Vultures

There is no more dangerous weapon in the hands of a demagogue than a dead child in a puddle of blood. -- David Blount

The predictable cries for ever more gun control in the wake of the Newtown, CT atrocity have the DextroSphere in an equally predictable uproar. Such exchanges of fire have been going on for decades; recent developments in the media and the swiftness of the contemporary news cycle have merely accelerated them.

All the usual observations have been made about the hypocrisy of the Left: they yawn at the slaughter of over a million babies per year; they object strenuously to the death penalty even for mass murderers; their own political figureheads travel everywhere with a heavily armed escort. And of course, we in the Right have been lambasted, as usual, with accusations about "compensation" and "not caring about innocent human lives." It's become a script; you could read it along with the players if you chose.

For the moment, the Second Amendment stands, and with the exception of some ultra-blue cities, is honored more often than not. There are more than 200 million firearms in the hands of private citizens...and quite a number more within the reach of persons such as Nidal Malik Hasan. The Left is furious that any weapon, of any caliber should be in the hands of anyone other than a fully politically-correct law-enforcement officer or a member of the military...and as for those latter persons, one could easily get the impression that the Left would love to see them disarmed, too.

I'm not here merely to repeat the usual tropes about how more guns mean less crime, or how often guns are used to protect innocent life and property. Those things are still important factors in an argument with someone who's interested in facts and logic. But that excludes the anti-gun Left.

Michael Emerling's rhetorical tactic "Isolating the Issue" has taught me some sobering things:

FWP: I agree with you about our duty to protect the innocent, but indulge me for a moment: Would you still be opposed to private firearms ownership if I could show you conclusive evidence that it actually saves far more lives than it costs?
Anti-Gun Liberal: Yes.
FWP: Then would you mind telling me your real reason for opposing private firearms ownership?
Anti-Gun Liberal: (Walks away without answering.)

The Left wants to take the right to keep and bear arms away from Americans for reasons wholly disconnected from the benefits of an armed citizenry in a free society...because a free society, not the right to own weapons, is their true target.

Politeness be damned. The Left is a totalitarian movement. Its master strategists hate the very idea of freedom, whatever they might tell the cannon fodder beneath them. You cannot establish a totalitarian regime, capable of compelling and forbidding all things, over an armed people. Therefore, private firearms ownership must end. Q.E.D.

Therefore, there's no point in arguing about guns with a left-liberal. He'll never, ever give you his real reason for being opposed to guns in private hands.

Note that the Left already grasps this. They don't seek to argue the subject with us; they merely orate about it through the fully complicit and compliant Main Stream Media. Michael Bloomberg would never dare to enter the arena with John Lott or Don Kates. Such an encounter might force him to reveal his true agenda...as if it weren't already on garish display.

It's time we used their tactics against them: attack their spokesmen personally, not merely as hypocrites but as would-be tyrants. They are conscienceless vultures determined to feed on the corpses of the freshly slain. They'll politicize any atrocity -- Newtown; Virginia Tech; Aurora, CO -- if it might help them to advance their agenda of total power. They're eager to reduce American citizens to helpless serfs. Say so, and loudly! Given that the facts and the Constitution are on our side, it should be a walkover. And as the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment are the guarantors of all the other rights Americans cherish, no issue could be more important.

Once more, with feeling: Politeness be damned!