OPINION:
When the subject is guns, the left becomes increasingly absurd, hysterical and vicious.
Our president who’s unable to quote the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (“all men and women are created by the you know, you know the thing”), instructs us on the meaning of the Second Amendment. (It’s not an absolute right, he insists — unlike, say abortion.)
Michael More wants to abolish the Second Amendment.
Beto O’Rourke (hell yes, we’ll take your constitutional rights!) engages in sad histrionics. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd says those who of us who want to “keep our guns” are “sacrificing children.” (As a proponent of abortion through the ninth month, Ms. Dowd knows a thing or two about child sacrifice.)
And the governors of California, New York and New Jersey — each with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country — announced new gun control measures last week, all “common sense,” don’t you know.
In the meantime:
• Another 4,000 illegal immigrants crossed into the United States over Memorial Day weekend. Based on past experience, we can reasonably expect that many are gang members, career criminals, sex offenders and sundry other undesirables.
• In the same period, 13 people were killed in Philadelphia and 10 in Chicago. Too bad they don’t have stringent gun control. Oh, wait, they do have stringent gun control.
• Worldwide, the United States has the third-highest murder rate. Subtract Chicago, D.C., Detroit, St. Louis and Philadelphia — all controlled by anti-gun Democrats — and we drop to 189th out of 193.
Every time there’s a tragedy like Uvalde, the Democrats rush to exploit it. For a president whose approval rating is in the sub-basement, it’s a timely distraction.
Don’t think about gas at $4.67 a gallon nationally, look at “gun violence,” Democrats urge. Forget our porous southern border, look at lax gun laws. Never mind the highest inflation rate in almost 40 years and a revolving-door justice system that keeps putting criminals back on the streets (thanks to Democratic prosecutors), think guns.
As a parent and grandparent, my heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones in Uvalde. But how does taking away my right to protect my family prevent such tragedies in the future?
Gun control is ritualistic magic — voodoo crime control. It hasn’t worked. It can’t work, absent a police state. It’s based on the premise that someone with a homicidal impulse or a career criminal will be deterred by background checks or any of the other so-called commonsense measures, proposed or in force.
Democrats believe we can stop gun violence, while they selectively encourage other types of lawlessness.
In 2020, coast to coast, cities went up in flames. Democratic mayors told the police to stand down and politicians told the rest of us it was the price we had to pay to prove that Black lives matter. It took then-candidate Joe Biden six months to condemn the anarchy, and then only in the most general terms.
As of 2018, there were 560 sanctuary cities in the United States where U.S. immigration laws are officially violated. These nullification zones were created by the same politicians who say we need tougher gun laws.
Pro-abortion crazies threaten to kill Supreme Court justices if Roe is repealed, and DHS ignores the intimidation.
Democrats violate laws they don’t like, then tell the rest of us we have to obey their gun laws, no matter how irrational. We live in Wonderland, with the Queen of Hearts in the White House and the Mad Hatter writing commentary in The New York Times.
This past weekend, I made my annual pilgrimage to Concord, Massachusetts, where the American Revolution began. On April 19, 1775, 700 Red Coats marched out of Boston to seize the guns and other military supplies of the colonial militia.
“You stupid Yanks don’t need guns, we’re here to protect you — from everything but us,” the British maintained.
John Adams knew better. In the same year, our future president wrote: “Liberty once lost is lost forever. When people once surrender … their right of defending the limitations upon government, and of resisting every encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.”
America of the early 21st century makes the America of the late 18th century look like a Quaker meeting house.
The elite tells us we don’t need guns, as they increasingly make the country a place where we need guns. In Mr. Biden’s America, it’s every man and woman for themselves.
• Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer and syndicated columnist.
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