The debate over outing Illinois firearms owners has The Chicago Sun-Times‘ knickers in The Mother of All Twists. The paper’s editorial board reacted in no uncertain terms to the controversy surrounding an article at gunssavelife (since removed). The post in question equated releasing the names of Illinois firearms owners to the beginnings of Nazi genocide. In an editorial labeling the argument “appallingly offensive,” the anonymous eds claim that “The group’s twisted logic lays bare a profound disregard for historical truth. It was not the identification of Jews, or the loss of their firearms, that led to their deaths in the gas chambers. It was a maniacal government, supported by powerful cultural forces, that led to mass Jewish deaths.” I think someone’s mistaking cause and effect . . .
To liken that march toward death to the simple naming of people who applied for a government ID card in Illinois is absurd.
There are legitimate arguments against releasing the names of gun owners, arguments that have been articulated by thoughtful gun-rights advocates.
But nobody has dared to resort to this kind of craven and offensive twisting of history — until now.
Craven my ass. As the proud son of a man who barely survived the Nazi “work camps”, whose grandparents were slaughtered by the Nazis, I state here, openly and for the record, that any government that “outs” gun owners is enabling the same sort of intolerance that characterized the brutal regimes which decimated my family.
It may be a stretch to say so, but one thing’s for sure: releasing these records is not government for the people. My father, an American patriot to the very depth of his being, would not be pleased.