Is - I Support The Second Amendment - The Most Meaningless Phrase In Politics? :: 09/03/2020

The question popped into my mind as I was reading this puff piece on a Moms Demand Action chapter in Missouri and stumbled across this quote.

“We support the Second Amendment, and we support the culture in Missouri,” Columbia group spokesperson Catey Terry said. “But there just are some common-sense gun laws that can make us all safer, and that’s what Moms is fighting for.”

Ever notice how when gun control activists say they support the Second Amendment, there’s always a “but” afterwards? For all of their professed support, I’ve never actually seen or heard a member of Moms Demand Action oppose a gun control bill because it violates the Second Amendment rights of Americans. If Catey Terry believes that she’s only in favor of “some common-sense gun laws,” could she have provided the reporter who interviewed her with any examples of gun control laws that she believes aren’t common sense?

Joe Biden’s another one of those anti-gun activists who says he supports the Second Amendment too, yet I can’t find any examples of Biden opposing any gun control measure because it goes too far. Banning the most commonly sold rifle in the United States apparently doesn’t violate the Second Amendment in Biden’s eyes, nor does banning the most commonly possessed ammunition magazines in the country. Requiring gun owners to be licensed by the state, confiscating firearms without a court hearing or criminal charges, rationing gun purchases, and banning private transfers of firearms are all Second Amendment-compliant according to Joe Biden.

I realize that Joe Biden takes questions from the press about as frequently as Portland goes a night without a riot, but the next time a reporter does get a chance to ask an unscripted question to the Democratic presidential nominee, I wish they’d give Biden a pop quiz: Can you give me an example, as a self-proclaimed Second Amendment supporter, of a gun control bill that you would consider a violation of the Second Amendment?

I don’t think Biden could come up with a good answer. Support for the Second Amendment is something that gun control advocates and activists constantly claim, but never actually demonstrate. So why bother even pretending that they believe that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed? Why not just come out and say, “Actually, I don’t support the Second Amendment”?

For Biden, the reason is that he wants to win in November, and that means pretending to support the right to keep and bear arms even though his own plan would turn the right of the people into a privilege of the few. For gun control advocates like Catey Terry, the lie allows them to claim to be “moderate” on the issue of gun ownership. There’s also little risk of being called out or asked a question about what that support actually means, because the vast majority of the media are either too clueless to push back or too invested in the idea of gun control to ever think about asking a tough question of a gun control activist or anti-gun politician.

If Joe Biden’s support for voting rights looked like his supposed support for the Second Amendment, he’d be backing poll taxes and voting tests. If his support for the First Amendment resembled his so-called support for the right to keep and bear arms, he’d be vowing to ban “rapid-fire messaging systems” like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The media would howl in both cases, but when it comes to calling out or questioning his professed support for the Second Amendment, reporters, anchors, and likely even debate moderators will give him a pass.

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/2020/09/03/support-2a-most-meaningless-phrase/