Barack Obama isn’t the only one making noise about confiscating guns. The New York Times featured its first front-page editorial since 1920 ranting about the “moral outrage and … national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.” Never mind that these guns are not functionally different from nearly all handguns, or that they’re barely used in crimes — in 2013, there were 8,454 murders with firearms and just 285 with rifles of any type.

After more irrational fear mongering, including dismissing the fact that gun bans don’t work because “at least [other] countries are trying,” the Times laid down the gauntlet: “Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.”

There’s a reason molon labe — the Greek phrase meaning “come and take” — is a classic motto of those who cherish their Second (and Fourth and Fifth) Amendment rights. What the Times is calling for, even though the editors would never put it this way, is for heavily armed government agents to forcibly take certain firearms from law-abiding citizens because these New York editors are afraid of them.

Do they have any idea of the bloodshed that would cause? And leftists accuse us of refusing to acknowledge reality.