The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
In the wake of the Newtown murders, many on the left have, predictably, been calling for new controls on arms ownership. What's of interest to me is the apparent irony of their position, especially when it's accompanied by a kind of contemptuous disbelief that anyone would take gun rights seriously as a matter of principle.
Here's what I mean: Many of the most ardent exponents of abortion rights will take pains to clarify that they are not "pro-abortion"; rather, they are "pro-choice." The distinction, of course, is meant to signal that, although they themselves find abortion morally distasteful, they have a principled objection to depriving a woman of the "choice" to abort her baby. In other words, they are willing to tolerate the possibility that abortion rights will sometimes be misused -- whether as a form of birth control, gender-selection, or any other number of ways -- because they believe the evil of restricting the right to no-questions-asked abortion is even greater.
Given all that, it's remarkable that ardent lefty "pro-choicers" seem either unwilling or unable to understand the position of those who support gun rights, notwithstanding their awareness that some deranged, evil people will misuse them. Certainly, they can disagree with the moral calculus of gun-rights advocates, but surely at least some of those who demonize the National Rifle Association are enthusiastic supporters of the National Abortion Rights Action League or Planned Parenthood. People like President Obama spring to mind.
Finally, though I support abortion rights in cases where rape, incest or life of the mother is implicated, I'd point out that, except in the latter instance, the primary purpose of an abortion is always to end an innocent life (one that, except in the cases above, has been created -- even if accidentally -- through a consensual act). Guns, by contrast, often protect and defend innocent life.
So I'm not really sure by what right pro-choice liberals claim the moral high ground in demanding gun control.
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May '11
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Excellent article. I wish more people would recognize that contradiction.
May '10
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Yes it really is amazing when you see Liberals hold such contradictory positions. Hardly ever happens.
Mar '11
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
I see the same dichotomy of thought in weighing abortion against the death penalty too, the ending of an innocent life versus the ending of the life of criminal. Somehow terminating an unborn child is sacrosanct, but removing a murderer from our midst is immoral. It is a disconnect from reality.
I've said this before on other gun threads, but owning a gun is an acknowledgement of death, and is in fact admitting a willingness to admit that there are those deserving of death. It is facing the the existence of the end of it all, the existence of consequences for actions, and the existence of evil. When you carry, you are admitting that you are willing to take another life, and that someone else may have to pay for their immoral behavior with their immortal soul.
Abortion, by contrast, is an avoidance of consequence, and even though it is death it is a denial of death's existence by insisting that ones personal life continues unabated and unchanged in its tracks. Women who abort are seeking a sort of time reset, and a forgetting of history. Abortion denies consequences, guns carry consequences.
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Very interesting point. And one I doubt any media/pundits/activists have considered.
I will say that I had a particularly hard time hearing the calls for gun control coming from abortion activists.
I wanted to ask them if they had any pause about their line of work -- while calling for gun grabbing -- but refrained.
Aug '12
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
According to the CDC, there were over 700,000 abortions performed in 2009 in the US. Yet the President didn't cry over the deaths of these children, nor did the media clamor for the end of Planned Parenthood.
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
And -- to pile irony on irony -- there's an actual, textual guarantee of gun rights in the Second Amendment, while abortion rights are grounded in the "right to privacy," which has itself been "rooted" in the First Amendment, or the Fourth, or the Fifth, or the Ninth, or the first part of the Fourteenth or (my personal favorite!) in the penumbras formed by the emanations of various constitutional guarantees.
Dec '10
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Another inconsistency at which the left declines to bat an eye is their response to legal precedent. Try reminding them that the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted as an individual right at the Supreme Court and in federal circuit courts as recently as last week. Their response will be something like the following: "Once we get another justice on the Court that personal right to own a gun will be scaled back considerably." But suggest that a conservative Court might overturn Roe and they begin ranting about how activist judges are conspiring to overturn "long established" rights. To a liberal, rights that they support are set in stone once a judge rules on them, but when judges acknowledge a right they want to suppress, it's a set-back that can be corrected the next time cert is granted.
Aug '10
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Liberals cannot be pro-choice on guns because the existence of the gun culture adversely affects them in a non-obvious way. The gun culture represents the idea that self-defense is noble, and surrender is ignoble when one has a reasonable chance of self-defense. This very idea is a threat to anyone who is afraid to defend himself.
I don't know what I'd do if I had a weapon, was confronted by an armed mugger, and was faced with the risk of getting shot while going for my own gun. Maybe I'd do it, or maybe I'd chicken out. But unlike the typical liberal, I'd certainly regard the latter as chickening out. To people who are absolutely certain they wouldn't defend themselves, gun bans institutionalize the idea that you're not supposed to defend yourself, and there is therefore no shame in abject surrender.
The purest expression of this was the "public service" advertising that started back in the 1970s that exhorted people never to resist a mugger. "Your wallet isn't worth your life." Liberals were soothed by this advice. And the muggers were thrilled by it.
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Ha! I never thought of it that way. In a sense, disarming the population is somehow regularizing the notion that the police -- and only the police -- are responsible for our personal safety. Just another way liberalism removes agency from the individual and transfers it to the state . . .
Dec '12
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Carol,
From the minute I understood what happened in Newtown and to what extent children were involved along with the likely hue and cry from the GunCon freaks; I wished to have a bully pulpit to ask... "Would it have been better if they had been aborted so this present suffering could be avoided? Where stand your morals now?"
Callous and cruel was my thought, but... A dagger to the heart of a deadly ideology.
We suffer by cause of our great love.
Dec '10
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
You misunderstand, madame.
They know the hypocrisy of their arguments, they just dont care.
Abortion for leftists is about keeping control over the population of "undesirables", destroying the family, and making human life no more important than a wart (to be disposed of when it is inconvenient or unsightly).
Gun control for leftists is about power, plain and simple. They want the govt to have all of it, and the people to have none.
They will say and do whatever it takes to achieve these ends.
Ensuring that their arguments are coherent, rational, or even consistent doesnt even enter into it.
Some liberals that arent in charge may honestly hold these views (chaotic though they are). They are known as "Useful Idiots".
But make no mistake, the people driving the ship of leftism in this country today have no qualms at all about using whatever tactics they need to in order to attain and then retain power.
If they need to lie, cheat, steal, or even kill people to make their dreams reality, they will do so, and sleep soundly that night afterwards.
The sooner we realize this, the sooner we will start to fight like we understand the stakes.
Edited on December 18, 2012 at 8:05pmDec '12
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
CoolHand: ... Some liberals that arent in charge may honestly hold these views (chaotic though they are). They are known as "Useful Idiots".
But make no mistake, the people driving the ship of leftism in this country today have no qualms at all about using whatever tactics they need to in order to attain and then retain power....
· 9 minutes ago
Edited 4 minutes ago
Keep shaking that limb...
Actually a useful analogy. Those not in charge... Crew. Those driving the lefty/marxist/garbage scow... Command.
Now if some in this battle were to overwhelm the crew with basic human decency and gain converts to the forces of light, would the Command of the death ship find it increasingly difficult to maintain course and direction with reduced or no crew? Most certainly yes!
You are correct. In addition, your determination to defeat the evil, that is the left, would be enhanced by a more dynamic and multi-dimentional treatment of their illness. The most fanatical proponent of a cause is the one saved from the stench of death that came with his former beliefs.
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
I never thought of it that way, either. The goal of the left, I guess, is to do all of the important stuff for us. To, almost literally, infantilize us. What we're left with, after they tax us and confiscate our weapons and rob us of health care choices, is, basically, an allowance to spend on (almost) whatever we like, as long as they approve.
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
Rob -- I'm pretty sure that lefties would let us spend our allowance on pot. Just not cigarettes. Because smoking is bad, except when it's not.
May '12
Re: The Gun Rights/Abortion Rights Nexus
It seems to me that the politicians on the left say the words "pro-choice" too easily. Very compartmentalized in their statements, in other words.
They are against abortion laws in the same way. They say it without thinking.
The Left thrives on emotion, so if you eliminate the emotion or the ultrasounds or the thought that abortions result in the death of a human being, they can deal with it.
So, the more you can sensitize the discourse through new research and ultrasounds, the more you begin to humanize the baby in the womb and the Left have to deal with the emotion of murder or baby in the womb killing.
And all the talk about abortion and contraception the past election raised the Left's emotion and caused the defeat. My word, we still haven't banned partial birth or out of womb abortions.