Writer and film director David Mamet has weighed in on the current gun control push, and what he sees as government overreach couched in an “assault weapons” ban that is actually “a political appeal to the ignorant.”

Mamet describes it as a “hoax”- a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, because “assault weapons” are used in few crimes, and the very designation “assault weapon” is based on a gun’s cosmetics–i.e., does it look menacing?

Going after such guns makes some people feel safer because they have slowly, and perhaps unknowingly, traded their independence for a “government knows best” mentality. 

Think about Ronald Reagan’s 10 most dangerous words in the English language–“Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Reagan saw these words as dangerous because they were indicative of an encroaching government that had taken unto itself the role of determining what was best for you and for me: a role for which our government simply was not designed.

Mamet sees the government doing this very thing with an “assault weapons” ban, in that he sees it determining what guns we can and can’t own based on what has been determined that we do or don’t need. And as Mamet so ably points out, government officials exercise Marxist principles when they limit our exercise of freedom based on what they think we need.

This is all part of the “hoax.” It takes our eyes off of the real solution to crime in this country-namely, the strength of the individual and an armed citizenry-and it makes us think the answer is a blind trust in the supposed-altruistic aims of our government.

According to Mamet, the height of hypocrisy is that the people who are trying to disarm us are themselves surrounded (protected) by heavily armed guards. 

He specifically mentions Obama in this instance, and the way Obama has ordered armed guards for himself and his family for life. To this Mamet simply says: “Evidently, [Obama] feels he is best qualified to determine his needs, and of course, he is.” And subsequently, remarks Mamet, “I [too] am best qualified to determine mine.”