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As Parkland gun control activists and their surrogates mock the idea of arming teachers, march for gun bans in D.C., and call for new gun controls via Twitter, they risk driving Americans toward the Second Amendment instead of away from it.
They run this risk via their in-your-face gun control hubris, especially when that hubris is directed toward docile actors.
For example, on Monday Rep. Steve King (R-IA) addressed Parkland students who want to raise the minimum age for gun purchases by asking, “If you are a teenager & believe you won’t be responsible enough to own a gun until 21, why should you vote before 21?” That is a reasonable question when one considers that voting and owning guns are both constitutional rights. Yet the responses to his question varied between things too vulgar to print and pronouncements that his political career is over–that he is a pawn of the NRA and is going to be voted out office.
Or consider David Hogg, one of the most frequent spokesmen for Parkland gun control activists. He put out a PSA one week before the student march for gun control and asked, “What if our politicians weren’t the bitch of the NRA?” And it is not just the way he talks about the NRA, although that runs the risk of motivating the group’s five million-plus members to show up and vote. It is also the way he appears to set himself apart from other Americans in general.
Take his March 22 Axios interview as an example. In that interview he talked of how his teachers are “very understanding” when he has to skip school for gun control events and appearances. He even talked of how he was recently supposed to take a math test but just said, “Nah.” This gives the appearance of special rules for the philosopher king, rules and opportunities that cannot be enjoyed by others. One cannot be blamed for sensing a similar, conflicting set of rules in gun controllers from Hollywood and D.C.
If, by chance, you still do not see the hubris, then look at Parkland gun control activist Cameron Kasky, who spends time rejecting the idea of arming teachers to defend students when he is not making fun of Americans’ abiding conviction that we need to be armed to repel a tyranny. On Tuesday he tweeted:
To all people who think they need an assault rifle: I can not promise this, but I truly do not believe the redcoats will be coming for any of us any time soon.
— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 28, 2018
And we have not even mentioned how the gun control activists treated Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch during the CNN gun control town hall.
It was just a few short months ago–October 19, 2017, to be exact–that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was urging his colleagues to drop gun control until after the November 2018 election. He worried that the incessant, post-Vegas gun control push was going to hurt Democrats in the midterm elections.
Yet the gun control push from Democrats has only escalated since Schumer voiced his concerns, thanks to the Parkland activists and others.
Meanwhile, the NRA PAC took in February donations that were three times higher than it received during January. This could mean that people had spent months saving in a coordinated effort to give money to the NRA in February or…it could mean that Schumer was right and all the gun control rhetoric is rallying Americans to the standard once more. And that standard is the Second Amendment.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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