The new horizon of gun control, Part 4. “Wolves at the door”

Today, in the final installment of this series, we will eschew a review of the “nuanced” strategy currently being employed by the wolves in sheep’s clothing working toward new gun suppression legislation and their willing media allies. That was covered well enough in the previous three columns, and links will be provided at the end in case you missed them. Forewarned being forearmed, as the saying goes, we should close out with a look at what is truly going on under the covers, what we should expect to see as this battle moves toward the halls of Congress and what – if anything – we, as a nation, can do to forestall an unfortunate result which currently appears far too likely.

For a good look at what you are truly up against, you need do little more than listen to the openly offered words of one of the chief architects of the current push for a gun grab… one Michael Bloomberg. He’s been making the rounds of every media outlet from Morning Joe to the full slate of Sunday gab fests, usually parroting the lines we featured before about “not wanted to take anyone’s guns” and respecting the first amendment. But he might have gotten a bit tired by the time he showed up for Nightline, and he let the mask slip fully from his face. Check this out. (Emphasis mine.)

“I think the public has finally come to the conclusion that, what the Supreme Court said you can do is have reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms, is something that our society finally has woken up and said, ‘We are going to do this whether you like it or not,‘” Bloomberg said…

But if he had his preference, Bloomberg said he would go farther than the 1994 ban and outlaw all automatic and semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. The mayor said magazines shouldn’t be allowed to contain more than five or even three rounds.

“If you haven’t hit the deer with three shots, you’re a pretty lousy shot. The deer deserves to get away,” he said.

Yes, he’s still repeating the “Second Amendment = Hunting” meme which we fairly well demolished yesterday, but Mr. Mayor is offering us far, far more in this interview. He’s not talking about only AR-15 style rifles. He’s looking to eliminate all semi-automatic weapons. That would include handguns and all. Further, the latest expected proposal, promised by Dianne Feinstein, regarding magazine capacity is for an already insultingly low ten rounds. But if he had his preferences he would try to lower it to three. He knows he can’t… yet. But if he manages to help ram through a limit of ten, you now know where the next goal post will be set. As Matt Lewis reminded us recently, sometimes the slippery slope is real.

Another glimpse into the mind of Bloomberg and company comes with the complete lack of seriousness on display when he gloats over his coming victory in the effort to disarm America. In one moment he is solemn and serious. In the next, he’s cracking jokes about two of the actually decent things Barack Obama accomplished during his first term, only moments after mourning the dead in Newtown.

What else should we be expecting? For one thing, more formerly Second Amendment supporting officials will be bailing out like rats fleeing a sinking ship. One of the latest is Bob Casey… yet another traditionally gun rights friendly Democrat who is putting his finger to the wind and deciding it’s time to jump.

Furrowing his brow and casting his eyes downward, Casey expressed regret that he had not reconsidered his views as starkly after earlier massacres at Virginia Tech and in Aurora, Colo.

“The power of the weapon, the number of bullets that hit each child, that was so, to me, just so chilling, it haunts me. It should haunt every public official,” said Casey, who won a second term six weeks ago while touting his opposition to gun control.

In the days since the shooting that killed 20 children and eight adults, the debate around gun laws has shifted. Democrats have called for reinstating the assault-weapons ban and barring magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

“If those two bills come before the Senate, I’ll vote for both,” Casey said. He said his decision amounted to being “summoned by your conscience.”

Given the part of the country that Casey comes from and the number of years he has held his previous stance, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he truly did believe in the Second Amendment. But it’s also politically convenient – at a minimum – that he represents a lot of rural areas in central Pennsylvania where gun rights are part of his voters’ heritage. They “cling to them” and “their God” as our President once famously said of the area. It was part of Casey’s key to election day success.

You’re going to be seeing more of all of this as soon as the new year begins and Congress returns to their seats. So now we face the harder question. In the face of such an oppressive, steep hill, what is there to be done in the hopes of at least minimizing the damage, if not mitigating it entirely? Well… perhaps a few things.

The first, easiest and most obvious move is to make your voices known to those who depend on our votes for their livelihood. You can forget about the President, who no longer needs to care about winning another term. But the members of the House and Senate do. Particularly the House, where the GOP – weak kneed as they may be at times – still holds a solid majority. They are already moving into campaign mode for 2014 and more than a few are looking over their shoulders for possible primary challenges. This is the first, and possibly best hill to fight on. The Senate may hold a few wavering seats which will be subject to a tide of public displeasure as well. They need to be made aware that long held beliefs don’t dissipate overnight even following a one man tragedy such as we recently witnessed.

But there are other things you can do as well. One possibility is to lend your support – if not already doing so – to the NRA. They are under intense pressure at the moment and opponents seem to sense some blood in the water, thinking their influence is waning. I’ve had my own disputes with them over the years on various fine points of policy, but they remain one of the strongest, most influential and well funded voices on this subject in the nation. They need to see their support rise rather than fall in these dark times, or the liberal hopes for their de-clawing may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are smaller, local groups which will need your support as well. These include sporting clubs, shooting ranges and everywhere else that like minded groups seek to promote the safe, legal, constitutionally protected enjoyment of firearms. Get on Google and find out who is in your area.

And finally, no matter how cryptic some may wish to make this sound… arm yourself if it is something you feel inclined to do and have the financial resources to manage. The free market speaks volumes, and both politicians and some bastions of the media pay attention to it. Voting with your wallet is, if anything, possibly even more powerful than voting with your feet. If you need these tools not only for yourself, but to pass on to the next generation, you might thank me later. If this goes entirely pear shaped, it might be a while before they are available again.

Sadly, there is little beyond that to be done if I’m reading the cards correctly. The sad truth is that, beyond these types of actions and preparations, you potentially find yourself with only one more alternative in a worst case scenario.

Come and get ‘em.

Good luck to us all, and thanks for following along this week for this series. If we’ve managed to accomplish anything here, I hope it is to impart the message that this is not some far off, possible future of problems. The wolves are truly at the door and they will be sitting down in Washington DC in a couple of weeks, aided by nearly every media outlet in the country. But in the end, they are not the United States. This country isn’t a collection of politicians arguing in spacious halls. It’s a collection of papers more than two hundred years old. And with a bit of luck, it’s one thing more than that as well.

It’s you.

Related:
The new horizon of gun control, Part 1. A Violent Society
The new horizon of gun control, Part 2. The black hole of mental health
The new horizon of gun control, Part 3. “Military Style Weapons”
MSNBC host Chuck Todd on gun rights: “That’s a different America”
Slippery Slopes are Sometimes Real.
The missing link on gun control

Catch up with me on Twitter if you’d care to continue the discussion.

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