Dems Display Contempt for 2nd Amendment At Gun Violence Forum :: 10/03/2019

It was billed as a forum on “gun violence,” but it turned into an hours-long rally for gun control that highlighted the contempt many of the Democrats running for president have toward the Second Amendment.

Beto O’Rourke, for example, lied about Antonin Scalia’s views about banning semi-automatic rifles. O’Rourke claimed that Scalia said in the Heller decision that there were some “understandable commonsense limits” to the 2nd Amendment. What Scalia actually wrote in the Heller opinion was that longstanding laws like those barring felons or those adjudicated mentally defective were presumably constitutional, but when it came to what types of guns could be banned, Scalia specifically stated that guns that are in common use fall under the protection of the 2nd Amendment. And as my guest Dave Kopel points out in today’s Bearing Arms Cam & Co., Scalia got even more specific about a ban on semi-automatic firearms in a written dissent (along with Clarence Thomas) to the SCOTUS decision not to hear a challenge to a ban in Highland Park, Illinois. It’s clear under the Heller decision that a ban on the most commonly sold rifle in America today wouldn’t be constitutional, but Beto doesn’t really care what the law mandates. The heart wants what it wants, and Beto’s heart wants to take your guns away.

The headlines around Pete Buttigieg’s appearance on Wednesday all involve a spat between the mayor and O’Rourke over a mandatory compensated confiscation plan, but Buttigieg’s opposition is lukewarm at best, and seems largely based on the timing of the proposal, not its actual substance. He too, is all in on a ban of the most commonly sold rifle in America.

In fact, every candidate on stage in Las Vegas supports that unconstitutional idea, along with other measures designed to inhibit the legal possession and use of firearms. Listening to hours of the forum yesterday, it seemed like 99% of the proposals offered by candidates were aimed at the 99% of gun owners in the country who will never commit a violent crime or use their firearms unlawfully.

Also on today’s program, we’ve got the story of an Albuquerque man who’s been in the right place at the right time on a couple of different occasions over the past year, an armed homeowner who stopped a burglary spree, and a man on trial for attempted murder who received a slap on the wrist for a previous robbery just a few years ago.

As always, you can get the show in podcast form at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Townhall.com’s podcast page. Thanks for watching, listening, and spreading the word!

Cam Edwards has covered the 2nd Amendment for more than 15 years as a broadcast and online journalist, as well as the co-author of "Heavy Lifting: Grow Up, Get a Job, Start a Family, and Other Manly Advice" with Jim Geraghty. He lives outside of Farmville, Virginia with his family. https://bearingarms.com/author/camedwards/

https://bearingarms.com/cam-e/2019/10/03/dems-display-contempt-2nd-amendment-gun-violence-forum/