If there’s one pamphlet from the Founding Era that every American must read, it is Common Sense by Thomas Paine. There are several riveting parts in that pamphlet, and one of them that stands out to me is this:

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. 

There were numerous complaints about life under King George III, whom Paine daringly called the Royal Brute of Britain and a crowned ruffian. One of those complaints was how the King marshaled the resources of the taxpaying public against them. It’s funny how history repeats itself despite all the glaring lessons that people can but won’t learn from. The Washington Post reported this yesterday (archived links):

Biden to create new office of gun violence prevention
The move, long sought by gun-control groups, comes amid stalled progress on firearms legislation
By Tyler Pager

President Biden on Friday will announce the creation of a new office for gun violence prevention, an escalation of the administration’s efforts to tackle the issue amid stalled progress in Congress, according to four people briefed on the action who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that were not yet public.

Biden and Vice President Harris are scheduled to announce the new office at an event in the White House Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, the people said.

Greg Jackson, a gun violence survivor who is the executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, are expected to have key roles in the office, the people said.

The new office will report up through Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary and a longtime Biden policy aide who has worked on the firearms issue for years, the people said. Feldman previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council and still oversees the gun policy portfolio at the White House.

The White House, the Community Justice Action Fund and Everytown for Gun Safety all declined to comment.

Since Biden was elected, gun violence prevention groups have pressed the White House to create such an office, arguing that it would help coordinate efforts across the federal government to reduce gun violence. Activists say this type of office would also allow the White House to exert more leadership on the issue.

“If this announcement is, in fact, the creation of a single point of leadership on gun violence in the administration, it’s a very big deal for the movement,” Shannon Watts, the founder emerita of Moms Demand Action, a group working to stop gun violence, said in a statement after The Washington Post approached her with the news.

Biden is yet again weaponizing the federal government against We the People. He has put the proverbial foxes of the gun control groups in charge of guarding the hen house of our Liberty. The “gun violence prevention” groups that WaPo mentions are all squarely aimed at eroding gun ownership, not reducing violence by any measure.

This is not the first time gun control groups have colluded with the Biden administration. Last year, they underhandedly met with the CDC in private to remove Defensive Gun Use (DGU) statistics from their website, an important story the media refused to cover. The collusion that these groups have been doing was in the dark. Now they’re going to do it out in the open, and We the People will be furnishing the means via our taxes by which our rights will be eroded and curtailed. 

“For years, we’ve advocated for a centralized team responsible for coordinating federal and state resources and mobilizing movement partners,” she added. “A governmental focal point dedicated to creating a framework for overseeing national policy, research and resources would be more than symbolic — it would be a significant turning point for the movement.”

Shannon Watts is correct. This is a significant turning point for the movement to hack away at the Second Amendment. What happens next is terrifying. At a minimum, there will be taxpayer-funded “research” and “messaging” aimed at slowly and steadily disarming us.

What will the next Republican president do with this office? It really ought to be shut down immediately, but if there’s any public mass shooting at that time, which obviously will NOT have been prevented by the “Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” will this future president have the political gumption to still proceed and shut it down? Can the office be staffed with gun rights activists despite negative media coverage?

I see this as a dark development, an ember that should be taken with the seriousness of a five-alarm fire, because that’s what it’s going to lead to.