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Sen. Mike Lee Responds To Dems’ Gun Control Push
In my podcast today I talk to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) about the Las Vegas shooting, as well as his most recent book “Written Out Of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government.”
What I found most interesting was Sen. Lee’s absolute, uncompromising position on guns: No compromise. He didn’t even tip his hat to the idea that, in the wake of recent mass shootings, pro-Second-Amendment politicians might need to take some action.
Sen. Lee’s response to CT Senator Chris Murphy’s cry that congressional Republicans need to “get off your [expletive]” and fix the gun-violence problem was to put the entire burden on gun-control advocates. Sen. Lee knows of no gun laws he would like to see in effect, and he says it’s up to people like Sen. Murphy to come up with their own ideas for solutions.
My question for you: Is this smart, long-term politics?
As Kevin Williamson pointed out in yesterday’s pod, right now gun rights are pretty secure. The courts are on board and Americans are split on the issue. As a result, gun-rights advocates have the political upper hand.
But is that going to last forever? The horrors of Sandy Hook and Pulse and Las Vegas may not be having any impact on Americans’ attitudes towards guns….or there could be a cumulative effect and a future shooting could be the proverbial straw on the proverbial camel’s back.
Is Sen. Lee right to dismiss any suggestions for gun-law reform? Or would it be smarter for Second Amendment folks to craft and promote smart and effective gun laws–say in the area of mental health or bump stocks–that would protect gun rights in the long term by showing ambivalent Americans that the Second Amendment community is working to promote “gun safety,”** too.
I look forward to reading your comments.
Published in General
You’re right, Michael. While it is tempting to say “No” to any gun control legislation, because this is putting the emphasis where it does not belong, it would be more prudent to discuss things like the banning of things that can turn regular guns into automatic ones. I know nothing about guns, but if such a thing does exist, it should be banned. And introducing that type of measure, and passing it, might forestall the more radical efforts at banning all guns – which the proponents of gun control are really after.
I wonder, how many people would be willing to give up their First Amendment rights if they were assured by the government that they would never be offended or suffer hurt feelings again?
Just imagine the arguments: ‘There are countless victims (among them children!) today whose lives are being harmed by offensive talk. And some selfish people out there (a little group of willful men) insist on keeping their miserable right to say anything they want without interference from the government. Words hurt. Congress must take action.”
Banning “things” manifestly does not, and cannot work. Whatever you deny to law-abiding citizens will be made and/or imported by criminals.
Everyone seems to think a bump stock turns a semi-auto into a machine gun. But it doesn’t. It just makes your finger work faster on the trigger. It’s still one pull of the trigger for each shot. That is the reason a bump stock is legal. The ATF does not classify a rifle outfitted with a bump stock as full auto.
I’m a firearm enthusiast but I don’t own a bump stock and have no desire to own one. So if bump stocks are made illegal I shouldn’t care, right? Well, I wouldn’t except that it will not stop there. The left lives a life philosophy of “never enough.”
It’s also hard to see how a bump stock law or any other gun control law can have any effect on mass shootings. What law can you imagine that had it been in place would have prevented the Las Vegas shooting? You can’t. There is no law that would have prevented this. We already have laws against murder and that didn’t stop him. Why would any other law have stopped him?
People need to understand that more gun control laws will have no effect on mass killers but will make it harder for us normals, we who obey the law, it will make it harder for us to defend ourselves. Mass shooters always go where they can find unarmed victims. Is it smart to create more such places then?
A better idea is to eliminate gun-free zones and allow the good guys to carry just about anywhere a police officer can carry. Those who do not carry guns will also benefit because other people are carrying. The would-be mass killer then doesn’t know who is armed and who is not. Therefore, he probably won’t do his evil in that location because he can’t be sure how it will go. He can’t be sure he will be in control of how it will go. That throws a wrench into his plans.
It’s a cliche but it’s true that a bad guy with a gun is only stopped by a good guy with a gun. Or, when he has fully accomplished his goal of mayhem and shoots himself. But that is too late for the good people who were injured or killed.
Exactly. Cocaine and heroin are not produced within the United States, they have to cross several international borders from other countries where these products are also illegal to get here. Yet people who really want heroin or cocaine can get it. Guns and accessories can be produced by machinists in their basement shops. If we can’t keep out the drugs, why do people think gun prohibition would be successful?
I like the approach of pushing back by asking proponents of gun control, “OK, what law would have prevented ANY of the shootings you claim demand action?”
I think it’s undeniable that they are taking an incremental approach with the ultimate goal to outlaw guns entirely, but does that mean that the correct counter-argument should be “no regulation whatsoever?” This is the problem with all “slippery slope” arguments: everything can be looked at as a “slippery slope” thereby making it a nominally valid argument against doing anything at any time on any issue, for either side.
There are probably some common sense gun regulations, and it only confirms the other side’s ad hominem argument that all gun rights advocates are crazy when they become an equally absolutist mirror image of the crazy anti-gun lobby.
The left never ceases their attack. The constitution is a progressive barrier. They’ve said that for over a century and it remains true but they’re less honest than they were at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The second amendment seemed the most vulnerable so they went after it. It turns out free speech may be equally vulnerable as the current crop of half educated kids leave school and find positions of influence. So we need to push back and not accept any of their assumptions or language, remove the people who teach them wherever we can, jail any who abuse their positions promote violence or break any law anywhere. They’re wrong but they’re also dangerous.
This is pretty much where I am. I don’t really care about guns, but the Left is increasingly open about how much they admire the Australian solution, which is total gun confiscation, that we can’t trust them.
To answer the OP’s question: This is yet another among many cases of people not believing a new regulation will affect them. A lot of people are okay with someone else having to give up his guns. To win this argument we have to hang Australia around the Left’s collective necks, and make it clear to moderate gun owners that they are not safe from the confiscators.
One view I havn’t heard is the one that looks to the hotels and resorts to be more aware of what goes on under their roofs. It’s hard to believe that they could not have prevented all those weapons from entering their hotel. I truly hope that this has been a wakeup call for other hotels.
Here’s what I think the solution to the legislative impasse is with respect to firearms in the United States, and I’m going to whisper it: gun regulation at the state level. And here’s another secret: we already have it. A lot of it. We can evaluate whether any of it works and whether and how applicable approaches in one locality are in another locality. You want to tell me that the NRA prevents state efforts to regulate firearms? Not in my state. We have some of the strictest gun regs in the United States. Not in New York State or Connecticut, either. I don’t know whether the laws make us safer on an actuarial basis. But it’s what people here want. At least for now.
Whether gun regs would have prevented the tragedy in Las Vegas or not, the states have the power to regulate firearms in a way that reflects the preferences of their residents. According to my understanding, what they can’t do is ban entire classes of firearms and regulate the individual right out of existance. If people in Nevada want to change their laws they should. If the laws are ineffective or make people less safe, change them again. There are no shortcuts to good government. It’s experience over many years that leads to better government.