The civilian disarmament industrial complex has adopted the phrase “common sense” to describe any gun control law which they favor. Which is any gun control law. In other words, the antis consider all gun control laws a matter of “common sense.” This bit of misdirection masks the utter inanity of the antis’ declaration that “I support the Second Amendment but I also support common sense gun control.” As Admiral Ackbar opined, it’s a trap! If you want proof, well, here it is, in a huffingtonpost.com article entitled Common Sense Gun Laws: There Are No Drive-By Knifings . . .
After the usual anti-2A misegos – the Second Amendment doesn’t say what it says, and even if it does, the Constitution is a “living document” (so we can ignore its meaning), the Founding Fathers never envisioned modern firearms and a tyrannical government would mow down American gun owners – author Nick Desai takes the rhetorical road less travelled. He presents his proposal for “common sense gun laws.”
Too often, articles like this one end by ridiculing the gun owners. However, it’s far more productive to suggest ways that enable law-abiding gun owners to co-exist in a society not riddled with gun violence. Here are three such suggestions:
• End all open carry laws and outlaw all automatic weapons.
• After a universal background check, allow adults over 21 to own 1 “manual” gun that is kept in their home.
• Have a hefty bullet tax. Surely those owning guns for self-defense don’t need cases of ammo for the rare intruder. Use bullet tax revenues to treat victims of gun violence and educate the public about gun safety.
End all open carry laws? How do open carry laws contribute to America’s firearms-related homicides? Equally, how can Desai make that proposal given the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms? Oh right. Living document. Sorry.
I’m not exactly sure what Desai means by a “manual” gun, but I think he means Americans should only be able to keep one non-automatic or semi-automatic firearm. [See: the “keep” part of “keep and bear arms,” above]. Enforcing that law would require some pretty heavy police state action. I’m pretty sure Desai sees that as a feature, not a bug.
A bullet tax for people who own guns for self-defense. (But not for owners who hunt or target shoot?) Anyone else see the irony here? Americans’ Second Amendment protections of their natural and civil right to keep and bear arms was part of a process that began with a war that was – in part – a revolt against taxation. The other part being British gun control, but that’s another story.
One can only imagine the [no doubt government-controlled] “gun safety” education Desai would like gun owners to fund. But one can see here, plain as day, what gun control advocates have in mind when they tout their support for “common sense” gun laws.
Actually, the truth is just a little further down this same road. Desai and like-minded gun control advocates (which is all of them) want civilian disarmament. Period. Whether they admit it or not, whether they know it or not, when they use the words “common sense” and “gun laws” they’re expressing their desire to live in a police state. And they want you to live in it, too. As we gun-owning Jews are wont to say, as all Americans who appreciate the Revolutionary War should say, never again.