Fifty-four years after an assassin’s bullets killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas – an incident that arguably launched the liberal jihad against the Second Amendment fueled five years later by the murder of his brother, Robert – gun control remains a divisive political subject.
There was a Tuesday essay at HelloGiggles.com about how to talk gun control over Thanksgiving dinner. Though tongue-in-cheek, it had a decidedly anti-gun tinge.
On Monday, the Huffington Post noted in a lengthy story that opinions on gun control haven’t really changed much despite two recent mass shootings. An earlier HuffPo piece from October found that Democrats want more gun restrictions and Republicans oppose additional regulations, further widening a chasm between Americans over the right to keep and bear arms.
And it is a right, delineated and protected by the Second Amendment.
Tuesday’s Western Journal offered up an opinion piece that took a swipe at veteran gun prohibitionist Sen. Dianne Feinstein and former Vice President “Shotgun” Joe Biden. Here’s what the Western Journal said, in part:
“Sen. Dianne Feinstein is at it again, trying to ban AR-type rifles, errantly calling them “assault rifles.” This comes at about the same time former Vice President Joe Biden declares the hero of Sutherland Springs, Texas, should not have been able to acquire the AR-15 he used to confront the church shooter.
“Describing an AR-15 as an assault rifle is political terminology conjured up to promote gun control. AR does not stand for “assault rifle” or “automatic rifle.” It stands for ArmaLite rifle, a semi-automatic weapon with a 30-round magazine.
“The AR ban Biden and Feinstein made law in 1994 ran for 10 years, and did nothing to reduce gun violence or the overall crime rate.
“If empty promises and failure are the goals, Biden and Feinstein are great successes.”
Back in October, the question was raised about whether Kennedy could have earned his party’s nomination if he ran today. He was hawkish enough to blockade Cuba and take the nation to the brink of war with the then-Soviet Union. He was a Life member of the National Rifle Association, too.
That might have put JFK at odds with his own party, and certainly the anti-gun lobby, which has gun from being merely a gun control movement to a gun prohibition effort. Gun safety has very little to do with it, despite the fact that the anti-gun lobby self-identifies itself as a “gun safety” movement, but only because the term “gun control” is politically toxic.
Kennedy’s assassination aftermath focused on mail-order rifles, and the 1968 Gun Control Act brought a new wave of regulations that have expanded incrementally over the past five decades. Guns were far easier to get before 1968, but nowadays anti-gunners incessantly complain about the “easy access” to firearms, despite the fact that there are far more laws and regulations now than during JFK’s administration.
If one must discuss guns over Thanksgiving dinner, focus on how those rights have been eroded over the last half-century, rather than on how they might be further restricted.
