American gun owners are beginning to respond with a fresh, powerful argument when facing anti-gun liberals. Here it is, in its entirety. Ready? “Screw you.” That’s it. Except the first word isn’t “Screw.”
It’s not exactly a traditional argument, but it’s certainly appropriate here. The fact is that there is no point in arguing with liberal gun-control advocates because their argument is never in good faith. They slander gun owners as murderers. They lie about their ultimate aim, which is to ban and confiscate all privately owned weapons. And they adopt a pose of reasonability, yet their position is not susceptible to change because of evidence, facts or law. None of those matter – they already have their conclusion. This has to do with power – their power.
You can’t argue with someone who is lying about his position or whose position is not based upon reason. You can talk all day about how crime has diminished where concealed carry is allowed, while it flourishes in Democrat blue cities where gun control is tightest. You can point to statistics showing that law-abiding citizens who carry legally are exponentially less likely to commit gun crimes than other people. You can cite examples of armed citizens protecting themselves and their communities with guns. You can offer government statistics showing how the typical American is at many times greater risk of death from an automobile crash, a fall, or poisoning than from murder by gun.
But none of that matters, because this debate is not about facts. It’s about power. The liberal anti-gun narrative is not aimed at creating the best public policy but at disarming citizens the liberal elite looks down upon – and for whom weapons represent their last-ditch ability to respond to liberal overreach.
Put simply, liberal elitists don’t like the fact that, at the end of the day, an armed citizenry can tell them, “No.”
So they argue in bad faith, shamelessly lying, libeling their opponents, and hiding their real endgame. Sure, sometimes the mask slips and a liberal politician like Mike Bloomberg or Diane Feinstein reveals their true agenda, but mostly they stay on-message.
For example, Barack Obama, who always tries to reassure us bitter clingers that he doesn’t want to take our guns, speaks longingly about the Australian plan – which was confiscation of most viable defensive weapons from the civilian population.
Obama is lying – about gay marriage, about your doctor – and he is likewise lying about guns. The minute he could disarm every American civilian he would, something particularly alarming in light of his pal Bill Ayers’ infamous observation that ‘fundamentally transforming’ America would require killing at least 25 million citizens.
No wonder free Americans are done pretending the gun argument is a rational debate and are responding with an extended middle finger – and the challenge to come and take their arms. The fact remains that any outright attempt to take the arms from tens of millions of American gun owners would almost certainly result in a second Civil War. And we all know how the first Civil War went for the Democrats.
So, through a campaign of shaming, dissembling, and outright slander, liberals are trying to talk Americans into giving up their weapons voluntarily. There’s always another “common sense” restriction to enact, spurred on by a tragedy that the last “common sense” restriction didn’t prevent and that the proposed new “common sense” restriction would not have prevented. They want to do it in baby steps, and with our cooperation, since they cannot do it by force.
There are a few people arguing in good faith, but it’s too late. Liberal writer Kurt Eichenwald recently wrote a “compromise” proposal to settle the gun issue that was notable because he actually analyzed gun freedom arguments and agreed with some of them. He cited the silliness of the “assault weapons” and “cop killer” bullet lies. While he still rejects 30 round capacity magazines, he began with opposition to silencers and then, after hearing facts and evidence from knowledgeable gun owners, changed his position. That’s good faith, the threshold requirement for a real debate, but Eichenwald mistakenly assumes this is a debate based upon reason between good faith opponents. It’s not. It’s based upon the desire of liberals for total supremacy.
So until the gun control argument becomes a real argument instead of a transparent power grab, there’s only one appropriate response to liberal gun banners. And it’s similar to “Screw you.”
Kurt Schlichter is a trial lawyer in Los Angeles, California. A retired U.S. Army infantry colonel, he is the author of Conservative Insurgency: The Struggle to Take America Back 2009-2041.