Orwell was a just a few decades too late when he decided to title his dystopian classic '1984.' This year, the Harris/Walz campaign is channeling their inner Big Brother; using "freedom" as a slogan even while they want to restrict the most fundamental civil liberty we have: the right to keep and bear arms. 

Harris continues to be aided by the media in her quest to re-invent herself and avoid any serious policy talk whatsoever. The Associated Press praised her strategy with a lengthy report featuring the eye-roll worthy headline "Harris Isn't Backing Away From Biden's 'Democracy' Focus. But She's Doing It Her Way."

That's cringy enough, but the sub-head is even worse: "Kamala Harris is expanding Democrats' definition of what's at stake in this election. It's about preserving personal freedoms." 

So how does the AP get around the fact that Harris is all about restricting, not preserving, our Second Amendment freedoms? Like the Harris campaign and the gun control lobby, they frame her vague and fuzzy support for more restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms as a freedom from some external force, and leave aside completely the fact that the "freedom" Harris is (falsely) promising comes at the expense of your freedom to keep and bear arms without infringement from the government. 

The “freedom” narrative also has allowed Democrats to create a more expansive campaign message that includes an issue they often have struggled to address nationally — gun control.

In a solemn moment at the convention Thursday, five people whose lives had been touched by gun violence — including a teacher and a parent who spoke about the Sandy Hook and Uvalde school massacres — stood onstage together and shared their stories. Behind them, the words “FREEDOM FROM GUN VIOLENCE” stood out on the convention center’s main screen.

“In pushing for freedom from gun violence, Vice President Harris is illustrating how dramatically the calculus has changed on this issue. What was once a political third rail is now being framed as an inalienable right,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a national advocacy group that works to fight gun violence.

Give me a break. This at least the third election cycle in a row that Feinblatt has claimed the "calculus has changed" on gun control, when what's really changed is the messaging deployed by the gun control lobby... and the fact that Democrats are now marching almost entirely in lockstep with groups like Everytown, Giffords, and Brady. In 2010, about 1-in-4 Democrats in Congress was rated "A" by the NRA, while the group has only endorsed a single Democrat in Congress this election cycle. That's a change, and not for the better, but according to Gallup, which has regularly asked respondents about their support for gun control, Americans have become less supportive of gun control since 2019, with support falling from 64% to 56% in 2023. 

If gun control is no longer a third rail, then why are Democrats so unwilling to talk specifics about what it will take to make us free from gun violence? Why is Moms Demand Action teaming up with Planned Parenthood on an ad that talks about Harris's support for abortion but fails to mention her support for a ban on so-called assault weapons? Why are Democratic candidates in swing districts trotting out their "I support the Second Amendment, but..." tropes on the campaign trail and opting out of offering an opinion on Harris's call for a gun ban? 

I'd love to hear from Harris, or even Feinblatt, what they believe it will take to be "free from gun violence". It must mean laws that are more restrictive than those in Chicago; where you must have a permit before you can touch a gun, where "assault weapons" and "large capacity" magazines are banned, where there are no gun stores or ranges inside the city limits, and armed carjackers can have their charges dismissed by taking part in a peace circle and other "restorative justice" exercises. 

Even California isn't free from gun violence, so whatever Harris, Tim Walz, John Feinblatt, and other anti-gun activists and politicians have in mind must go farther than the laws that are already in place in the Golden State. Though legal gun owners are subject to a host of restrictions (some of which are being undone thanks to the tireless work of Second Amendment advocates), criminals can still get ahold of a gun with ease. When a 16-year-old charged with the murder of a young mother in Oakland, for instance, can illegally acquire a gun in less time than it takes for someone to lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights, I'd say that gun control has proven to be pretty damn ineffective at freeing us from gun violence.

I'd love to see a world where we're all free from violence of any kind, but that's a utopia that will never be constructed. And in offering that false promise of safety in exchange for our liberties, Harris is leading voters to a dystopia of Orwellian proportions; where ignorance is strenth and freedom is slavery.