They're Coming for Your Guns

The Foundation

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants." --Cesare Beccaria, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

Editorial Exegesis

"What happened in Newtown is not an occasion for a national political 'conversation.' It is an occasion to reflect on why we have political conversations at all. ... It is easy, and in moments of despair such as Friday quite understandable, to scream 'more' to gun control, 'more' to the morass of airport-style security that is spreading its way across our institutions, 'more' to the diagnosis and institutionalization of the mentally ill. But it is much harder to write the laws that would have guaranteed Adam Lanza could never find a gun, or enter a school by force, or go without what diagnosis, treatment, and supervision he might have needed. And hardest of all to write them in such a way that the republic we'd be left with would still look like America in the ways we value most. This is not so say such laws cannot or should not be written -- in the field of mental health, in particular, we think there are commonsense reforms that might make tragedies such as Newtown less likely -- but merely to caution humility and care in their crafting. The need for humility is especially acute in the case of gun control. The irreducible challenge the Second Amendment poses to gun restrictionists is that it does not bestow upon the people a right they previously lacked. It proscribes the government from infringing upon a right the people already have. It is not that the people are allowed to arm. It is that the government is disallowed to disarm them. The practical consequence of living for nearly two-and-a-half centuries under the almost universally benevolent protection of the Second Amendment is a society in which there are hundreds of millions of guns, in which 47 percent of families and nearly as many Democrats as Republicans own guns, and in which the dissent over the sacrosanctity of gun rights is heard largely because of the overrepresentation in the media of the coastal, urban Left. Those upset with the order of things are welcome to try, and doomed to fail, to repeal the Second Amendment via the constitutional process. But the guns of America aren't going anywhere any time soon, and generic calls to 'do something' -- even insofar as doing something is desirable -- must reckon with this fact." --National Review

Upright

"The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available. If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive. ... Yet many of the most zealous advocates of gun control laws, on both sides of the Atlantic, have also been advocates of leniency toward criminals. In Britain, such people have been so successful that legal gun ownership has been reduced almost to the vanishing point, while even most convicted felons in Britain are not put behind bars. ... Guns are not the problem. People are the problem -- including people who are determined to push gun control laws, either in ignorance of the facts or in defiance of the facts. There is innocent ignorance and there is invincible, dogmatic and self-righteous ignorance. Every tragic mass shooting seems to bring out examples of both among gun control advocates." --economist Thomas Sowell

"The rifle that Lanza used, a .223-caliber Bushmaster M4 carbine, is legal under Connecticut's 'assault weapon' ban, and the federal law used the same criteria. ... Any gun that can be used for self-defense or other legitimate purposes also can be used to murder people. Guns like Lanza's, modeled after the Colt AR-15, are among the most popular rifles in America, with an estimated 3.5 million sold since 1986. Only a tiny fraction of them are ever used in crimes. ... FBI numbers indicate that rifles of any kind (not just 'assault weapons') are used in less than 3 percent of murders. Even killers with multiple victims are much more likely to use ordinary handguns than 'assault weapons.' I use those scare quotes because the very term 'assault weapon' was invented by the anti-gun lobby as a way of blurring the distinction between semi-automatic firearms, which fire once per trigger pull, and machine guns such as the selective-fire assault rifles carried by soldiers." --columnist Jacob Sullum

"An industry devoted to serving the public's right to know gives twisted and evil men the means of becoming known. This problem is not obviously amenable to a solution, and it certainly is not amenable to a legal one. A regime of media regulation that would be both effective at preventing mass shootings and consistent with the American Constitution is no easier to imagine than a regime of gun regulation that would meet the same criteria." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

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Demo-gogues

Gun grabbers unite: "On the first day of the new Congress, I intend to introduce a bill stopping the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of assault weapons as well as large ammunition magazines, strips and drums that hold more than 10 rounds." --Sen. Dianne Feinstein on plans for a renewed ban on rifles that look scary

"How does something like [Newtown] happen? Because a person with impaired judgment had access to firepower that should be outlawed. There is no reason why these assault magazines -- and that's what they are. We've got to call them what they are." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

"I was just giving the White House a heads up that the gloves are off on my side, and I was going to do everything I possibly could. If that meant embarrassing everybody, that's what I would do. ... We owe it to those families, and to our own children, to do something about our nation's problem with gun violence." --Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)

"We need people, just ordinary Americans, to come together, and speak out, and to sit down and calmly reflect on how far we go. I'm going to be holding a hearing after the first of the year, in about two weeks or so, on this constitutional question [of guns]. That's the starting point." --Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)

That was then: "If you are a law-abiding gun owner you have nothing to fear from an Obama administration." --Barack Obama in 2008

Belly laugh of the week: "The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican." --Barack Obama

Dezinformatsia

Most of the leftists speaking loudest on gun control don't have any clue what they're talking about. Here are a few examples of what we call "non compos mentis" on guns:

"Why should anyone own an assault rifle? We need to be realistic about the 2nd amendment..society [sic] has changed, views have changed. Write all the feel good laws you want, it's the confiscation of these types of weapons that counts and will have an impact. [A] Glock pistol qualifies as an assault weapon." --MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Twitter

"Respectfully, the founding fathers aren't here anymore. We are the founding fathers of this country now. Things change in America.... The idea that we need to be stuck in the mud of a different generation because some dead people think that's the way we oughta [sic] live 200 and some odd years later, I'm not there." --Ed Schultz

"If someone who has a mental issue did not have access to guns that should only be available in war zones, we would not be dealing with this. Who needs an armor-piercing bullet to go hunting? Who needs an assault rifle to go hunting? You can't even use the prey that you kill with an assault rifle if you indeed do it. No one needs an assault rifle to go out and shoot a deer. No one needs an assault rifle that's capable of shooting 10, 20, 30 rounds off at the same time to shoot a duck, or to shoot quail. It does not make sense. ... We need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets." --CNN's Don Lemon

"Should Jared Loughner have been able to obtain 30 rounds of ammunition to kill six people and wound Gabby Giffords, or should there be limits on high-magazine clips [sic]?" --Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz

"Why does anyone need an AK-15 [sic]?" --Fox News' Bill O'Reilly

That's racist: "After 9/11, we turned this culture upside down. We doubled our defense budget. If this [school shooter] had had, I'm sorry to say this, but if he had had an Arab name, people would be going nuts about what we ought to do right now." --CBS's Bob Schieffer

"People will long remember what Barack Obama said in Newtown...his Gettysburg address..." --Obama's biographer David Maraniss

The sycophants: "He obviously won re-election. He won re-election despite higher unemployment rate than anyone had to face in 70 years. He's the first Democrat to actually win two consecutive terms with over 50 percent of the vote. That's something we haven't seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And he's basically the beneficiary and the author of a new America. A new demographic, a new cultural America that he's now the symbol of." --Time Magazine editor Richard Stengel on naming Obama "Person of the Year" again

Newspulper Headlines:

So Much for the War on Drugs: "Marijuana Not High Obama Priority" --ABCNews.com

We've Always Found Obama Pretty Trying: "Boehner Is Trying, Obama Is Not" --Washington Post website

Shortest Books Ever Written: "The Case for John Kerry as Secretary of State" --The Washington Post

Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Can Facebook Make You Fat and Poor?" --LiveScience.com

News You Can Use: "Willie Nelson Interview: Don't Fret About the End of the World" --Daily Telegraph (London)

Bottom Story of the Day: "Obama Shows Weakness, Again" --BuzzFeed.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Alpha Jackass: "It's time that we as a city have an assault weapons ban. It's time that we as a state have an assault weapons ban. It's time that we as a country have an assault weapons ban. And I would hope the leadership in Congress now will have a vote of conscience. It is time to have that vote." --Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who presides over a city with a near-gun ban and the highest murder rate in the nation

"I don't know what the gun would've done. I can just tell you that if you have a gun in your house, you are something like 22 times as likely to shoot a friend or a relative as somebody trying to assault you. Guns kill people. They don't belong in schools. They don't belong on campuses." --New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when questioned on whether the Sandy Hook Elementary principal should have been armed

"I hate to say it, but killing is our way. We began America w/ genocide, then built it w/ slaves. The shootings will continue -- it's who we are." --filmmaker Michael Moore

Beware: "[W]e cannot do what we did in 2008, which is vote and then go back to sleep, you know, um, because the real work is -- is coming up. I mean, we've got a fiscal cliff crisis going on, we've gotta, you know, uh, you know, deal with our education system, we have to deal with the environment, we need comprehensive immigration reform. All of that has to happen, and we're dealing with -- four years is not a lot of time, you know. And the truth is, is that we've got two strong years where we've gotta get a lot done." --Michelle Obama

Lap dog: "I really love Barack Obama. ... I love Barack Obama. What a great man. I'm so lucky to have voted for that guy." --comedian Louis C.K.

Short Cuts

"If you believe the availability of guns is the problem, then you must be ENRAGED at Obama over Operation Fast & Furious." --Daily Caller contributor Matt K. Lewis

"If Chris Matthews could carry Barack Obama's next child, he would." --Media Research Center's L. Brent Bozell

"House Republicans and Democrats stayed deadlocked over whether to cut spending or raise taxes to save the economy. If they send us over the fiscal cliff, they will still get paid. Their salaries are guaranteed under the Americans with No Abilities Act." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"So people are acting pretty set on gun control, but all their ideas are things that do nothing but pester law abiding gun owners. ... So idea: Let's just pretend to pass gun control. The people who most want it won't know the difference between an actual law being passed and absolutely nothing being done, so can't we just say we passed a bunch of laws and pretend everyone is safer? We'll call it the 'Super Deadly Gun Ban Act' and it will ban fully-automatic bolt action shotguns and armor piercing hollow points and any magically enchanted guns. And then all the dumb people will cheer, 'We is safer!' So it's the same result as an 'assault weapon' ban, but no enforcement costs and no petty intrusions on liberty. If people want useless things done to make us all feel safer, can't we all just play along?" --humorist Frank J. Fleming

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team