A commenter emailed me the other day about a comment I left over at Ace of Spades regarding the Gunwalker saga. Ace, as is his wont, is loathe to believe that anyone could be truly evil in their intentions. From my reading of his comments, he believes that the ATF went into Fast & Furious with the best of intentions even if they were misguided.
Ace has a point – most people do not go around with the intent of causing the deaths of others. I seriously doubt that anyone in the ATF truly thought “we will force gun sellers along the border to sell to known straw-purchasers so that the guns will be used to kill others!”. Now, it does appear that some of the higher ups were callous with the news of some deaths with comments like “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” but I doubt the deaths were their intent.
This does not, in any shape, form, or fashion, absolve them of their crimes. People who drive while drunk are fully responsible for the lives they take due to their actions, even if it was not their intent.
However, Ace misses a big point that sadly, most non-gunnies miss as well. They operate under the false assumption that the ATF serves a legitimate purpose and that instances like Gunwalker are outliers – this is dangerous thinking.
The ATF, and gun control groups overall, are evil. Yes, real, honest to goodness evil. I truly believe that people like Sarah Brady and Joanne Peterson enter the gun control fray with the purest of intentions but at some point, when they no longer respond to logic and reason and instead focus on persecuting the law abiding, they turn evil.
Much like zombies.
Zombies crave human flesh. They cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be persuaded to consider other food sources, and it doesn’t matter how many charts, statistics, or volumes of facts you can show them to illustrate the error of their ways, they’re going to try to eat your brains. They’ve become so infected with a singular line of thought that their humanity is erased. And because of this, you put them down.
Anti-gunners operate on the same principle. At some point, they believed that by restricting access to firearms across the board that violence would be reduced. While you and I know this to be patently false, it is an honorable position to take if you are unaware of the facts. I mean, who doesn’t want to lower violence? The problem starts when they become so obsessed with their goal that facts and logic become hindrances to them. When they can look at reason and dismiss it, they’ve become evil. Their actions turn zombie like.
I do not fight for gun rights because I like shooting guns. 8 years ago or so, I was pretty much like most of the population. I owned a gun or two, but had no strong feelings about them. Heck, the Robb from 8 years ago would have probably agreed that the ATF was necessary. Today, I fight because I saw the facts, saw the truth, and realized the zombie-hordes of gun controllers for what they were. When gun sales go up, crime does not increase proportionately. The gun on my hip does not force me to commit murder over a parking space. And more importantly, criminals do not follow the law so no matter how many of them you put in place, it will do nothing to slow them down.
The ATF fits into the zombie paradigm because the agents surely joined believing that they were doing something right. I don’t believe the SWAT team that killed José Gerena took the job thinking it was a great way to kill with impunity. I also believe that most gun-banners begin their journey honestly believing what they’re pushing for is right. However, at some point when they were wiping the blood of their jackboots, they either had to realize what they were doing was immoral or they lost the ability to be able to determine the difference between right and wrong. And regardless of their intentions, at that point they’re nothing more than mindless zombies.
I’m going to stop here because the analogy breaks down. Zombies are solved by a bullet to the brain pan and that is NOT what I’m suggesting be done. Zombies aren’t real, anti-gunners, ATF agents, and cops are. The true-believers amongst those groups cannot be reasoned with, but the Ace’s of the world can be. And when enough people see them for the monsters they are, we can neutralize their ability to cause harm. This is the fight we face.