Writing at CNN.com, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety—the gun prohibition lobbying group supported by billionaire former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg—declared it to be “both shameful and nonsensical for the federal government to deem gun stores essential, a special privilege that millions of other shuttered small businesses can only dream about.”
Perhaps Everytown’s John Feinblatt should take that up with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who deemed marijuana shops and their employees essential. Pot isn’t mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but arms certainly are, and Feinblatt knows it.
“Much is still unknown about Covid-19,” Feinblatt contends in his opening sentence, “but one thing is certain: Owning a gun does not make you any safer from it.”
By the same token, closing gun stores and preventing people from purchasing firearms and ammunition doesn’t cure COVID-19, either.
The argument was recently discussed at Ammoland, where it was suggested that the gun control crowd has lost the battle, because it appears a high percentage of recent gun-buyers were first-timers, including people who had previously supported gun control. This subject was also discussed at MyNorthwest.com.
Their sentiments might be summed up in a social media post by Tiama Elisara, host of “Left The Left Show.”
“As a former anti-gun activist,” she wrote, “I’ve always been a bit hesitant about owning a gun, but since the COVID-19 chaos I’ve been wanting to purchase one to protect my home & loved ones in case things get worse. After research, I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW HARD IT IS TO BE ABLE TO OBTAIN A GUN AND PROTECT MYSELF!! There are different laws around the country but my state is nothing but red tape and regulations just for a hand gun. 1) Take a state recognized safety course ~ $200 2) Purchase the handgun 3) Drive to & Show receipt to police station and apply for permit ~$43 3) Wait 14 days 4) Pick up permit 5) Go back to gun store within 10 days and pick up the handgun 6) Go BACK to the police station and get your gun registered within 2 days. •• On top of that, I can’t conceal & carry it outside of my house if I feel threatened to go out in public during these hectic times?
“I’m starting to realize how much my right to a firearm is being infringed by the government and I hope more people wake up to it just like I am.”
Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told Ammoland, “The reason the gun control community is freaking out is because they know they have lost a generation of fence sitters.”
Only a few paragraphs into his 951-word commentary, Feinblatt acknowledges—unintentionally—that he considers suicide by firearm to be a form of “gun violence.” It isn’t, and never has been.
Suicide is an act of desperation that should not be lumped together with homicides, according to grassroots rights activists, who deplore the term “gun violence” because it is intentionally designed to demonize firearms rather than blame the perpetrator. Nobody uses terms such as “knife violence” or “blunt instrument violence” when someone is fatally stabbed or beaten.
Closing out his attack on gun stores, Feinblatt zeroes on Everytown’s favorite bogeyman, the National Rifle Association, asserting, “NRA is using this deadly Covid-19 pandemic to advance its radical agenda and sell more guns.”
On the other hand, there is not a word about various anti-gun state and even local officials using the pandemic as an excuse to order gun stores closed, or to suspend taking applications for concealed carry licenses or permits. How many thousands of honest citizens, worried about protecting themselves and their families in an emergency, have been victimized by these drastic decisions?
The Second Amendment Foundation, NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition and others have busily sued several state and local officials over the past two weeks. They have successfully gotten several officials to reverse themselves on gun store operations.
“It’s time for America’s lawmakers to hold gun stores to the same rules as other nonessential businesses,” Feinblatt concludes, “so our nation’s doctors and nurses can focus on what is truly essential: fighting the coronavirus.”
Nobody put Feinblatt in charge of deciding what businesses are essential. Gun stores are essential to the exercise of a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, and simply because the head of a gun prohibition lobbying group says otherwise does not make it so.
