Guns & Ammo

You may have noticed that I've not participated in politics much since the 2012 elections. Following all that fervor, my attitude has been, frankly, "meh." It's going to be way too long a next four years to get all worked up about every new "crisis." As somebody important once said, "Tomorrow has enough troubles of its own." We'll continue to have crises every week. As Peggy Noonan observed, our President loves them. Sort of like how Mr. Gibson in Wives & Daughters says in his beautiful Scottish brogue: "For whatever reason, [Cynthia] loves mysteries. I, on the other hand, despise them."

And that's how I feel. For whatever reason, our President loves crises. I, on the other hand, despise them.

With all that said, I have a couple of things to say about our most recent "crisis." I do have very strong convictions about guns and ammo. I like them a lot. But I've been loathe to turn this blog into a long-running debate about guns and their societal control. There are better places to go if you want the ins and outs of that debate.

But I'll observe a couple of things once and for all, and then hold my peace.

Almost nobody on the pro-gun control side of things is really interested in reality. Yes, a world without guns is a nice fairy tale, right up there with the Tooth Fairy. This entire brouhaha has been nothing more than an opportunity to posture, as exhibited by our President surrounding himself with the gaggle of kids yesterday.

That event convinced me more than anything that nothing is going to be done, and people worried about having to gun down the Feds at their doors for trying to confiscate their guns can just rest easy. Reality, you see, has a way of intruding into our lives. It always gets the last word. Like the reality that there are 300 million guns in this country. There used to be more, until Eric Holder had the brilliant idea to sell them to murderous Mexican drug cartels. No "database" is going to stop their being bought, sold, and traded. No increase in background checks and waiting lists is going to stop a determined murderer from acquiring one. It's as simple as one private citizen accepting cash from another private citizen. See: War on Drugs. Laws alone do not stop the flow of contraband, not even with gigantic law enforcement agencies dedicated to stopping the flow of contraband. Oh, background checks and waiting lists will tend to slow down people who might be able and willing to stop the murderers. But it won't stop the murderers.

So how about laws actually designed to address the real problem? That would be nice. But that isn't what we're likely to get. But, as it is, we're not likely to get anything. Not now. Not soon.

Why would I say that? Brian, don't you know they've always had designs to get rid of the 2nd Amendment? Of course I realize it. I'm not stupid. A disarmed citizenry is always the goal of rulers who have ill designs. In fact, it is usually the first sign of ill designs. In this case, it is the design of an Administration that views the American citizen as a subject, not a citizen. They call this, of course, "balancing" our rights. That means stomping on the other side of the scale. The American left wing hates and despises guns, and hates and despises anyone who likes them, much less carries them. I was in McDonalds recently waiting to order, standing behind a cool customer packing a .45 caliber 1911 on his hip. Didn't faze me in the slightest. I imagine the average New Yorker would have passed out at the sight.

But this Administration is entirely unserious about this. I know this because I actually read all 23 executive order proposals from the President. And I thought, "That's it?" After all this debate, after the nice gratuitous photo-op with the kids, this is it? The list is utterly and completely pathetic. Unserious. Phoned. In. Not a single thing in that list would have prevented the most recent massacre, nor any previous.

Yes, they'll banter on about a new "assault weapons" ban (aren't they all?), but nothing will be done legislatively. Too many Democrat Senators in rural states have no stomach for it. Too many Republicans (hmm, maybe I should be writing "just enough") in the House have no stomach for it.

That leaves executive action. And from the looks of the list the President unveiled yesterday... No.

It was a nice, gratuitous photo-op, Mr. President. I won't hold that against you. What I will hold against you is that I cannot find any guns or ammo for sale at reasonable prices.

That's what "crises" get you.