Back in 2006, then Senatorial candidate Obama filled-out a questionnaire that asked “do you support state legislation to … ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns?” The form was returned with the typed word “yes.” During his first presidential election, Obama left voters (and your humble scribe) with the impression that he viewed gun control as a political third rail/non-issue. If you like your gun you can keep your gun. Like that. And then Newtown . . .
The President hopped on the civilian disarmament train and rode it all the way – to the end of the platform. Thank God. Since that resounding defeat, the President has repeated his call for “common sense” gun control legislation at every opportunity. Specifically, after every firearm-involved atrocity, from the Gabby Giffords shooting to the Aurora massacre to the Kansas City attack on Jews. In each and every case Obama has renewed his clarion call to legislators to infringe upon Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
The above image is from yesterday’s Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House. Mr. Obama, a man who didn’t attend church on Christmas day, signalled his continued support for gun control. “No one should ever have to fear for their safety when they go to pray,” he pronounced to the assembled religious leaders. “Americans should use their gun rights to protect each other from persecution.” JK. Assuming the President at least somewhat believes the first part of that statement, it’s a telling remark. It indicates that our Commander-in-Chief suffers from the same dystopian utopianism that afflicts all gun control advocates.
In other words, what kind of person believes there’s any situation where you shouldn’t fear for your safety? Not fear as in cower in fear. Fear as in consider the possibility of danger to the point where you take “common sense” precautions to safeguard your life and the lives of your loved ones. When you put on your seatbelt, for example, you do so because you fear death or grievous bodily harm. Nothing wrong with that. And to answer that question, a person who believes in fear-free zones is a person who wants to live in a world without danger.
Of course, there is no such world. It never existed, it doesn’t exist and it will never exist. Everything we do as humans has an element of danger to it, from blogging at Starbucks to attending a synagogue. Especially attending a synagogue. Any Jew who believes he should be able to go to temple and pray without fear – as Mr. Obama suggests – is a Jew who believes in unicorns. Or might as well do. How many millions of Jews must die, how many anti-semitic attacks must American Jews endure, before they realize that they will never, ever be safe from persecution? And take sensible steps to minimize the risk.
More to the point, the President’s promised panacea is a literal impossibility. Strike that. It’s possible to not fear for your safety when you go to pray, but it’s not advisable. We in the gun community call that kind of blissfully ignorant mental state “condition white,” a term indicating zero situational awareness. A term which means you’re not scanning your environment for threats. Which means you will be taken completely unawares if an attack occurs, placing you at a large strategic disadvantage. Not good.
Actually, it is good – for attackers. AND the people in whom the oblivious place their trust.
Assuming the President knows that bad things happen to good people no matter what politicians say or do (i.e. he’s lying), lobbying for a day when people can worship without fear is another way of selling civilian disarmament to the rubes. More gun control, less fear. Like that. Is it too much to further suggest that the President and other pols pushing gun control know that disarmed civilians are more, shall we say, politically pliable? To the point where the government can assume total control over their lives – for their own good? It’s not like we haven’t seen that philosophy in action throughout history, all over the world and in current events.
I have no idea if President Obama is a proto-fascist. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…. Yes, but – no one gets to be President of the United States without ducking tough questions of character and dodging examinations of his or her core beliefs. One thing we know for sure: President Obama wants to restrict Americans’ firearms freedom. Anyone who wants to restrict freedom – especially in the name of an entirely illusory idea of safety – is no friend of ours. Obama’s attempt to provide comfort to those saddened and sickened by the attack in Kansas City reveals his inherent abject inability to pull off the road to hell.