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In the aftermath of retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ rant in the New York Times calling for repeal of the Second Amendment, anti-gunners are trying to dodge that politically toxic bullet while still demonstrating their dislike for the one right that protects all the other rights.
According to the Washington Post, Democrats are suddenly faced with the daunting chore of distancing themselves from the Stevens essay.
President Donald Trump felt it necessary to post a message on Twitter that the Second Amendment will never be repealed, at least on his watch.
Five years ago, writing in The Atlantic, Molly Ball noted how the gun control lobby has attempted to mask its true intentions by changing the vocabulary. Back then, Ball noted how then-President Barack Obama avoided the term “gun control” when announcing new gun control proposals. Instead, he talked about reducing “gun violence.”
“The terminology is the latest effort by gun-control activists to get rid of the term ‘gun control,’ the same way estate-tax opponents always talk about abolishing the ‘death tax,’ gay-marriage activists now prefer to talk about ‘marriage equality,’ and advocates for the rights of illegal immigrants carefully refer to them as ‘undocumented workers.’ Whether you see these terms as laudably neutral or Orwellian attempts at culture-shaping probably depends on your view of the issues involved.
“’Gun control’ has obvious liabilities — as a phrase, it conjures images of confiscation, reinforcing the National Rifle Association’s allegation that the government is coming to take away the firearms of law-abiding citizens. The problem is, after years of proposing a range of alternatives, activists haven’t succeeded in getting anything other than ‘gun control’ to lodge in the public or media consciousness.”—Molly Ball, The Atlantic 2013
One founder of an online group calling itself WaGuns.org is having T-shirts printed that bear this message: “Gun control is not gun safety.” It’s a direct slap at the kind of camo-speak used by anti-gunners to mask their real intention, which is to be rid of firearms and the Second Amendment that protects their possession.
Stevens did the public a favor by clearly stating the true goal of gun prohibitionists while others have avoided that truth with every syllable of political camo-speak. After years of contenting that they “support the Second Amendment…but,” the 97-year-old retired jurist has peeled away the veneer. The truth is finally on the table.
The introduction this week of the “Ammunition Background Check Act of 2018” by perennial anti-gun Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida doesn’t call for repeal, but only amounts to erosion. According to the Tampa Bay Times, both Democrats call their measure “common sense” legislation and Wasserman Schultz complained that being able to purchase ammunition without a background check is an “absurd loophole.”
Why does everything have to be a “loophole” and why are all restrictive gun control measures “common sense?”
Stevens has never masked his disdain for the individual right to keep and bear arms. He wrote the dissent to the 2008 Heller ruling.
But Democrats hoping to regain Congress this fall and the White House in 2020 are reeling in the wake of his New York Times Tuesday Op-ed. Stevens cut to the chase, henceforth making the political terrain rather difficult to navigate for a prohibition movement that has traditionally operated on emotion and deception to move its agenda.
