OPINION:
Michael Moore, Hollywood’s favorite left-wing propagandist, went on MSNBC to opine on the horrific elementary school shooting in Texas that left 19 children and two adults dead and called for an end to the Second Amendment, and said the founders never would have included it in the Constitution if they had knowledge of bullets.
What? Spoken like a true propagandist.
“I truly believe if Jefferson, Madison and Washington — if they all knew that the bullet would be invented, some 50 years after our revolution — I don’t know if they would have written [the Second Amendment] that way. They didn’t even know what a bullet was. It didn’t exist until the 1830s,” Moore said, as Breitbart noted.
The founders didn’t know what a modern bullet was — that’s true.
But to say the founders had no concept of guns, or bullets, or of the type of warfare and self-defense a firearm provides is to defy historical truths. And that’s what Moore does; that’s why the left loves him so.
Historically and accurately speaking, America’s early fighters used muskets and flintlock pistols, both of which required ammunition, both of which used balls, usually made of lead, that were propelled forth using black powder and paper cartridges. That was the bullet of the day.
“All of the firearms that were used [during Revolutionary War] had flintlock technology,” Battlefields.org wrote. “Flintlock firearms utilized a firing mechanism whereby when the trigger was pulled, a piece of rock (flint) would strike a piece of steel creating a spark that would ignite black powder to discharge the piece.”
Smoothbore muskets and rifles were the most common weapons of the day, along with attached bayonets.
“A well-trained soldier could fire three or four shots in a minute, or every 15 or 20 seconds,” Battlefields.org continued.
How so?
The soldiers carted pre-rolled musket cartridges — ammo — which were paper tubes filled with black powder and lead musket balls of calibers of .69 or .75.
Those were their rounds.
Those were their bullets.
Leftists like Moore care little for truth, however, preferring instead to twist history to do today’s Democrat bidding. And in the vein of “never let a crisis go to waste,” Moore — along with a long list of leftist anti-Second Amendment types — have now taken to national airwaves to exploit the horror of this most recent school shooting for political gain.
“We will not acknowledge that we are a violent people, to begin with,” Moore said. “This country was birthed in violence with genocide of the native people at the barrel of a gun. This country was built on the backs of slaves with a gun to their backs.”
He went on: “I don’t want to nickel and dime this. … I think we need some really drastic action here. We need a moratorium, perhaps, on gun sales. Who will say on this network or on any other network in the next few days it is time to repeal the Second Amendment? You cannot say that. Well, why not? Why not? … I support all gun control legislation. Not sensible gun control legislation. We don’t need the sensible stuff. We need the hard-core stuff that is going to protect ourselves and our children.”
So disarm all of society to allow only the criminals to carry?
The horrors of senseless shootings should not be downplayed. The evil of murdering children should not be dismissed. But such evil is a condition of the heart, a matter of the mind, an outward show of a sickened soul. It’s not going to be regulated away. If it could be, existing laws already cover that crime.
If we want to stop school shootings, if we want to protect children from random acts of violence, if want to save our society from murders at the hands of the murderous minded, we must address the root causes — sin. We must address the crisis of addiction, the crisis of fatherless homes, the crisis of illegal drug use, the crisis of glorifying violence in entertainment — the crisis of godless society.
Founding Fathers may not have carried AR-15s.
But they knew their biblical truths, they knew of God, and they taught godly, biblical truths to their children. And that was what made all the difference.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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