John’s Hopkins University elitists suggest that gun control for the little people will end or reduce the threat of insurrection. Why, it’s almost as if the Ivory Tower types over there missed their American history classes in junior high school, high school and into college.
Their ignorance of history or the real reason why the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution doesn’t impair their ability to pursue their goal of victim disarmament. For the little people, of course. Racist, classist and sexist gun control wouldn’t apply to their families.
Because, of course, they will keep their guns to defend their families and their homes. Because the rich can aways either afford the regulatory burdens or get exemptions. Hence the classist angle of gun control measures. The poor, single mom living in the hood? She’s on her own.
What are their recommendations, specifically?
• Regulate the public carry of firearms
Regulate comes first, then bans on the public carry—just like gun registration precedes gun confiscation.
• Strengthen existing laws, or increase the enforcement of current laws, to prohibit paramilitary activity
Perish the thought that everyday Americans would learn how to use their firearms safely and effectively. Especially to become riflemen.
• Prohibit the civilian possession of firearms in locations essential to political participation, such as polling places, legislative buildings, and protests, to protect the core functions of government
Why is their answer to always ban guns? Why, it’s almost like they want us all disarmed and helpless.
• Enact and implement Extreme Risk Protection Order laws to temporarily disarm people who pose a high risk of violence
Never mind that stripping people of fundamental constitutional protections without due process is a big no-no in our jurisprudence—for now at least.
• Repeal or create exceptions for firearm preemption laws to give local governments the ability to create policies to address risks of insurrectionism in their jurisdictions
There we go again—stripping people of fundamental, constitutionally-protected rights without due process, only on the grand scale.
• Break the insurrectionist permission structure by openly denouncing violence
“I pinkie promise not to overthrow our government.” Yeah, that’s the solution. Just like they pinkie-promise to uphold and defend the Constitution.
The College Fix has the dirty details:
Lawmakers should pass gun restrictions in order to prevent an “insurrection,” an academic paper argues.
“This report is both an examination and a warning of the threat that armed insurrectionism poses to democracy in the United States,” the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University stated. “It also counters the false narrative that the Constitution creates rights to insurrection and the unchecked public carry of firearms, and rejects the notion that violence has any place in our nation’s politics.”
The center is housed within the Bloomberg School of Public Health, named for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a supporter of gun restrictions.
“As the events of January 6th showed the world with painful clarity, the threat insurrectionism poses to democracy in the United States is not hypothetical,” the authors wrote in their report, titled “Defending Democracy: Addressing the Dangers of Armed Insurrection.”
The study’s executive summary notes that the country’s increase in guns is a threat not only to “public health” and “safety,” but also to “the functioning of democracy,” pointing to the “January 6th insurrection.”
The violence was part of “a long line of events in which individuals have sought to use political losses to justify violence or threats of violence to disrupt our government and limit civic engagement,” according to the report.
“These attacks on our nation and democratic institutions are preventable, but not without taking purposeful action,” the report stated. The academic paper outlines what “purposeful action” might look like.
The authors put forward six policy recommendations.
They included “regulat[ing] the public carry of firearms,” legislation against “paramilitary activity,” and banning guns “in locations essential to political participation.”
The authors also want “Extreme Risk Protection Order laws, otherwise known as red-flag laws, and to “[b]reak the insurrection permission structure by openly denouncing violence.”
But a former DOJ economist who has extensively studied crime and guns criticized the study.
Concealed handgun permit holders are “extremely law-abiding” and make up an insignificant portion of violations, John Lott told The Fix via email.
The Crime Prevention Research Center president said permit holders are convicted of firearms violations at thousandths or tens of thousands of one percentage point across the country. He pointed to a study he conducted that was published several month ago.
In particular, Lott took issue with the violence on January 6, 2021, being the basis for any gun regulation. “January 6th was not something anyone supports,” Lott told The Fix. However the evidence would seem to indicate political violence as stemming mainly from progressives he said, pointing to the 2021 Lafayette Square riot and the 2017 riots during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
He also criticized the recommendation that people not be allowed to carry guns in polling places or government buildings. He shared a study, last updated in 2021, that found “23 states officially allowed people to carry guns in state capitols, and there were no problems reported,” Lott said.
He shared other research he conducted that questioned the value of “red flag laws.”
“If a person is a danger to themselves or others civil commitment laws are much better ways of dealing with these problems,” he told The Fix.
It would seem as though John’s Hopkins is trying to foment an insurrection with recommendations like these.