Tuesday, February 19, 2013

That their grief may not be compounded.

At long last, the editors of America endorse a constitutional buttress to the culture of life.

Supporting the Human Life Amendment? Surely you jest. Politics is strictly about the art of the possible when it comes to abortion.

No, no--one must be realistic about such things.

Instead, we need to repeal the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

The reason: something must be done so that urban, left-leaning Jesuits can feel better about themselves:

The disturbing feeling that we have failed to do everything in our power to remove the material cause of their deaths, however, will no longer compound our grief.

For some reason, there are exceptions:

This does not require an absolute ban on firearms. In the post-repeal world that we envision, some people will possess guns: hunters and sportsmen, law enforcement officers, the military, those who require firearms for morally reasonable purposes.

As an aside, please, please, I beg you: stop pretending you give a rat's fanny about hunting. Deep down, we know you hate it, but somehow you feel compelled to offer insincere boilerplate respect. You can stop now. Besides, hunting firearms are more devastating than ones that make you queasy. Just flop your cards on the table and admit you don't approve of any significant private ownership of firearms. Dialogue requires openness, don't you know?

Anyway, there's a yawning logical inconsistency here: why should an off-duty approved firearm owner be allowed to keep it when he is off the clock? At the end of the day, such individuals should turn them in to a secure area until they punch back in. Even soldiers aren't toting weapons around all the time outside of combat zones. As the editors note, original sin (!) ensures bad things will happen, and cops are quite capable of misusing firearms, as we have been recently reminded. Thus, in Americaworld, there is no reason anyone to own a firearm off duty.

Go after violent media? Nah. That's Legion of Decency, Catholic-ghetto stuff. Shudder.

Revisit our oft-idiotic drug war? Piffle. Nope.

What it boils down to is that nobody at America owns a firearm or likes anyone who owns one. In policymaking, this is known as the It's Time We All Start Making Sacrifices, Starting With You, Of Course! manuever.

Did it ever occur to them to, you know, actually talk to an actual gun owner before promulgating this un-papal bull? Apparently not. Dialogue's only for people the Catholic left respect, I guess.

Nope--it's time to tear an Amendment out of the Constitution and unchain Caesar to kick doors in to remove unapproved firearms from our midst. If you like the drug war, you'll plotz over the gun war.

However, to be fair, there is a moral upside to the proposal: should, in this post-Second Amendment dream world of the America editorial board, your family or friends be harmed by a criminal who could have been stopped by a firearm, at least the editors' grief will not be compounded by the knowledge that unapproved citizens owned guns. That’s a comforting thought for hospital visits and/or the funeral Mass, don't you think?

9 comments:

  1. Dale – you don’t understand.

    In that dream world, it’s quite inconceivable that an armed citizen could ever effectively deter a criminal. Either the victim will be ineffective as the criminal will be too powerful and too prepared, or else any so-called “defensive” gun use is really just an excuse for some bitter (probably racist) clinger to vent their murderous rage.

    Reports to the contrary are either lying NRA propaganda or can simply drop down the memory hole.

    So, in that dream world, there is no such tradeoff, and the dreamer can sleep soundly at night.

    God have mercy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dialogue's only for people the Catholic left respect, I guess.

    I think they're understanding "dialogue" to mean "we keep yammering until you relax your guard and we get what we want."

    No respect needed in that case.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This gentleman says pretty much all there is to say on the subject:

    http://fredoneverything.net/Guns.shtml
    http://fredoneverything.net/Guncontrol.shtml

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm afraid this is only going to get worse. In fact, it is quite a sinister trap. Leftist policies have grown an entire criminal class, no-go zones in every major city, and hamstrung law-enforcement to the point that their only job is cleaning up the blood. And now they are in the process of making sure the law-abiding are disarmed when the American stasis is upon us.

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  5. "This does not require an absolute ban on firearms. In the post-repeal world that we envision, some people will possess guns: hunters and sportsmen, law enforcement officers, the military, those who require firearms for morally reasonable purposes."

    This actually sounds like the status quo. I'm not sure what laws they think can be changed to exclude those who are already excluded, i.e. convicted criminals, etc. Every gun owner I know are either sportsmen, law enforcement, or have them for the morally reasonable purpose of defense for themselves, their family, and their neighbor.

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  6. RL:

    You've been tripped up by the casuistry: your (and my) concept of what is morally reasonable (defending family and self) assuredly does not align with the editors. Hence the use of "some people." Such does not envision a slightly-modified status quo.

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  7. Right - "those who require firearms for morally reasonable purposes" isn't an additional category, but is a modifier of "law enforcement officers" and "military." (I don't believe they mean it about hunters, either.)

    As Edward Abbey said, "If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns." America understands that sentiment and enthusiastically endorses it.

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  8. Oh,I get that in their minds there are really no morally reasonable purposes for civilians (this is America Magazine after all). I was just teasing out the deceptiveness of their terminology. I suppose I should have framed it as such.

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