The New Clarion

Before the blood had even dried from the Sandy Hook mass murder, the control-freaks in the media and Washington were already screeching for new laws to infringe and destroy our right to keep and bear arms, and with it, our right to self defense. Others have already detailed the ways in which their proposed laws are immoral – stripping the innocent of their right to defend themselves, without trial or conviction – and impractical – because criminals and the insane simply do not listen to such laws (i.e. Sandy Hook was already legally declared a “gun free zone.” And we see how well that worked.).

But I’d like to take a moment to examine the fact that the gun control-freaks’ laws are not only immoral and impractical, but also stupid.

And I mean literally stupid, as in: if the gun control-freaks were to be given an exam on the guns they’re trying to legislate, they would get an “F.”

The type of gun used by the murderer wasn’t clearly known as of the beginning of the control-freaks’ screeching, but this did not stop them from calling for bans based on the speculated types. I had seen conflicting reports from various media sources – some said he used an automatic rifle, others a semi-automatic rifle. Several had said it was one of the many kinds of rifle derived from the AR-15 pattern, which could be either. The types of control proposed by the freaks have been varied, but they are all stupid and I will now detail how this is so.

Some control-freaks have called for a ban on automatic weapons. An automatic weapon is one that is capable of firing continuously as long as the trigger is held, and ammunition remains (which it won’t, for more than a few seconds). This proposal is stupid because automatic weapons are already de facto banned. The 1986 FOPA law banned the sale of any new automatic weapons, and tightly regulated the transfer or sale of all existing automatic weapons. No new automatic weapons have been legally sold in the United States for over 25 years, and very limited number of pre-1986, used, automatics are only sold or transferred with extremely tight and restrictive federal licenses and background checks. The price of such weapons, as a result, is prohibitive – starting at a minimum of approximately $25,000, and going up to many times that number for a well-preserved example. Considering that the Mexican black market price of an AK-47 (an automatic rifle) can be as low as $100, it suffices to say that any criminal desiring an automatic weapon is not likely to obtain it legally. So the control-freaks proposing new automatic weapons laws are being incredibly stupid.

Other control-freaks are calling for bans on semi-automatic rifles. Given the above facts about automatic weapons, it is quite unlikely that the Sandy Hook murderer used an automatic rifle, so they have avoided that idiocy at least. But this idea is also stupid. The control-freaks are no doubt blissfully unaware of the fact that a semi-automatic rifle functions no differently from any common pistol. “Semi-automatic” only means that the rifle will fire when the trigger is pulled, without having to cock it and manually extract the spent shell casing after every shot. The only rifles that don’t function this way are bolt-action rifles, which are specially designed for increased accuracy, especially at long range, and are usually used with a magnified scope by game hunters or military snipers. There isn’t any such thing in production today as a conventional rifle that is not at least “semi-automatic” (expecting, of course, replicas of antique firearms). The control-freaks are almost certainly stupidly ignorant of these facts, which utterly disqualifies them from intelligent conversation on the issue, much less proposing anything as serious as a law.

But the most astounding stupidity of all has to be those control-freaks who are proposing a renewal of the so-called “assault weapons” ban. Unlike the previous two, the name “assault weapon” is not even a technical term at all. It is actually only a translation of a nickname that Hitler gave to a newly invented rifle of the time. As a result, the “assault weapon” ban of 1994 that the control freaks want to reinstate governs an eclectic combination of both essential and non-essential firearm traits. Here is an illustrated example:

The criteria that the ban is concerned with includes (but is not limited to) such absurdly nonsensical things as whether the shoulder stock is adjustable to users of different sizes, if a pistol exceeds a certain weight (?), the shape (as above) of the hand grip on a rifle or shotgun, and whether an automatic version exists of a given semi-automatic (??). This is akin to trying to ban “dangerous automobiles” based on whether or not they had power windows.

(It also contains the lone essential element of magazine capacity, but magazine capacity is hardly relevant to the Sandy Hook murders. The murderer almost certainly had to reload his weapon; this did not stop him. The only thing that did stop him, as is almost always the case with this kind of tragedy, was the (all too) eventual armed response. By contrast, a fact that is relevant is that it is quite common for such murderers to commit suicide as soon as any kind of armed resistance is encountered, which is exactly what happened at Sandy Hook. A little-known fact is that another public massacre was cut short almost immediately after Sandy Hook by a citizen with a concealed-carry pistol. He didn’t even need to fire a shot, in fact, as that murderer did indeed commit suicide as soon as he was confronted by an armed man. The media were nearly silent on the latter story, as an armed citizen cutting a massacre short would have served to deflate their gun control-freak narrative.)

I don’t want any of the above to take away from the most primary fact that the gun control-freaks’ laws are immoral, or even the secondary fact that they are impractical. Even if the control-freaks did not make the stupid, ignorant errors that I’ve detailed here, their laws should still be thrown out on their ear on moral grounds. But it’s also true that these control-freak regulators are stunningly, stupidly, ignorant about the actual facts of the things they seek to regulate. These are people whose entire “careers” (if they can be called that) are built upon proposing and making laws, and they haven’t bothered to learn even the basic facts about the things they seek to strip us of our right to. This is entirely revealing of the immoral character of not only these outrageous laws, but also of the ignorant brutes who propose them. And that much, at least, bears mention.

-Inspector

(P.S. Thank you to Richard Salsman for coining the delightfully accurate term “Gun control-freak”)

(P.P.S. – A friend points out that perhaps some of them know exactly what they’re doing in proposing these, seemingly foolish, laws. Perhaps… perhaps. But, then, if they do, then it is because they expect that the public is as ignorant as they are acting. Either way, I believe my point is secure: one more in a long line of grand insults is being perpetrated against us.)