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The Essential Paradox of Gun Control
On Tuesday, President Obama gave a speech outlining his new gun control program. As is typical for him, the speech was fatuous, disingenuous, and replete with factual errors. It was also warmly received by three group: Democrats, the media, and the shareholders of gun manufacturers.
Shares of Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson jumped by double digits earlier in the week (though they’ve since retreated) in anticipation of a spike in sales. Since Obama assumed office and the end of last year, their stock has yielded compounded annualized total returns of 43 and 38 percent, respectively, compared to 16 percent for the S&P 500 Index. Every time the president tries to advance his gun control agenda, gun manufacturers reap a windfall.
A desire to complete purchases before new restrictions take effect would explain a sales spike among existing gun owners; i.e., people already in the “gun culture.” However, what we are seeing is much more broad-based. This is not just a matter of purchasing behavior. Since 2009, support for gun control has generally fallen as support for gun rights has risen.
Across the country, people are newly showing interest in learning to shoot, buying their first gun, and enrolling in training courses. In other words, under Obama, more and more people are becoming motivated to acquire the skills and means to defend themselves, their families, and their communities.
Why now? I think this phenomenon is driven by a fundamental paradox of gun control: In their push to restrict access to firearms, the president and his allies are unintentionally highlighting the government’s failure to maintain public safety.
The case for gun control is an emotional one. It is based on a fear of gun violence, and Obama and his allies do their utmost to feed a perception that the world has become more dangerous. For example, consider the following tweet from the White House:
Fort Hood
Binghamton
Aurora
Oak Creek
Newtown
The Navy Yard
Santa Barbara
Charleston
San Bernardino#StopGunViolencehttps://t.co/yVdTuvMF2T— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) January 6, 2016
Ironically, the more the White House insists we are unsafe, the more apparent it becomes that we are exposed. If our leaders are unable (or unwilling) to distinguish the obvious sources of recent gun violence — terrorism, mental illness, gang violence, inner-city lawlessness — then there is no way the government can effectively protect us from those threats. Indeed, the White House’s obsession with guns raises legitimate questions about governmental competence. A government distracted by red herrings will be incapable of fulfilling its mission to protect its citizenry from real threats.
So, as our government falls down on the job, the mature and rational course of action is to take responsibility for one’s own self-protection. In no small part, that means buying a gun and learning how to use it.
If the president wanted to improve support for gun control, his best strategy would be to avoid discussing the subject entirely, and to take steps to actually make us safer. That would include actively fighting Islamist terrorism and avoiding its importation; reforming our country’s dysfunctional approach to serious mental illness; sending police into high-crime neighborhoods, stoping & frisking gang suspects, and prosecuting gun crimes.
But these policies are hard. They take sustained concentration, political courage, and a willingness to set aside progressive theory in favor of hard reality, all of which means that the president will not pursue them. Rather, we get more cowbell, as Obama extends his record as the best firearms salesman this country has ever seen.
Published in General
You take back what you just said about King George III! He was a gun-grabbing tyrant, but … oh heck, leave it then.
You’re so funny! Move next door to me.
There’s a big poster at our local cabelas saying this will get you 10 years… Which, of course, only means you could be charged with a felony and that is the max. But you’re right, it would have to be prosecuted.
Is this statistical proof that Obama works for the gun manufacturers?
If only I had been prescient enough to buy stock in those companies when Barry was elected. I’d be a lot wealthier than I am now.
Or, as a princess said a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, “The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.”.
That’s what I think. I think this is about creating a morality play where the good Democrats love life and peace and must stop the evil, violent Republicans. I think it probably has little to do with guns. I believe that a great many of the hot button issues Democrats latch onto are not about the issue itself, but are more about reinforcing their brand as the good, loving, peaceful, rational party, standing against the evil, hateful, violent, crazy party. It’s about emotionally bullying people into voting for them.
This is the Democrats’ equivalent of, “If you don’t support the war, then you don’t support the troops.” But Democrats play this game a lot more than Republicans do, and they’re a lot better at it.
I think they were real tears, but I think he trained himself to tear up when needed. I think I could tear up when needed if I thought the right thoughts, and I’m not a good actor.
You put your finger on what I am feeling. It feels like the government can’t and/or isn’t interested in protecting its citizens. (I also think that many, many Americans would want to welcome refugees into the country and help them, if they could feel that their government wanted to protect, and was effective at protecting, America.)
There are existing gun owners buying more guns and there are new gun buyers, but what about a third category: Men who already own one or more guns buying a personal gun for their wives. I’ve personally heard of several in this category in the last few months.
I was thinking of them as “new shooters”, because your spouse won’t learn to use a gun without some personal motivation. What you describe is clearly an important dynamic, though.
Too bad Amazon cannot sell ammo and guns or else the Washington Post would be on our side.
I miss the House of Hanover.
They’re still out there. I think the current duke married a Monegasque princess.
If only he’d married Michelle Obama…
I’m sure he’s happier for it, though, even if the US is not.
By using the “gun violence” meme you’re already letting the Left frame the issue. It’s an emotional issue in the sense that emotion trumps logic in persuasion, and Obama is trying to make his political base fear his political enemies directly and personally.
But at the roots, it’s this:
http://bearingarms.com/yes-coming-guns-guns-heres/
I’ve discussed it many times with anti-gun people, which is a different group that you are mentioning. Their view is simple: no one, are at least very few, should be able to own a gun. Maybe a farmer can have a shotgun. But handguns, ARs, etc.? They should be forbidden, 100%, irrespective of the constitution. They believe the presence of guns causes gun violence. They dismiss the notion that someone will just commit violence some other way, because doing so with a gun is so easy and so devastating. They don’t understand guns, they don’t understand why anyone would own one, and they have no interest in shooting one. Basically, guns are outside of the box they live in, and should be outside of the box everyone lives in.
Maybe we ought to start a Take Your Liberal to the Range Day so they find out how much fun shooting can be?
Isn’t it remarkable how these “open-minded” liberals can’t even conceive on an abstract level of anyone being allowed to do or think anything they themselves don’t do or think.
I was thinking of a Sell Your Gun to Your Neighbor Day. Intentionally violate, not the law, but just Obama’s extension to the law. Get a few million people to do it and then send the details directly to the White House. Dare them to prosecute.
Need a lawyer to detail exactly how to break the law without breaking the law, but this could bring the unlawful presidential order part immediately to the courts.