On May 10 Reason magazine suggested Hillary Clinton has chosen to pit herself against the American people in a losing battle over guns and gun control.
The American people love guns and FBI reports of record background checks for the past 12 months indicate Americans may love them more now than ever before. Yet Clinton is openly running on gun controls that will make it more difficult–if not impossible–for law-abiding citizens to obtain the arms they need for self-defense, hunting, and target shooting.
Making things even worse, Clinton is pledging to go it alone on gun control if elected. She makes no bones about the fact that she intends to use executive action to exceed President Obama on gun control.
Reason reacted to these things by suggesting Clinton’s decision to fight for gun control is a “doomed” one that pits her against Americans instead of with Americans. The magazine observed that Clinton does not understand Americans’ love for guns; she does not understand how or why Americans equate private gun possession with “liberty.” And because of these things, she does not understand that Americans are likely to refuse to comply with new gun controls, regardless of how many executive orders a president issues.
Reason put it thus:
Some people might balk at a president who threatens to rule by decree when Congress insists on exercising its constitutional right to approve and disapprove legislation, but maybe that’s a bit old fashioned in our senescent republic. Still, a potential President Clinton’s gun control agenda is likely to founder no matter how many strokes flow from her desk because of the opposition of the very people to whom they’re supposed to apply.
On October 16 Clinton told a town hall audience at Keene State College that an Australian-style gun ban was “worth looking at” for policy in America. Reason notes that this is another misstep by Clinton, and they explain that it betrays her lack of understanding that a large portion of Australians refused to comply with the ban, even though Australia lacks the “gun lobby” Clinton constantly bemoans in the U.S.
If citizens in a country that lacks “America’s heavy political associations with gun ownership” refused to hand over their guns, it should be readily apparent that citizens in the U.S. are going to have little stomach for the proposal.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.