I try not to comment on every dumb thing said by a celebrity when it comes to the Second Amendment and our right to bear arms, but sometimes the statement is so idiotic that it can’t go unchecked. That’s the case with some recent comments by Carey Hart, the former motorcycle racer and current husband of singer Pink. Over the weekend Hart took to Instagram to defend his wife from fans who were upset over a picture of her in a Biden/Harris t-shirt, but ended up making one of the dumbest arguments in favor of a vote for Biden that I’ve seen this year.
“I’’l try to keep this short,” the off-road truck racer wrote. “`Yes Biden has been in politics for 47 years. Reason I am voting for him is because I ‘hope’ he puts together a great team that will do positive things. And that is what most of Trump’s high-profile early [supporters were] planning for him to do. But his narcissism kicked in and away he went.
“Trump retweets white power s*** all the time. Called peaceful protesters animals, and called the racist pieces of s*** in Charlottesville ‘good people.’
“[The Second Amendment] is a constitutional right, and no two people (Biden and Beto) can take that away,” he added, referencing recent presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s calls for stronger gun control. “I for one think there needs to be stricter gun laws, ‘cause guess what? That won’t affect me because I’m a law-abiding citizen.
Hart concluded his rant by telling followers to “Fact check anything I said,” so let’s do just that.
We’ll start with his statement that “no two people” can take away the Second Amendment. Fair enough. But the Democratic Party could absolutely strip the Second Amendment of its meaning and relegate the right to the status of a privilege if Biden is elected.
Democrats are already talking about nuking the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court with anti-gun justices if Biden wins in November. Getting rid of the filibuster in the Senate would mean that any gun control vote would only need the approval of 51 senators in order to pass the chamber, and a Biden Supreme Court would almost certainly uphold any new gun control law approved by a Democrat-controlled Congress. Politically popular but unenforceable laws like universal background checks would likely be the first priority, but that would be quickly followed by banning commonly owned guns and magazines, red-flag laws allowing an individual’s guns to be seized without being accused of a crime, raising taxes on ammunition, and allowing gun manufacturers to be sued out of existence because a criminal illegally obtained a gun and used it in the commission of a crime.
Hart claims that he’s not worried about any infringements on the Second Amendment because he thinks we need “stricter gun laws,” but claims that those gun laws won’t affect him because he’s a law-abiding citizen. I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were him.
Back in 2018 Hart posted a picture to his Instagram account of twelve men wearing masks and openly carrying rifles and shotguns in California, warning that he and other Malibu residents would be defending their homes and property from looters during the wildfires that forced several hundred thousand people to evacuate.
It’s not clear if Hart is among the group of armed citizens calling themselves the P.D.C. Posse, but the men likely violated California’s open carry laws when they posed for the picture on the Malibu street. I happen to think the state’s ban on carrying even unloaded firearms is ridiculous, but that is the law, and Hart’s buddies could have faced charges if the police hadn’t had bigger issues to worry about at the time.
In fact, I can’t imagine Hart’s position to #DefendYourLand going over too well among his fellow Biden supporters. Haven’t we been told that looters are just taking property, and been assured repeatedly over the past few months that looting shouldn’t be considered a crime because people have insurance? Hart may consider himself to be a law-abiding gun owner, but Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the vast majority of Democrats consider attitudes like his to be evidence of vigilantism and even white supremacy.
Maybe the fact that Hart lives in California is skewing his perspective on what it would take to violate his rights. After all, he’s already living in a state that’s told him his Second Amendment rights don’t protect his right to:
- carry a firearm for self-defense
- possess an ammunition magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds
- possess commonly-owned long guns that the state has defined as “assault weapons”
- purchase ammunition online or out-of-state
- purchase a new handgun (thanks to California’s microstamping law, virtually no new models of handguns have been made available for sale in California in nearly a decade).
Hart may not consider any of these laws to be an infringement on his right to keep and bear arms, but I know some judges and plenty of attorneys (and even more gun owners) who’d disagree. Heck, under California’s red-flag gun seizure law, Hart could have his firearms taken from him simply because his wife has made social media posts alleging that she’s a threat to others.
The singer shared a hilarious tribute to Mark Wise, as she posed alongside her security and protector backstage overnight. She, however, mused the man was less for keeping her safe from the public, but rather the public safe from her.
‘I have no good photos with Mark Wise. I still don’t. This man has been by mine and my kiddos side for the last 8 or so years, and I love him to pieces,’ Pink began her message. ‘He doesn’t necessarily protect me from other people, it’s more like he protects other people from me.
‘We call it Project Keep Mama Out-a-Jail.’
I’ll admit that it’s highly unlikely that prosecutors would ever go after a celebrity like Pink for a post on social media, but if she and her husband weren’t famous, a zealously anti-gun cop or prosecutor could easily claim that the post is evidence of violent tendencies. If a judge concurred (without ever hearing from Pink or Hart, any firearms in the home would be removed immediately. The couple would get their chance to demonstrate her soundness of mind at a later date.
If Carey Hart gets his way, all of these laws and more will likely be introduced at the federal level, either in the form of direct legislation or grants to states to implement these laws on their own. Tens of millions of Americans will go from law-abiding citizens to criminals simply for maintaining possession of the guns and magazines that they own without registering them with the government and paying a hefty tax for the privilege of keeping their guns.. at least until the inevitable followup legislation is introduced because there are still too many “weapons of war on the streets.”
Hart may believe he’s a law-abiding citizen, but a Biden/Harris administration would likely disagree, and even they found no fault with his gun ownership, the same cannot be said for many other law-abiding gun owners. If Hart’s hatred of Donald Trump is leading him to vote for Biden, he should simply say that instead of idiotically exclaiming that the Biden/Harris administration poses no threat to the Second Amendment.
