There is a very dangerous idea being pitched every day to those who are ignorant or on the fence about what position to take on “gun control”. While the conservative mindset is rooted in upholding the Second Amendment, and the far-left, liberal, anti-gun crowd makes no bones about their entrenched position, it may very well be the battle for the sentiments of those in the middle that determines how public opinion will affect public policy going forward.
Recent polls have shown that more than 50% of Americans likely own guns, up from roughly 30%, which was the last estimate used for roughly a decade. Americans have been quietly arming themselves, especially in the last three and a half years, at a rate of over a million guns a month. And while those numbers are impressive, that still leaves half the country who are NOT gun owners, and whose opinions do indeed matter when it comes to public policy. It is these people that the progressive left is aggressively targeting with anti-gun campaigns, using fear and leveraging ignorance in order to change public opinion and eventually public policy that they hope will usher in their vision of a gun-free utopia.
Every single day, anti-gun groups like EveryTown, Moms Demand Action, Brady (United Against Violence) and others like them, promote messages that are, at their core, anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment. But increasingly those messages are more subtle and sophisticated as they attempt to sway the opinions of the non-gun owning 50% of Americans.
Why does this matter?
While we still have gun ownership enshrined in the Second Amendment today, the left is leveraging a massive psychological warfare campaign in a long game attempt to indoctrinate the next generation of Americans (and any undecideds) to believe that gun ownership and the Second Amendment are unnecessary and even harmful to our society at large. It’s not completely out of the question that in a generation we could see a serious attempt to amend the Constitution to rewrite or eradicate the Second Amendment completely. Gavin Newsome has already attempted to do exactly that with his proposal for a 28th Amendment that functionally dissolves the liberties in the Second Amendment with a state-approved, watered down version that is lifeless.
The newest and most subtle vehicle for this psy-ops campaign is messaging that targets:
- Common sense gun safety laws
- Safe storage
- Suicide prevention
- Ending gun violence
- Assault weapons
- Sensitive places restrictions
Some of these are not new (assault weapons bans and sensitive place restrictions), but it is the others we need to worry about and focus on.
The credible threat, as always, lies in the language used by the left. To non-gun owners, the first four bullet points sound like reasonable, sensible things to tackle. In fact, why wouldn’t gun owners be on board with these, many might ask? Don’t they make the world a safer place? Aren’t they laudable virtues to which we should aspire?
Here is the key to understanding why each of these constitute insidious attacks directly against private gun ownership:
Every single issue leveraged by the anti-gun crowd, no matter how seemingly innocent or well-intentioned, ends, at its logical conclusion, in a complete ban on firearms.
If you don’t believe us, just listen to them in their own words.
The assault weapons ban quickly morphed into targeting “semi-auto rifles” followed by “semi-auto” firearms (which constitute the vast majority of handguns) and now arguing that we can prevent domestic violence and suicide by removing access to guns altogether.
It’s impossible to put too fine a point on it: the left wants to ban all firearms. Period. There is no middle ground, no compromise, no reconciliation. Any and all arguments that attempt to limit or further legislate private firearms ownership, in any context, are attempts to eventually ban guns. And any student of history knows what happens after that.
When you next encounter a young person or a non-gun owner who is on the fence about gun ownership and the Second Amendment, simply point out the reality of current events as it relates to armed civilian populations. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve taken a side in any of these conflicts as the principle is the same: an unarmed population is one that will disappear.
It’s time we start calling out the left for their agenda.
Flowery words, seemingly good causes, and generic calls for public safety are all sheep in wolf’s clothing. We will not tolerate any agenda that ends in gun bans or confiscation.
