Promoting New Book, Sen. Murphy ‘Concedes’ Individual RKBA

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Anti-gun Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has a new book coming in which he magnanimously suggests liberals should “concede” the fact that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- In the course of promoting his upcoming book about “America’s bloody obsession with firearms”—as explained by New York Times writer David Marchese—anti-gun rights Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) perhaps unintentionally provides an alarming look at the liberal living-in-denial mindset about guns that American gun owners urgently need to take seriously. That may become a priority for the newly-announced “Gun Owners for Trump,” whose 18-member advisory board includes such luminaries as Ronnie Barrett, owner of Barrett Firearms, Olympic gold medalist Kim Rhode and Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Lamenting about how “gun-rights enthusiasts” have concluded anti-gunners ultimately want to adopt prohibitive gun control laws, Murphy magnanimously comments: “That’s why in my book I propose that we concede that there is a private right to firearm ownership embedded in the Constitution. That is not a view shared by most progressives. Most progressives would say that is about the maintenance of militias. But I think it’s both historically accurate and politically smart to make clear that gun-control enthusiasts are bound by a Constitution that protects the right of individuals to own firearms for protection or to shoot for sport. It’s important for us to explain the limits of our proposals.” That would be quite a “concession,” since the U.S. Supreme Court has already affirmed twice in recent history that the individual right to keep and bear arms does exist. Murphy’s book, “The Violence Inside Us,” is due for release Sept. 1. Amazon’s promotional description of the book states; “Murphy tells the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, and his subsequent immersion in the complicated web of influences that drive American violence.” “Profound personal transformation” might be overly melodramatic, since in his interview with Marchese, Sen. Murphy acknowledges he has never owned a firearm. “I’ve never owned any guns, and I haven’t ever shot a weapon,” Murphy admits. “That’s not out of principle. That act of pulling the trigger is so connected to what happens on the other side that I have never wanted to feel that sensation. I think it would be instructive to fire a semiautomatic rifle so that I can maybe talk more intelligently about what that gun does. But again, it would connect me to a set of emotions that I don’t know that I need to access.” Of course, not, critics could argue. It is far easier to propose regulations on something, such as a constitutionally-protected fundamental right, when you are woefully ignorant about the subject matter. Instead, the pro-gun control U.S. senator asserts the importance of building “a consensus and to make folks on the other side less scared of us.” That will not be easy when the standard-bearer of Murphy’s party, former Vice President Joe Biden, has a gun control agenda he wouldn’t even mention during his acceptance speech, and has stated publicly he will make former anti-gun Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke his administration point man on gun policy. It was O’Rourke who blurted last year during a primary debate in Houston, “Yell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47!” Claiming he knows “how to talk about guns better than 99.9 percent of Americans,” Murphy tells the Times, “The greatest success of the gun lobby is to convince people that this is a third-rail issue that can’t be touched by politicians. This mythology starts in 1995 when Bill Clinton and others ascribed the Democratic losses in 1994 to a vote on the assault-weapons ban, which is crazy. The assault-weapons ban in 1994 was wildly popular…” It may have been popular among people such as Murphy, but not so much among the millions of law-abiding Americans who owned the semi-automatic modern sporting rifles—guns deliberately misidentified as “assault rifles”—because they were the ones being penalized. Research in the aftermath of the ban’s sunset in 2004 suggested it had a negligible impact on violent crime, so it was not reauthorized. But now comes Gun Owners for Trump, with the task of building grassroots activism and getting the “gun vote” out to re-elect the president. According to Gottlieb, Biden and the Democrats might make that easier than Murphy’s idea of getting gun owners to hop aboard the gun ban express. “We’ve had time to examine Democrat Joe Biden’s extremist gun control plan—which he didn’t even mention during his acceptance speech—and it is truly alarming how his party is willing to turn a constitutional right into a tightly-regulated government controlled privilege,” Gottlieb said. “Donald Trump, on the other hand, has fulfilled one of his most important campaign pledges to America’s 100 million gun owners. The president has been filling federal court vacancies with experienced, constitutional judges who understand the Second Amendment means what it says.” If he is re-elected, and the Senate remains under Republican control, the president could fill one or two more potential vacancies on the Supreme Court, which could pave the way for more Second Amendment clarification and restoration. At the same time, the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund has released its first television advertisement, available for viewing on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/4kRqV49aM5Y
It might be telling that the first comment in reaction to the Times interview with Murphy came from a man identifying himself as Mark Nuckols, and it was brutally candid. “Well, I personally would support repeal of the Second Amendment,” Nuckols wrote, “and the confiscation of all privately owned firearms. Which will, of course, never happen. I support stricter regulation of guns, but effective gun regulation is a pipe dream. Background checks are not going to prevent most gun violence. And neither will a ban on assault rifles. And state regulation will always be undermined by the easy availability of guns in other states.” Observations like that underscore the critical nature of the task Gun Owners for Trump has before it. Summed up by CCRKBA’s Gottlieb, “With the election just over two months away, we’re going to work vigorously to see President Trump re-elected to a second term so he may finish the job he started, not only making America great again, but making the Second Amendment great again in the process.” RELATED: Biden’s Anti-Gun Agenda Would Turn Right into Privilege
About Dave Workman Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.