By Howard Sachs

Last week I attended a “gun control” meeting at a local Bethesda, Maryland, church — a meeting called to help stop “gun violence” in America. It was attended by about 100 people, most belonging to a group called “Moms Demand Action.” They are basically intent on ridding our land of guns. Then there was me, a citizen, a strong advocate of Americanism, liberty, the Second Amendment, a constitutional conservative, an NRA member, and a dad who also demanded action.


I demanded these moms reject their leftism and grow up. I demanded they stop destroying our liberty and American value system. I demanded they stop with the foolishness of trying to control inanimate objects with “gun control” against “gun violence.” I insisted that we return to controlling real living things like our boys by confronting and revitalizing the task of making them good, strong, virtuous men. We could not have been more different in our demands. Regarding guns, the moms demanded the childishness of leftism. I demanded adult American values.

These women, along with millions of their fellow leftist adherents are stuck, sadly, in metaphorical “Neverland” where one will not and cannot grow up and live a mature, wise, free American life. That is why their views do great violence and damage to America. Adults are needed at the helm of our free society, not children in adult form. Their premises and solutions are products of the childish culture of leftism. They terribly harm us all.

First, their demands come from the well-documented canon of secular leftism. The philosophy puts forth the utterly foolish and childish notion that all men are basically good. Things like handguns are to blame for our problems. Hence, it naturally follows, if only we can pile on a few dozen more laws against guns, we’ll have a better America. Because, so the argument goes, the basically nice guy, looking perhaps to shoot up a church or synagogue, grab a woman in a parking lot, or smash into a home at night will refrain from doing it if there are more “commonsense gun laws” — laws he never followed in the first place to arm himself. Then, so the argument goes, aware of 15 additional pages of commonsense gun laws in the Maryland state law registry, he’ll drop the Glock and go on his way to lead a reasonably virtuous life. Evil in our streets will be vanquished. Our “Sesame Street” writers or George Orwell couldn’t build such a foolish argument.

This dad demands we reject such childish notions. All men are not basically good. In fact, each of us has a capacity for the most abhorrent evil. Not only that, but such evil may spring up in the micro or macro sense. The lone guy lurking in the shadows to pick off a young freshman girl out at night may create violence in the micro sense — destroying her, her family, and her friends. Gather together men and women into large governments and empower them with much money and control and that potential human evil unleashed brings suffering on a grand, continent-sized scale.

Well then, what to do about the adult reality that faces us — not the childish fantasy that the moms demand we follow? This dad demands we grow up and embrace the values that were bequeathed to us by our wise American founders and our Judeo-Christian heritage. This dad demands we recognize that evil abounds. It is here in each of our souls, on our streets, and always gathered in potential gargantuan amounts in big governments. It has been and always will be with us, no matter how we wish upon a star.

All men intent on doing evil will use their great imaginative gifts to select from a panoply of tools to do their deeds. No bump-stock law, no restriction on 9mm rounds, no very clearly written law against 15-round magazines, no arms-control agreements between states, no waiting periods are going to do anything meaningful to restrain any single man or group of men from unleashing evil into this world. The world is awash with billions of very assaulting handguns — any one of them quickly obtained with some cash and a few-hour wait. In the macro, nothing delights and empowers groups of evil men running big governments than a disarmed population. It’s why 100 to 200 million innocents lie moldering in the soils of Europe and Asia, murdered by men of the Big State, and why over a billion more today sit enslaved by tyrants in China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and the like.

This dad demands we recognize there are two ways to ameliorate the amount of evil in the micro and macro spheres. It will never be completely stopped. One way is to focus again, as we should always do, on creating good, strong, masculine, honorable men from our boys. Nothing is as important as this to make a good, evil-depleted society. This is something we have essentially rejected in large parts of America. The abandonment has been embraced and orchestrated by men and women of the Left — like these moms.

They call you a deplorable if you demand boys grow up in a home with a married mother and father. You’re said to be full of toxic masculinity if a boy or man exhibits strength, healthy aggressiveness, competitiveness, a spirit of protection for others, a passion to fight evil, love of country, or respect for God. You’re called a selfish Republican if you decline to support unrestrained economic support for single women having and raising our boys. You’re called a religious fanatic if you demand returning character education and Biblical values to our schools rather than supporting nihilistic religion of radical leftist secularism. You’re labeled a rube if you believe in a good and judging Creator. These are the items — not guns, not magazine capacity — about which this dad demands our attention.

Second, we should, as our wise founders and enlightened men of the past understood, look at evil in the eye as mature adults and recognize it only gets stronger and wilder the weaker it sees its prey. That is why Aristotle, the writers of the Bible, and our founders had no interest in “commonsense gun laws.” They understood that is a foolish notion. They would have been appalled at what was going on in the American church last week. They understood that our liberty is gone once we are disarmed. Hence, they implored us to recognize our right to own, possess, and carry a very assaulting and powerful gun as a God-given right. It is a right not alienable by politicians, bureaucrats, do-gooders, or moms who demand. They’ve already done their damage here in Maryland. It’s basically impossible for a man to conceal carry here. But they want more — more of their foolishness.

What different demands were on display last week between the moms and this dad. It’s all part of this civil war we are in for the soul of America — leftism vs. Americanism, our nature as children vs. mature free adults.