U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Democrats [are showing an] unprecedented embrace of gun control,” The Atlantic noted Thursday. “The party is betting that support for restrictions is more likely to attract moderate voters than turn them off.”
If nothing else, this shows the goalposts are continuously being moved to the left. If the “centrists” of the party are all in for eviscerating a keystone right and ignoring the crystal clear mandate of “shall not be infringed,” you know what those pulling sentiment in that direction intend to end up with. That also allows those previously considered “moderate” to now be smeared as “extremists,” with accusations of being haters not far behind.
It wasn’t always this way, of course – at one point within the lifetimes of many of us, even Democrat “liberals” were on record expressing belief in the Second Amendment and demonstrating that they understood founding intent in a way that today would have them condemned as insurrectionist traitors.
Two cases in point:
“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia,’ the ‘security’ of the nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,’ our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy,” John F. Kennedy responded to GUNS Magazine’s inquiries in the April 1960 issue’s “Know Your Lawmakers” feature. “Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.”
“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms,” then-senator, soon-to-be vice president, future presidential candidate and “liberal” icon Hubert Humphrey had asserted in the February issue. “This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”
So much for the lie that the individual rights “theory” didn’t start to gain ground until the NRA started getting more political circa 1977:
“While conventional wisdom suggests that an individual’s right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, it is, in fact, a relatively recent interpretation, according to New Yorker writer and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.”
It’s fair to wonder what it was Toobin “analyzed.” It certainly wasn’t the clear record left by the Framers or prior Supreme Court cases including Scott v. Sanford, Cruikshank, and Miller. Then again. Perhaps he’s just an apparatchik advancing an agenda regardless of the truth, which my looking into past asinine assertions he has made appears to corroborate.
Meanwhile, back at The Atlantic, meet the new exemplar of “moderation”:
“He’s laid out an assault-weapons ban for new purchases,” a man named Bill, a managing partner at a small investment firm and a former intelligence officer, told me excitedly, when I asked why he backed Bloomberg for president. (Bill declined to give his last name for privacy reasons.) “And there absolutely should be universal background checks,” he continued. “It’s like, that’s a no-brainer—come on.”
“This is the new normal in the Democratic Party: Moderate voters not only support gun-control legislation, but have begun to use the issue as a litmus test,” The Atlantic advises.
So “Bill” is a Democrat? Having an intelligence background, I don’t suppose he actually did any pertinent data collection before deciding that trying to force millions of his armed countrymen to surrender their rights and bend to the will of the collectivists was a “no-brainer”?
Threatening infringements on the right to keep and bear arms did not work for Al Gore (who ended up losing his home state) or Hillary Clinton. Now the Democrats are betting the electorate has changed enough for denial of rights to be a winning issue. That makes fair the question: Has it? Virginia gives us some clues:
“Gun control was indeed a core campaign message for Spanberger, the Democratic representative who defeated the Republican incumbent Dave Brat two years ago in a suburban district near Richmond, Virginia, that had long been represented by the GOP. It was also central to the campaign platform of Jennifer Wexton, Spanberger’s fellow Virginian and fellow freshman, who flipped her D.C.-adjacent district from red to blue. By 2019, polling showed that gun control was the top issue for voters in their home state; that fall, Democrats managed to gain control of the state legislature and immediately passed a huge slate of gun reforms.”
How did that happen? The New York Times thinks it knows:
“Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats.
“’Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,’ said Vijay Katkuri, 38, a software engineer from southern India, explaining why he voted for a Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s elections.”
We will see in November if the demographics have changed enough nationally to give the House-holding Democrats the win for the White House and Senate, and for upcoming federal/Supreme Court appointments. If it is, that “history” the above feature photo predicts, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leading the charge against our guns, will prove catastrophic.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.