Alabama voters will have a clear choice between pro-gun Roy Moore and pro-gun control Doug Jones on December 12 .
Generally speaking, Moore is a Republican and Jones a Democrat. This means a vote for Moore helps the pro-gun Republican Party maintain a majority over the anti-gun Democrats while a vote for Jones gives Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yet another Senator who supports restricting the Second Amendment.
And Jones has been clear about restricting the Second Amendment. He told the Alabama Political Reporter that the Second Amendment has “limitations.” He framed this by suggesting that all natural rights have limitations, saying, “We’ve got limitations on all constitutional amendments in one form or another.”
This completely misses the point of the Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers’ goal was not to limit the people’s rights but to limit government’s infringement upon those rights. The Founders considered the government’s infringement to be a death knell for liberty but the way Jones views it, government infringement via regulation is acceptable. Because of this, Jones did not hesitate to tell the Washington Post that expanding background checks to gun shows “would be helpful.”
Democrats’ disdain for gun shows has always been puzzling. It is as if they simply cannot tolerate the fact that such shows represent a gathering of free people enjoying their freedom. It cannot be because firearms from gun shows are used for crime, especially for high-profile crime. After all, one would be hard pressed to name even one mass public attack in which the guns were acquired from a gun show. Yet if elected, Jones would stand with other Senate Democrats in supporting more regulations for gun shows.
Moore is completely opposite of Jones in this regard. Moore opposes any expansion of background checks, viewing them as a backdoor means of moving the country closer to gun registration. He can point to California as a contemporary example of a state where the adoption of universal background checks was followed by gun registration requirements, and gun registration was followed by confiscation laws.
Moore has been vocal in his opposition to gun control. On September 12 he told Breitbart News that national reciprocity for concealed carry should be passed and on September 25 he told an audience, “We’ve got to uphold the Second Amendment.” He highlighted the irrationality of gun grabbers by saying, “You know, they say that guns are bad; that they kill people. Well I know a lot about guns–I’m the one that used guns in combat. I know what guns do…[But] guns don’t kill, people kill. [You could say] cars kill, are we going to get rid of our cars? Are we going to get rid of our knives?”
He has been clear in his opposition to an “assault weapons” ban and a “high capacity” magazine, and has literally pulled out a gun and held in the air on two different occasions on the campaign trail. His goal was to show that he does not just talk about concealed carry but actually carries as well.
On the other hand, Politico gave Doug Jones the chance to reassure Alabamans that he would not take away their guns if elected, but Jones passed on the opportunity to stand up for the Second Amendment. Instead he talked about not discriminating against people based “race, religion, sex orientation or whatever.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange