The recent San Bernadino shootings spawned an interesting twist on the long-running debate about gun ownership and gun violence. It didn’t just rekindle the gun debate in the liberal press, it stoked that fire and fanned those flames to unprecedented levels. The New York Times ran a front page editorial (in an amusing pretense that its normal front page news isn’t heavily tainted with editorial bias) for the first time since 1920. The Daily News ran several outrageous front pages. Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal Daily Kos site, went full-bore against Republicans and religious people before the identities of the shooters were ascertained. Celebrities rushed to their Twitter accounts to condemn guns and the NRA with tone and language that they wouldn’t dare use against any issue dear to the Left.
Reaction of this sort isn’t anything new. It’s not like these folks will ever even consider the possibility that gun control laws won’t accomplish what they want. What’s new is the level of viciousness and rage exhibited this go-around. It toned down just a bit when it was discovered that the shooters were Islamic terrorists, but that simply opened discussion for the latest “do something” scheme: preventing people on the “no-fly” list from buying guns. After all, the “no-fly” list is about terrorists, and who’d be in favor of letting terrorists buy guns?
There’s a bit of a problem with this scheme. The no-fly list is based on suspicion, not court-validated evidence or legal process. By some reports, half or more of the estimated 47,000 people on the no-fly list have no known connection to any terrorist group. The government’s “terror watch list” may contain more than 1.5 million names. The no-fly list is rife with errors, and the process for appealing inclusion is opaque and subjective. Fox News listed 8 ways one might end up on the no-fly list, and I doubt it’s an exhaustive list. The no-fly list has no connection to the due process guaranteed by the Constitution, which makes denying someone his rights based on inclusion therein highly problematic from a legal perspective. Actual legislation to effect this scheme would (or at least should) fail its first court challenge.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere continued its straw man, ad hominem and other attacks against gun rights.
Some antis claim that the massive number of gun purchases of recent years are being made by a shrinking minority, that the public is quite anti-gun, and that but for the NRA there’d be “sensible” rules (including registration and universal background checks). They’ve also continued to claim that “no one wants to take your guns,” which flies in the face of the desire to ban and confiscate “assault weapons.” To call these assertions rubbish would be excessively polite.
I recall promises about getting to keep your health plan if you like your health plan. I then recall that, when that turned out to be not true, they excused it by saying that some plans were substandard.
I expect the same sort of thing about guns – you get to keep them if you like them…. oops – some are “unacceptable” for private ownership, so turn them in, mmkay thanks. Oh yes, and because you’ve registered them, we know you have them. Knock knock.
Fortunately, there’s a “close the barn door after the chickens escaped” futility to the Left’s anti-gun talk. 100 million new guns have been purchased in the last quarter century or so, adding to the 200+ million (or perhaps a LOT more) that were already in private hands. 300 million privately owned guns is the low estimate. I’ve seen 350 million and I’ve seen 600 million. That’s a lot of guns.
The antis, in their rage and hyperventilation, have tipped their hands. Gun owners know not to trust them, not to believe that they won’t seek further infringements once “sensible” rules are in place. That’s why any substantial effort to register and/or ban/confiscate will be met with civil disobedience of an unprecedented level. We’ve seen 15% compliance with “assault weapon” registration in Connecticut, and 5% in New York. There’s absolutely no reason to think that compliance would be any greater nationally, and there’s every reason to think that that which is unregistered will be kept unregistered. With 300-600 million guns in the country, the chance of a “gun-free America” is zero.
The Second Amendment was born out of distrust of big government and standing armies. Today, we have both, and they are coupled with an unending effort from those who love their big government to further undermine gun rights and ultimately undo the Second Amendment’s protections. The lack of traction in that effort, and indeed the major gains made in gun rights (the Right to Carry movement started a quarter century ago, and now has reached 41 states, constitutional carry exists in 6 states, the Heller and McDonald SCOTUS decisions affirmed 2A as protecting individuals’ rights), have spawned the new heights of rage from the anti-gun crowd. They’re raging at their lack of success in abridging gun rights, they’re raging at the massive increases in gun numbers, they’re raging at the success of the pro-gun movement, and they’re raging at their inability to “do something,” no matter that “something” would most likely be an empty gesture with no positive results. Like petulant children, they’re enraged that they aren’t getting what they want. The nice thing is that we, the pro-gun folks, can take heart in their impotent rage. Our side has been winning the fight for gun rights, and the antis’ desire to disarm us will never succeed.
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