Democrats in Michigan are like Democrats in many other places. The party has fully embraced the anti-Second Amendment mindset and isn’t content to just try and stop any restoration of gun rights but also must work in the opposite direction as if they’ll lose their status as Democrats the instant they stop.
Now, they want to ban guns at the polls.
Michigan House Democrats are proposing a group of bills that would allow for early in-person voting, prohibit petition signature gatherers from making false statements and ban guns from polling locations.
Much of the 9-bill package will face stiff opposition and likely be blocked in the GOP-led House, where legislation has focused on tightening voter identification and absentee voting rules.
…
State Rep. Stephanie Young, D-Detroit, said the bill package is not about individuals’ constitutional right to own firearms but about the right of Michigan voters to have “peace of mind.” She noted her bill banning firearms around polling places would have an exemption for on-duty law enforcement officers.
“Showing up on election day and being met with armed gunman at minimum is intimidating, especially for parents, parents like me, who take their children to vote to get them used to voting at an early age,” Young said.
So let’s just remember to Rep. Young, your rights end where someone else’s feelings begin.
After all, that’s literally the case she’s making here. If someone feels intimidated, your right to keep and bear arms goes out the window.
Let’s remember that while seeing someone openly carrying a firearm may be intimidating, voting is done by secret ballot. That man with the gun doesn’t know who you’re voting for. Hell, he probably doesn’t care who you’re voting for. As such, his being armed doesn’t inhibit anyone’s right to vote as they wish.
But Young thinks that feeling is all that matters, that rights become null and void.
What other rights become invalidated they make someone feel intimidated? Do Antifa rallies stop being protected by the Constitution because they’re intimidating to someone? Do people yelling at speakers at universities lose their rights because someone else gets intimidated?
While I don’t particularly like either of those behaviors–or anything Antifa does, to be fair–rights don’t stop existing because you don’t like how they’re exercised.
I’m not going to get into the voting measures because, frankly, this isn’t the place to discuss those. I’m going to focus on the issue surrounding firearms, and it’s my hope that this particular measure dies a fiery death.
If the best its proponents can do is tout fear as justification, then you know the measure is ridiculous.
Every year, polling places open up in every community across this great land of ours. Want to know what doesn’t happen? Shootings inside the doors of these places.
While looking to find any examples where a shooting actually happened in a polling place, all I could find were examples where shootings happened near them.
Well, since measures that ban guns in polling places don’t actually even try to do anything about guns near them, it seems that we have yet another reason why this is ridiculous.
At the end of the day, this isn’t about safety. It’s about control. It’s about telling you that your rights aren’t as important as someone else’s feelings. It’s about establishing a hierarchy of rights with the Second Amendment at the very bottom, if on the list at all.
They know there’s no threat. They’re not even trying to pretend there is one.
But because some hypothetical mother might see a gun and get a scary feeling, nothing else matters.
