The moral evil of gun-grabbers

Yes, I'm saying that many (perhaps most) of those seeking to destroy the Second Amendment and confiscate firearms are morally evil.  Why?  Because they're deliberately propagating lies, and promoting an agenda that cannot possibly prevent evil acts such as the Parkland school shooting, while inflicting a different evil on other innocent people.

I've covered the basic arguments before, so I won't waste time doing that again.  Please read the article at that link for more details.  Not only do the anti-gunners refuse to address those points, they actively avoid doing so.  They know that if they do, it'll expose the hollowness of their position, which is not based on logic or fact, but upon emotion and feeling.  CNN's ruthless and cynical exploitation of teenagers to get their point across is a classic example of that.  "Never mind the facts - how do you feel about it?"  I think the best response to that came from a Facebook comment quoted by John Richardson:

Just last week, Congress was calling on Tide to change the design of the Pods so teenagers would stop eating them. This week, teenagers should determine gun policy.

Word.

Now we have members of the mainstream media actually applying pressure to commercial businesses to implement their anti-gun agenda, since they can't persuade lawmakers to do it.  The New York Times opines:

What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?

Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand.

. . .

For example, Visa, which published a 71-page paper in 2016 espousing its “corporate responsibility,” could easily change its terms of service to say that it won’t do business with retailers that sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which make semiautomatic rifles fire faster ... If Mastercard were to do the same, assault weapons would be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card system.

There is precedent for credit card issuers to ban the purchase of completely legal products. Just this month, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America banned the use of their cards to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

To be clear: Those three banks won’t let you use your credit card to buy Bitcoin, but they will happily let you use it to buy an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle — the same kind of gun used in mass shootings in Parkland; Newtown, Conn.; San Bernardino, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Sutherland Springs, Tex.

. . .

Is all of this a pipe dream? Maybe, but I spent the last 72 hours calling and emailing a handful of chief executives to discuss these ideas. None wanted to speak on the record, because it’s a hot-button topic. But all applauded the idea and some said they had already been thinking about it. A few, I discovered later, called their peers to begin a conversation.

. . .

None of this is a panacea. But it’s a start. It takes leadership and courage — exactly what these executives say they have. If they don’t want to back up their words with actions, the next time there’s a school shooting that prompts a conversation about gun companies, it should also include the financial complex that supports them.

There's more at the link.

In so many words, the author is proposing that pressure should be applied to companies conducting lawful business to purchase legal products, in an attempt to stop this.  Clearly, he's not in the least worried about the law.  He's concerned only with his perception of what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's not.  The fact that others disagree with him is neither here nor there.  If he can whip up enough pressure to make it difficult for law-abiding citizens like you and I to pursue our constitutional rights in buying a firearm, he'll do so, because he doesn't give a damn about us, our rights or our opinions.  Ethics?  Morals?  Laws?  They don't enter into it.  Only his feelings count.  He's arrogating to himself the right to impose his views on us, by hook or by crook, whether we like it or not, whether we agree with him or not.  If that's not evil in and of itself, what is?

There have been many articles following the Parkland shooting - far too many to list here.  You may find the following links useful.  I certainly did, and I highly recommend that you follow them all and read what the authors have to say.  It's eye-opening, sometimes mind-blowing.

• "I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise."
• "Milk that cow for all the blood it's got."
• "I was going to stay out of this."
• "School shootings are not the new normal, despite statistics that stretch the truth."
• "Florida's 'Teacher Of The Year' Bluntly Explains Why School Violence Is Out Of Control."
• "School Shooting Was Outcome of Broward County School Board Policy."

There's enough meat at those links to give you food for mental digestion for a long time.  Sadly, the mainstream media won't bother to read or discuss such points of view, or the facts that support them.  They're interested only in whipping up popular indignation to further their agenda.

Most Americans are now aware that we live in an essentially surreal political environment.  A concerted team of political reactionaries guides the national conversation from crisis to crisis, all the while demanding further expansions of federal government power and the repudiation of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  A special group of professional complainants has taken over. Let's call it IndigNation.  Its members' sense of "outrage" at every perceived slight and misinterpretation drives them into ever greater commitments to their increasingly autonomous IndigNation.

. . .

At present, IndigNation has as its propaganda focus the deaths of 17 teachers and students in Broward County, Florida.  Their deaths can mean only one thing: more gun control.  IndigNation has had it.  Its members are fed up, and they will not take it anymore!  Rallies will commence, and the media cameras will be turned on, and the minders of social media will allow the narratives to coalesce around the grand theme of gun control.  The killer, Cruz, wore a "Make America Great Again" cap while he practiced with his firearm.  ABC News falsely reported that he was a member of a white nationalist group.  It all fits together for a mob mentality against the injustice of the crime.

IndigNation does not blame the government.  Only political figures seeking to limit the government are a threat and worthy of demise and removal.

. . .

There is no reasonable limit to their rage.  What is wrong in their minds goes beyond reason.  Pure emotion must be unleashed, and what better rhetorical vehicle than "the children"?  They were so innocent, and the Enemy is so guilty.  This is the terminology that escalates and spirals.  "Thoughts and prayers" are a conspiracy against the innocent.  No one should say such things!  People who say Jesus speaks to them are mentally ill.

Again, more at the link.

The greatest danger is that, in the face of such an unrelenting, massive onslaught against fact, right and reason, we shall grow weary of the struggle and simply give up.  I know some who've done that.  They've grown tired of arguing with family and friends, and see themselves as a minority assailed on all sides.  It's easier for them to "go with the flow" and simply give up.  That way lies disaster, both for us and for our society and nation.

As Edmund Burke famously said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".  In the face of such refusal to acknowledge or deal with law, facts or reality - which is, to my mind, unquestionably a moral and ethical evil - we dare not do nothing.  If we buckle, if we knuckle under, evil will triumph.  Our children, and our children's' children, will curse our memories for that.

Peter