I don’t always go into a 30-tweet dissertation on the real drive behind the progressive obsession with gun control in general and certain kinds of gun control in specific, but when I do there always seems to be someone who will Storify it when I’m done.

Or, you can simply look at them here.

That’s my view on why big government politicians in general—and the progressive wing of the Democrat Party in particular—is obsessed with restricting access not to those firearms that are most commonly used in actual street crime (concealable handguns), but are instead obsessed with those semi-automatic, magazine-fed intermediate caliber rifles that most clearly and obviously would serve as “modern muskets” for the contemporary unorganized militia.

This militia, recognized as separate and distinct from the National Guard under U.S. federal law and comprised of more than 100 million American civilians, including millions of recent combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, is what our political class fears the most as they continue to push for laws that infringe upon individual liberties.

It’s not about stopping crime.

It’s about establishing control.