(Originally published on CNS News.)
Do liberals actually support the Second Amendment?
While they should, they are quick to show through their actions that they don’t. After every shooting, Democrat politicians put forth legislation meant to restrict the access of law-abiding Americans to firearms of any kind.
However, what generally happens is that their actions only spur the sales of firearms as people rush to stock up on something that may disappear.
Liberals are their own worst enemy. The more they try to ban firearms and get them removed from the streets without addressing the crime problem that these liberal enclaves usually have, the more people, including some liberals, realize they need firearms to protect themselves. They flock to stores to purchase the weapons in danger of being banned.
In recent months blue states like Oregon, Washington, and Illinois created restrictive gun laws, but the result has been more firearm purchases being made, according to information from National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and the Firearm Industry Trade Association (NSSF).
“Threats, and actual legislation to limit the right of law-abiding citizens to own the firearm of their choosing, does have an effect on firearm sales,” NSSF Public Affairs Managing Director Mark Oliva told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Last year, Oregon narrowly passed its “Reduction of Gun Violence Act”, which requires background checks, firearm training, fingerprint collection and a permit to purchase a gun. Following the law’s passing, background checks jumped from 29,472 in October to 86,075 in November, according to NSSF data obtained by the DCNF. Demand was so great it created a backlog of 36,000 people waiting for background checks at one point.
Also last year, Washington state passed three new restrictive gun laws that dictated where guns can be carried, how to handle firearms without serial numbers and what kinds of magazines can be made and sold, according to The Spokesman-Review. After Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bills into law, background checks jumped from 39,247 in February to 59,419 in March, according to the NSSF data.
“Every time new restrictions on firearms ownership are enacted we always see a spike in gun sales. The gun prohibition lobby is the best gun salesman out there. When people’s Second Amendment rights are attacked they respond by exercising them,” Second Amendment Foundation Founder Alan Gottlieb told the DCNF.
Each time it happens, the official line is that it will remove guns from the hands of ill-meaning people, but ill-meaning people will always find a way to get a gun.
It’s the citizens who need the protection a firearm can offer who are most affected by these laws. They obviously don’t rely on the promises of the politicians creating the laws as can be seen by the increases in purchases.
This cycle happens so often that one can deduce one of two things. Either the Democrats are insane for doing the same thing with no difference in results or they are trying to increase sales. Thus, they do seem to support the Second Amendment, at least in this one way.
