Cory Booker, Senator from New Jersey and chasing the Democratic nomination for President, is the first in the field to go hard promising gun control. The controversial issue has been a losing proposition for democrats all the way back to the 90’s and it’s curious that Booker, who is only polling between 1-3%, would choose the divisive issue to try and garner greater favor from a wider base of voters.
It’s the tired list of “reduce gun violence” diatribe including the classic attack on the NRA, a skree against assault weapons and high capacity magazines, universal background checks, monthly purchase limits, and a national licensing program. Because none of those are infringements on a constitutionally protected right, right?
Booker contends that if Americans need a license to drive a car they should also be required to have one to buy and possess a firearm.
I always miss that part of the constitution, right next to the first amendment somewhere I think, where the right to licensed vehicular modes of transport are enshrined.
Licensing, and thereby taxing, a right reduces its accessibility to the poorer segments of society who are also more likely to need it in their personal defense. The same group supporting this would lose their everloving minds if anything close to a poll tax was proposed. A voting license with a hefty fee and background check attached to it? That would make heads explode.
But according to Booker it is perfectly acceptable, among the other list of infringements, and it’s about time we got around to that “common sense” gun control.
“My plan to address gun violence is simple – we will make it harder for people who should not have a gun to get one,” Booker said.
He aims to enact gun control by making it overall harder to get a gun for everyone [Booker purposefully didn’t add], especially the poor, at risk, or those under immediate threat. It’s just a simple fact that Booker and candidates like him do not accept the right to keep and bear arms as a right, they conceptualize it only as a privilege under the best of circumstances and an epidemic under many others. The lip service they pay to that legally enshrined human right of self protection is getting thinner and thinner every election cycle.
