Rob Morse writes [via ammoland.com]

I can understand progressives and their virtue signally. What I hate is the anti-gun progressives puffing themselves up with virtue-pride while simultaneously disarming poor minorities. Not everyone lives in a guarded and gated community. Spare me the empathy while you leave the poor unprotected and defenseless.

There are too many examples to list, but this lets you see what I mean.

– Many large city police departments refuse to investigate and prosecute crimes in poor areas. There is a low chance of successfully arresting and convicting the criminal. There is a high chance of the police themselves getting harmed. Cops take a report and move on.

– The same crime can have a very different impact on a poor person and a limousine progressive. What if a beat-up bike is your only transportation? A petty-theft to a rich liberal living in a gated community is a devastating loss to a teen living paycheck to paycheck and riding his bike to work.

– Deep blue states imposed training requirements to even touch a gun. If training makes us so much safer, then why doesn’t the state teach everyone about gun safety? Mandatory training disarms those of us who are most likely to be victims. Mandatory training is a tax on those who are least able to pay. Schools used to teach hunters education in school along with drivers education, so we’ve promoted firearms safety before..but not now.

– Anti-gun politicians say they want gun owners to handle firearms responsibly. These same politicians outlaw or tax gun ranges, the very places where honest gun owners get safety training and stay proficient. This means a longer drive for gun owners in the suburbs..and no chance to practice for the urban poor.

– Anti-gun politicians restrict the guns poor people are most likely to buy. This makes guns more expensive and amounts to a poll-tax for guns. Anti-gun judges look the other way and pretend not to see this bigotry.

– Perhaps the most abusive regulation is the “time tax” that anti-gun politicians imposed on poor gun owners. Blue states impose training regulations mandating a minimum number of hours required before an honest citizen may touch a gun. You have to pay this fee before you may own a gun in private, and then pay another fee-of-time before you may carry a gun in public.

– Anti-gun politicians impose taxes on ammunition. Some states even require a state ID card to buy ammunition. (I wonder if they have voter ID. But I digress.) Anti-gun politicians say they want gun owners to remain proficient. Then they turn around and tax our means of staying in practice.

– When an innocent person uses a firearm to protect himself, he must run the legal gauntlet to prove himself innocent of wrongdoing. In theory, a public defender would be appointed for a poor person’s legal defense. But honestly, do you really want the legal advice that the state offers you for free?

I’ve barely scratched the surface, but you can see that the right of self-defense is not an obscure human right.

Men and women who value freedom and autonomy have understood the right to self-defense, going all the way back to the Magna Carta. Nor is this a right people are unlikely to ever need. A poor family living in our deep-blue cites will very likely be a victim of violent crime during their lifetime. This is the right to protect yourself and your family we’re talking about, the right to provide for your own safety until the help arrives.

The government has systematically infringed on the rights of poor people to defend themselves. We see the sad price they pay. It’s time to put a stop to this blatant discrimination against poor citizens. Maybe liberals could agree if only the social justice warriors weren’t so easily triggered by triggers.


About Rob Morse
Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob is an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.

29 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t forget: The same people that insist you need a state issued ID to buy a gun (a right) will kick and scream the entire way if you dare require it for voting (not a right) because, officially, it discriminates against the poor (in truth because it makes their fraud much harder).

  2. “Many large city police departments refuse to investigate and prosecute crimes in poor areas….”
    Police investigate, DAs prosecute. Many cops put their lives on the line to arrest and present the best possible evidence only to have the local (elected) District Attorney say “Nope.”

  3. He lost me at “I can understand progressives”. . .

    If you have a ‘but’ to cover that, your but’s too big.

  4. Progressives don’t care about the poor….they don’t care about anybody except themselves. They want power and the only way to get it and keep it is to ensure that the free citizens, who they wish to enslave, are disarmed. They will lie and cheat and do whatever disgusting thing it takes (there is really no bottom for them) to convince the weak minded (a large section of population) that they are doing this for the safety of society, but the general welfare has nothing to do with their motives. That’s all there is to it.

    • What they care about is the concept of the poor; it allows them an avenue for showing themselves how much they care without having to actually do anything. The presence of actual poor people is inconvenient, since it requires asking if their fantasy “solutions” have any actual benefit.

  5. The biggest problem with crime not only in poor neighborhoods but all areas. Is the fact that people refuse to tell the police what they know. Sure they are scared of what may happen to themselves and others they care about. Life is full of hard decisions and consequences. Just don’t complain when things don’t get better and crime continues. I’ve made the choice to turn people in to the police many times. That’s one of the many reasons I own and carry firearms. I don’t want thugs and thieves infesting where I live. “Even if you choose not to decide. You Still have made a choice.”
    RUSH

    • I know people who tell me that calling the cops is dishonorable. I just tell them, “The property tax on my house pays them. That means they work for me. So why would I NOT ask people who work for me to go after trash who mess with me?”

      No answer yet.

    • BINGO, sir! Case in point: Just a day ago there was a drive-by shooting into a large crowd of people on a street corner in Baltimore. Miraculously, only three people were wounded, one of them a 13 year-old girl. However, when the police arrive and begin to investigate by interviewing as many people who were on the corner as they can find, none of them saw anything. Cops can’t solve crimes if nobody will tell them what they know, no matter how much or little it may be.

      • People in these situations are more than happy to tell the police exactly what they know: “I know that if I tell you anything they will come to my house and shoot me and my family and our dog. Fuck off.”

  6. The Progressive is a racist devil. They totally support the welfare state. They support replacing a father with a welfare check.
    But they do support homosexual marriage.
    These are the same people who forced High Bridge Arms to close in San Francisco. The last gun store in the city. A marijuana dispensary opened in its place.
    There are progressive democrats, progressive republicans, and even progressive libertarians.
    Gary Johnson is a great example.

    • There’s no such thing as a “progressive libertarian.” The correct term for that is “lying piece of shit.” It is not possible to honestly hold both libertarian and progressive opinions at the same time. Progressives are hive-minded commies, libertarians are the opposite.

      • People hold contradictory opinions all the time, so holding progressive and libertarian ideas simultaneously is possible. The rest of your post is spot on.

  7. Low IQ is the common factor in a persons earning potential, and propensity towards violence.

    The fact that said low IQ types are subsidized to reproduce is already hastening the decline of American prosperity.

    Arming the dimwits is the last thing that needs to happen.

  8. What makes you assume most poor ghetto households DON’T have at least one gun? Naive if you you think everyone is disarmed…

  9. I would love the DOJ to use the LIbs favorite tool for challenging voter registration laws, the disparate impact test. An argument can be made that registration, qualification, licensing and tax schemes on guns disproportionately effect one or more protected class. This legal standard determines an otherwise constitutional law to be not so if the impact is shown to be disproportionate. This concept should be applied to the NFA, cch, firearms license(permission slips) and ammunition taxes.

  10. The Supreme Court has really already ruled on this issue….you can’t charge a fee or a tax on the exercise of a Right….why hasn’t anyone challenged it? Here is Murdock v. Pennsylvania…

    Murdock v. Pennsylvania 319 U.S. 105 (1943)

    Held:
    – A municipal ordinance which, as construed and applied, requires religious colporteurs to pay a license tax as a condition to the pursuit of their activities, is invalid under the Federal Constitution as a denial of freedom of speech, press and religion.
    – A State may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.
    – The flat license tax here involved restrains in advance the Constitutional liberties of press and religion, and inevitably tends to suppress their exercise

    Opinion:
    …It is contended, however, that the fact that the license tax can suppress or control this activity is unimportant if it does not do so. But that is to disregard the nature of this tax. It is a license tax — a flat tax imposed on the exercise of a privilege granted by the Bill of Rights. A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution….
    … The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down…
    … It is a flat license tax levied and collected as a condition to the pursuit of activities whose enjoyment is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Accordingly, it restrains in advance those constitutional liberties of press and religion, and inevitably tends to suppress their exercise…
    Murdock v. Pennsylvania 319 U.S. 105 (1943)

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