If you’re a gun owner who worries that gun control today could make tyranny easier to impose tomorrow, I get that, and if you worry about federal excesses generally, I have no argument with you.
I think law-abiding Americans should always be allowed to own guns.
But if you’re a conservative gun owner who worries that gun control today could make tyranny easier to impose tomorrow, and you support warrantless spying, indefinite detention, and secret drone strikes on Americans accused of terrorism, what explains your seeming schizophrenia?
Think of it this way.
If you were a malign leader intent on imposing tyranny, what would you find more useful, banning high-capacity magazines… or a vast archive of the bank records, phone calls, texts and emails of millions of citizens that you could access in secret? Would you, as a malign leader, feel more empowered by a background check requirement on gun purchases… or the ability to legally kill anyone in secret on your say so alone? The powers the Republican Party has given to the presidency since 9/11 would obviously enable far more grave abuses in the hands of a would be tyrant than any gun control legislation with even a miniscule chance of passing Congress. So why are so many liberty-invoking 2nd Amendment absolutists reliable Republican voters, as if the GOP’s stance on that issue somehow makes up for its shortcomings? And why do they so seldom speak up about threats to the Bill of Rights that don’t involve guns?
I don’t think any regular on this forum supports warrentless wiretaps on Americans, drone strikes on Americans, indefinite detention of Americans or anything of the kind. In fact, I think the lower case ‘l’ libertarian leanings of many of us mean we are supportive of civil rights for homosexuals and the legalization of marijuana. I’d say we are generally opposed to national boondoggles like No Child Left Behind, the federal war on drugs and national laws regarding marriage. The 2nd Amendment codifies just one of the many freedoms and individual liberties we support.
The author does raise some very good questions regarding conservatives in general, but I think Revoistas can easily respond to his criticism with intellectual honesty and without hypocrisy. We support individual liberty for those who share our values and for those who don’t. We expect the same support in return but, as it turns out, seldom get it. Liberals are as guilty of individual liberty cherry picking as are conservatives.
Why do so many liberals who claim to support individual liberty and civil rights ignore the clear language of the 2nd Amendment. Why do so many want to control what we eat and how we live? Why do they support liberty crushing initiatives like Obamacare and laws forcing people of faith to pay for abortions? Why do they support confiscatory taxation and all manner of restrictions on private property? Why do liberals insist that laws appropriate for Connecticut be applied to Alaska and Wyoming? There is no end to the hypocrisy of liberals’ supposed support for liberty.
It is obvious that conservatives aren’t alone in their hypocrisy when it comes to individual liberty. Liberals do the exact same thing. Here at the Real Revo, however, we actually do stand for individual liberty. We live it.