In the aftermath of the horror we felt as a country after Sunday night’s brutal, deadly attack on innocent civilians, the usual suspects grabbed their bloody shirts and proceeded to ride their “MOAR GUNZ CONTROL” hobby horse, the “Republicans” on the Hill shelved legislation to make sound suppressors less onerous to purchase, and even the NRA has come out in support of limiting bump fire stocks, sending the message to all gun owners that their rights are less important than messaging and virtue signaling in the wake of tragedy.

One so-called “conservative” commentator, however, published a derptastic missive in the New York Times, which went much further than the usual calls for more gun control. Oh, no. Bret Stephens went full rutabaga, channeling Michael Moore, calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. This is nothing new from Moore, whose hatred for our rights and freedoms oozes from every pore of gelatinous mass, but from an alleged “conservative,” it’s a bit jarring and indicative of the level of irrational emotionalism that governs some people’s responses to tragedy.

https://youtu.be/gbyG9TGDp3c

“I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment,” Stephens claims, immediately trotting out the old, hackneyed trope about conservatives fetishizing guns (must be a substitute for inadequate reproductive organs, right?).

Well, no. There’s no fetish there, unless Stephens is referring to our love for freedom. The Founders included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, because they understood that an armed populace is the last bulwark against tyranny. No, that doesn’t mean that our rifles and pistols will be effective against government military hardware, and such reductio ad absurdum seems to always be prevalent in gun grabber arguments against civilian ownership of firearms. But the Founders did understand that the People are the ultimate boss, the People have the right to fight to their very last breath any tyrant trying to rule their country, whether foreign or domestic, the People have the responsibility of making the last stand. Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist 28, succinctly stated this fact:

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. [Emphasis mine]

It doesn’t matter that the government has greater firepower. It shouldn’t matter. And frankly, once tanks, nukes, and other heavy military hardware enters the picture, I would submit that all bets are off anyway. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, knowing this will be their last stand, but fighting to the last breath anyway. That’s who we are. That’s why we’re Americans. That’s why we shouldn’t allow petty tyrants in three-piece suits take away our rights. The Second Amendment doesn’t grant us rights; it protects an already existing right from government infringement. Repealing that critical part of who we are means the end of our society as we know it.

From a law-and-order standpoint, more guns means more murder. “States with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides,” noted one exhaustive 2013 study in the American Journal of Public Health.

This is a hackneyed lie on several levels. A terrific reference tool that dispels myths about gun ownership explains the following:

Fact: Internationally speaking “There’s no clear relationship between more guns and higher levels of violence.” — Small Arms Survey Project, Keith Krause, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 2007

Fact: “A detailed study of the major surveys completed in the past 20 years or more provides no evidence of any relationship between the total number of legally held firearms in society and the rate of armed crime. Nor is there a relationship between the severity of controls imposed in various countries or the mass of bureaucracy involved with many control systems with the apparent ease of access to firearms by criminals and terrorists.” — Minutes of Evidence, Colin Greenwood, Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, January 29, 2003

According to the CDC, the United States saw nearly 13,000 firearm homicides in 2015 – a 4.04 crude rate per 100,000 citizens, and a 4.88 per 100,000 overall murder rate. Gun control “utopias,” such as Mexico, the Russia, Lithuania, and El Salvador far surpass the number of murders we saw that year. And while we have by far the greatest number of legally owned guns per capita, we are hardly the world’s leader in homicides!

So yeah, that’s garbage. The problem isn’t guns. The problem is criminals and crazies.

From a personal-safety standpoint, more guns means less safety. The F.B.I. counted a total of 268 “justifiable homicides” by private citizens involving firearms in 2015; that is, felons killed in the course of committing a felony. Yet that same year, there were 489 “unintentional firearms deaths” in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Between 77 and 141 of those killed were children.

Let’s put aside the fact that “justifiable homicides” aren’t the only standard of measuring whether or not having that tool of self-defense has been effective in preserving your safety and security. Sometimes, the predator isn’t killed, but wounded. Sometimes, a warning shot is enough to ward off a thug (although I don’t recommend those, but that’s another discussion for another day), and sometimes, merely brandishing a gun prevents you from becoming defenseless prey. The National Crime Victimization Survey estimates that guns are used defensively 235,700 per year, and this number, since it’s based on face-to-face interviews with victims, may not include those who are too frightened to speak with government investigators, and those who aren’t willing to admit they brandished a gun to save their own lives.

The rest of the article sounds much the same as every other gun-grabber derp.

Oh, if the shooters name had been Mohammad, law enforcement would have noticed.

Oh, the “active shooter” is a ubiquitous phenomenon here, while relatively unknown in the rest of the world. (Yeah, they simply suffer attacks through other means.)

And, of course, the “our Founders would have never envisioned the advanced weaponry we have today” argument, which has been debunked and slapped down so many times, it’s silly to even mention it here.

Fact is this, and that’s really the only fact to know: we have an existing and unambiguous right to keep and bear arms – both as a tool of self defense, and as an assertion of our right to remove a despot from power should it become necessary.

The Founders did include a way to amend the Constitution should any of the principles enshrined therein become moot or outdated. There is a specific process to do so, and it’s intentionally difficult, designed to prevent emotional histrionics from resulting in major changes in the law of the land every time something bad happens.  You got a two-thirds majority both in the House and the Senate? Go for it. You think 38 of the 50 states in the Union will approve a constitutional amendment to repeal the Second Amendment? Take your chances. Personally, I doubt this will happen. We’re a young country, and we still remember our roots.

I doubt anyone – other than the feeblest of bleating sheep – would turn in their firearms should the Second Amendment be repealed and the government decides a turn-in or a buyback program is the way to go. So how will they collect those guns? Go door-to-door with armed agents? Good luck with that. “Oh, officer! I’m so sorry, but I no longer have my firearms. They all perished in a tragic boating accident along with all my ammunition.”

Point is even if you repeal the Second Amendment, our rights exist, and I would be willing to bet most Americans will tell you to pound sand if you tried to tell them they no longer have their fundamental rights, because the government has said so. Our rights are inherent in our very nature as human beings, and the fundamental right to life consequently means each of us has the right to protect that life with the most available tools on the market today. That’s why a repeal of the Second Amendment ultimately means nothing.

But, if you’re willing to try, Molon Labe, bitches!