Every current gun-rights-infringement proposal either on the table or enacted into law — New York and Connecticut — is a waste of time and effort. They’re merely ink on paper because they do nothing to deter or prevent future gun-related crimes, but they do a lot to increase bureaucratic foolishness and prevent people from legally exercising their Second Amendment rights.
Devoid of substance, but arrogant in reach, they’re sad examples of hollow hubris.
Don’t believe me? Read this recent column by The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker who lays it out as well as anyone:
“In a country with an estimated 250 million to 300 million guns, imposing new laws on honest people is problematic and bureaucratically complicated. Add to the conundrum our politics of individual freedom combined with the exploitation of emotion to craft what is likely an impotent solution, and it is little wonder our congressional leadership is bamboozled.”
Then why is the nation being subjected to the angst of the whole debate on the issue — just to make people feel better because they’ll think something has been done? Or are there other reasons hid from view? My guess is both.
What I call the “icky” crowd — “Those guns look icky, so they must be outlawed” — who are ignorant about weapons and indifferent to
the point of hostile to the gun rights of others want to feel self-righteous and sanctimonious because they’re working to ban “assault rifles” when they have no idea what one is, how one works or that what they seek to ban is merely cosmetically different from an ordinary semi-automatic rifle. They feel towards guns the way many people feel toward snakes, slugs or rats. Up on the chair they jump because of the icky factor. The icky crowd are trivial people who are driven by their emotions, not their minds. But there are some who are driven by their minds, and these are the dangerous ones.
True-believers bound and determined to eliminate the individual right to keep and bear arms will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals. They’ll lie, cheat and, literally, steal to get their way. They lie about their intent, they cheat by faking numbers and they’re eager to steal your constitutional gun rights in the abstract and the actual guns from your home. Their mindset is control: You must be bent to their will because your freedom is a threat to their existence. They are a genuinely insecure and sorry lot because their lives are lived in fear, which means their lives are half-lived.
So, we’re stuck once again debating empty proposals that will do nothing — absolutely and positively NOTHING — to address the issues their proponents, who are fully cognizant that they will do nothing, claim they want to address. It’s a fraud, a sham and a cynical show.
Scott St. Clair is a journalist, rhetorical pugilist, agent provocateur, aider and abbetor of James O’Keefe and a former competitive Highland piper. He says what he thinks, means what he says and doesn’t suffer fools. He’s also a member of the Victoria Taft Blogforce. His opinions are entirely his own, and you shouldn’t expect them to mirror yours.
