Gun-control advocates hate admitting that very few crimes are committed with so-called “assault weapons.”https://t.co/MRHKHShwur

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 20, 2016

Hate admitting? When “assault” style weapons are used, odds are that it’s in the course of a mass shooting, where there’s a significant number of casualties.

Most shootings involve handguns, followed by shotguns. That’s per FBI stats.

The gun rights absolutists refuse to do anything to reduce firearms shootings, whether it’s closing loopholes, tightening gun laws in lax gun law states which allow sales of guns to those who then turn around and resell them on the black market for use elsewhere (The Iron Pipelines that run up I-95 to the NYC metro area, or similar routes to Chicago or Detroit from South).

They consider the death toll from suicides and accidental shootings to be the blood that waters the tree of “Freedom/Liberty.”

Any notion that mental health screenings might be part of the background checks is blocked, in part perhaps more than a few of these folks realize that they’d be found mentally ill or incompetent to own firearms.

So, the death toll continues apace. We get daily/weekly reports about how toddlers are shot by guns left out by “responsible” gun owners or are themselves shot by the “respectable” gun owners. Or how countless people accidentally shoot themselves in routine handling of firearms.

All of which adds to the health care costs incurred nationally. That’s a bill that is avoidable - or at least able to be reduced in some fashion.