Anti-Gun Writer’s Ideas Trip Over Themselves

A recent article at New Republic shows us that not only are anti-gun arguments rarely fact-based, but that it’s hard to hide the truth: that they want to ban all guns.

The article starts out shoehorning a typical anti-gun post-shooting argument into a new situation. Instead of trying to talk about innocent children, shoppers and such, now it’s former president and present presidential candidate Donald Trump. But, it doesn’t take long for us to figure out that the application to this novel situation is fairly unhinged.

To start, the author gets into the supposed inaccuracy of the AR-15, despite the fact that the shot was taken from around 125 yards. As anyone who knows crap from apple butter would tell you, even a bargain basement AR-15 would readily be able to make that kind of a shot at that limited of a range. We’re not talking about anything that could be considered “sniper” work, nor are we even talking about expert marksmanship. Being well within point-blank range for that round and that target size, all that’s needed is some knowledge of shooting fundamentals, with no knowledge of ballistics needed.

Despite the fact that a “sniper rifle” wasn’t used in the shooting, the author then goes on to say: “Because we live in an insane country, military sniper rifles are marketed to civilians who lack any good reason to own one. Had Crooks been a sophisticated enough killer to get such a weapon, Trump would probably be dead now. Thankfully, Crooks was not, and Trump received only a minor wound to his outer ear.”

At this point, we’ve gone from an argument against a weapon used in the shooting to a weapon not used, which is silly, but more importantly the writer has now tipped his hand while fumbling his arguments. Many in his tribe want us to think that they only want a “reasonable” ban for semi-automatic rifles, but that would still leave us in an “insane country” that still allows people to own bolt-action hunting rifles.

He doesn’t stop there. Pistols (something else they claim to only want to regulate but not ban) are supposedly used in more mass shootings than rifles. This may actually be true, depending on the definition of a mass shooting. But, to get there, it requires including gang violence in mass shootings, which is intellectually dishonest. While not as explicit as the argument against bolt rifles, we’re again seeing that they’d just switch to trying to ban pistols if they got what they wanted with rifles.

The overall point was that, despite this not being a mass shooting in the common sense, the author thinks ARs are more dangerous than the other types of weapons he’s afraid of. The weapon was a poor choice for this shooting, he says, but it’s proven to make for some very deadly shootings. But, the argument trips and stumbles over other types of weapons because the writer would just as soon get rid of them all and does a poor job of trying to hide it.

How would he aim to do this? He thinks Trump should lead the way. If Trump were to turn against guns and demand loyalty from Republicans, he thinks Republicans would blindly follow him so that Biden can pass a ban. Then, he’d like to see Trump lose the election anyway, despite doing what the author wants in this fantastic anti-gun scenario. Again, he wants it all ways all the time.

At the end of the day, articles like this make it clear that the anti-gun crowd isn’t for compromise. The best gun owners can get from them is a promise to be eaten last.