Sen. Brian Kavanagh, D-Manhattan, stands with gun control advocates during a news conference after a Senate session announcing legislation reforms to protect New Yorkers from gun violence in the at the state Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)
The left is fond of rights. According to many Democrats, education is a right. Healthcare is a right. Abortion is a woman’s right to choose. Yet, Second Amendment rights don’t seem to make the list.
Over the past decade, America has been shaken by a series of vicious and cowardly shootings, resulting in the slaughter of innocent human life. In addition to the recurrence of gutless, deranged lunatics murdering innocent Americans, a commonality that unites our most recent tragedies is the utilization of semi-automatic firearms to inflict needless slaughter.
The fact that these shootings were perpetrated with semi-automatic rifles led those on the left to propose an outright ban of assault weapons in the United States, which is a direct violation of Second Amendment rights provided within the U.S. Constitution.
The right to bear arms “shall not be infringed,” but Democrats are keen to rewrite the Constitution because they do, in fact, know better than the Founders.
Most on the left understand that semi-automatic weapons are protected under the Second Amendment, but simply disregard the outdated napkin that our nation’s principles are inscribed upon.
After all, it’s just a piece of paper, right?
Congressional Democrats maintain that an assault weapons ban is the entirety of the legislative iceberg, as opposed to just the tip.
Two weeks after the Parkland shooting, Democrats introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2018. The bill would render it illegal to “import, sell, manufacture, transfer or possess…a semiautomatic assault weapon.”
“Semi-automatic” simply means that one bullet comes into the cahmber each time the trigger is pulled. Incidentally, most handguns are semi-automatic.
The iceberg is slippery. And Democrats might lose their footing.
Despite claims that the assault weapons ban is the extent of the left’s assault on the Constitution, the evidence indicates otherwise.
Former Vice President Joe Biden once proclaimed, “No law-abiding citizen in the United States of America has any fear that their constitutional rights will be infringed in any way. None, zero.” I would be keen to believe Vice President Biden, if, of course, he weren’t lying. (https://conservativefiringline.com/joe-biden-no-law-abiding-citizen-has-any-fear-that-their-constitutional-rights-will-be-infringed/)
In 1993, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) stated, “Banning guns is an idea whose time has come.”
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is not far removed from her own 1993 rebuke of firearms in which she stated, “Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.”
She later added, “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them — Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in — I would have done it.” This doesn’t sound like “common sense” gun reform.
The inconsistency endemic to the left’s argument is that more shootings are perpetrated per year with handguns than rifles.
According to the FBI Crime in the United States report, 10,982 people were killed with firearms in 2017. Of those gun-related murders, 7,032 were committed with handguns.
Only 403 were committed with rifles.
More Americans were killed with knives (1,591) than rifles. In fact, more people were killed by “hands, fists, [and] feet” (696) than rifles.
According to The Daily Signal, “Handguns are used in about nine times as many murders and eight times as many nonfatal violent crimes than rifles, shotguns, and other firearms combined.” If more murders are committed with handguns than rifles, then why doesn’t the left want to ban handguns, as well? I’m only asking that Democrats be consistent in their argument. The evidence indicates that gun violence will not be stopped by banning semi-automatic rifles.
Despite the dishonesty and the inconsistencies, Democrats are correct to propose stricter vetting in the form of universal background checks and increased waiting periods. The solution however, is to prevent bad people from possessing firearms of any kind, while ensuring that law-abiding US citizens can arm themselves for the potential that the government goes tyrannical.
The Second Amendment was not designed with self-defense or hunting in mind. The Founders feared the rise of a tyranny within the government and provided a clause to allow the people to protect themselves from such evil. Some on the left, like Piers Morgan, pose the question to conservatives, “What tyranny are you fearing?” as though history is not replete with examples of foreign governments oppressing their people.
That beautifully illustrates the brilliance of the Founders that Piers Morgan can feel so safe in America. So protected. So trusting of the government.
Ultimately, there is no silver bullet to end gun violence. The left is coming for your guns, and so I suggest you deplorable, bitter clingers be loaded for bear.
Kevin Catapano is a contributor for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at kevin.catapano@uconn.edu
