It's Not About Guns - 2

Two weeks ago, I wrote "It's Not About the Guns, and Maybe It's Not Even About Control", where I speculated that

Maybe they - the ruling class, the self anointed coastal progressives who want to lead us "forward" - maybe they just hate you and me.

Many more well reasoned articles are coming out on this subject.  Author Jarrett Stepman writes "Gun Culture vs. The Culture of Dependency" in Human Events last week.  He claims the real reason for the rush for gun control at far greater urgency than the facts warrant is that the liberal/progressive world view can't stand our independence.  It can't accept that we are responsible for ourselves and our families.

The debate over gun control is, at its core, a larger conflict over culture and an individual’s relation to government. It is a culture war between those who value independence and individual liberty and those that value community coercion and dependence on the government; between a culture that values individual rights and the “self-made man” and one that says that “you didn’t build that,” and that rights come from positive law and the government.

The left fears independence and blames capitalism for gun violence.  In face of such a belief, there is no reason to think "just some reasonable restrictions" are all they are after.   They are after all of it: every last gun, no matter how old the technology or the gun, no matter whether it's a scary black rifle, or highly figured walnut.  To quote a writer from the Daily Kos, as Stepman does,

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first.

The ignorance of history, the sheer stupidity displayed here, is mind-boggling.  Every mass murder in history that claimed above a hundred, every mass murder that claimed into the millions was caused by the sitting government over those murdered millions.  What they're asking for is the complete opposite of the "safety" they yearn for.  But the paradox is that violence is inherent in the big controlling government at the heart of  left-wing philosophy!  That's the topic of Andrew Klavan on PJ Media writing about how Christopher Dorner became a leftwing hero.

Haven’t you noticed this? The American left is always waxing hysterical about right-wing violence and the true violence always comes from the American left. The American news media cry out in horror at peaceful Tea Party demonstrations and look the other way when Occupy Wall Streeters commit vandalism, rape, and even murder. The media try to pin any political assassination attempt on conservatives; yet almost all American political assassinations are committed by the left.

The 19th century political philosopher Frederic Bastiat pointed out the fact (that Ayn Rand later popularized) that redistribution of wealth is in and of itself an unjustified use of force against the property of individuals. The fact that it’s a collective use of force in no way legitimizes it. Nor does the sanction of raw democracy which, as the old joke goes, is just two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for supper.

It's looking like the war is shifting from the Federal level to the states.  After the insanity that went down in Colorado, with laws being rammed through before organized resistance could really hit the state capital, Michael Bane writes:

The reason that our strength of numbers isn't working is because my sources tell me that Michael Bloomberg and the Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) organization, who provided the boilerplate for the laws, paid for all the witnesses and essentially organized this whole bit of theater, will finance a primary election challenges from the left for any Democrat who breaks rank and votes against these bills.

Get that?  If Democrats don't fellate Bloomberg, he'll pay for a challenger to run against them in the next primary.  Since primary campaigns are often low budget, and Bloomberg has billions to give to challengers, it's a deadly threat.  

It's time to get going on our state representatives.  We have to block this.  I hear Maryland is next in trouble.