I was going to post Dom Raso’s commentary yesterday but the words got in the way. This morning I read a post that convinced me that Raso’s right: gun grabbers are lost in their masquerade. They believe that disarming Americans makes them safer. You heard that right. Not disarming criminals, although, you know, that too. Disarming civilians. They really believe it, too. And it’s not just ignorance. Here’s the money shot from rfij.com, quoting the Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and oft-cited gun control advocate Dr. David Hemenway . . .
But a big thing is to change social norms. We’ve already had some of those successes. When I was a kid drinking and driving was fine. Now it’s not fine. And it’s not just because of the law because the law was always there. It has a lot to do with social norms. This is not acceptable behavior anymore.
Another area we talk about where social norms have changed is smoking. What a magnificent change we’ve had in smoking in the United States. We need to see a social norm change on gun violence.
Instead of it being the mark of a real man that you can shoot somebody at 50 feet and kill them with a gun, the mark of a real man is that you would never do anything like that. You’d show that you were stronger than they were and smarter and not just that you had some weapon.
The gun is a great equalizer because it makes wimps as dangerous as people who really have skill and bravery and so I’d like to have this notion that anyone using a gun is a wuss. They aren’t anybody to be looked up to. They’re somebody to look down at because they couldn’t defend themselves or couldn’t protect others without using a gun.
Hemenway turns the old self-defense adage—God made man, Samuel Colt made them equal—on its head. Actually, it’s worse than that. Hemenway pisses on people who’ve used firearms to defend themselves against rapists, criminals and terrorists—without specifying the “real skills” needed to avoid rape, injury or death.
What do we even call the idea that people who shun guns for self-defense are morally superior to those who tool-up to defend themselves, their loved ones and other innocent life? The cult of victimhood? The Sisterhood of Submission? It’s a death cult of some sort. And it’s not restricted to Cambridge eggheads.
In last night’s pro-disarmament diatribe, the President tried to “reach out” to gun owners. To convince them that the federal push to limit ammunition magazine capacity, ban modern sporting rifles and create a federal firearms registry doesn’t violate their Second Amendment rights.
Setting aside the fact that the constitutional scholar fails to recognize that gun rights are protected by the Second Amendment, not granted by it, it was interesting to hear the Commander in Chief suggest that he understands the desire for armed self-defense. In rural areas. Well, his wife does.
I was in Colorado I told the story about Michelle she came back from a trip to rural Iowa, we were out there campaigning, sometimes there’d be miles between farms let alone towns and she said ‘You know coming back I can understand why somebody would want a gun for protection. You know if someone drove up into the driveway and Barack you weren’t home and the sheriff lived miles away I might want that security.’ So she could understand what it might be like in terms of someone wanting that kind of security.
A desire that’s inappropriate for urban dwellers, according to Mr. Obama. Or suburban citizens like the parents of the children gunned down in Newtown. A city that now has armed guards at its schools.
President Obama is yet another urbanized statist who believes that Americans don’t need guns for self-defense, really. Certainly not “weapons of war.” This from a man surrounded by automatic weapons. Whose family is and always will be protected by guns. I digress. Here’s the key passage from the speech.
If you’re an American who wants to do something to prevent more families from knowing the immeasurable anguish that these families here have known then we have to act.
Here’s the thing: millions of Americans have acted. They’ve bought guns and ammunition to protect themselves and their families from terrorists, criminals and crazies. So far this year, the FBI has processed 17,014,240 NICS checks. What does that tell you?
The vast majority of Americans understand that a gun in the hands of a good man or woman is a good thing. Their perspective is not paranoia or macho posturing. It’s common sense.