So, here we go. Yet again. The whole thing is getting tiresome, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion I haven’t heard the last of it.
It works like this:
- Someone in the current administration says, “hey, wouldn’t it be great to bring the Assault Weapons Ban back?”
- People on the internet (or Bob over in accounting, who “knows guns”), who have no clue how politics works, go into apoplexy. They start screaming that the Last Days have come, and discuss how they’re going to cope. Usually this involves the phrase, “from my cold dead hands.”
- I am regaled, via internet and in person, by these people. I get hoarse and very sick of explaining political reality to them.
- It turns out that the comments made by said official turn out to have no real gravity or effect.
- Internet people come down off the roof, grumbling that we “dodged a bullet…this time.”
Eric Holder made the remarks as a follow-up to a letter sent last week, which urged President Obama to pass a new ban. It was written and signed by 53 Democrats, all of whom seem to have only recently realized that we share a border with a corrupt third-world country.
Of course, the Democrats have to feel the Pain of the Whole World, and in turn blame it on the United States, so they petitioned the President to step in. They claim that the weapons being used in the current violence are taken from the American civilian firearms market.
Which is odd, because most of the weapons being used are machine guns and explosives, things that aren’t available on the American civilian market.
Never mind that pesky fact, though. The letter was met with an abundance of silence, so our new Attorney General felt the need to put his two cents in:
“Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.”
Which, of course, set the ball rolling. The only problem is, Holder’s remarks have nothing to do with policy, or even with reality.
Nancy Pelosi, a huge fan of gun control herself, quickly distanced herself and her party from Holder’s remarks. In her press conference, she said:
“On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now. I think it’s clear the Bush administration didn’t do that.”
She’s smart enough not to touch gun control with a ten-foot pole. After all, she’s the Homecoming Queen right now. Look how orgasmically happy she was during the President’s address to Congress Tuesday night. She doesn’t want to screw that up.
Trust me, if it comes, we’ll be hearing from the President, or at least Biden, who was the author of the original ban. And they’re otherwise occupied justifying an $850,000,000,000 spending bill that nobody had time to read.
Pelosi and the rest of her cheerleaders have all their bets placed on that same bill, and (if they’re smart) they’re likely preparing damage control right now for when it turns out to be a bust.
It’s a shame they don’t have George W. Bush to blame anymore. That’d probably make it easier.
Needless to say, the 2010 mid-terms are just around the corner, and I can guarantee that the big issue will be FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY (wish I could use the <blink> tag sometimes). The Republicans are already fronting younger, bolder candidates, and you can be sure they’ll be on the offensive this time.
They might be looking at 1994 all over again. If the Democrats screw with gun control, they will be looking at 1994 all over again.