America’s front-page fight over gun rights versus gun prohibition could be tumbling foolishly toward a revolution, if one were to believe respected long time conservative commentator and one-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
His remarks may be either cautionary or cockamamie; you be the judge. With so much talk right now about gun control and outright bans, and resistance growing by the hour as could be seen by the reported rush on Oregon gun permits, one might think the nation is rushing toward "Arms-ageddon."
Buchanan, speaking on “The McLaughlin Group” over the weekend, suggested rather forcefully that if gun prohibitionists don’t back off in their efforts to pass sweeping new gun restrictions, there could be a revolution. Host and moderator John McLaughlin thought the notion to be nonsense, but Buchanan did not back down. Here’s the exchange, as transcribed by The Daily Caller:
MCLAUGHLIN: With no Second Amendment, Congress could pass a law, as limited as this: banning assault rifles or as sweeping as prohibiting all private firearm ownership and requiring the surrender of all privately held firearms.
BUCHANAN: There would be a revolution in this country!
MCLAUGHLIN: Baloney! That doesn’t mean you can’t own one, but you have to put it in first and then go try —
BUCHANAN: There are 270 million guns in this country right now, John, and they’re adding to them at a rate of 16 million a year.
Anti-gun elitists have traditionally portrayed firearms owners, and especially gun rights activists, as a bunch of paranoid right wingers, yet one could justifiably argue at this point that the concerns and fears of the firearms community are coming true. It’s not paranoia when Feinstein and the president are actually talking about gun bans, national databases and the like.
A look at some of the various gun rights blogs and forums over the weekend might suggest that Buchanan was not just blustering. Many in the gun rights community, including some readers of this column, have been raising the “Come and get them!” challenge in the wake of revelations last week and over the weekend about gun ban proposals from the Obama administration and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
In Illinois over the weekend, Chicago anti-gun lawmakers pulled back on their attempt to push a pair of Draconian gun measures through the legislature in its final hours. It was a victory for the Illinois State Rifle Association and its grassroots effort last week, but it may be short-lived. A new legislature convenes this week, and one can expect a new effort to ban guns in the Prairie State.
Some people in the firearms community are convinced that Congress will eventually do nothing, a position that highly-respected broadcaster Tom Gresham considers wishful thinking at best. In a telephone conference call the other day, he warned that Congress is going to “do something” and is not going to “do nothing.”
Gresham did an opinion piece over the weekend about gun control’s history of failure. Another round of gun legislation, he suggested, is unlikely to reverse the pattern.
One thing should be kept in perspective, and it is not clear the gun banners have thought this through. The United States is quite possibly the heaviest-armed free country on the planet. Nothing brings gun owners out of lethargy faster than a frontal attack on their civil rights.
While there are certainly Obama voters in the firearms community – many of them were apologists during the recent campaign season and may have to admit their self-delusions now that the president is playing his gun control hand – most of them will not sit idly by while Obama threatens to criminalize their property and invade their privacy.
This column will talk more about that later in the day.
Suggested reading:
Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns
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