The Tactics of Gun Control Zealots

I first became aware of the concerted efforts to dismantle the Second Amendment as we know it back in the 1960s. It was then that I realized just how relentless these anti-gun advocates are, and they haven't stopped since.

For years, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ignored blatant violations of the Second Amendment. They hadn’t taken a case on this issue since United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). The Miller case was an aberration , and by the time it reached the High Court, the defendant and defense lawyer had vanished, leaving no one to argue the case. The justices, lacking proper firearm knowledge , rendered a factually mistaken opinion. They absurdly claimed that short-barreled shotguns had no military application—despite the military’s use of 12-gauge trench guns at the time. The Court did, however, acknowledge that those weapons useful to the military were indeed protected under the Second Amendment But they refused to protect them. 

The Miller ruling allowed significant restrictions on certain arms and "destructive devices," requiring registration and hefty taxes—$200 per weapon—on these military weapons. Yet, these weapons weren’t banned outright, just regulated into near-obscurity through burdensome requirements.

The 1934 gun control act clearly violated the second amendment.  The high court refused to take even one case that would until 2022 with Bruen. 

Decades passed, and a liberal-dominated Supreme Court conveniently avoided Second Amendment cases, particularly those questioning whether the Second Amendment was enforceable against the states via the 14th Amendment. That changed with District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). In Heller, the Court struck down D.C.’s handgun ban. Then, just two years later, the Court delivered another victory for gun rights in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010).  McDonald applied the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment, forcing cities like Chicago to allow gun owners to obtain shall issue concealed carry permits.

Fast forward to 2022, and we saw the most significant gun rights victory yet in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). The Bruen ruling essentially signals the end of almost every restriction on the possession and carrying of modern firearms. If applied correctly, it could invalidate the National Firearms Act of 1934 and nearly all state and local gun control laws.

Now that we’ve covered the legal landscape, let’s dive into the deceptive and manipulative tactics employed by those who despise gun rights. My first exposure to this came from Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, who introduced some of the most ridiculous gun control bills every session. Fortunately, most of his ideas went nowhere.

In the 1960s, a grieving father named Peter Shields, whose son had been murdered with a handgun, and armed-robbery victim Mark Borinsky launched a crusade to abolish handguns. They founded Handgun Control, Inc. (now known as Brady: United Against Gun Violence). Named after James Brady, President Reagan’s press secretary, was shot by John Hinckley during the infamous 1981 assassination attempt. After Brady's tragic injury, his wife Sarah Brady took up the mantle of the gun control group, and Brady became a household name.

These fanatics have tried every trick in the book to manipulate public opinion about firearms. Their first campaign aimed to ban all handguns, but that failed. Next, they went after small, inexpensive pocket handguns, branding them "Saturday Night Specials." That effort also flopped. Undeterred, Sarah Brady and her team switched tactics, stoking fear among the ignorant public by labeling semi-automatic rifles—such as the AR-15 and AK-47—as "assault rifles." These firearms may look like military weapons, but their military counterparts are fully automatic and classified as machine guns. The Brady Bunch conveniently omitted that fact in their propaganda.

Not stopping there, they turned their sights on compact firearms of .38 caliber and larger, branding them "Pocket Rockets." That campaign failed as well, but it didn’t slow down their zealotry. The leftist media played right into their hands, acting as a mouthpiece for Brady's misleading campaigns, amplifying their falsehoods to a broad audience.

Nothing was too outlandish for these anti-gun crusaders. They eagerly spread fabricated studies that portrayed gun ownership in the worst possible light. One of their more infamous lies was that Glock pistols were invisible to modern metal detectors used in airports. This scare tactic led our brain-dead Congress to outlaw undetectable firearms that don’t even exist!

Since Sarah Brady’s death, the torch has been passed to other groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. These groups, like Brady, are pushing Congress and state legislatures to pass law after law—laws that, thanks to the Bruen decision, are destined to be struck down.

Many of these anti-gun organizations are nothing more than money-making machines operating for looting much like the master embezzler, Wayne LaPierre did absconding with millions in NRA membership dues.  They collect dues from America’s gun-hating zealots, but rather than making any real progress, they use the money to fund their leaders’ luxurious lifestyles. The hypocrisy is glaring.