Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser gets a lot grief here at The Truth About Guns. And deservedly so. Weisser is The Huffington Post’s go-to gun-owning anti-gunner. In other words, a traitor to the cause of firearms freedom. Normally, Mr. Weisser pretends to walk the non-existent line between the Second Amendment and civilian disarmament, promoting “common sense gun control.” In his latest HuffPo screed, Mr. Weisser drops the pretense and asks readers to imagine a country without guns. Well, guns in civilian hands. Like this:
The NRA keeps saying that if HRC is elected, the first thing she will do is confiscate all the guns. So that got me thinking. What would happen if the guns were taken away? Or to put it more specifically, what would happen if America implemented licensing for gun ownership similar to what exists in the rest of the OECD? Such a system would mean the immediate disappearance of assault weapons, the gradual disappearance of small, concealable handguns and the remaining firearms (true sporting rifles and shotguns) being regulated to varying degrees.
Setting aside the bizarre references to the OECD — an organization that includes more than a few states who’ve married gun control and government-directed homicide — the only way a federal licensing scheme could trigger the “immediate disappearance of assault weapons” would be government confiscation. Given firearms durability, the same “final solution” applies to the “gradual disappearance of small, concealable handguns.”
Oddly enough, Mr. Weisser proceeds to prove that civilian disarmament wouldn’t have a significant impact on firearms-related suicide, homicide or negligent discharge injuries. No surprise there. The Bay State statist is not entirely ignorant of what we like to call facts. They’re just not that important to the anti-gun “Gun Guy.” Like his cohorts, the ends justify the means. Rational thinking has nothing to do with it.
All of which leaves Mr. Weisser deeply conflicted. Even though he’s firmly, financially in the anti camp, “The Gun Guy” still feels for his people. No, not Jews like me. The “5 million [gun owners who] define their life-styles, the social milieu, their culture and cultural beliefs in terms of guns.” Cue the nostalgia!
When I was growing up in the 1950s, I had lots of toy guns but what I really took pride in was my collection of Lionel trains. The trains and the room-wide track display eventually disappeared, both for me and for just about everyone else who loved model trains. By the time my children were old enough to play with model trains, they were sitting in front of a television set playing Nintendo and collecting video games.
For that matter, when I was in my twenties and thirties, I don’t recall all that many cars on I-91 going towards New Hampshire and Vermont with kayaks on top or backpacks and tents behind. Times change, styles change, leisure activities change – the market will always find a way to satisfy our desire to accumulate objects we really want but don’t need.
Which is exactly the problem with guns. More than 30,000 people die and another 70,000+ are injured each year because Americans have free access to something they really don’t need. So the issue of how and why to regulate this product doesn’t come down to numbers at all. It comes down to a moral imperative which says that we should not sanction the use of violence in the ordinary course of human affairs – neither violence towards ourselves or towards anyone else.
Mr. Weisser would have readers believe that the existence of Constitutionally protected gun rights somehow sanctions “the use of violence.” Like so many antis, Mr. Weisser ignores the fact that Americans have a right to keep and bear arms. We do not have the right to use them to threaten, injure or kill our fellow citizens without just cause.
More than that, Mr. Weisser reckons We The People don’t need guns. And since our Founding Fathers enacted The Bill of Needs, not The Bill of Rights, it’s OK to remove firearms from civilian possession (except maybe “true” sporting rifles). Or perhaps his believe stems from the fact that no American has ever defended their life or property from criminal or government predation by force of arms. Oh wait . . .