Karen Lee Torre
I paraphrase one of Justice Clarence Thomas's best lines, a most devastating rebuke of the largely white liberal/lawyer/judicial class whose pretensions and pontifications about racial preferences conceal what is in actuality soft racism.
Concurring in his court's invalidation of race-based assignments of kids to public schools (for the good of the kids), Justice Thomas took aim at Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent in Parents Involved in Comm. Schools v. Seattle, a patronizing racial screed if ever there was one. Justice Thomas closed with this now legendary warning: "Beware of elites bearing race theories."
And so it is with gun control and the Second Amendment. Ostensibly for the good of the kids, the same pretense, feigns, ulterior agendas, hypocrisies, and shameful demagoguery of anti-gun ideologues are not only on full display right now, but on steroids. These people don't care about "the kids." They are not aiming to protect children. If they were, they would not have vilified and ridiculed the National Rifle Association for its sensible demand for armed officers in the public schools, while attempting (unsuccessfully) to conceal the fact that their kids enjoy the protection of armed guards at their tony, private schools.
The anti-gun, Second Amendment-hating crowd is almost entirely populated by statists. With few exceptions, statists' decades-long efforts to disarm the American populace consistently failed to overcome political opposition. Chicago succeeded when it enacted a complete ban on handgun ownership — and consequently became the least safe place to live in the world. The "gun-free zone" of Chicago became the gun violence capital of the nation, because it made its law-abiding citizens sitting ducks. Criminals and crazies, who do not obey laws, were handed a governmental gift — a defenseless citizenry to terrorize.
It was so like liberals to similarly designate their local public schools as "gun-free zones," with signs tacked up. How progressive — and how very stupid. To the Adam Lanzas of society, that is a "come here" sign. It's about as dumb as the "drug-free zone" signs at schools. The only one who reaped a benefit from that initiative is the guy who sold them the signs (and he probably muttered "suckers" when he cashed the checks).
I am not as worried as others about the threats to Second Amendment rights by those exploiting the Newtown incident. Over the past month, I've seen mounting evidence that the public remains sensible and firm no matter how much rhetoric and mawkish grandstanding is going on. The NRA is powerful, and it should be. It speaks for millions of members serious about their rights. Polling shows the public isn't being moved by the hysterical anti-gun statists, and has the brains to overlook the rhetoric and stick to the facts and common sense.
Sensing that statists and liberals would exploit Newtown, some 8,000 people a day joined the NRA in the weeks after the incident. Already 4 million strong, the NRA just got a quarter of a million new dues-paying members in less than one month. There has been such a public run on weapons, clips and ammunition that stores could not re-fill inventory fast enough. This development alone renders largely ineffective any future banning of such items. There are so many millions of them out there, another Newtown tragedy is bound to occur no matter what future legislation holds. What are you really going to do to protect these kids?
None of President Barack Obama's announced measures will do a damn thing. Not a single one of his executive orders, if fully implemented before December 2012, would have prevented the Newtown incident, or even mitigated the extent of the carnage. He is wasting half a billion dollars on useless academic "research" on gun violence that will go on for years while kids remain sitting ducks in the public schools. Maintaining schools as "gun-free zones" (that is "open season on kids" status) is not only just inane in the wake of Newtown but amounts to criminal negligence on the part of public officials.
How can these people justify armed guards to protect money in a bank, or a bevy of idle guards in a federal building to protect two judges and a bunch of Social Security and Internal Revenue Service agents (who are not even at real risk), and then pretend to be horrified at the NRA's proposal to give little kids — who are big targets — the same protection?
I am delighted that the NRA has come out fearless and fighting. As they so often do, the liberals reveal their hypocrisy with their private choices. NBC's David Gregory mocked the NRA's proposal. He got outed — his kids attend a private school protected by armed guards. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel also got outed — his kids go to a private school protected by armed officers. The evil liberal newspaper editors who published the names of gun owners suffered such a fierce public backlash, they hired armed guards to protect them. The NRA will continue to out these frauds.
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