Last week I published another rant against the half baked hot takes that pass as journalism. Every time there is a tragedy, the emotes start demanding change and the political creatures that we elect by popularity jump at the chance to once again look popular for the base that put them in their seats.
Why The Right Will Never, Ever Support Gun Control was the article I took to task for its juvenile views on constitutional rights and the efficacy of law. It glossed over, as many gun controllers do without fail, all the pitfalls of gun control policy. The unintended consequences and negative 2nd and 3rd order effects of policies that have the overwhelmingly most negative impact on underprivileged and minority communities. Gun control is and always has been fundamentally racist. It still is.
The policies target behaviors that are seen as problematic and then have to be fixed within DA/Prosecutorial discretion. This ultimately results in an undermining of the legitimate authority of those who said the rule was essential. They clearly don’t believe these rules are essential to safety because they fail to evenly enforce them and will let someone off the charge if it improves the optics.
So the rule is entirely circumstantially useful, to make it appear that the governing body cares about safety. But it will be undermined or disregarded if the enforcement of the rule can be made to appear too prejudicial. Instead of recognizing the rule has a fundamental problem and removing it, we nerf its authority but leave it in place.
Why?
Optics.
The left cannot be seen as enabling guns or gun ownership. Massive portions of their core voting demographics are terrified of firearms or directly impacted by firearm violence enough that they would lose a massive political bargaining chip if they were to admit the truths of the matters. They use their opposition to firearm ownership, in the name of safety, as an emotional lever to garner votes. They never promise an amount of reduction in violence, just a reduction. That vague promise about efficacy is deliberate.
It ends up being more useful to them to never make progress, because then they can continue to blame the lack of progress on their peer group who oppose useless firearm rules. The regulations that have no evidentiary backing of their efficacy, they only have the emotional pandering rhetoric full of vague enough promises, are the foundation of their emotive lever. The left never have to back up what they promise to do with any specific results. The policy and the emotional goal of the rhetoric are their own self contained successes. You don’t have to prove your policy has ever saved a life, you just have to vouch that the rule was made to save lives.
It is a nearly perfect self sustaining political topic. It doesn’t require progress on the actual problems or rational justification. It can be undermined successfully for the advancing other politically equitable goals. It literally does not have to work, you only have to say you are saving lives and are tired of the violence.
No specifics required. It is participation trophy legislation and policy.
