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As much as I am grateful to Bret Stephens for appearing to not toe the climate change line–and getting flack for it–and perhaps having realistic views on foreign affairs, he does not feel the same way when it comes to gun rights and our Second Amendment. The one-time editor and chief of The Jerusalem Post turned token “neo-con” columnist for The New York Times, just wrote a piece supporting the ideal of repealing the Second Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.
Stephens either is an idiot, trying to appease the leftist radicals and/or at least keep them quiet or, to paraphrase Pandolfo, just a downright fake conservative, if he’s one at all.
Background
Stephens calls the support of the Second Amendment as “conservative fetish” and something he just not understands?
Conservative Review’s Chris Pandolfo does a great job of presenting counter stats to the stats that Stephens presented in his NYT piece. Stephens admits that gun control laws currently will not work in the states due to loopholes and the progressives’ own statistical errors. He also points out (correctly) that the NRA does not need to buy influence in Washington because they claim high membership. That is contrary to what late night talker Jimmy Kimmel said about the NRA, which I don’t want to repeat.
Analysis
Stephens is now among those who are pushing for the repeal of the Second Amendment. He says that gun ownership should not be outlawed but not “a blanket constitutional protection.” He also thinks that James Madison would agree with the likes of him because of all the murderous acts in America that happened in recent years.
Stephens either is an idiot, trying to appease the leftist radicals and/or at least keep them quiet or, to paraphrase Pandolfo, just a downright fake conservative, if he’s one at all.
Let me say it one time. The Second Amendment is a statement towards the state telling them not to infringe on a well-regulated militia (not just our military and local police and law enforcement who thank goodness, answers to the U.S. Constitution and not the state). It is necessary to keep the peace in a free state.
If ever the Second Amendment was successfully repealed, it is only the first domino. More likely the next amendment to be called for repeal is the First Amendment (freedom of religion, free press, and free speech). Then any other amendments that empower the people instead of the state will also be put on the firing line. The end game for these gun grabbing progressives is for the political will to lie almost entirely with the state and with that will, the power to execute its agenda.
Those who will not submit to that agenda will likely be imprisoned and even killed by the now all-powerful state.
Perspectives
Come And Take Them, Bret Stephens
I mean, Stephens isn’t contending Americans shouldn’t own five AR-15s. He’s arguing that the state should be able to come to your house and take away your revolver or your shotgun or even your matchlock musket. Stephens might as well have written “Eww, guns take them away!” and left it that, but instead he offers debunked arguments and misleading statements that are likely borne out of the frustration of knowing his position is untenable.
Bret Stephens & Guns: Columnist Does Not Understand Gun Rights | National Review
‘I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment,” writes Bret Stephens today. Indeed, it is barely a column so much as it is a brusque list of ill-considered assertions that do nothing to grapple with the many arguments to their contrary. Stephens asserts confidently that “more guns mean more murder,” a claim he bases on a single flawed study that is contradicted both by numerous others and by the recent experience of similar nations.
New York Times’ ‘Conservative’ Columnist: ‘Repeal the Second Amendment’ | Daily Wire
In an age of active shooters, concludes Stephens, it’s time to repeal the outdated Second Amendment. Instead, it’s time to go all in on rewriting that troubling part of the Constitution that enshrines Americans’ rights to protect themselves with firearms. Stripped of that ability, citizens would demand an ever-increasing police state that would erode all other liberties, a trend which we see in other contexts — such as the war on drugs.
NYT’s phony house ‘conservative’: Repeal the Second Amendment
I understand that there must be some draw to being smiled at and welcomed by the liberal elites at those posh Manhattan cocktail parties, but he’d get more invites if he would drop the pretense of being a conservative — a pretense that will fool no one after his latest column. “I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment,” Stephens declares in the opening line of an article calling for the outright repeal of the Second Amendment. See, most liberals would be disingenuous about their desire to confiscate America’s guns.
Repeal the Second Amendment | Bret Stephens, New York Times
Repealing the Amendment may seem like political Mission Impossible today, but in the era of same-sex marriage it’s worth recalling that most great causes begin as improbable ones. Gun ownership should never be outlawed, just as it isn’t outlawed in Britain or Australia. But it doesn’t need a blanket Constitutional protection, either. The 46,445 murder victims killed by gunfire in the United States between 2012 and 2016 didn’t need to perish so that gun enthusiasts can go on fantasizing that “Red Dawn” is the fate that soon awaits us.
The Takeaway
As wrong as he is, Bret Stephens is right about one thing.
America is in need of moral and constitutional renewal and not a continuation of “our instinct for self-destruction.” I agree with that statement, but I have different direction than what Stephens calls for. How about, for starters, a push for a Convention of States (Article V) and a strong pushback against the first wave progressive groups (ALCU, AU, FFRF etc.) that are eradicating expression of faith in the public square and man’s need for God.
Then we can talk about liberty.
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