What Gun Control Advocates Don’t Understand About Gun Owners
BY Herschel Smith
9 years ago
Soon after news broke on Wednesday that a gunman had opened fire on a social service center in San Bernardino, Calif., killing 14 people and wounding 17 others, the liberal Daily Kos website published an opinion piece under the headline “Your opinion on gun control doesn’t matter.” It crystallized much of the anger and frustration that gun-control advocates were expressing on social media in the wake of another American mass shooting.
“If you still bristle at the idea of gun control, fine,” declared the author, Josie Duffy, an attorney who writes on criminal justice issues for the site. “All I’m asking is that you call a spade a spade. To you, the right to own a gun— including one of those assault weapons that looks like what a robot might utilize to kill the enemy in a movie called Robot War 3—is more important than people’s lives. People’s lives matter less than your gun.”
This is a common – and increasingly exasperated – refrain from gun-control advocates. They see passing stricter gun laws as a common-sense response to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, and they bristle at those who disagree.
Public polling suggests many of those advocates don’t fully understand the motivations of their opponents: Supporting gun rights, for a large portion of Americans, is about much more than guns.
It’s important to note that some tighter gun-control measures enjoy wide support across America, among liberals and conservatives, gun owners and even National Rifle Association-households as well as those who have never pulled a trigger. More than 4 in 5 Americans support requiring background checks for private and gun-show firearms sales, and nearly as many favor laws preventing people with mental illness from owning guns, Pew Research surveys have found. Seven in 10 support a federal database of gun sales. Over half support bans on semi-automatic and assault weapons.
The piece takes interesting turns and undulations. But in the end it has the feel and rhythm of another “everyone is so misunderstood” article, including (gasp) gun owners. Gun owners, they claim, actually do support some gun control measures.
Here they cherry pick data that we have refuted, but suffice it to say [without rehearsing all of the information we’ve covered in the past] that the majority of gun owners don’t want to have to go to an FFL to transfer a weapon, regardless of what the authors claim.
And there may be a nexus between gun ownership and the understanding that we increasingly live in a society defined by Fabian socialism and government control. But the authors need to spend a little more time around gun owners before writing prose that makes it sound like they can speak authoritatively on gun ownership. A little more love, a little less government aggression, and a few more promises, and we won’t suddenly come together, agree to new gun control laws, and melt our guns into farming implements.
Man is fallen, he is predisposed to evil, governments only seek more control always, false religions seek to impose their will on other men, and saying “peace, peace,” when there is no peace, is not a recipe for brotherhood.
As for the disagreeable ones over at Kos, I would respond that if you bristle at the idea of gun rights, fine. But what you are really saying is that while evil men hunt down the innocent in places of work, worship and play to kill them, what you really want to see is those innocent men perish rather than have access to a means of self defense.
You would rather see women hiding and cowering under desks than be able to live another day for their children, and you would rather see blood in the streets for the sake of government control than free men who won’t allow their families to be harmed.
The hatred of police that your hippie fathers and mothers cherished, has turned into a love of government control. The love of guns owned and operated by the Black Panthers, The Weather Underground and others, turned into a hatred of anything that could threaten the power of the state – once your ilk was in charge. What you once loved you now hate because it gives someone else that same freedom and power. Admit it. Go ahead and admit it. Is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?
On December 4, 2015 at 11:27 am, Fred said:
My parents with older siblings, friends and neighbors protested the Vietnam War. They went to the National Mall in the early 70’s to protest and march. They were Bill of Rights liberals often sighting free speech, the right to assemble, and redress of grievance. It wasn’t only the war. My father was a History and English professor (I learned nothing of English it seems) and would talk about the men who made America great. They weren’t militaristic they just wanted what they saw as an unjust (because it was undeclared in violation the Constitution) war to end. These are the folk’s from whom I learned to love liberty and freedom. After a lengthy time of active duty and other tasks for the DoD I had come to find that they are not what they used to be (niether is the DoD. different story). I’ve tried to talk too many of them about it. They look at me as though I have two heads. They try to convince me that surrendering to the state will make everything better, that centralized government authority over literally everything is the answer to our problems. I remain confused about their conversion. It is bizarrely cult like or something. I don’t understand it. They believe not on the LORD and this has an influence but before my conversion I had a healthy love and reverence of liberty that my belief in Christ has only strengthened. So as indicated in the article belief in God has an influence for sure but…what of the liberty lovers who don’t believe?
“The hatred of police that your hippie fathers and mothers cherished has turned into a love of government control.” Mine “hated” the police only as a symbol of the state if at all but some of them are now for having police disarm us by force. Maybe it is some kind of cult. I marvel at their conversion. Then again many of the protesters of Vietnam were little communists it turns out and wanted the north to win. Could I have misunderstood this about them all these years? Maybe it is as simple as power lust. Good piece!
Sir, I would like to know more on this topic if you have further insight you would offer. Thanks.
On December 26, 2015 at 9:16 pm, Jim Wiseman said:
Seems as though those who would control us think all those who have defended themselves with guns would be better off dead.