Remember when the left pretended they liked the Second Amendment? That’s passé. Today, Democrats around the country are preparing for a big gun grab, the likes of which the Republic has never before seen. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has actually publicly pitched all-out gun confiscation (or alternatively, forced gun buybacks), is now preparing grandiose new legislation designed to strip New Yorkers of “assault weapons,” as well as restrict the size of magazines. In the only provision actually designed to reduce crime, Cuomo will also propose harsher penalties for using a gun in the commission of a crime.
Cuomo recognizes that what’s he’s doing is politically divisive. But in today’s America, he also recognizes that he’ll be rewarded by the media for cramming down political divisive gun control, even if it does nothing to stop violence. “It’s a very divisive topic,” said Cuomo. “There’s a lot of energy on both sides. Some people are vehemently against, some people think we’re out of our minds for not passing it … Gun control is highly political, politically contentious situation. It is polarizing.”
Cuomo isn’t the only New York politician stumping for gun confiscation. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who dreams of the Nanny State, has now produced and distributed a new commercial for Mayors Against Gun Violence, showing the mother of a murder victim asking, “How many more children must die before Washington does something to end our gun violence problem?”
But the push for gun confiscation isn’t limited to New York. In Iowa, State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer told a local newspaper, “We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the semi-automatics and all of them. We can’t have those running around out here. Those are not hunting weapons.” First off, guns don’t run. Politicians do. Which is why they’re playing the Sandy Hook tragedy for all it’s worth. And Muhlbauer certainly is. “We need to get them off the streets – illegally – and even if you have them, I think we need to start taking them. We can’t have those out there … Those guns should not be in the public’s hands. There are just too many guns.”
Chicago, which already has both some of the nation’s strongest gun laws and some of the worst rates of crimes involving guns, is calling for further gun regulation. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is traveling the state asking for the Illinois legislature to ban “assault weapons”; Illinois is already considering a bill that would ban vast swaths of semi-automatic weapons and magazines, as well as destroying shooting ranges.
In Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley is pushing for more gun regulation. In California, legislators are considering harsh regulation on sale of ammunition. In Florida, the Democratic House is looking to prevent concealed weapon permit holders from taking their guns to public events. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie says, “you’ve got to do stuff on guns.”
And in Connecticut, where Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza violated dozens of laws, the legislature has decided that the solution is more laws. With grieving mothers apparently berating legislature members, the legislature feels the pressure to do so. A new bill proposed by State Senator Beth Bye would create a massive 50 percent sales tax on the sale of ammo and magazines, ban ammo buying via internet, and limit the sale of ammo to those with a gun permit. Naturally, Bye is standing on the bodies of the children of Sandy Hook to pursue that agenda: “I just feel a personal mandate,” she says. “We’re only going to have one opportunity to do something like this. I want to take this opportunity and make sure we do something significant.”
Never let a good crisis go to waste. The left never does.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News, and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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