I'm getting a lot of comments on yesterday's post generally along the line of "shall not be infringed" means exactly what it says. Well, sure, but that hasn't helped us so far.
The Queen Of The World points out that one of my (many charming) foibles is that I often don't explain myself in these posts. She's clearly right on that here.
This Bill Of Rights is not intended to restore second amendment liberty, bringing back the status quo ante 1870. Rather, it is to arm our legislative allies with a pre-packaged, soundbite-worthy legislative answer to the endless series of "ZOMG THERE's BLOOD IN THE STREETS WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING FOR THE CHILDRENZ!!!eleventy!" Every time this comes up, they just open the filing cabinet and pull this out. Then they can say well you always talk about compromise; how about some of this?
The point is that it needs to be seen by the great mass of voters as reasonable, understandable, and common sense. Then the repeated refusals of the Brady crowd et al will begin to be seen as unreasonable infringement on our rights. And after five or six or twenty of these episodes these voters might just listen when we say "shall not be infringed" means exactly what it says.
Maybe. Or maybe not. However, I would suggest that what we've been doing hasn't been working for us. "Do it again only harder" doesn't seem to be the high percentage shot, either. Maybe this won't work, but we have to make it easier for friendly legislators to fight our battle. This Bill Of Rights proposal is my attempt to help.
Look, my personal view is pretty much as a 2A absolutist. I think it would be cool to have a tank - a real working one, with live ammo. The Queen Of The World rolls her eyes at me when I say this, and my pocketbook whimpers in pain, but it would be cool. But that's not (yet) the majority view in the Republic. I want to bring the majority view closer to where we stand.
Right now, Bloomberg's flying monkeys are inflicting death by a thousand cuts on us. I want our friends in the Legislature to be able to start slicing back.
3 comments:
I sympathize whole-heartedly with the SNBI, whole-cake-back crowd. From a strategic standpoint, they are 100% right. The question is, how do we get there?
We let our rights go gradually, over the course of generations. Folks got used to that, over the course of generations. We'll have to recover them gradually, re-earning the public trust at each step. That's what 'consent of the governed' really means. If we want to win hands-down, we do it by making gun control the position of wild-eyed nut-jobs who are obviously taking counsel of their fears, not the facts.
The good news is that we can go faster, as in Texas, where we have gone from being a state where only peace officers could carry guns in any way in the 1990s to licensed campus carry and licensed open carry now, in the space of 30 years. Constitutional carry is the right way to do this, of course, but we're getting there. It's on the table for discussion now, because the folks who bear arms have done the work of demonstrating their trustworthiness. We might have to drag the NRA along behind us on this, but it's no longer a lunatic fringe position.
The problem here, Borepatch, isn't law. It's not procedure or protocol. You may or may not be able to vote your way out of a fight for now... but a fight is coming.
The problem is people. The guys behind this aren't old world liberals that are merely misinformed. The democrat/liberal power base is composed of people that want your money and your stuff too. A large percentage want you dead, too. If you think these people are unreasonable now, just wait until they disarm you.
A mere 10 years ago it would have been political suicide for Donks to talk about gun grabs Look at them now. Today they are talking seriously about gulags too.
Changing the law isn't enough. America has to change. (As does Canada, for that matter).
"Friends in the legislature."
That's funny right there.
(Even though I actually have a friend in the MD Senate.)
Post a Comment