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Washington DC is a special case, particularly where the Second Amendment is concerned. Ruled entirely by the Left, DC has long considered itself outside the rule of law, and has routinely ignored the Second Amendment, which eventually led to the Heller and McDonald decisions.  One can only imagine the screams of rage and defiance emanating from the self-imagined elite of DC upon those historic decisions.  In any case, they continued to do all they could to deny citizens their Second Amendment rights, until, after years and multiple lawsuits, they were finally beaten down into—the horror!—obeying the Constitution like—shudder—normals. Townhall.com reports:

Well, as you would expect, concealed carry permits in Washington D.C. have spiked now that the cumbersome and possibly [“possibly?  Ubsolutely] unconstitutional ‘good reason’ provision has been gutted. The fight for carry rights in D.C. has been a years-long battle. The fight tilted in the favor of gun rights groups when in 2014, the courts ruled in the Palmer v. DC case that it was unconstitutional for the city to ban lawful residents from carrying their firearms outside of their homes. A 90-day stay was issued to allow the city council to draft a new ordinance accommodating the ruling. Of course, the new ordinance contained a ‘good reason’ or justifiable need clause, meaning the city could arbitrarily reject concealed carry applications. It’s the same in many blue states.

In 2016, a federal judge ruled the clause was unconstitutional. D.C.’s attorney general’s office declined to challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court, knowing it was very possible that the conservative wing of the court could strike down other stringent anti-gun restrictions on the permit carrying process across the country. Alas, the gutting of the capital’s ‘good reason’ provision and the ensuing 1440 percent spike in carry permit applications. Kerry Picket of the Daily Caller has more:

The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to The Daily Caller Tuesday that 1,896 concealed carry permits were issued by MPD for the calendar year to date 2018.

I’m sure, gentle readers, that even now, DC politicians, conspiring with their congressional buddies, are plotting new infringements on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding people unfortunate enough to live in DC.

The first two years of the Trump Administration have been encouraging times for those that see the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, as the foundation of liberty.  After eight years of Barack Obama, arguably the greatest gun salesman in American history, it has been satisfying to sense a respite regarding fundamental rights.  But to relax too soon is a mistake.  The Left, like the Chinese, take the long view.  Thinking their policy desires inevitable, the inexorable force of history, seeing the Constitution as a mere impediment, a speed bump, they never rest.

Recent surveys have indicated the Democrat’s top two priorities—other than investigating everything Donald Trump has ever done and anyone he has ever known—are universal health care and repealing the Second Amendment.  As I noted in March in John Paul Stevens: Repeal!  Stevens, the retired Supreme Court justice, has recently advocated the repeal of the Second Amendment.  In that article, I explained why that is unlikely, but it is always possible.

But that’s hyperbole!  Democrats don’t want to take anyone’s guns!  They would never resort to violence to take them. They just want common-sense gun safety measures, like Eric Swalwell (D. CA).  Legal Insurrection reports:

California Congressman Eric Swalwell (D) has found himself at the center of a viral story about gun control after suggesting on Twitter that the government could use nuclear weapons on its own people if they don’t submit to gun confiscation. [skip]

In case you aren’t aware, Eric Swalwell has been talking about confiscating guns, with the more palatable language of ‘buybacks’ for months. In May of this year, he wrote the following in an op-ed for USA Today:

Ban assault weapons, buy them back, go after resisters: Ex-prosecutor in Congress

Reinstating the federal assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 would prohibit manufacture and sales, but it would not affect weapons already possessed. This would leave millions of assault weapons in our communities for decades to come.

Instead, we should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons, we should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons. The ban would not apply to law enforcement agencies or shooting clubs.

Isn’t that nice of Swalwell?  If we belong to law enforcement or a “shooting club,” we can keep our “assault weapons.”  If not, it’s nucs for us.

To be fair, Swalwell is probably speaking metaphorically.  His point, however, is cruel and bloodthirsty.  He is comfortable using the power of the federal government, and even the US military, again Americans, people who on Tuesday are law-abiding, and on Wednesday, when Sawalwell’s gun grab goes into effect, instant federal felons.

But surely that’s paranoia talking?  Democrats don’t think like that!  Consider, thanks to Hot Air.com, what Newsweek writer Nina Burleigh has to say (It’s that Nina Burleigh who once wrote: “Almost every single Newsweek writer [I know] has wanted to perform fellatio on Bill Clinton.”

Almost every single person I’ve ever heard of with an AR-15 has been a mass murderer. Based on Twitter sample the rest of them are scarily paranoid. Get on the right side of history @DLoesch@Rambobiggs#gunsensehttps://t.co/rFtHFBpvLM

— Nina Burleigh (@ninaburleigh) November 17, 2018

Golly!  I don’t recall mass murdering anyone, and just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.  They plainly are.  Hot Aircontinues:

She must know the statistics, no?

Production of AR-style guns has soared since the federal ban expired. In 2004, 107,000 were made. In 2015, the number was 1.2 million, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an industry trade association. The organization does not provide sales data, nor does it have 2016 production estimates, but says that year’s activity likely broke all records.

It should also be noted that ban did nothing for public safety. This was so obvious Democrats let it sunset, and suffered badly in following elections.  Even Bill Clinton admitted Democrat’s gun ban fervor cost Al Gore the presidency.

AR-15 Carbine Variant

Today, one of out of every five firearms purchased in this country is an AR-style rifle, according to a NSSF estimate. Americans now own an estimated 15 million AR-15s, gun groups say.

That’s a lot of people to lump in the ‘mass murderer and/or scary paranoiac’ group. She’s right that the small number of mass killers do favor the weapon, making it overrepresented in horrendous attacks, but AR-15s don’t surface very often in the stream of gun crimes that police deal with. From a post a few weeks ago:

As for the threat posed by AR-15s to less vulnerable communities, it’s small. In 2016 it was used in just two percent of gun deaths, and that two percent included the mass murder at the Pulse nightclub. The same year rifles as an entire class of weapons were responsible for a fraction of the deaths caused by knives.

Because they are among the most popular contemporary firearms, it’s hardly unusual that AR-15 pattern rifles would be used in the occasional attack. They are not, as the media would have us believe, high-powered rifles, nor fully automatic.  And rifles are used in only a tiny portion of all crimes, AR-15s in even a tinier portion, but none of that matters. What do these seemingly unrelated issues—health care and the Second Amendment–have in common?  Control.  Both are about ultimate control of the populace.  With government control of medical care, whoever is in charge has enormous control over not only the economy, but the very lives of Americans.

Canadians with government-controlled health care have always had the safety valve of the United States.  Many Canadians travel to America for medical care, paying out of their own pockets, because the same care is simply unavailable in Canada.  Rather than waiting in excruciating pain for many months for a chance at surgery, they come to America.  If America goes socialist, where will Canadians go?  Where will Americans go?

But what does that have to do with the Second Amendment?  Control again.  Democrats know they can never achieve their progressive utopia if normal Americans have the means to resist them.  Granted, some leftists have an irrational fear of guns, and some honestly believe society would be much better without weapons in the hands of the law-abiding—they’re happy to allow government agents and criminals to have them—but all understand the Second Amendment functions as the Founders knew it must: as a warning to, and a restraint on, all prospective tyrants.

With a Democrat controlled House, we’ll surely see a variety of gun grabbing measures passed.  The Senate, still solidly in Republican hands will probably not go along—probably.  But I can’t say it often enough: Democrats will never stop trying to disarm the law-abiding.  As Thomas Jefferson may have said:

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

They really do hate you.  They really do want you disarmed.

And to see a good perspective on why federal gun grabbing would not work, see this article by Larry Correia.  He makes a number of salient points on a topic I’ll be exploring in the near future.