“Beneath the sadness we also felt a sense of resolve. That these tragedies must end, and to end them we must change.”
This week’s White House Address marks the one year anniversary of the tragic events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary school with a call for stricter gun control.
The President speaks about the families and parents of Newtown and how they have responded in the past year. He then translates their hardship and their loss into a policy point.
“On this anniversary of a day we will never forget, that’s the example we should continue to follow. Because we haven’t yet done enough to make our communities and our country safer. We have to do more to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on a gun so easily. We have to do more to heal troubled minds. We have to do everything we can to protect our children from harm and make them feel loved, and valued, and cared for.”
The typical language of those who wish to enforce rigid gun control, especially those activists who advocate absolute removal of guns from the hands of the people, is to talk about how we are simply not doing enough to protect our children. It is to be presumed and understood as self-evident that more guns equals more danger, and fewer guns equals less danger. A simplistic point of view that fails, naturally, to take into account a laundry list of factors that responsible gun owners and defenders of the second amendment must list over and over again in the constant battle to keep and uphold our right to keep and bear arms.
“And as we do, we can’t lose sight of the fact that real change won’t come from Washington. It’ll come the way it’s always come, from you. From the American people. As a nation we can’t stop every act of violence. We can’t heal every troubled mind. But if we want to live in a country where we can go to work, send our kids to school, and walk our streets free from fear, we have to keep trying. We have to keep caring. We have to treat every child like they’re ours.”
Once again, the fallacious appeal to safety. It is a simple thing to point out that an individual walking the streets with a concealed handgun is going to feel safer than they would without one. This is so obvious as to be intuitive. Yet saying so is treated as an overly simplified world view by gun control advocates, who see no such flaw in their own child-like reasoning.
The President says that change won’t come from Washington, but from the American people. A meaningless canard from those who would bring the central authority of the federal government to bear in order to take guns out of the hands of the law-abiding.
As is always the case with the takers of freedom, the argument boils down to “we know what’s best, both for you, and for your kids.
The President concludes “We must, and can, change.”
We’ve seen what the President means by change. It’s an appeal that should be trusted as little in public safety as it should have been in public health. Which is to say, not at all.