In his statement after the capture of Boston bomber number two, a serene President Barack Obama cautioned against making a “rush to judgment” about the motives of the terrorist killers:
One thing we do know is that whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not — cannot — prevail. Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed. They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because, as Americans, we refused to be terrorized. They failed because we will not waver from the character and the compassion and the values that define us as a country. Nor will we break the bonds that hold us together as Americans.
That American spirit includes staying true to the unity and diversity that makes us strong — like no other nation in the world. In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there’s a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions. But when a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important that we do this right. That’s why we have investigations. That’s why we relentlessly gather the facts. That’s why we have courts. And that’s why we take care not to rush to judgment — not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people.
That sounds like great advice. Too bad nobody gave it to the whiny hyper-partisan Barack Obama who had an emotional meltdown in front of the cameras when his push for gun control legislation failed. He certainly didn’t have any trouble “jumping to conclusions” and making a “rush to judgment” about the “motivations of the individuals” who opposed him.
Neither did his ally, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who penned a despicable New York Times editorial in which she repeatedly assailed opponents of her political agenda as cowardly puppets of the almighty NRA who don’t care a whit about the murder of children.
No rational argument for gun control is advanced by the likes of Obama or Giffords. Their entire case rests on scurrilous presumptions about the motives of those who oppose them. They deny the very possibility of reasoned disagreement. The only motivations for resistance to their agenda from pro-Second Amendment leaders are greed, or fear of the juggernaut gun lobby; due allowance for dangerous stupidity is made for their constituents out in flyover country, who bitterly cling to their guns as if they were religious totems (as Obama once put it) or fetishize them like a middle-aged swinger advertising his virility with a new Ferrari (as Vice President Joe Biden recently suggested.)
In short, gun control enthusiasts win the argument by default, because there is no legitimate reason to resist their demands. And they don’t seem very concerned about preserving the “unity and diversity that makes us strong” if sacrificing it means they might be able to add a few hundred more gun laws to the thousands already on the books. Obama’s philosophy treats his political enemies far more harshly than the heavily-armed and murderous enemies of the American people.