You know the great thing about living in the United States? Freedom. We have the freedom to not just do as we please, for the most part, but we also have the freedom to look at self-appointed elites and give them the middle finger for suggesting the most assinine things humanly possible. Correction: We don’t just have the freedom to do that, but a sacred duty.

The latest example comes from–you’re going to be shocked by this–Gabby Giffords and company who wants internet hosting companies to shut down websites that are selling legal products protected by the United States Constitution because they make them feel funny inside.

A gun control group founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords asked two web hosting companies on Friday to shut down websites selling parts and machines that help make untraceable homemade firearms known as “ghost guns.”

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence asked the providers that host GhostGunner.net and GhostGuns.com to disable the websites for violating the hosting companies’ terms of service.

The sites sell kits, components and machines that help create homemade semi-automatic weapons. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop, and advances in 3-D printing and milling have made it easier to do so. The kits can be purchased legally for a few hundred dollars without the kind of background check required for traditional gun purchases.

Attorneys for the gun control advocacy group said the homemade weapons are increasingly being used in crimes and asked each of the companies to “invoke its policies to help stem the tide of this illegal, deadly behavior.”

They argue that the hosting companies, Shopify and DreamHost, should invoke their ability to disable and terminate the websites. The group argues that the two sites sell “the sort of products that have already caused scores of senseless deaths — and are likely to cause many more, unless taken off the market.”

Giffords sites the recent shooting in Northern California where the killer illegally built his weapons despite laws against him doing so.

The thing here is that while that was one shooting, it’s the exception, not the rule by any stretch of the imagination. Further, California and federal law both barred the killer in that incident from being able to legally acquire firearms of any kind, yet were completely ineffective in not just preventing him from building rifles–an act that was already illegal. The law already prevented him from doing so.

Yet the sites selling these components have broken exactly zero laws. None.

Free Trade

Giffords simply proves that they’re not in favor of people engaging in lawful trade simply because they find the object in question distasteful. They prove that their leftist leanings haven’t changed a bit since the days when Tipper Gore wanted to ban certain music. It’s like this is the 21st Century version of protesting adult magazines at the local Stop-n-Rob…except at least in those days there was some question as to the legality of those magazines.

With so-called “ghost guns,” however, there’s no question. Building a semi-automatic weapon is perfectly legal so long as it’s legal in the local jurisdiction you’re in.

But Giffords wants to stop that sale anyway.

I will give her group a bit of credit, though. You see, Shopify and DreamHost are private entities who can do what they want. By pressuring them, they can focus their attention on a handful of individuals. They can pressure decisionmakers into capitulation far easier than they can lawmakers.

However, if the sellers are complying with these companies’ terms of use, then killing the sites could open them up to lawsuits, ones that would be backed by gun rights activists. It takes just a few minutes to set up a GoFundMe and I can promise that a ton of people will be itching to contribute…and that’s assuming that groups like Gun Owners of America and the NRA don’t jump into the fray.

Giffords can certain ask these companies. It’s their right to say any stupid thing they want, after all.

Just like it’s my right to point out just how idiotic of a suggestion that is.