social programs, low-income Canadians wouldn’t have to resort to crime to make ends meet.

Evidently, Miller has never read H.L. Mencken, who wisely observed, “The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.”

One security expert at the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute called the mayor’s blaming of America “a cop out” and noted that the real problem is a rise in criminal gangs.

Imagine that. Criminals causing crime. But don’t tell the mayors. They’ll have to change their act. And then what would we do for entertainment?

That third paragraph echoes the question I asked last month as Mumbles was kicking off his latest version of the Blame New Hampshire Game - and it bears repeating here.

When Boston had "only" 31 homicides back in 1999, that statistic was held up as incontrovertible evidence that the "most effective gun laws in the nation" were working, despite the accompanying fact that neighboring states such as New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont had pretty much the same, if not looser, restrictions on gun ownership in place that they do today.

But, now that the murder rate in Boston is back up to its highest level in ten years, why is it suddenly our neighboring states' fault for flooding our streets with guns, as the Mayor would sincerely like you to believe?

Welcome to Massachusetts - please check your ability to process logical thought at the door.

( link via Jeff at Alphecca - who should be on your "daily reads" list if he's not already)