The word "insurrection" has been thrown around a lot in the media for the last few years. January 6th, we're told, was an insurrection. It was apparently the dumbest insurrection in history, though, because the most heavily-armed demographic were the insurrectionists and they apparently didn't bring guns to the insurrection.

But whether it was or not, the truth is that some people won't let go of the idea that it was. What's more, a lot of people figure there's only a matter of time before there's an actual armed conflict.

This came up last month and we were regaled with an op-ed arguing that we needed gun control to head off that future insurrection.

It was a stupid argument and I addressed a lot of the points raised in then and there.

Unfortunately, the topic won't completely die. 

Over at The College Fix, they took a swing at it.

Lawmakers should pass gun restrictions in order to prevent an “insurrection,” an academic paper argues.

“This report is both an examination and a warning of the threat that armed insurrectionism poses to democracy in the United States,” the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University stated. “It also counters the false narrative that the Constitution creates rights to insurrection and the unchecked public carry of firearms, and rejects the notion that violence has any place in our nation’s politics.”

The center is housed within the Bloomberg School of Public Health, named for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a supporter of gun restrictions.

...

The center did not respond to two emailed requests for comment sent in the past week that asked for the motivation behind the report and responses to criticism of it provided by a former Department of Justice economist. The Fix emailed authors Kelly Roskam and Joshua Horwitz, but could not find an email for Tim Carey.

So the authors of the report weren't interested in defending the report's claims.

Shocking.

For the record, Tim Carey wrote the piece I responded to back in January.

Anyway, the authors weren't interested in talking about their work, but someone else was more than willing to have that conversation.

That someone else was John Lott, who had some excellent reasons why the report is crap.

Concealed handgun permit holders are “extremely law-abiding” and make up an insignificant portion of violations, John Lott told The Fix via email.

The Crime Prevention Research Center president said permit holders are convicted of firearms violations at thousandths or tens of thousands of one percentage point,” across the country. He pointed to a study he conducted that was published several month ago.

...

He also criticized the recommendation that people not be allowed to carry guns in polling places or government buildings. He shared a study, last updated in 2021 that found “23 states officially allowed people to carry guns in state capitols, and there were no problems reported,” Lott said.

There's more and you should, of course, go and read it.

However, there's another problem with the report, namely that the Second Amendment exists for a reason. That reason is to resist tyranny, either from abroad or from our own shores. The gun control that the authors claim would help prevent a wrongful insurrection would also make it harder to resist tyranny should it come.

Of course, the problem with gun control is that it only controls those willing to allow it. Violent insurrectionists wouldn't exactly trip over themselves to follow the law, now would they? If they were so inclined, wouldn't the laws against insurrection be sufficient?

Honestly, we're going to see more talk of this, particularly as the election draws near, but there's nothing but unmitigated stupid in the idea that gun control is a good thing to prevent anything except an uptick in violent crime.