If Democrats were actually serious about gun control, they'd repeal the 2nd Amendment
The American left is in high dudgeon, unshackling itself from the rules of polite society and blaming the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of gun-homicide victims on the American right.
“You. It’s your fault,” Washington Post columnist Christine Emba wrote. “You, the gun-obsessed minority who lord over our politics and prevent change from being made. You, who mumble ‘thoughts and prayers’ but balk at action.”
“Nineteen children are dead,” U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said. “And so to my Republican colleagues I ask, ‘Who are you here for? Are you here for the kids or are you here for the killers?’ ”
Joe Scarborough, the former Reagan Republican turned unctuous morning host of cable-left news, tweeted an image of Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke shouting at Republican officeholders:
“There are several here who fit the definition of ‘Sick Son of a Bitch’ in this picture, but none go by the name of Beto. Look instead at the freaks who keep gutting gun laws so 18-year-olds can buy weapons designed for war to go into schools and slaughter babies. THAT is sick.”
Dems are fed up with playing GOP gun politics
Liberals and their Democratic cohorts are so angry and so done with gun violence and Republicans who play politics with the lives of children that they’re breaking out the F-word and unleashing their fury on Twitter. (As if going berserk with F-bombs represents a breakthrough on Twitter.)
Arizona U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego fit this pattern. He didn’t wait for the Texas school dead to be identified before he accused one of that state’s U.S. senators, Ted Cruz, of murder:
“Just to be clear f*** you @tedcruz you f***ing baby killer.”
Confronted with this rolling tide of recriminations, one Republican finally got fed up and pushed back.
“To infer by rhetorical supposed questions, who are you here for, we must be here for the gunman, is an outrage,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said. “How dare you. You think we don’t have hearts?”
He was wasting his breath.
The way to stop self-righteous, finger-wagging Democrats who say you have blood on your hands is not to complain.
It’s to unmask them.
The 'core problem is the 2nd Amendment'
Democrats all know why America among advanced nations is uniquely plagued by rampage shootings. In a column in The New Republic, Walter Shapiro, journalist and former White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, spelled it out:
“The hard truth is that the core problem is the Second Amendment itself. And America is going to reel from one mass murder to another unless the Second Amendment is repealed or the Supreme Court drastically reduces its scope.”
Repealing the Second Amendment is hard.
It would require first supermajorities in both the House and the Senate. Then you would need three-fourths of the states to ratify that decision.
That will only happen if the party that demands greater gun control gets the ball rolling. But Democrats from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama to Dianne Feinstein to Joe Biden have long claimed they support the Second Amendment.
Here’s Biden on Thursday night:
“And, by the way – it’s going to sound bizarre – I support the Second Amendment. You have a right. But from the very beginning, the Second Amendment didn’t say you can own any gun you want, big as you want.”
Democrats keep nibbling at the edges
Instead of launching a movement to repeal the Second Amendment, Biden served up policy leftovers from all the other mass shootings – ban assault weapons, ban high-capacity magazines, pass red-flag laws.
“For God’s sake,” said Biden. “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?”
Quite a bit if we’re relying on those.
Yes, they may be well meaning and represent at least some action. But Democratic and Republican leaders all know these will not put a significant dent in gun violence in America.
For that, the party of gun control will need to go bold.
Shapiro, their fellow Democrat, sounds like he’s on to them:
“Democrats should drop the mealy-mouthed formulation, ‘Nobody supports the Second Amendment more than I do,’ but still … . Claiming fidelity to the Second Amendment has never convinced a single NRA supporter of a candidate’s sincerity, but it has stopped bold thinking about lasting solutions to America’s gun crisis.”
So why aren’t Democrats willing to get the ball rolling on Second Amendment repeal?
Why won’t they be campaigning on the issue in this year’s midterms and the presidential election of 2024?
Just read the polls.
If this about the kids, stop nibbling at the edges
When the Economist and YouGov asked Americans in 2018 if they supported Second Amendment repeal, only 21% did. Sixty percent opposed it. Among cohorts, Democrats were the most likely to support repeal at 39%.
Bret Stephens, a conservative New York Times columnist who would actually join the Democrats’ crusade if they would only kick it off, observed:
“Maybe it’s because they argue their case badly and – let’s face it – in bad faith. Democratic politicians routinely profess their fidelity to the Second Amendment – or rather, “a nuanced reading” of it – with all the conviction of Barack Obama’s support for traditional marriage, circa 2008. People recognize lip service for what it is.”
So we all know the score, Democrats refuse to pursue the one policy strategy they know would finally stop to any degree this raging epidemic of mass shootings in America, because to do so, they know they would lose elections.
If you, like many of them, lacked all self-awareness and common decency, you might even put it to the Democrats this way:
“Are you here for the kids or are you here for the killers?”
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Repeal the Second Amendment, Democrats, if you're serious
