New Yorker Editor Upset Warren Won't Embrace Australian Gun Control

AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

The so-called mainstream media likes to pretend it’s unbiased. They sneer at sites like Bearing Arms because, frankly, we don’t pretend. We’re a pro-Second Amendment publication, and we wear that description with pride. Meanwhile, they pretend to be unbiased when, in fact, they’re anti-gun propaganda machines working to indoctrinate the masses rather than inform them.

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A prime example comes from a brief comment at the New Yorker, where the web editor is upset that Democratic candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren isn’t ready to commit the nation to a draconian gun control scheme like Australia’s.

The question from Chuck Todd to Senator Elizabeth Warren was direct: “What do you do about the hundreds of millions of guns already out there, and does the federal government have to play a role in dealing with them?”

Yet she was unwilling, even after Todd probed her a second time, to raise the possibility of policies like the mandatory gun-buyback program that Australia undertook two decades ago, after a devastating mass shooting, which was found to be effective in reducing gun deaths. Gun-control advocates have made undeniable strides in this country over the last few years, but Warren’s caution on the issue was a reminder of how politically fraught the issue remains, at least in the eyes of some candidates.

Or, maybe unlike some people, she knows that Australia’s gun control is never going to fly in the United States without precipitating a shooting war.

Australia requires all kinds of hoops to be jumped through long before anyone can purchase a gun. It required people to “sell” their firearms to the government. It severely restricts what guns an individual can buy and own. It requires registration of those firearms.

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I hate to break it to editor Michael Luo, but any one of those would be a hard sell all on its own and even in the best of times. An “assault weapon” ban similar to the one passed in 1994 wouldn’t make it through Congress right now. What makes anyone think something like Australia’s scheme would work?

Hell, there are plenty who are ready to fight to keep their AR-15s as it is. They’re not going to roll over because some New York journalist thinks they should.

Warren’s refusal to go that deep down the gun control rabbit hole is the smartest thing I’ve seen from her campaign yet. While extreme gun control measures play well with the Democratic base, they’re not going to do so well with the general public. Sure, they may favor a few anti-gun measures, but supporting universal background checks is a far cry from mass confiscation.

Someone in Warren’s camp seems to understand that, so she’s playing it understated. I hate to admit it, but Warren’s handling this one pretty well.

Don’t get me wrong. Warren would love to push through all of that stuff. She’d love to send the police door to door to take every last firearm away from us.

But she’s not talking about it to the same extremes as some of the other candidates, and that’s good for her campaign. As the primaries draw out, people are going to start looking at who can beat President Trump. They’re going to start wondering who can appeal to the less radical centrists who may not particularly care for President Trump but aren’t about to embrace socialist totalitarianism either.

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While Warren is probably not my first choice on that regard, she’s at least taking one position that may help her garner some support from that segment.

Pro tip to Democrats: If Elizabeth Freaking Warren sounds like the voice of reason, it might be time to reevaluate your life choices.

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