Remember when we were told that the NY Times was hiring a conservative for the opinion pages? Now go back and look at the body of work for Brett Stephens. He makes other so-called Republicans, like the Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker and Jennifer Rubin look like the second coming of Reagan.
I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment.
From a law-and-order standpoint, more guns means more murder. “States with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides,†noted one exhaustive 2013 study in the American Journal of Public Health.
From a personal-safety standpoint, more guns means less safety. The F.B.I. counted a total of 268 “justifiable homicides†by private citizens involving firearms in 2015; that is, felons killed in the course of committing a felony. Yet that same year, there were 489 “unintentional firearms deaths†in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Between 77 and 141 of those killed were children.
From a national-security standpoint, the Amendment’s suggestion that a “well-regulated militia†is “necessary to the security of a free State,†is quaint. The Minutemen that will deter Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are based in missile silos in Minot, N.D., not farmhouses in Lexington, Mass.
It’d be a whole lot safer if we banned hammers, baseball bats, and motor vehicles. Oh, and bathtubs. Can’t forget about them.
I wonder what Madison would have to say about that today, when more than twice as many Americans perished last year at the hands of their fellows as died in battle during the entire Revolutionary War. My guess: Take the guns—or at least the presumptive right to them—away. The true foundation of American exceptionalism should be our capacity for moral and constitutional renewal, not our instinct for self-destruction.
He’d say that that enshrining the 2nd as a specific Amendment was designed to make it so gun grabbers (say, does the Times still have armed security in their building?) would have a really, really tough time attempting to take firearms away from citizens. They made it the 2nd amendment for a reason.
Also, some, like National Review, are trying to say this is more of a warning to Democrats. Hogwash. The first 7-8 paragraphs say that Stephens specifically wants to do away with the 2nd.
