Between the blackface and the white sheets, between the calls for infanticide on-air which haven’t been forgotten by anyone within two ears to hear, and between the ghastly bills to bring New York-style abortion legislation to Richmond? One might think that New York-style gun control bills would be a massive, terrible mistake.
One would be wrong.
Instead, three statewide Democrats — two who have acknowledged their racist past; another accused of sexual assault and rape — have chosen to capitalize on the tragedy in Virginia Beach that claimed 12 lives and injured another 4 with a solution in search of a problem. You guessed it — gun control.
Proponents will argue that it is merely a ban on silencers and high-capacity magazines, two things that hunters surely should not need in order to hunt more deer or squirrels or varmints — right? After all, the Founders never considered the idea of automatic weapons and the like…
Of course, such arguments are facile and silly. The Founders also didn’t consider the idea of an internet, of mass production and large scale printing, or of a 24/7 news media. Most Americans rightly would consider any restriction on our First Amendment rights as downright un-American. One book a month? Eight page magazines? After all, who really needs all that information to think, right?
The facts are that the Second Amendment was written specifically to ensure that the “final argument of kings” enscribed on the cannon of European monarchs remained in the hands of citizens, not sovereigns. The words “shall not be infringed” should be just as sacrosanct as “shall make no law”.
Sympathizers to the gun control argument will respond that our 1A rights do not include the right to run into a theater screaming “FIRE!” Surely no one has the 2A right to open fire on a theater either. Both of these describe the abuse of rights, not their free exercise. Neither of these instances admit a flaw in the absolute right to maintain fidelity to either the 1A or the 2A, and just as slander and defamation laws exist to protect the innocent against abuses of the 1A, so too do manslaughter charges and murder charges exist when the abuse of the 2A is perpetrated.
As for the use of high capacity magazines, one should consider how few rapists or home intruders are going have the courtesy to wait while your spouse reloads. Similarly, silencers serve a definitive purpose (especially while tracking down varmints and other nuisance or disease-bearing animals) that do not have the effect of what the movies show. Far from that mild ticking sound, a silencer reduces the noise of a firearm by about 20 decibels — or from 140dbs to about 120dbs (approximately the sound of a thunderclap).
Yet once again, we have to understand that neither Northam, Fairfax, nor Herring actually care about gun control or the victims in Virginia Beach — or even, quite frankly, gun control as a pivotal idea of their political existence. If they did, they would have campaigned on gun control, championed gun control, pushed gun control laws during the General Assembly, even to the point of holding up otherwise viable pieces of legislation in order to get gun control “reforms” passed.
None of them did this, because none of them actually believe in gun control.
Rather, this is (yet again) another cynical play to try to twist votes and change the narrative — away from infanticide, racism and rape and back towards something the Democrats can manage.
Quite frankly, it is difficult to take any of them at face value. This is the same political extremism that ruined the life of a 17-year old kid for “smirking” — and now they want your firearms? Does anyone truly believe it will stop at high-capacity magazines, silencers, or super-scary assault rifles (sic)?
Of course it doesn’t stop there. Once you surrender a freedom, it takes a revolution to regain its free exercise. Insofar as cheap political stunts go? Northam and his ilk have one thing yet to do.
Resign.
It is unconscionable that in 2019, we have individuals such as these representing Virginians — tolerated by the mainstream press and by the Democratic Party establishment for the sake of raw power. The fact that any of these individuals have such a lack of personal integrity and honor that they have willfully chosen to remain in office is a stark reminder of how pathetic and mediocre our politics have become.
…and now they want gun control?
Pathetic.
Each and every single one of them ought to resign. Or if they had the strength of their own convictions, offer to resign if some sort of gun control legislation would pass (they won’t do it; the General Assembly would never trade our rights for such short-term gain). That they remain in office is a moral tragedy beyond words.
Resign, Governor Northam… and do it quickly.