Give government more power. If only government had more authority, then officials and agents of government could solve the problem at hand.
Just let the government handle it and everything will turn out just fine.
But think about it: Is that really true?
Of course not. The more we give government power over our lives, the more complex our lives become. And the problems never get solved.
Remember when the Left was going to use government to “fix healthcare?” In a fit of rage against former President George W. Bush and disenfranchised with Republicans, Americans swept Left-wing Democrats into power, giving them Congress and the White House. ‘We’ll fix healthcare,’ the promised.
Everyone would be covered. Insurance rates would be cheaper. Deductibles lower. E.R. wait times less. Medicines more affordable. Lots of choices.
They gave us Obamacare, which solved exactly none of these issues. Healthcare isn’t cheaper. Deductibles actually went up. Medicine is still high (though President Trump is working, finally, on new policies that ought to lower them through competition, a free-market principle). E.R. visits did not decline. And never, at any point, have all Americans been covered.
Now, the Left — led by the real drivers of their agenda, the establishment media — wants us to believe giving big government more control, via “red flag” laws and “universal background checks,” that they can end mass shootings.
That’s ridiculous on its face. And yet, far too many Americans believe the lie. Too many Republicans believe it, too — and that appears to include our president.
The premise of a red flag law is to deprive a gun owner of his or her property — guns — if he or she is deemed a threat to themselves or to others. It requires predictive analysis, which, even under scientific conditions, is extremely difficult. (Related: After mass shootings, Republicans now CAVING to “red flag laws” that will end your Second Amendment rights.)
What such laws really do is allow us to pretend that courts and police have crystal balls and can ‘see’ into the future and ‘know’ when a person is too dangerous to have otherwise legally purchased and owned firearms.
Such laws empower government to make decisions that are so offensive to the Constitution our founders would never have considered them, let alone write amendments specifically denying government such authorities.
The power to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms. The power to do away with due process of law. The power to deprive an American citizen of their property. The power to punish an American who has yet to do anything wrong. And the power to deprive Americans of their right to counsel, to present witnesses, to argue in their own defense.
That’s not what needs to happen at all. In fact, if anything, we need a sort of “red flag law” for members of Congress, so we can deprive them of their authority if we think they are too mentally unstable to serve.
Like “Mad” Maxine Waters, who called for supporters to accost Trump Cabinet members. Like “Shifty” Adam Schiff, who claimed for more than a year that he had evidence of Trump-Russia “collusion” when none exists. Like Jerrold Nadler, who continues to pretend like he’s impeaching the president for a crime the president has never committed.
If we need a red flag law where a court can deprive someone of something, we should have one for lawmakers who have demonstrated they mean to harm the Constitution and injure freedom and liberty.
These people have stature. They have the power to subpoena others. They have the means to destroy lives. And yet, they want to extend more authority to government so they can deprive us of our property and our liberty, leaving us nothing to say about it.
No, thanks. That’s not a solution to mass shootings. It’s a recipe for tyranny.
Sources include: