Message To Progressives: ‘From Our Cold, Dead Hands…’

Sahil Kapur, political reporter, uses CiF to share bafflement at why those damn Yanks just can’t listen to the progressives and give up their guns for a world where everyone holds hand amid rainbows:

In a landmark victory for gun-rights advocates, the supreme court on Monday ruled by a margin of five to four that permissive federal gun statutes apply to all US states and cities. The McDonald v Chicago decision deemed unconstitutional an attempt by the crime-riddled capital of Illinois to regulate the possession of handguns.

So, your political system is working as intended, then? What the problem?

It was merely the latest in a string of defeats for gun control advocates, and it may not be over yet. The National Rifle Association, a vastly powerful pro-gun lobby, has pledged to follow up with a series of legal challenges to existing state and local laws regulating firearms possession.

And if they satisfy the constitutional requirements, they’ll succeed, and if they don’t, they won’t.

Again, I fail to see the problem…

Gun control proponents have seen their influence gradually disappear in Washington. Democrats, after being punished politically for their advocacy on the issue during the 1990s, have fully retreated.

Aha, I think we see a reason for Sahil’s dyspepsia.

Those damned voters just won’t get behind the progressive bandwagon! And those damned representatives are actually doing some representing!

This one-way trend defies empirical evidence and cross-country analyses, which overwhelmingly show that lenient gun laws are a public safety hazard.

You can almost hear the gears crunching together in his head, can’t you?

The strong correlation between gun possession and gun violence has been well documented. It's no coincidence that the US, which has the loosest gun laws and highest rates of possession in the industrialised world, also has the most gun deaths.

‘How can this be? Surely correlation is causation, isn’t it? But these awful people don’t want to believe…’

It's clear, then, that public safety considerations are becoming increasingly irrelevant to this debate...

So, what gives?

Well, perhaps the populace is quite content with the way things are, and they don’t think a tiny, narrow-interest group should be allowed to change things?

One factor is the stiff language of the second amendment, which declares: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (It was adopted in 1791, when the colonies had no standing armies and relied on civilian militias for security – conditions that long ago stopped applying – but it remains unchanged.)

Also – and crucially – gun-rights advocates overwhelmingly and increasingly out-lobby gun-control groups…

Ah, here we go. The Kevin The Teenager Argument: ‘It’s not faaaaiirrrr!’

To give you an idea of how tilted the playing field is: last year, the gun lobby defeated attempts in Congress to preclude terror suspects – as designated by the FBI – from buying guns. The same individuals that are deemed too dangerous to get on a plane can freely purchase firearms.

Now, is it me, or would a ‘progressive’ be erring on the side of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ on any other matter, and decrying a ‘no fly list’ as a monstrous imposition? In fact, the Guardian has run just such an article in the last few days.

And it’s particularly delicious that Sahil picks the ‘No Fly List’ as a sterling example of who’s dangerous and can’t be trusted (even if never convicted of anything) in the very week that we find a six year old girl is listed on it….

Arizona last year approved legislation permitting residents to carry guns in bars. Bars!

Aieee! Drink AND alcohol! It’s a wonder poor Sahil can bear to live in such a country, eh?

Not that he’s bitter, or anything…

Thus it hardly makes a difference to the cause of gun control that there's a Democratic president and large Democratic majorities in Congress. Both parties' leaders are now dutifully serving the gun lobby. To wit, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid issued a statement Monday announcing he's "pleased" with the ruling. "The right to bear arms is one of the essential freedoms on which our country was founded," he said.

Well, there’s a surprise, eh, Sahil? You don’t have the clout that you thought you did. There's not enough of you to get a Democrat elected, and even the Democrats know it...

There remains, however, a glimmer of hope for the underdogs in this fight.

Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg, a vocal advocate for "common-sense" firearm laws, blasted Monday's ruling as example of "activist justices" putting "rigid ideology ahead of public safety".

It seems that’s only a bad thing when a progressive’s sacred cow is gunned down, however…