OPINION:
Sen. Cory Booker, in recent remarks about the Colorado school shooting and the need to crack down on Second Amendment freedoms, said toy guns are actually subjected to stricter and tighter regulatory controls than real firearms.
And even The Washington Post said — huh?
This was what Booker said in a post at Medium: “Nowadays, there is more regulation over toy guns than real ones.”
Scoffers, unite. ’Cause even the left-leaning media outlets are shaking heads on this one.
“We found Booker’s statement misleading,” PolitiFact wrote.
And this, from The Post’s headline writers: “Cory Booker’s misleading claim that toy guns are more regulated than real guns.”
But this is the left’s standard anti-gun fare.
Barack Obama, in a 2016 town hall hosted by CNN, defended what was then his emerging executive orders against firearms by saying that cars, toys and medications are subjected to ongoing safety improvements — so why not the field of firearms?
“There’s nothing else in our lives that we purchase where we don’t try to make it a little safer if we can,” Obama said then, Vox reported.
The New York Times published in 2011 a column that queried, “Why Not Regulate Guns as Seriously as Toys?” That piece went on to say, “To protect the public, we regulate cars and toys, medicines and mutual funds. So, simply as a public health matter, shouldn’t we take steps to reduce the toll from our domestic arms industry?”
In a word: No.
The left is hoping its razzle and dazzle about consumer product safety will detract from the one big difference between car seats and firearms — and that’s this: The Second Amendment.
The Constitution restricts government’s ability to strip citizens from their God-given rights to self-protection via the Second Amendment. The Constitution doesn’t say anything about cars or car seats or car safety.
That’s the big, big difference.
That’s what Booker and his ilk — many of whom are running for the Democratic ticket to the White House — hope Americans will forget.
But here’s the standard, against which all regulatory proposals should be weighted: The Second Amendment is based on rights given individuals from God, not government.
The government must get the citizens’ OK to strip those God-given rights — and the government can only do that with an amendment to the Constitution.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @ckchumley.
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