3 Gun Myths That Could Destroy Hillary’s Chances in November
Hillary Clinton is in trouble because she is an emotionless robot who the American people don’t like or trust.
Yet the many scandals and the fact that the out-of-touch Clintons act like American royalty are not the primary reasons why she may lose this fall. She might lose this fall because Democrats have made a huge miscalculation on the Second Amendment.
Last night, speaker after speaker at the Democratic National Convention called for more gun control.
Former NASA Astronaut, Captain Mark Kelly, argued “Hillary knows that we save lives by doing more to keep guns out of the wrong hands.” Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn. (F, 8%) bellowed, “Outrage that the gun lobby fights to keep open glaring loopholes that 90 percent of Americans want closed. Outrage that a suspected terrorist can walk into a store and walk out with a military-style, semi-automatic rifle.” Former Philadelphia and D.C. Chief of Police Charles Ramsey said “Hillary Clinton is the strong leader to protect our cops and communities from gun violence.”
It was heartbreaking to see victims of gun violence, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, paraded out to discuss their personal tragedies. These emotional speeches invoke sorrow and passion from all of us, and they should. But anyone wishing to have an intellectual discussion about gun laws has to look at the underlying rhetoric pushing stricter gun laws. After the curtain is pulled back and the speeches are over, the Left’s ongoing effort to chip away at the Second Amendment is exposed in plain sight.
Last night exposed three myths that Democrats are trying to sell the public about gun control.
Myth 1: Gun Control is Good Politics
This couldn’t be further from the truth – gun control is bad politics.
The New York Times reports that “After Years of Setbacks, Democrats Again See Gun Control as a Winning Issue, July 27, 2016.
After treating gun control as political poison for two decades, Democrats led by Hillary Clinton are again vigorously championing new gun restrictions as a central element of their campaigns.
The Times cited what happened the last time Democrats ventured down this path.
It is a pronounced shift. Stung by the loss of the House in 1994 after they enacted an assault rifle ban, and wary of the proven influence of the National Rifle Association, many Democrats have shied away from gun control proposals for fear of provoking an electoral backlash with little to show for it. Democrats couldn’t race away from a discussion of gun laws fast enough.
Fast forward to Al Gore’s run for the presidency in 2000. A piece published by the New Republic on January 29, 2001, told a story that sounds remarkably familiar to the situation we see today. “If you were a gun-control supporter last spring, life was sweet. Al Gore and Bill Bradley were climbing over each other trying to prove their devotion to the issue.”
Then after the election …
Yet talk to Democratic politicians about gun control these days and what’s palpable is the silence. Not long after the election, The Washington Post reported that “several lawmakers suggested that party leaders may be better off playing down their support for gun-control legislation,” a sentiment echoed two days later in The New York Times. Conservative Democrats like Marion Berry of Arkansas confide that “[Dick] Gephardt has said [the leadership] is not going to whip us on [gun control] anymore.” And even a reliable liberal like Barney Frank advises that there’s not “going to be a major push on this [issue].”
America has not changed that much on gun issues.
Myth 2: Polling Indicates that Voters want Gun Control
Polling may indicate that Americans in general support gun control, but that is not necessarily true of Americans who vote, and that number masks the fact that pro-Second Amendment voters bring passion and activism that is missed in polling data.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll recently indicated that 51% of Americans support a ban on so-called assault weapons, and 48% oppose. When asked if people support the idea of individuals being able to carry guns for self-defense, the numbers were 54% support and 42% oppose. The poll numbers are overwhelming, the American people support individuals on the FBI watch list from being banned from getting guns, yet the Bill of Right forbids this.
While the American people may marginally favor gun control, time after time, voters have punished gun-grabbing politicians. What’s more, the voters motivated to protect the Second Amendment are far more likely to vote, make calls, knock on doors and work to get pro-gun candidates elected.
Myth 3: Violence in America is Caused by Access to Guns
“Guns don’t kill, people do.” It’s a phrase we’ve all heard before but it’s worth repeating because it’s true. And the truth is, it’s factually untrue to claim that guns are the source of all violence.
During his run for President, following the shooting of two Virginia TV news employees in 2015, Sen. Marco Rubio argued that society has so devalued life and this in itself is a bigger cause of death than the existence of guns. He’s right.
What law in the world could have prevented him (the perpetrator of the Virginia shooting of a TV news crew) from killing them, whether it was with a gun or a knife or a bomb. What has happened to us as a society that we now devalue life to such a level? What has happened in our society that people have become so violent? That’s the fundamental question we need to confront.
I have written about this culture of death in the past, arguing that violence in video games, movies and culture in general, has led to a devaluation of life. Society has devalued life and that devaluation makes it easier for some people to take life away.
The Left would never dare to speak of one potential cause. Movies glorifying mass murder, or video games where a kid can engage in serial murder, have proven to be motivating factors for mass murderers of the past. The Left would argue that these forms of entertainment are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, yet, a law abiding citizen who wants to own an automatic firearm or an individual who was falsely placed on a government list of prohibited persons, are not protected by those same Bill of Rights.
As history has proven, Americans aren’t ready to throw away any part of the Second Amendment any time soon. Even if she is successful at continues at perpetuating these myths, Hillary Clinton may be going down the path of Al Gore and the many House Democrats who lost jobs over the President Bill Clinton-passed gun ban in the mid-1990s. (For more from the author of “3 Gun Myths That Could Destroy Hillary’s Chances in November” please click HERE)
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