Rep. Rashida Tlaib, like her fellow Squad members, is an extremely left-leaning politician. She favors some of the worst excesses of the Democratic Party.

That includes anything to do with guns, among other things.

Now, things have been weird this week so sometimes, people say stupid things and we don't see it for a few days. That's what happened with Tlaib this time around. She said something really stupid and because of all of the other stupid on the gun debate stage, we missed it until just now.

You see, the progressive lawmaker, lamenting the lack of new gun control, trotted out an old and worn trope.

Guns now have more rights in this country than women do. It's sick. Congress must move with urgency to address our country’s gun violence crisis. pic.twitter.com/DiWCmJzqor

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) April 15, 2024

Oh, where have we heard that before? Like...everywhere?

First, let's point out that guns don't actually have rights. They're inanimate objects with no volition of their own. They can't have rights. People have the right to keep and bear arms, which includes guns.

But since we tend to call them gun rights, I won't make too big of a deal about that.

Yet let's consider the differences here. I'm going to use "a woman" as a term to mean a woman who is unarmed. Plenty of women carry, of course, but this is to compare the rights of a woman to gun rights as a whole.

A woman, can walk into any business in the nation so long as it's open to the general public, without any fear of arrest.

Someone with a gun can't necessarily do the same.

A woman can walk into any government building anywhere in the nation.

Someone with a gun can't necessarily do the same.

A woman can attend a protest, while someone with a gun may not.

A woman can come in any shape or size without worrying if she'll lose rights if she can carry too much of something or if she's too big or too small. Guns, on the other hand, get restricted in all kinds of ways based on size, shape, features, and magazine capacity.

A woman doesn't need a special permit in order to walk around outside. A person with a gun does in nearly half the states.

See? I can do this all day. Gun rights are extremely restricted, but especially so compared to the freedom enjoyed by women every single day. I get that people like Tlaib think we need more restrictions on our right to keep and bear arms, but this isn't exactly a winning strategy.

It doesn't take very much to show that this whole talking point is one that's popular on places like X, formerly Twitter, where you can restrict replies and you're just trying to be pithy versus actually engage in a meaningful debate.

There are tens of thousands of laws dealing with the regulation of buying, selling, owning, and carrying firearms in this country. Some may be zoning laws, but not all of them are.

To Rep. Tlaib, I'd challenge her to find nearly as many laws restricting women, particularly in their day-to-day lives. I'm sure she'd argue abortion laws do just that, but even if we were to hand her that one--I'm not saying we should, mind you--that's a small handful compared to the myriad of anti-gun measures passed by federal, state, and local governments over the years.

Guns have more rights than women? Boy, don't we wish.