Why the gun debates are over

In Support Of A Total Ban on Civilians Owning Firearms

I support the argument that the United States should enact a total ban on civilians owning firearms.

Oh, I don't support the ban. I support the argument.

I support the argument because it's honest and specific. It doesn't hide the ball, it doesn't refuse to define terms, it doesn't tell rely on telling people they are paranoid or stupid in their concerns about the scope of the ban. The argument proposes a particular solution and will require the advocate to defend it openly.

That elevates it above most gun control dialogue.

Read the whole thing.

This essay is so dead on target that I wondered whether writer Ken White had been listening to conversations I've had with my liberal colleagues. Ken observes the "debate" in relation to what Leftists actually know about firearms (which is to say, almost nothing) and therefore how they dismiss any counter-claim for accuracy of terminology:

I want advocates to learn the difference so I can have some level of confidence that I know what kind of proposed government power we're debating. Right now the debate seems choked with people who don't know, are proud of not knowing, and think you're a redneck gun-nut asshole if you want them to know because they feel very strongly about this. I decline to take that seriously.

And so exactly in my own attempts are conversations: My liberal colleagues don't know anything about guns. They do not know what the gun-crime rate is in America, what it's trendline is and they do not know that the most heavily gun-controlled cities in the country also have the highest murder rate. They do not know that one of those cities, Chicago, suffers an Orlando-equivalent every month. Every. Month. (And it's getting worse.)

They do not try to assess whether their same old ideas about banning "assault rifles" would be workable. They do not know what the effect of the 1994-2004 ban was. They cannot define what an "assault rifle" is except to parrot Obama's latest bumper-sticker-slogan, "military-style weapons." They do not know that Obama himself has said that the Second Amendment protects the right of individual Americans to own firearms. They do not know that the US Supreme Court has ruled the same in multiple cases (and the few who do know simply dismiss the rulings as wrong).

They do not know because they do not care. They just want firearms to be outlawed for everyone, everywhere. That being so, actual knowledge about the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, between clip and magazine, between the No Fly List and the Terrorist Watchlist and the crushing implications of Democrats' unConstitutional desire to dispense with due process to forbid people from buying guns -- all such information is irrelevant and unimportant. They just want everyone to be disarmed.

That's why the gun-control debate in the country is over.

It's done. Each side knows full well what the other wants and where they stand. There is no more "dialog" or compromise to be had. The two sides are not reconcilable. Period. And as usual, the Left wants to demonize and lie about the motives of their opponents. That's why the Senate Dems voted down a R.-sponsored bill to prevent Watch-listed persons from buying firearms while protecting their due-process Constitutional rights, and then grandstanded when the Republicans voted down the Dems' bills that would have shot to pieces due process under the law.

The whole point of that kabuki dance was to give the Dems a chance to go before the cameras and talk shows and accuse the Republicans of literally murderous intent and of wishing to arm ISIS. Yes, they did that.

And the Dems had no other goal than that.

And Constitutional protections? Done with them:



Presumption of innocence of the accused? Burden of proof on the government? Done with that, too:



It was a nice freedom while we had it.

Update: Hot Air adds,

Not 24 hours ago, Senate Democrats had the chance to vote on a bill that would have given them the core of what they want, namely, DOJ power to block gun purchases by anyone on a terror watch list. All they had to do was make a simple concession to due process by requiring the feds to go to court and show their work, proving to a judge within three days of the attempted purchase that the person on the list was actually dangerous. Too many innocent people have been put on watch lists erroneously to grant the federal government power to strip them of their rights with no judicial safeguard. That was the Cornyn bill; it died in the Senate, 53/47, when Democrats refused to give it the 60 votes it needed for cloture. The left killed the bill only because it provided due process to gun owners. Even the ACLU is aghast:

Our nation’s watchlisting system is error-prone and unreliable because it uses vague and overbroad criteria and secret evidence to place individuals on blacklists without a meaningful process to correct government error and clear their names…

The government contends that it can place Americans on the No Fly List who have never been charged let alone convicted of a crime, on the basis of prediction that they nevertheless pose a threat (which is undefined) of conduct that the government concedes “may or may not occur.” Criteria like these guarantee a high risk of error and it is imperative that the watchlisting system include due process safeguards—which it does not. In the context of the No Fly List, for example, the government refuses to provide even Americans who know they are on the List with the full reasons for the placement, the basis for those reasons, and a hearing before a neutral decision-maker.

I explained in some detail the nature and implications of the No Fly List a year and a half ago. See here.

Meanwhile, in Washington DC: