USA –-(Ammoland.com)- “Here’s hands-down the dumbest argument against gun laws, and you hear it all the time” Allan Piper, Senior Politics Producer and narrator for a viral Now This News video assures viewers. He’s trying to refute politicians who say gun laws only affect the law-abiding.
“By that logic, it doesn’t make sense to have laws about anything,” Piper claims. “Can’t have laws about stealing, because thieves don’t follow the law.” He goes on citing laws against murders, drugs, and traffic laws, using that to segue into a favorite talking point the citizen disarmament lobby uses, “and you hear it all the time.”
“Mothers Against Drunk Driving pushed for tougher DUI laws and enforcement.” Piper relates,“ citing those and seatbelt laws for saving thousands of lives, “even though some people break them.”
“These commonsense safety laws work,” he observes, again repeating another familiar gun-grabber narrative. “And oddly enough, nobody has ever complained the government is trying to take our cars away.”
Funny he should bring that up because the voices trying to do just that with guns are getting louder. And yes, in fact, there is a nascent global movement to ban cars that is gaining a foothold here. Give the cultural terraformers a few decades.
“So yes, people will break laws,” Piper concludes. “But anyone who pretends that that makes it useless to even have a law is either lying or deluded.”
Make sense? Only to those who don’t understand he’s projecting on both counts.
This self-appointed voice of reason isn’t quite as authoritative as he gives himself credit for. Sure there are laws against speeding and drunk driving. Those are acts that endanger others. There are laws against actions endangering and harming others with firearms as well, and any honest analogy would end there.
Yes, absolutely it makes sense to have such laws even though criminals won’t obey them, because if and when they’re stopped or caught they deserve to pay for the damage they’ve done. No one argues otherwise about guns. But he wants to expand infringements and punishments to be applied to prior restraints that have nothing to do with harmful actions. That’s bait and switch, and a very disingenuous form of argument.
As for his (Alinsky Rule 5) ridicule that “nobody has ever complained that the government is trying to take our cars away,” the same can’t be said about guns to the point that it’s getting harder to deny. And as for making laws being “literally the only job” of lawmakers, yes, of course — within the confines of “the supreme Law of the Land” and their delegated authority. It doesn’t matter how many “lying or deluded” Americans ignorant of that are “begging” for usurpations — the Bill of Rights is there to keep a majority from disenfranchising the individual.
Noting that Now This News was founded as a way to influence millennials with a “left-leaning” agenda (and then some), its transparent deception to undermine private gun ownership is hardly surprising. A truism we see practically every time they open their mouths is that for “progressives,” every day is Opposite Day. Were it otherwise, they’d embrace the right of the people to keep and bear arms as the ultimate egalitarian power-sharing arrangement.
Instead, even though they try to come across as edgy, sophisticated and hip, they’re really just apologists for the state, and ultimately a “monopoly of violence” state at that. That’s not exactly cutting edge for “journalists,” except for the repackaging. And it’s curious, that for social justice media warriors ostensibly opposed to government abuses, their “solution” is to help those they often pretend they don’t trust to be the ones controlling the guns.
About David Codrea
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
ammo/gun control = ahole
Don’t even think that THEY want to and would ban cars. The Leftists war on so-called fossil fuels would accomplish just that. If gasoline is so expensive that you could no longer drive very far; and forget about electric cars, because without atomic energy they’re re-charged using fuel oil or Heaven forbid coal; people would be forced to move back into the cities. “Escape From New York” anyone.
There are 2 kinds of laws (skipping the Latin legal terms): 1) laws against things that are inherently wrong, because they harm or infringe on the rights of others, like murder and theft, and, 2) laws that MAKE something that does not infringe on the rights of others illegal just because the law prohibits them, like seatbelts laws, gun laws, and drug laws. The purpose of the first kind, like the law against murder, is to make the punishment for violating them a part of the “social contract” and give the rights for their punishment to the society (via the… Read more »
Hi, David! This is Allan from the video. While we obviously don’t see eye-to-eye, I appreciate that you took the time to watch the video and express your disagreements with it. It is good for people with differing views to have a healthy dialogue. I think gun enthusiasts and gun reform advocates actually have much more in common than the media typically portrays. That’s one of the themes in my latest video, NowThis Reports: Three Days With Guns in Las Vegas. I’d invite you to check it out.
Best wishes
Big difference. Mothers Against Drunk Driving promoted making PENALTIES for breaking the law stiffer. With guns, they don’t enforce the laws that exist very well, so the penalties are in fact lightened. Meanwhile, they make more and more LAWS, instead of stiffer penalties for committing real crimes, to the point where a law abiding person ends up forbidden on every side, while people who commit crimes of actual seriousness, like murdering people, as opposed to being so evil as to own an AR-15, aren’t even really in the public focus. Just imagine the outcry if MADD had started a campaign… Read more »
David, well said on all points!
Simply because some criminals have killed (in most liberals’ words, “deprived” innocent humans of their rights) with firearms, Leftists want to respond by “depriving” all other innocent, law-abiding, responsible citizens of THEIR rights. Liberals are spiteful 7-year-old children! Take your socialist, manure-laden gun-control expectations elsewhere, and leave me and my family alone.
OK here we are complaining about the complainers which is just the same old same old. Me, Gunner for 54 years, NRA brought me in at age 12, and I am still going strong. The NRA sure ain’t what it use to be. My take is simple, I have lived with gun regulations like They are trying to pass again, and they did not hurt me. I look at this this way, Gun don’t kill people, yet people with guns kill people……. My challenge, meet me in the hallway at school, bring your Fav Daily CC (I have had one… Read more »
Does anybody know how many gun laws are on the books? I’m just curious and NO we don’t need more.
I know I’ll probably get ostracized for this but hey…it’s a free country with a first amendment, right? Every time I read an article such as this, I of course, tend to agree. As a matter of fact, most that respond, tend to agree. The problem I have is, there are soooooo many articles just like this one, that are published through various media outlets, that all seem to do the same thing…bitch & moan about what some writter, or some politico, or some starlet that has said something that’s detrimental to our 2A. What they tend to lack, is… Read more »