With Joe Biden in the big chair come Jan. 20 and the Democrats controlling the outcome of most votes in both chambers of Congress, the gun grabbers should rest soundly in the knowledge that the Second Amendment will be under nigh-constant assault for no less than the next two years. Indeed, the ATF didn’t bother to wait for Biden to take office before changing its rules on 80% completed firearm parts and raiding a manufacturer for “violating” the law.
That doesn’t impress Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts. In an opinion piece for Business Insider, this mom demands action from credit card companies to put an end to the online sale of what she and her ilk call ghost guns – because aggressive police action before Biden even takes office just isn’t fast enough.
All the Lives We’ve Saved …
“We’ve made undeniable progress when it comes to keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them,” Watts writes in the opening paragraph. Even private sales now require background checks in 13 states. Extreme-risk protection orders exist in 14 states and the District of Columbia. Yet despite all this “life-saving progress,” pretty much all those who want to own a firearm can simply “whip out their credit card and order one online as easily as they could order an air fryer from Amazon.”
That’s the nature of the progressive movement – no matter how many tiny steps to tyranny are taken, it’s never enough. There’s always that next step. Regulating who can buy and sell what kinds of guns quickly became a matter of serial numbers and licenses. Then there were background checks. Then folks started demanding a gun registry. Dare to question the motives and you’re some tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist engaging in a slippery slope fantasy. Yet at each step, proponents of more gun regulation called for just a little common sense, swore their ideas would work, and promised that’s all they wanted. What comes after a gun registry if the United States ever goes down that road? Confiscation. It’s the natural progression, and we have the history to prove it. The Nazis promised Hitler’s gun registry would stop crime. It didn’t, so confiscation came next. Only a fool would believe that wasn’t the plan all along.
Mind Your Own Business!
Will the credit card companies answer the call? There’s certainly a precedent for it. Walmart, Kroger, L.L. Bean, and Dick’s Sporting Goods all stopped selling “assault style” rifles and ammunition. That would have been shocking at just Walmart and Kroger – sporting goods are just a small part of what they sell – but Dick’s? It’s a wonder the business remained open after alienating what must have been the vast majority of the outdoor enthusiasts who shopped there.
There has been a terrible outbreak of wokeness in this country – a pandemic, one might say – in which ideologically infected companies have chosen to alienate huge swaths of their customers. And the infection is spreading. Social media platforms are banning the president of the United States and his followers, Apple and Google are marooning apps that serve as alternatives to Twitter and the like without a platform, and GoDaddy just turned the lights off on AR15.com, requiring the nation’s largest firearm forum to resort to a backup while it seeks out new hosting.
PayPal already does not allow any transactions for firearms, parts, or ammunition. Would it be a stretch to expect the same from Visa or MasterCard in the face of such a politically charged call to action?
The Squeaky Wheels
There’s a temptation to, once again, explain what the Founders believed – that all people have the right to build or buy any firearm they want, and the government isn’t supposed to be involved. But the truth is that, even when they try to twist the truth to make it seem otherwise, most anti-gun activists know this already. But where lovers of liberty see the Founders as heroes, anti-gun rights activists see them as villains. Each name on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution belonged to a man who would likely be labeled a domestic terrorist today.
There’s a saying about squeaky wheels getting the grease (or oil – pick your poison). This is especially true when it comes to political issues and businesses, which thrive on public image. Sadly, most companies will follow whoever complains and virtue-signals the loudest. When Dick’s stopped selling AR-15s, most freedom-loving Americans didn’t apply any grease – they just changed the wheel and bought their boomsticks from someone else. Same goes for Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the wake of the anti-Trump actions. Twitter alone lost something like $5 billion in stock value the very next day.
But if Visa, MasterCard, and American Express jump on this anti-gun bandwagon, where does that leave the firearms industry?
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Read more from James Fite.
