GIFFORD: Gun-grabbers blowing smoke It’s about confiscation

If no serious crisis is to be wasted as a chance to sneak laws onto the books that fail the rational reflection test, all “gun control” proposals hastily put forward after the Connecticut elementary school slaughter by a mentally disturbed young man should be seen for what they actually are. They are gradual steps toward the confiscation of firearms from private hands, the “Holy Grail” of “gun control” activism.

Should that assessment seem overly distrustful of legislator and anti-gun activist bloviation about reducing gun violence and preventing mass shootings “from ever happening again” (mass shootings will happen again no matter what laws are passed), conservative Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer must have surprised many fans in 1996 when he articulated and justified the gun free society case for confiscation in his Washington Post column while the Clinton administration’s law banning “assault weapons” was up for repeal.

“[E]ven a cynic must marvel at the all-round phoniness of the debate over repeal of the assault weapons ban. … The claim of the advocates that banning these 19 types of ‘assault weapons’ will reduce the crime rate is laughable. … In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents dare not enunciate. I am not up for reelection. So let me elaborate the real logic of the ban. … Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. … Yes, Sarah Brady is doing God’s work. Yes, in the end America must follow the way of other democracies and disarm.”

Whether you agree or disagree that Mr. Krauthammer’s statist confiscation goal is a desirable objective, it is the actual goal of those seeking to sacrifice the Second Amendment for a phony notion of public safety. This means the Second Amendment needs to be gutted on the same public altar for all to see, and candidly discussed, even if most of our First Amendment-protected media refuses to do so.

More Here