President Biden has had it with cars – often used to mow people down. And each incident lately involved a gas car. Accordingly, he plans to make America Safe Again by banning all gas cars.
Actually, none of that is true, but darn close. After the recent Walmart shooting, with a legally purchased handgun – 85 percent of which are semi-automatic – the president is ready to ban all semi-automatics.
Specifically, he stated: “The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick, just sick. It has no socially redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”
To hear this level of ignorance from some unhinged, uninformed, oddball, anti-American, or perhaps to discover China’s information warfare contains the statement, would be unsurprising, predictable. To hear it from a sitting president, is breathtaking – absurd, ignorant, sobering.
What is a semi-automatic? How many are there? Let’s get real. A semi-automatic is nothing more than a gun that reloads, one shot at a time, one trigger-pull at a time, has since 1800s. It does not keep firing by depressing the trigger.
In practical terms, it is the most common gun – sidearms and long arms, hunting rifles and shotguns, standard nine millimeter for civilians, military, and law enforcement, and .380 often carried by women for protection.
On the numbers, in case you wondered, the majority of states allow concealed or open carry, and crime tends to be lower where they do.
Roughly 423 million firearms are owned by Americans, used daily to protect, deter, and save lives. Of that number, 20 million sporting rifles are semiautomatic, 50 million pistols.
Having said that, these are rough numbers since many shotguns, guns handed from generation to generation, and those uncounted are semi-automatic; my shotgun is. Moreover, weapons used for personal protection must allow multiple shots by a defender, as handguns are less accurate.
At a minimum, with insecurity, crime, homicides, distrust, and legal gun ownership – especially among women and minorities – rising, we have roughly one semi-automatic weapon for every five citizens. We are rebuilding an armed citizenry, last well informed in the 1970s. At that time, every Boy Scout knew firearms back then.
Like learning how to drive a car properly, use brakes, accelerator, manage turns, shift, change a tire, what not to do, what to do – those who learn never forget. And they tend to respect the car.
Of course, the 2nd Amendment is also clear. We all have a right to “keep and bear arms.” Is responsible use expected? Of course. Is it teachable? Of course. Should it be taught, when knowledge and possession often deter crime? Yes, it should.
But now comes a president who – each day – veers further off course, ready to defy our Constitution, history, Supreme Court rulings, and common sense – and deny self-protection.
To be clear, semi-automatic weapons are one reason people feel safer, not at the mercy of illegally armed criminals or an increasingly overbearing State. Tens of millions safely use semiautomatic sidearms and long arms each year for protection, target shooting, hunting.
This has been true for more than a century, one reason Americans remain free. We have never allowed a government to take basic rights – including self-defense – secured by the Constitution.
To hear a president of the United States, already slapped by the Supreme Court for exceeding constitutional authority on everything from giving away money to blocking worship, federalizing education to chilling speech – now try to take away gun ownership – is absurd, and scary.
What we have is a combination of senility, fragility, spleen, demagoguery, and leftist manipulation – a chief executive willing to say anything, attempt anything, push facially unconstitutional acts, because he thinks he can, and those around him see a mouthpiece.
What is required? Just this: Say “no” to unconstitutional overreach, understand the law and that we give the law its life, or lose what it protects. Some think it can never happen – but it could.
We must speak up, use laws, letters, voice, and values – even between elections – to make clear “We, The People” have God-given rights and expectations. We are sovereign, define the nation.
We are the ones for whom the Constitution was written, not overlords. Those elected must listen – to those who put them there. Americans do not report to an autocrat, let alone socialist or leftist cabal, even one that thinks their job is to end our rights.
So, when next we hear Mr. Biden declaring in his kingly way that he wants to ban something else, again subvert the Constitution, think again. That is not how America works, and not likely.