David Frum picking gun control fights with straw men in his Twitter feed

Brett T. | 7:14 PM on January 22, 2013

Rumors were going around last night that Twitter was going to shut down for a week to perform maintenance. That’s not likely, but if there’s any reason to shut down Twitter, it’s to clean out all of the straw men from David Frum’s feed — it’s getting to be a real fire hazard in there. For one, we haven’t heard anyone try to argue that Chicago’s ridiculously high number of gun homicides means that “guns are nothing to worry about” — but we’re dealing with a man whose initial response to the Sandy Hook massacre was a sarcastic tweet about letting toddlers have concealed carry permits.

@davidfrum I don't think that's the argument. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and yet a sky-high murder rate.

— Doug Mataconis (@dmataconis) January 22, 2013

@davidfrum That's not the argument. Argument is that Chicago gun control only hurts the law-abiding.

— tedfrank ? (@tedfrank) January 22, 2013

We’ll give credit to Frum for at least bringing Chicago into the gun control debate, even if he’s completely mischaracterizing his opponents. So, what’s the solution?

Maybe better gun safety rules would save lives everywhere, including Chicago?

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 22, 2013

Gun safety rules? Are those anything like gun control laws, which are proving so ineffective in curbing gun violence in Chicago? Or are they more like President Obama’s list of 23 executive actions?

Hunch: guns used in Chicago are manufactured outside city and then carried into city in absence of city wall & moat

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 22, 2013

Hmm … and just who is “using” those guns? Have these people no respect for the law? Maybe some of the nation’s most strict gun control laws and a moat around the city is the answer.