The big list: Leftists cynically exploiting the Newtown massacre

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.  -- Rahm Emanuel 

The left is exploiting the Newtown tragedy pursue a big wish list of anti-gun measures long held in readiness by gun control advocates. The crisis they were waiting for has arrived.  Most of the proposals now flying around Washington are old ones. They have long existed in the hopes and dreams of anti-gun organizations such as the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center. They have been featured for years in their web sites and newsletters. The gun control contingent has used the tragedy to bring out their wish list of further regulations.

It does not seem to worry anyone on the left that many of the measures proposed have nothing to do with the Newtown massacre and few would have been of any use to prevent it. The measures are not good responses to Newtown or other recent mass shootings and indeed were penned long beforehand.

Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell let the cat out of the bag while talking to MSNBC. He has had moments of excess candor before, as those know who have followed his career. This time he slipped bigtime.

"The good thing about Newtown is, it was so horrific that I think it galvanized Americans to a point where the intensity on our side is going to match the intensity on their side. "

See it at the link: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/ed-rendell-msnbc-boosting-gun-control-good-thing-about-sandy-hook

The good thing? That's exactly the Rahm Emanuel, no-crisis-wasted mentality that is guiding the left as it uses Newtown as political cover for its big list of gun control laws.

Emily Miller at the Washington Times sees through it.  (Indeed, nearly anyone who has been to Washington before sees through it.)

Gun control is back. President Obama on Wednesday unveiled a series of feel-good measures designed to play on the emotions of Americans saddened by the horrific shooting of 20 students at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month. Almost nothing he proposes to do would make anyone safer.

Surrounding himself with children, Mr. Obama said, “This will be difficult. There will be pundits and politicians and special-interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty — not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.” 

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/17/obama-is-coming-for-your-guns/#ixzz2IX59gHj2 Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

If you would like President Obama's side of things, he has a slickly produced PDF for you to download: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/wh_now_is_the_time_full.pdf   There is also a White House web site for you to peruse: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/preventing-gun-violence If you have read gun control literature over the years, you will get a sense of deja vu.  Much of the president's material could have come from Brady or VPC. It is in the same vein as the literature they have produced for years. You hear more of the same when you listen to the president's recent remarks on gun control--concepts and phrases long familiar.

It is no surprise, at least to those who have been paying attention, that Obama is a fellow traveler with the anti-gun contingent. His past shows up to haunt him when he makes pro-Second Amendment sounds while acting to the contrary.

Texas governor Rick Perry gets it:

"In fact, the piling on by the political left, and their cohorts in the media, to use the massacre of little children to advance a pre-existing political agenda that would not have saved those children, disgusts me, personally."  

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/18060/ 

A few items from Obama's list of gun proposals I actually agree with, and I'll talk about those in a future installment. But most do little or nothing that is useful to curb gun crime or the acts of the violently insane. What they do is encroach upon the choices and privacy of every gun owner. Most gun owners, of course, are not criminals and not crazy. Thus the enforcement goes where the problem is not. Second Amendment supporters generally see that as sinister, or at least suspicious. Measures that apply to all people's guns (while often failing in the area of real world criminal enforcement--the crooks still get any kind of gun they want) have the presumption that everyone's guns are the problem. That is plainly at odds with the thinking behind the Second Amendment.

Why not go after the bad guys and the crazy people? Why hand a setback to John Q. Public's ability to defend himself? Why intrude further upon his choices? Why further peek into his privacy? Why attempt to undo a generation of progress in gun design, by banning modern rifles? We can be sure that the more sophisticated among the criminal class and any tyrant wannabes will have the latest equipment, and will not be filling out Form 4473.

Why, indeed? Let us understand what the administration proposes in light of where we are as a country--highly polarized, without many moderate voices on either side--and who Obama is, a committed leftist with an anti-gun record. He says he likes the Second Amendment, but his actions show that he despises it. When he talks about keeping "magazine clips" from people who shouldn't have them, he means you.