There was one particularly important line in Barack Obama’s anti-gun screed Thursday: “We know other countries in response to one mass shooting have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours, Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.

As National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke notes, "This is remarkable. Customarily, Democratic politicians react to mass shootings by calling for pointless around-the-edges reforms: ‘universal’ background checks, hard limits on the size of commercially available magazines, rules that determine how certain rifles may look, etc. Since 2012, in fact, Obama has tended to take this approach himself. Now, however, the president is openly praising two countries that confiscated — yes, confiscated — firearms. That matters — and a great deal. Why? Well, because the president’s defenders like to mock those among his critics who argue that he wants to ‘take their guns away.’ As of today, they will no longer be able to do so.”

That isn’t to say they won’t try, but Obama’s comments were definitely revealing.