Sensible Lies

Well, that didn't take long. Less than a week after the Uvalde shooting, North America's two top dudes pulled the curtain back on "sensible" gun control.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced proposed legislation that would freeze handgun ownership in Canada.

[I]t will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada.

While I haven't seen the text of the bill, I'll go ahead and presume that, upon death, any handguns in the estate of the deceased will have to be given over to the government. That would mean, if enacted, there'll be no more handguns in private possession in a few decades, after every current owner dies off.

Wait - let me rephrase. Legal private possession. I imagine a few tragic boating accidents between now and then. Criminals don’t care about bans, of course, and given that literal tons of consumable illegal stuff are smuggled into the country every day, the bad guys will still get their guns. Then there’s 3D printing, but save that for another day.

Same day, Uncle Joe went on a bizarre tirade about 9mm handguns:

[Doctors] said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body. So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting.

So, now, self-protection is no longer about putting down someone who’s trying to kill you? This from the guy who told us to "buy a shotgun" in 2013?

I won't get into the matter of relative lethalities here, because a - Joe's blather is nonsensical, and b - self-defense is about ending a threat. Cops are taught to shoot center-of-mass and keep shooting until the assailant is down. Every so often you hear some cable news nitwit suggest that bad guys be shot in the leg, but all that does is reinforce the typical gun owner's (accurate) conclusion that many anti-gun people are incredibly ignorant about guns (not that ignorance has ever stopped the self-righteous).

No, the real crux here is that those demanding "sensible" gun laws (setting aside the fact that we already have a long list of gun restrictions on the books) are hiding their true intent.

That we already have lots of gun laws is of no import, either. From my Gun Rights series:

Gun Rights Lesson #551 – Sensible Gun Regulation

Here, writ large, above-the-fold, plain as day, crystal clear, open-and-shut, manifest, indisputable, blatant, unambiguous, and whatever other Roget permutation you desire, is the truth:

THEY WILL NOT STOP.

The end goal is repeal of the Second Amendment, literally or practically. Excepting their own personal security details, Biden and Trudeau (and many, many other left-of-center politicians, activists, and rank-and-file citizens) want guns banned from private hands, no matter what they tell us. No compromise in the name of "sensibility" will suffice. Each infringement, abridgment, or obstacle will be followed in due time by more.

This is why gun rights advocates are so resistant to ceding more of their rights.

We are constantly being told that no right is absolute. This is true - my rights end where they infringe yours. I have a right to lie, but not in a way that harms you. I have a right to swing my fist, but only as far as the tip of your nose.

What's not true is that the non-absolute bit translates into the power to impose arbitrary restrictions. The government can write laws against libel, perjury, intimidation, and incitement, but it cannot ban a book or lock someone up for saying that Biden is a poopyhead. There is a logic to what limits overlay our rights, and it’s not “whatever Joe wants.”

Politicians hate being told "No, you cannot." Barring a few persons of principle, they will try to get away with as much as they can in their endless pursuit of power and OPM, and when it comes to gun-grabbers, they're going to take and take and take until someone says "no more."

Enough with this "sensible gun regulation" canard. There are things that can be done to reduce bad peoples' access to firearms. The Fix NICS Act is a good idea that would actually make a difference - which likely explains why Democrats blocked it. Restricting the rights of tens of millions of responsible, law-abiding gun owners, current and future, is not what a free nation does. Especially when doing so doesn’t address the real problem.

If the gun-rights-averse want to talk about "doing something," I'm open to that conversation, as are countless other gun rights advocates. But, it'd better be an honest one, about stuff that will work while respecting our rights, and not some snow job whose real intent is to frog-pot us into a succession of ever-greater infringements with a total ban the end goal. If that's what your agenda is, don't bother. We’re on to you. No one trusts a liar.

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If you’re of a mind that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect an individual’s right to own and carry guns, I offer you this historical sojourn by Charles C. W. Cooke. Contrary to what’s being peddled by some prominent news organizations (who really should know better), individuals’ gun rights are not some fringe concoction of an activist Court, but the crystal-clear intent of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution, and a fundamental across the nation’s entire existence.

Don’t like it? Go ahead and try to repeal 2A. But, please, just stop lying or believing others’ lies.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.