“In polls, a slight majority of Americans consistently say that we need better enforcement of our gun laws. But there’s a problem with that: many don’t really know what our gun laws are.” That’s today’s pronouncement from Democrat pollsters Joel Benenson and Katie Connolly in the Paper of Record™. And it’s most likely true, generally speaking. Of course, you can say the same thing about 90 percent of our Senators and Congressmen, so we’re even, no? Not exactly. The pollsters’ point is not that most gun muggles don’t know a Bushmaster from a beach ball. It’s that most of America thinks we have tighter gun control laws than we do . . .
Caveat lector: the poll was taken by the Obama campaign’s chief pollster and was paid for by the DNC. And the op-ed piece in question is yet another installment in the Times’ sustained push for civilian disarmament nationwide. All that out of the way, here’s their lament:
A large number think that federal laws require a background check for every gun purchase and that they ban high-capacity magazines. If these Americans knew that we didn’t have such laws — laws they so fervently wish to enforce — their beliefs about the correct course of Congressional action might be very different.
If only these stupid rubes knew how lax and loophole-ridden our negligible gun laws are right now, they’d be marching on Washington, ready to knock down the doors of the Capitol and demand tighter gun laws. Right after they stopped in Fairfax first, just long enough to burn NRA HQ to the ground and salt the earth.
Of the 50 percent of people who prefer enforcement over new laws — over half of whom are gun owners — 48 percent told us that federal laws prohibit the purchase of a weapon privately or at a gun show without a background check, while 10 percent simply admitted not knowing the rules. In other words, about 6 out of 10 people who believe we just need to do a better job of enforcing existing laws don’t realize that those laws are far weaker than they think. And just under half of those who want better enforcement don’t know that military-style assault weapons are, in fact, legal.
See? Even the troglodytic gun owners don’t know what is and isn’t legal. Proof positive that civilians just can’t be trusted with dangerous firearms.
The notion that all we need is better enforcement of our current federal laws has been a core argument of the gun lobby for years in its fight against sensible restrictions on guns in our communities. But that argument is a straw man. It masks the fact that many Americans don’t really know what gun laws are on the books and falsely construes that to mean they don’t want common-sense gun laws passed — when they clearly do. What Americans strongly believe, and what is at the core of the president’s reform agenda, is that with rights come responsibilities.
Sorry. Give me just a minute to wipe the coffee off the keyboard. Reading that mini-lecture from the president’s pollsters on personal responsibility caused a little nasal ejection. There. That’s better.
Let’s parse that last part a little. Americans want better enforcement rather than more laws. But they aren’t really clear as to the gun laws currently on the books. So because they don’t know all the gun control laws now in force, we need more of them. And they’re irresponsible for not knowing they have responsibilities. That about sums it up.
The beauty of the Second Amendment – actually, the whole Bill of Rights, when you stop to think about it – is that they’re individual rights. It doesn’t really matter what everyone does or thinks. Just because some dope yells fire in a crowded theater, that doesn’t mean I have to get a license to whisper annoyingly at the movies. Whether I know it’s illegal to yell fire or not. Where’s that bottle of Excedrin?