J.D. Tuccille writes a post entitled President Obama won't take your guns (even if he wants to) which follows a pretty standard fallacy - mainly that Barack Häagen-Dazs Obama isn't actually going to walk into your house and take your guns, so really - no harm no foul
The inevitable rise of President-for-Life Barack Obama will soon unleash his Stalinist hordes to ransack the gun cabinets of the nation and ravish Red America's newly disarmed womenfolk (and menfolk too, I guess, since Obama gets the bulk of the gay vote). That seems to be the nightmare keeping gun-rights advocates awake at nights. On Gunbanobama.com, the NRA-ILA warns that "Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history." There's some truth to those warnings. That is, Obama is rather anti-gun. Sure, sure, he says he supports the Second Amendment. But he also endorsed the D.C. ban on handguns. That makes Obama's support for gun rights about as thoroughgoing and enthusiastic as Anthony Comstock's regard for free speech. But that doesn't mean that America will be disarmed under an Obama presidency, even if that's how the hypothetical new chief executive wants to expend his political capital. For starters, law just doesn't matter as much as people think when it comes to how people live their lives.
The inevitable rise of President-for-Life Barack Obama will soon unleash his Stalinist hordes to ransack the gun cabinets of the nation and ravish Red America's newly disarmed womenfolk (and menfolk too, I guess, since Obama gets the bulk of the gay vote). That seems to be the nightmare keeping gun-rights advocates awake at nights. On Gunbanobama.com, the NRA-ILA warns that "Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history."
There's some truth to those warnings. That is, Obama is rather anti-gun. Sure, sure, he says he supports the Second Amendment. But he also endorsed the D.C. ban on handguns. That makes Obama's support for gun rights about as thoroughgoing and enthusiastic as Anthony Comstock's regard for free speech.
But that doesn't mean that America will be disarmed under an Obama presidency, even if that's how the hypothetical new chief executive wants to expend his political capital. For starters, law just doesn't matter as much as people think when it comes to how people live their lives.
J.D goes on to tell how he illegally kept a gun when he was in New York and how there are bajillions of illegal guns anyway (even tosses in statistics on assault rifles as if a large percentage of civilians have easy access to fully automatic weaponry) so there's nothing really to worry about
What this all means is that if Barack Obama is elected the next president of the United States, and if he's fibbing and plans to seize private guns or seriously restrict the ownership of firearms, he's likely to be about as successful at targeting guns as the government has been at eliminating the use of marijuana in this country. He won't succeed because, if you're a gun owner, you almost certainly won't obey. If you're a gun control advocate, Obama-the-banner will ultimately be left standing with his pants around his ankles because his efforts will have about as much effect on your stubbornly armed brother-in-law as Nancy Reagan's just-say-no scolding had on your college dope habit. That's not to say that the law can't do damage. It can impose fines, send people to prison and make Americans increasingly hostile toward the government. I won't minimize the damage to lives that implies. But that's government as usual -- pointless, repressive intrusions into people's lives without actually changing the way people live.
What this all means is that if Barack Obama is elected the next president of the United States, and if he's fibbing and plans to seize private guns or seriously restrict the ownership of firearms, he's likely to be about as successful at targeting guns as the government has been at eliminating the use of marijuana in this country. He won't succeed because, if you're a gun owner, you almost certainly won't obey. If you're a gun control advocate, Obama-the-banner will ultimately be left standing with his pants around his ankles because his efforts will have about as much effect on your stubbornly armed brother-in-law as Nancy Reagan's just-say-no scolding had on your college dope habit.
That's not to say that the law can't do damage. It can impose fines, send people to prison and make Americans increasingly hostile toward the government. I won't minimize the damage to lives that implies.
But that's government as usual -- pointless, repressive intrusions into people's lives without actually changing the way people live.
And that's not how government is supposed to work, nor should we continuously have to decide between two candidates who will abuse us just a little less than the other guy.
J.D.'s biggest mistake is when he says "I won't minimize the damage to lives that implies." and then promptly minimizes it with a "but".
The damage to lives is critical and cannot be shoved aside. Personally, if Obama was perfect on taxes, great on freedom of speech, swore up and down that outside of gun bans he'd have no desire to intrude into our lives, he'd get my vote easier than I'd pull the switch for McCain. However, he's not. He's a statist to the nth degree with delusions of what I can only describe as a Jesus Complex. He talks as if he can just wave his hands and fix the economy, have the world love us so much that the terrorists give up their war against us and the French in Paris start being nice to the tourists, and his shit will fertilize entire country sides with no methane emissions.
The fact is he's not only going to require a lot of our money to attempt half his plan, but he's going to need us to put aside some of our 'rights' to do so. He'll expend political capital on gun bans the same as Clinton did, only this time they've had a few years to polish the turd to such a glistening sheen with phrases such as "common sense gun control" and "what works here not there" that they'll be able to sell it as jewelry.
I, for one, am not going to just pooh-pooh it and call it government as usual. I am not a criminal, and I won't vote for someone who plans on classifying me as one simply because he's afraid of the way my guns look. Civil liberties will take a hit with McGrumpyPantsShitSandwich too, and there are fights there yet to be fought, but to dismiss Obama's holy crusade as not really going to affect gun owners in any appreciable manner is folly.
When they say that handguns are off limits like in Chicago, what other option does my mother have to defend herself? When they make "armor piercing bullets" illegal (practically every center fire cartridge), will I just have to risk going to jail and ruining the lives of my family to keep them safe? One gun a month, intrusive Guilty Before Proven Innocent background checks, making private transactions between individuals illegal (some call that a 'loophole'), etc. They do more harm to us than good.
No, Obama isn't going to send people to take our rifles - that will be a bonus to the cops when they arrest a family member for not voluntarily paying more taxes.