Conversion of a Gun Control Believer in Washington State

It has been clear for decades that those who wish to restore Second Amendment rights have the facts on their side. Note this comment by NOFAN in Crosscut, an apparently left-leaning publication in Washington State. What is obvious is something that I have observed repeatedly: If an honest person looks at the facts about "gun control" they either become neutral or pro-Second Amendment.

A person cannot be anti-Second Amendment, informed, and honest, all at the same time, unless they become an honest totalitarian, which is self-defeating and therefore, inconsequential. Of course, as George Orwell noted, statists are particularly good at self deception. NOFAN has clearly become informed. Bold added for emphasis. From the Crosscut comments:

There isn't a single reason that gun control fails. There are several reasons. Most of them can be laid at the doorstep of Ceasefire and similar organizations.

1. Failure to recognize legal reality, i.e. the Heller decision that ruled that the second amendment to the U.S. constitution recognizes a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms, and to use them for self-defense.

2. Failure to recognize the reality that there are hundreds of millions of guns in private hands. The gun control lobby's routine portrayals of gun owners as drooling psychotics and of hunters as backwoods rednecks aren't merely insulting, but are manifestly absurd and ridiculous to tens of millions of Americans, many of whom vote.

3. Gross misrepresentation of basic realities regarding guns, i.e., the common blurring of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. It's obvious, often laughably so, that groups like Ceasefire are so phobic about firearms that they haven't bothered to do even basic research. It's hard to trust, or defend, people who are willfully ignorant, and who actually parade their ignorance as some sort of virtue.

4. Refusal to discuss details of their proposals. For example, Ceasefire and other control groups want "expanded" and "universal" background checks, but they utterly refuse to discuss any of the details of those proposals, such as the standards for inclusion in a database of banned persons, or appeal procedures.

5. Rampant bad faith. In Washington State, gun control proponents have recently tried to eviscerate the right of armed self-defense by tearing the guts out of the definition of justifiable homicide, and proposed a measure that would have authorized warrantless searches of gun owners' homes.

I'm no fan of the National Rifle Association, particularly their appeals to far-right-wing paranoia. But the gun control lobby's conduct in the wake of the Connecticut massacre has been every last bit as shameful as the statements of Wayne LaPierre. Ceasefire wants to limit the exercise of a constitutional right. The burden of proof is on them to justify this expansion of government power, and thus far they have done the same sort of miserable job that characterizes other "progressive" actions in city and state government.

Ralph Fascitelli, until you face up to the inexcusable failures on the part of your lobby, you can talk to yourselves and your own allies until you're out of breath, but you will lose the argument. And you will deserve to. For decades I have been a strong proponent of gun control, but after Connecticut I look(sic) a close and unbiased look at the issue, and I now find myself in the completely unexpected position of having moved significantly away from the gun control camp.

The usual "progressives" will hoot over this, but look at the polls, and you will see that the gun control lobby has been losing ground in recent months. Instead of being self-righteous about how stupid the public is and how horrible the NRA is, maybe it's time to take a good, long, hard, and honest look at yourselves, Ralph.

Note how well NOFAN has nailed the tactics of those who push for citizen disarmament. NOFAN calls them failures, but they are features to those who push for disarmament. They are integral to the effort to eviscerate the Second Amendment.

To become completely enlightened on the subject, NOFAN need only take one, small, step: realize that what he describes as failures and reasons for failure are the meat, bone, and guts of the entire construct. Subtract those "failures" and they have nothing left.

Link: Comment near the bottom of the articles comments section.

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