Ever wonder why leftists really have such a big problem with your and my owning a gun? The answer’s simple: Control.
Not in the sense that they want to rip guns out of people’s hands and go full Tiananmen Square on anyone who dissents. They’re more about a quieter, creeping form of power. The kind built on things like dependency. Every cradle to the grave program they’ve concocted was created to take otherwise independent and free human beings, and turn them into slaves dependent on the state.
The more government does for people, the less they can do for themselves. The less people do for themselves, the more government gets to make their choices for them. Disagree? Ask someone that lived behind the Iron Curtain his or her point of view.
In 2012 the Obama-Biden campaign ran an on-line ad called “The Life of Julia”. The ad featured a cartoon character, Julia, and showed how every phase of her life depended on government. Julia went to school because government was there to take her. Julia got a job because government programs allowed her to. Julia had a baby boy, because of Obamacare. In old age, Julia whiled away her golden years working in a community garden because government took care of all her old-age needs. Julia didn’t even need a husband; she was wedded to the state.
“The Life of Julia” wasn’t randomly put together in hopes Democrats would like it. The ad was crafted to match what focus groups said were Democrat’s views of their relationship with government. They don’t have a problem with government taking up an ever growing chunk of people’s lives. Especially the bigger chunks.
No wonder when the topic of gun control comes up, a typical left-wing strawman is to treat the discussion as though those on the right were demanding universal gun ownership. No one I know has ever insisted on mandated 100% gun ownership. Do you know anyone that believes that in every situation every single person present should be packing heat? You don’t. Because no one is.
What gun rights advocates are asking is that law-abiding private citizens be able to go pro-choice and decide on their own whether or not to own a firearm. Some that do might someday conceal and carry their weapon in public. When they do, they might thwart bad people from doing bad things to good people. When bad people don’t know who is and who isn’t armed, they might think twice before acting maliciously. Examples of both scenarios aren’t hard to find.
Ultimately, the left doesn’t like to see government forced to compete with anyone or anything else. Especially when government’s monopoly on providing for an individual’s protection is forced to compete with individuals taking on this duty for themselves. Their cravings for authority run this deeper than their cutesy “co-exist” bumper stickers.
They desire government control to the point that even after San Bernardino, their ideas about gun control, terrorism, radical Islam, and Syrian refugees remain set in stone.
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective/11226392345
