Centrist consensus

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The US political powers-that-be seem to have agreed that America can’t have a debate about gun control. In effect, gun radicals are deciding for everyone else and rejecting the commonsense centrist consensus on guns held by folks in both parties, like George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, as spelled out in this video from the Rachel Maddow Show. That consensus holds that some restrictions on gun ownership are both sensible and necessary.

The basic proposals—including the banning of large capacity ammunition clips like that used in the Arizona shootings—are so non-controversial that reinstating a ban should be a no-brainer. The gun radicals have decreed otherwise, cutting off debate and arguing instead that, paradoxically and counter intuitively, the answer to gun violence is more guns with few or even no restrictions.

Some of these radicals also promote the truly bizarre idea that the purpose of the Second Amendment isn’t merely so that Americans can have guns for hunting and self-defence as mainstream conservatives have always said. Instead, they say that the purpose is so that citizens can overthrow the US Government. Put baldly, they seriously believe that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to enshrine treason as a right.

There is nothing in the text of the Second Amendment or the US Constitution generally that could possibly be interpreted as promoting that idea. Instead, the gun radicals turn to revisionist history and outright fantasy to try and reframe the debate as being about some sort of mythological right to overthrow the government.

As Rachel points out in the video, the logical conclusion of this belief is that they must also be able to have access to the same level of weaponry—including nuclear weapons. Otherwise, what’s the point? After all, Glocks, even with high-capacity ammunition clips, couldn’t make traitors’ success possible, nor would hunting rifles.

It’s time that the commonsense centrist consensus was restored and gun radicals stopped dictating to everyone else. That consensus is simple, straightforward and a middle ground supported by people in both parties. It’s also actually based on the Constitution and principles of Americans democracy. The gun radicals can’t make any of those claims. So: Who are elected representatives going to listen to?