Smoke and mirrors.
One of my long-term moles has been involved hot and heavy the last couple of weeks in the gun debate over there (and I hope the Meta whiners are reading this because the thought of their fevered little brains working overtime composing more Meta whine posts about moles delights me to no end) to the point that I feel almost physically ill from having spent so much time there marinating in the stench of ignorance and hipocrisy.
Here's what I've learned, and it won't really surprise anyone who has spent time in this forum:
DUmmies don't really give a shit about the 2nd Amendment. In fact, they hate it. The vast majority would have no problem at all with it being repealed despite the lip service they pay to having it cover "militias" and things like hunting and sporting arms. Make no mistake, they want all firearms gone.
Despite all their pooh-poohing of the "slippery slope" argument, they are indeed incrementalists. Why else would they be so hellbent on banning "assault weapons" when rifles of all types account for only about 4% of violence committed with firearms? They either ignore this completely and move on to the next talking point, or throw out some nonsensical appeal to emotion like, "Tell that to the kids of Sandy Hook!" At this point, military-style weapons are the low hanging fruit due to the sensationalizing and fear mongering of their allies in the MSM. If they were serious about banning the weapons used in crime they would be going for the handguns, but they know the public won't go for that right now, so they'll take a smaller bite for now.
DUmmies refuse to address any cultural or sociological influences on violence in society. That would require making value judgements on people's behaviors, and we know with their come-as-you-are attitudes toward morality, such a discussion is anathema to them. And besides, it gets in the way of their primary goal of disarming everyone.
Another giveaway is their disdain for technicalities. They hate precise language because it makes it easier to refute them and leaves them little wiggle room. They don't like having to define terms like "assault weapon" and "high-cap magazines" because they want things as open-ended as possible in order to expand their restriction. Technical points of law therefore become "distractions" on the part of pro-2Aers to "derail discussion of what's important".
Any question of the utilitarian value or constitutionality of a particular restriction earns the questioner an accusation of being a "2nd Amendment absolutist" or "being against all common sense controls" despite the fact of thousands upon thousands of federal, state and local laws governing ownership and use of firearms already acquiesced to and accepted by gun owners. This allows them to paint themselves as moderates while the pro-gunners are "obstinate and unreasonable".
Despite the constant wailing they have put up in the past, DUmmies are not at all against an authoritarian government or a police state. They are only against a right wing form of same. They relish a state with a monopoly on force and positively salivate over the prospect of the military, which they normally hate, gunning down citizens that resist it. This evidenced by their fantasies of aircraft and artillery raining destruction on conservative supporters of freedom. If you read the threads it's a recurring theme. They don't even bother to deny it. They fully believe and expect that if the day comes when democracy in the U.S. ends it will be at the hands of a benevolent Leftist dictatorship and any protest of such will be treason.
