Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
This past week a US District judge in California struck down the state’s 30 year ban on high capacity semi-automatic rifles which leftists label “assault weapons”. The judge called the ban unconstitutional (which it is). In response, the progressive media has lost their collective minds, screeching in horror at the idea of AR-15 rifles being legal within the borders of their carefully manicured socialist Utopia state. Their most commonly expressed reaction seems to be fear.
Fear is rarely a rational thing. When someone operates based on fear they tend to make terrible decisions and support oppressive causes and laws. Fear leads to an obsession with control. Fearful people also tend to look for large mobs of other terrified people so they can feel safe and secure and anonymous. They want to be able to act impulsively on their fears without having to face consequences for it later.
Leftists are driven primarily by two factors: Narcissism, and yes, fear. I’ve discussed their narcissism at great length in past articles; now I think we should delve into their fear.
The most common leftist retort to the question “Why are you so afraid of the AR-15?” will usually be a snort of indignant disbelief followed by the words:
“Because it’s a military weapon designed to kill a lot of people quickly…idiot!”
But this is not an argument, it is an expression of irrational fear. Why are they, as individuals, afraid of the AR-15? What are the chances that they will EVER be faced with a person intent on killing them with an AR-15? And, why do they believe that disarming innocent law abiding Americans will somehow save them from their paranoia?
Let’s examine the first issue of statistical probability; how many people are actually killed by AR-15s each year? Not many according to the FBI, which does not track the stats on specific rifles, but does track the stats on all rifles together. And, as it turns out, only around 6% of all gun deaths involve rifles in the US each year.
How much of that 6% involves the use of military grade rifles like the AR-15? It’s impossible to say, but even if it was half, or 3% of all gun related crimes, that would still mean you have FAR more of a chance of being murdered by a knife or blunt object than an AR. By extension, Rifles overall are dwarfed by handgun murders, so, again, why are leftists so afraid of the AR-15?
What about mass shootings? It seems like the AR-15 is a favorite among mass shooters because of it’s “efficiency”, so is this reason enough to be fearful? According to the New York Times own analysis, the AR-15 was used to kill 173 people in mass shootings in the US from 2007 to 2017. Meaning around 17 homicides per year over a decade can be attributed to the rifle. Again, the AR is dwarfed by almost all other weapons in homicide including knives, even when accounting for mass shootings.
With the sheer number of military grade weapons in the hands of civilians in the US there should be mass homicides everywhere you look if you take the common position of the typical progressive gun grabber. But, this is not the case. In fact, if you want to increase your chances of being killed by a gun, move to a major Democrat run city like Chicago, New York or Philadelphia. In Chicago, there were 4033 shootings and 784 homicides, predominantly in black neighborhoods and primarily with handguns.
So, statistically, access to AR-15s does not increase gun homicides. But what about living in a black neighborhood in leftist run Chicago under some of the strictest gun laws in the country? Yes, your chances of being shot are MUCH higher (just not by an AR-15).
Since the math does not add up in favor of the leftists, perhaps we should examine other factors that might be driving them to focus on the AR in particular. Let’s talk about “precedence”…
Look at it this way – States like California are a petri dish, a testing ground for the future that leftists want for the entire country. There is an old saying that “As goes California, so goes the US”, and this is because California is often where most experimental legislation is pushed; legislation that violates the boundaries of what the constitution allows. Sometimes it’s New York or New Jersey or some other blue state, but most of the time CA is where unconstitutional precedents are set. Its massive population and large number of electoral votes make it a perfect target for conditioning the wider public to further restrictions on their freedoms.
This explains some of the fear the media is showing regarding the latest federal court decision on military grade weapons like the AR. Political elites see California as their own little kingdom with their own special laws, and they plan to eventually spread those laws across America using California as the model. But, if such laws are overturned as unconstitutional, then the precedent actually works in reverse. Now, the leftists are concerned that an overturned gun ban in CA means more blue states will follow and their entire gun grabbing scheme will go out the window.
The leftist mind thinks in terms of unchecked and unhinged “democracy”. Meaning, they believe that the majority is paramount; the majority is law. If a majority in a society wants to take away your freedoms, then they have the right to because they have the mob on their side. 51% rules over the lives of the other 49%. But this is not how things work in a Constitutional Republic.
Under the Bill of Rights your freedoms are codified and sacrosanct. They are inherent and gifted by God (or whatever you happen to believe in); government has no domain over these rights. The right to firearms and self defense is one of these inherent qualities. It does not matter what the State of California thinks, or even what the “majority” of people in California think. If an American in California wants to own an AR-15, then he/she has the right to own an AR-15.
We also cannot ignore the fact that leftists have an insatiable appetite for collectivism, usually in the name of the “greater good”. Collectivism is basically totalitarianism disguised as humanitarianism. They know what’s best for you, and they are going to make sure you follow THEIR plan for your life.
Continue: Zerohedge.com
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