Posted on June 12,
2022
Common? C'mon!
McConaughey offers tired liberal gun
cliches
by
Daniel
Clark
Actor Matthew McConaughey tells us he's seeking
"common ground" on new gun laws that everyone can get behind without
threatening our Second Amendment rights.
Anybody who believes that probably also believes that the Biden
administration allowed him to deliver a speech from the White House, without
first being assured of finding its content agreeable.
Although he presented himself as an apolitical
concerned citizen, the proposals he put forth were nothing more than the usual,
warmed-over liberal bromides. The native
Texan's delivery may have borne the superficial marks of plainspoken
folksiness, but the meaning of his words was comprised of such stale Democrat
cud that one would have expected it to drop from the mouth of one of Bill
Clinton's cabinet appointees.
McConaughey's
speech was partly a restatement of the op-ed he had published in the Austin
American-Statesman the previous day, supplemented with some personal
stories about the children who were murdered at Robb Elementary School in
Uvalde, TX. Three times during his
presentation, he rhetorically asked, "How can the loss of these lives matter?"
which of course they already do, with or without any action being taken by the
federal government. This tasteless
remark, which might charitably be considered a gaffe, comes across as a
paraphrasing of the Democrats' favorite slogan, "Never let a crisis go to
waste."
Proceeding as if he were composing a liberal
neighbor's yard sign, McConaughey categorizes his proposals under the heading,
"I believe:" The first item to follow
is, "All gun purchases should require a background check." Federal background checks are already
mandatory for firearms purchased from licensed dealers, like the one that
Salvador Ramos used in Uvalde. The NRA
and other groups of gun owners oppose "universal" background checks that would
be imposed on private sellers, because they worry that it will lead to the
creation of a national gun registry.
Nevertheless, fourteen states already require universal background
checks, including California, Illinois, New York and Maryland. As long as we're looking for common ground,
can we all agree that such a policy has already proven itself to be
ineffective?
Second on his list is that nobody under the age of 21
should be allowed to purchase an "assault rifle." The flaws in this argument are glaring and
many. For starters, the term "assault
rifle" has no objective definition. The
Clinton-era "assault weapons" ban identified which guns were prohibited by
superficial characteristics that are capable of being altered. If an AR-15 is specifically prohibited by
law, such a gun could simply be redesigned and renamed. Furthermore, somebody who is intent on mass
murder is not going to have any compunction about acquiring a gun
illegally. Somebody under 21 could still
buy a gun through a straw purchaser, or could steal one, perhaps from his
parents. Finally, 18 is the age of
majority in 47 states out of 50. Where
does the federal government get off denying a legal adult the right to buy a
gun? If somebody between the ages of 18
and 21, who no longer lives with his parents, feels the need to purchase a gun
to protect his home, nobody has a right to say no.
The
simple fact that McConaughey uses the phrase "assault rifles" ought to cause
others to doubt his sincerity in seeking common ground. That non-factual designation is based on the
prejudicial judgment that its owner must have bad intentions. What makes a rifle an assault rifle is the
assailant, which is what every AR-15 owner in America is presumed to be,
according to this point of view.
Liberals like to apply ill-defined designations like
"assault rifles," because they can be easily expanded later on. In the hands of the wrong person, any rifle
(or "long gun," as the liberal media suddenly decided to start calling it) can
be an assault rifle. How confident is
each of us that he or she is among the right people?
Next, he endorses "red flag laws," but only under the
condition that they "must respect due process," which is totally
nonsensical. Red flag laws are a means
of preemptive policing, by which someone is deprived of his constitutional
rights based on someone else's fear about what he might do. The entire point is to deny due process in
the name of safety. Granted, this
approach might prove effective in certain cases, but that's not a trade-off that
we, as Americans, should be willing to accept.
If we empowered the police to haul away everybody who looked suspicious,
those of us who remained would surely be safer also, but at what cost to
individual rights?
McConaughey proposes waiting periods to purchase
"assault rifles," a position he attempts to support by pointing out that
suicides account for the majority of shooting deaths, but is a rifle a common
weapon for committing suicide? Moreover,
waiting periods for firearms put the innocent at a disadvantage, because the
time and place of a confrontation are determined by the aggressor. Somebody who plans a criminal act has got all
the time he needs to prepare himself. What
about a woman who has just discovered that she's being stalked by a violent
maniac? Imposing a waiting period before
she can arm herself helps nobody but her tormentor.
In his speech, he called this list of incremental
encroachments "a step forward for the Second Amendment," a claim only a
professional actor could have delivered with a straight face. Most of the things he suggests are clearly
infringements upon the right to keep and bear arms. To argue that they would somehow enhance our
Second Amendment rights has got to be the phoniest argument since "the more you
spend, the more you save."
McConaughey's "common ground" is no more common than
the "commonsense" gun laws that liberals have been advocating for decades. From beginning to end, his op-ed is nothing
but trite liberalism wrapped in a transparent, mainstream American cover. At the beginning, he stresses the need for
"gun responsibility," as if he meant something to be exercised at the
individual level, but then he pivots to endorsing heavy-handed government
dictates. In conclusion, he writes,
"It's time for real leaders to step up and do what's right, so we can each and
all just keep livin.'" Yes, that's "livin'"
with an apostrophe and no "g." Those
red-state rubes eat that kind of thing up, or so he must think.
Once you get past the messenger's celebrity, the only
thing that's common about his message is that it's the same expansionist
government sophistry we hear anytime a liberal decides to make the deaths of
others "matter."
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