Leave it to the Washington Post to avoid hard truths about violent crime and the uselessness of supposed “gun control” while insulting people who use logic and facts to support the fundamental right to self-defense.
In a far-too lengthy piece initially given the mocking title, “These California Agents Are Coming for Your Guns” when it was published on February 24, then changed to the less insulting, “California Agents Are on The Hunt for Targeted Guns” late on the 25th, Post writer Scott Wilson spends lots of time focusing on the heroic agents of the state engaged in a patently unconstitutional practice of disarming certain segments of the California population. These, of course, are partially comprised of felons and people whom the state deems “mentally ill”.
See how that ties in to the recent Florida school massacre and the popular criticism leveled at President Trump for what collectivists say was his move to reverse a “courageous”, “sensible” move by his holiness Barack Obama to “stop” thousands of people deemed mentally ill from possessing firearms?
Of course, leftists rarely, if ever, mentioned that Trump’s move simply reversed a clearly unconstitutional “rule change” by Obama that prohibited lawfully-minded Americans never convicted of any crimes from legally possessing firearms. This great swath of the populace included many military vets and elderly people who were no longer able to handle their own social security payments – folks who might be particularly vulnerable to violent attacks and break-ins.
And, as Scott Schackford wrote for Reason two weeks ago, both the NRA and ACLU opposed Obama’s actions for circumventing clear protections afforded by both the Second Amendment and the Sixth. No arrests for criminal activity needed. No trials in front of juries. Just prohibition.
Leftists who mock others for applauding Trump’s move, who try to portray the revocation of the Obama rule as a reckless attack on civilized society, had better open their eyes to what civil treatment of one’s neighbor really means.
It means not threatening someone merely for possessing an item. It means not gassing up the machine of the state to go after others who have never done anyone any harm.
Based on the behavior of the Washington Post, and author Wilson, they have little interest in this kind of civil behavior. Instead, they offered readers this:
A dozen years ago, the state set up a database that flags law enforcement officials when a registered gun owner is convicted of a felony, deemed mentally ill, has received a restraining order or committed one of about 37 qualifying misdemeanors.
Allow the state to define “mentally ill” in association with claiming the power to disarm you? Strangely, the ACLU wasn’t too fond of the idea.
As Shackford wrote about Trump’s revocation of the Obama rule:
This is a regulation that potentially deprived between 75,000 to 80,000 people of a right based not on what they had done but on the basis of being classified by the government in a certain way. The fact that these people may have these impairments did not inherently mean that they were dangerous to themselves or others and needed to be kept away from guns.
But California is essentially engaging in this insidious unconstitutional activity on its own -- something the Post seems to really, really like. No felony convictions. No crimes in any way.
And what of those who have “one of about 37 qualifying misdemeanors?”
That would include people busted for misdemeanor “hate crimes” like spray-painting. It also includes “drawing or exhibiting, selling, manufacturing, or distributing firearm replicas or imitations.” Not even real guns. If you distribute what the state says is an “imitation gun” without legal permission, you can’t own a real firearm. And if you are a firearm dealer and you sell to someone under 21 in CA, your right to own a firearm is nullified by the politicians as well. Forget that the militia during the American Revolution included all free males at least five years younger than 21. Forget the wording of the Second Amendment…
And the list goes on and on…
And what of the felons? Surely we can agree that the government of CA is doing a good thing getting cops to go after released felons who might acquire firearms, right?
Here is a major flaw not only in California jurisprudence, but also in most US law and the way in which states and the feds manage their prisons. If a felon serves his or her time and is deemed safe enough to return to society, isn’t he or she safe enough to exercise the right to keep a firearm? And if that person is not safe enough to own a gun, why does the state release the prisoner?
Hey, perhaps the Post editors want to make people feel good by pretending California is “doing the right thing” regardless of the breaches of principle. To whit, they offer us this senseless statement:
The list is known as the Armed Prohibited Persons System, and while it has failed to prevent mass shootings in San Bernardino, Isla Vista and other cities in the state, it has taken tens of thousands of guns out of the hands of people prohibited from having them.
Really?
And did the Post follow-up to find out if the people who had guns taken away simply got more guns on the black market?
Evidently, the expensive program hasn’t stopped criminal gangs from increasing their rates of violent crime in California, nor has the heroic work of the CA politicians to breach the Constitution stopped overall violent crime from rising in the state each year since 2013.
Funny, the Post article never mentioned this reality. At all.
The Post seems more interested in fiction. Fiction that misleads people, gives them false feelings of safety even as their rights are abrogated, and mocks those who, like us, would have the temerity to point it out.