Dishonesty, Stupidity, Insults, and Other Problems with the Gun Control Debate

Indeed, the arguments being mounted in favor of gun control are so terrible every way you look at them that assuming the people making them are being honest or rationally motivated seems to be a major mistake. Here’s stab at a of taxonomy of the problems:

Pure Demagoguery

The president, and many other national Democratic leaders, are uniting behind a proposal to prevent people who are on the “no fly” list from buying guns. This is nonstarter. It’s not going to happen. Democrats aren’t serious about passing it at all. It’s a measure being put out there so that they can claim they are proposing a solution (never mind that it is a ridiculous solution!) and then demagogue the fact that Republicans oppose it. And it’s an overt attempt to connect the recent terror attack in San Bernardino to the issue of gun control using a very thin reed, rather than talk about the problems with our immigration system or other issues more relevant to that particular attack.

For all of the federal strictures surrounding the no-fly list, it’s little more than an arbitrary list of people that the government deems suspicious for any number of reasons. Senator Ted Kennedy ended up on it once. The size of and criteria for the list vary wildly. In 2011, 10,000 people were on the list. In 2013, that number was 47,000. While the no fly list can be defended as a practical approach to a complex problem where we have little margin for error, it’s impossible to argue that the list, and who’s on it, isn’t capricious to a large degree. Further, there’s almost no due process for those who end up on the list and want off of it. The idea that anyone is going to be denied a clearly enumerated constitutional right based on the suspicion of federal bureaucrats is brazenly illegal.

Your choices here are believing that Democrats are being utterly disingenuous about this proposal or have gone full totalitarian. Maybe the answer is a little of both. But since Obama spent the weeks leading up to this attack talking about how ISIS is contained, and shaming those who think the government won’t do a good job screening the thousands of Syrian refugees he insists on America taking in, this attack blows big holes in his credibility. In the short-term, the White House and Democrats want a distraction. Talking about a no fly list is that distraction, and enough Americans are ignorant enough it just might work—especially since the media are, as always, helping with the Democratic communication strategy. The New York Times headline Monday was, “Push for Gun Curbs Tied to No-Fly List Puts Republicans on the Spot.”

If you’re completely ignorant of what the no fly list is, how it works, or how many people are on it for no other reason than a overabundance of caution, this proposal could sound reasonable. Even one of Obama’s former top economic advisers, Gene Sperling, seems to think it’s outrageous this proposal hasn’t been adopted:

Then again, I suspect the ignorance of Obama’s economic advisers extends to a lot of things besides terror watch lists and guns.

It’s the Inconsistency, Stupid

Here is the New York Times editorial board from April of last year, “Terror Watch Lists Run Amok“:

Now here’s the New York Times editorial board from last Friday:

So, last year using the terror watch list to deprive people of their rights was bad, because thousands of people are on the list who don’t deserve to be. This year, Republicans are endangering public safety because they are defending the due process rights of the people stuck on the list. Go figure.

They’re Just Lying

Since the Sandy Hook attacks, gun control advocates have been trying to pass new laws. For a couple of years now, they have been trying to gain ground by convincing gun owners, as well as more conservative and rural politicians, that they just wanted common sense regulation and they had no hidden anti-gun agenda. For this reason, they abandoned the gun control label and have rebranded themselves as “gun safety” advocates. Indeed, Obama said “gun safety” in his speech Sunday night. Barely a month ago, Obama told the International Association of Chiefs of Police “please do not believe this notion that somehow I’m out to take everyone’s guns away.”

Many gun owners have been deeply suspicious of this frame, and for good reason. The New York Times spelled it out in their ballyhooed front page editorial on Saturday:

Well, so much for that “we don’t want to take your guns” talking point. It was always dishonest. Even as Obama has explicitly assured bitter clingers that he’s not coming for their guns, he has repeatedly cited Australia as a model for gun laws in America. In Australia, they had a mandatory gun “buyback,” i.e. they confiscated people’s guns. Back in August, the Times’s Nick Kristof managed to shoehorn the contradiction here into a single column:

Then seven paragraphs later, Kristof writes this:

By completely eliding over the fact that Australia’s “tougher firearm restrictions” were, in fact, a “modern prohibition” Kristof is either dishonest or ignorant. But we don’t need to parse things here. Gun control advocates want to confiscate the guns of law abiding Americans. Their intentions were always obvious, and now the Times is finally being honest about it.

It’s the Stupidity, Stupid

Every time the subject of guns comes up, gun owners find themselves being demonized and lectured by various people who don’t know a damn thing about guns, how they work, and how they may or may not be dangerous. A good example is in the tweet above, where Gene Sperling frets about terrorists buying “automatic” weapons. Guns are not exactly unregulated; far from it. Legally owning an automatic weapon, let alone just walking into a gun store and purchasing one, is nigh impossible. (Technically, you can own one, but the mountains of red tape and small fortune required make it extremely prohibitive for almost anyone, let alone terrorists.) On Friday, Rep. Loretta Sanchez fretted that “multi-automatic round weapons are easily available,” which sounds like some kind of firearm Mad Libs. On Monday, AP’s legal correspondent wrote the following, about the Supreme Court declining to take up a challenge to regional gun laws:

No state or city in America bans semi-automatic weapons. (For what it’s worth, JFK was killed with a bolt action rifle.)

These are just the examples off the top of my head in the last few days. Whenever guns are in the news it rapidly becomes apparent that those who want new gun laws and the media charged with explaining relevant gun issues to the general public don’t know a damn thing about them. Count on it.

Guns are not animistic objects that jump up and shoot people inexplicably. They are tools made of wood, metal, and sometimes, plastic. Properly maintained and used they serve the greater good. Gun owners understandably are loathe to let their freedoms be restricted because of irrational fear borne of ignorance.

No, Gun Owners Not Delusional and Brain Damaged

It is not hyperbole to say that prominent gun control advocates are essentially smearing all gun owners as being out of their minds, in ways general and disturbingly specific. The general approach involves teasing out Obama’s famous “bitter clingers” line from 2008, essentially arguing that, also in Obama parlance, gun owners are on the wrong side of history or something. This recent Vox article on guns, “Why mass shootings don’t convince gun owners to support gun control,” by David Roberts puts it this way:

When has gun ownership ever not been the norm in America? The idea that gun ownership would become an outdated aspect of society because Barack Obama came along and the left collectively decided we had evolved beyond the need for guns is preposterous. Further, gun ownership cuts heavily across party lines — 30 percent of Democratic households have guns — so making this about rebelling against the left seems like a pretty erroneous generalization.

Ah, but pointing out the issue isn’t solely about Republicans would deprive Roberts of the opportunity to attack the mental health of the political opposition. Roberts queues up some perfunctory caveats about the limits of personality research — that is to say, the vast, vast majority of social science on these matters can easily be disregarded as jaundiced and incompetent — but, nonetheless, Roberts feels compelled to explain conservatives have malformed brains:

It’s hard not to read this as anything other than conservatives like guns because their brain chemicals make them fearful and controlling. (As for that final laundry list of “epistemic concerns,” a friend notes that, far from accurately describing conservatives, it could well be describing the petulant freakout currently happening at an aggrieved campus nearby.) After all, how can you argue with Roberts on this? It’s science. In fact, the science suggests arguing is futile:

Since persuasion is off the table, I wonder what the “overwhelming political force” necessary to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights would look like. It’d be pretty damn ironic if it involved the government going out and enforcing new laws against gun ownership with guns.

Anyway, I expect that tragic events will bring out the worst emotions in people and lead to a lot of bad commentary, but these last few days are on a whole new level. For instance, I managed to get this far without even cataloguing the problems with the New York Daily News, which in recent days has used the terror attack to do some of the most inflammatory and irresponsible things I’ve ever seen at a major American publication. Still the total inability to discuss these matters is a shame. There might be some productive areas of agreement, such as discussing the problems associated with gun ownership and mental illness (and by that, I mean legitimate and medically serious mental illness, as opposed to Vox‘s foray into glorified phrenology).

More importantly, the discussion in the wake of the San Bernardino attack should not be limited to guns or even predominantly focused on them. Unfortunately, the media the liberal establishment seem to think it’s the most vital topic to be discussed, and feel empowered to do it badly.