The Left’s lady-doth-protest-too-much crocodile tears flow most freely when someone is murdered as a result of blatant leftist advocacy of violence toward those against whom the Left cannot win a war of words or ideas. The latest such event is the assassination of Charlie Kirk, on full display in social media in the wake of the Left’s incessant calls for violence against Kirk and its outright glee — as evidenced in countless disgusting social media posts — over his assassination. To keep the public’s eyes focused on “the shiny object” instead of the outrage rightfully leveled at it, the Left has once again reached for its reflexive go-to — gun control.
As with any such horrific event, the Left rolled out its normal lineup of mind-virus bait. First, it was, “If we could only get rid of all the guns, Charlie Kirk would not have been killed.” When arguments like this — which any third-grader could rebut — inevitably fail, the fallback is an attempt to act like “the adult in the room” by entreating, “Shouldn’t we all agree on sensible gun reform? Is that asking too much for the sake of our children?”
Or, in the recent words of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — as she simultaneously dismissed the Left’s use of terms like “Nazi,” “fascist,” and “threats to democracy” in tarring her conservative enemies — we should simply “pass commonsense gun reform.” Coming from AOC, “common sense” is especially rich!
But whatever “sensible” and “reform” mean to most Americans, to the Left, this Orwellian combination means firearm confiscation and restriction. Those duped into agreeing with statements like those above become “useful idiots,” to borrow a term attributed to Vladimir Lenin. That is, they have failed to think critically through these types of statements and have thus become feckless tools of the Left.
Long before the Left’s gun-control caterwauling, however, Founders James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were advocating exactly the opposite idea to the American public in The Federalist Papers. Hamilton’s Federalist 29, for instance, is entirely devoted to the issue of a “militia” (i.e., an amassing of armed citizens within each state to protect that state) as distinguished from an “army.” Hamilton explained that a primary function of a “militia” is to provide a check against a powerful standing [national] army used against the states and the people in service of a tyrannical government.
In Federalist 46, Madison put this point more candidly:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
By “enterprises of ambition,” Madison was referring to the use of a national army as a tool of tyranny against the people. Note also that Madison, like all advocates of freedom today, saw the fact that virtually all Americans were armed as an “advantage … over the people of almost every other nation,” in contrast to the bleating of today’s progressives who want all firearms banned. So much the better to control a tyrannized people, they reason.
As if to validate the Founders’ fears, fast-forward to the latest carping from the Left and we find that, far from simply calling for “a ban on assault weapons” — which had been the Left’s foot-in-the-door, preferred mantra for undermining the Second Amendment — the Left is using Charlie’s murder as an opportunity once again to call for banning all firearms.
Immediately after the House held a moment of silence for Kirk, for instance, Connecticut Democrat Representative Jahana Hayes, in a shout echoed by other Democrats, screamed, “Pass some gun laws!”
Unmasking the motive behind this statement, Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, perfectly characterized the Left’s tactics: “As usual, the Democrats wasted no time before weaponizing the assassination of Second Amendment advocate Charlie Kirk to promote their unconstitutional gun-grabbing agenda. But the murder weapon is a sporterized Mauser Gewehr 98, a bolt-action rifle first manufactured in Germany over a hundred years ago in 1898. So, when Democrats call for ‘assault weapons’ bans, every gun owner must realize that means grandpa’s old hunting rifle too.”
Meanwhile, rabid gun control activists like David Hogg want to purge the Democrat Party of non-far-left members. Offering Kirk’s death as a rallying point, Hogg posted a profanity-laced string of militant ranting beginning with, “If I ever get killed by one of these right-wingers politicize the f*** out of my death… raise as much money as you can… and use it to primary Dems who refuse to support gun laws.” Hogg’s extremist screed stands in stark contrast to Charlie’s measured, reserved method of debate on the issue of gun rights.
Indeed, Kirk probably best addressed the importance of the individual’s right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. Addressing the tradeoff between this right and the problem of “gun violence,” Charlie wisely stated, “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
We couldn’t agree more, Charlie. God rest in peace.
