Another Democratic Party leader has hopped on the anti-gun hysteria after the Christchurch Mosque massacres. This time, it’s Bernie Sanders who joined the calls for more gun control.
On March 21, 2019, Sanders celebrated New Zealand’s leaders decision to ban “military-style” rifles and semi-automatic guns in the wake of the massacre that claimed the lives of 50 people.
Sanders tweeted, “This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like.”
The Vermont senator believes America should follow in New Zealand’s footsteps: “We must follow New Zealand’s lead, take on the NRA and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States.”
The Christchurch Massacre may be a tipping point as far as gun control discourse in America goes. From Nancy Pelosi to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and now Sanders, the Democratic Party has officially become the party of radical gun control. Although Republicans have left a lot to be desired under the Trump administration with the passage of Fix-NICS and the ATF’s bureaucratic bump stock ban, we’re at a point now where Democrats are pushing the Overton Window even further towards gun control.
Now former Supreme Court Justices like John Paul Stevens are advocating for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Even states like Hawaii are moving to repeal the Second Amendment. In this battle, like any other political battle, ideas matter.
The 2016 Sanders campaign normalized socialist ideas in American political discourse. Currently, the most popular member of the U.S. House, Ocasio-Cortez has taken up Sanders’ mantle and declared capitalism “irredeemable”. She is the youngest generation of politicians who bought into these ideas hook, line, and sinker. This has ominous implications for future generations.
Sanders has a track record of praising the Soviet Union and even hiring David Sirota, a known Hugo Chavez* apologist, as his speechwriter. It’s abundantly clear that Sanders’s socialism runs deep. Although, Sanders has not been able to attain the presidency, and very likely will never do so, his socialist ideas will have a lasting impact.
One overlooked aspect of socialism is its intimate connection with gun control.
Bernie Sanders may not be a tyrant in the making, but successive leaders could easily advantage of the gun control apparatus to their favor. History has shown this to be the case in several instances. Weimar Germany was one of the most notable examples when the Weimar Republic passed gun registration under the justification that it would quell violence between Nazis and Communists on the streets.
Little did the politicians in charge of the Weimar Republic know that their gun control schemes would later be used by the succeeding government to strip Jews of their firearms and subject them to one of the largest genocides in human history.
Even present-day Venezuela, one of the most visceral failures of socialism in recent memory, fell victim to a similar dynamic.
Previous social-democratic governments had implemented strict gun control, which Hugo Chavez not only took advantage of once he got into power, but expanded upon to disarm and subjugate the Venezuelan population. When the wrong political players are in power, today’s “common-sense” gun control legislation could be tomorrow’s stepping stone for gun confiscation.
Modern-day politics doesn’t care for unintended consequences nor long-term policy implications of regulations. For that reason, elected officials like Bernie Sanders have such strong followings.
As socialism becomes popular, other facets of human activity such as self-defense and privacy will be under the chopping block. Socialism does not operate under a vacuum and is indeed an all-inclusive package of human control.
As the great economist Ludwig von Mises said best, “Great conflicts of ideas must be solved by straight and frank methods; they cannot be solved by artifices and makeshifts.”
In this case, the forces of liberty cannot afford to back down.
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