Suffering? You need gun control!

Within hours of a man carrying out a horrifyingly successful mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which the death toll as of this writing is almost sixty, Democrats are out in public demanding gun control legislation. Never wishing to appear to their neo-communist handlers as weaklings inclined to put humanity before politics, or willing to preempt the revolution out of respect for human suffering, progressive politicians at this moment of “fundamental transformation” seem to want to look callous and inhuman.

Rahm Emanuel’s infamous cat-out-of-the-bag moment — “Never let a crisis go to waste” — has quickly evolved from an awkward instance of progressive self-revelation to the proud mantra of the American Left. Democrats are no longer even ashamed at the old accusation of “politicizing a tragedy.” Politicizing tragedies is their stock in trade. Tragedy — the bigger the better — is the grease in their wheels.

And the essence of the strategy indicated by this crisis-exploiting mantra is always the same: Stop thinking and pass laws, right now, precipitously, without a moment to reflect on all those little matters of constitutionality and individual liberty that a thinking population would remember were explicitly intended by the Founding Fathers to serve as moral limits on the extension of government power.

A huge storm devastates a populated region? “Stop thinking; pass laws restricting greenhouse gas emissions now!”

Hundreds of people shot, and a nation in shock at the inhumanity of the crime? “Stop thinking; pass laws restricting gun ownership now!”

This is how communist revolutions, whether direct and violent or indirect and gradual, must proceed, especially in a nation with explicit structural limits in place to thwart state overreach. Catch the population with their intellectual guard down, at a moment of feeling weak, heartbroken, forlorn, or angry, and pounce on them with demagogic cries of “Forward!” Before they know it, they will have acceded to things no freedom-loving people would ever accept if they were thinking clearly.

More on this theme, and others, in the hours ahead…

 

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