In the wake of the terrible murders in Connecticut last week, I spoke to my liberal sister-in-law this weekend. She is solidly anti-2A and fairly accurately mirrors the opinions of Feinstein. I wanted to understand the foundations of her opinions by asking about what she believed. The short of it is she believes that average (law abiding) citizens can't be trusted with firearms.

To support her point, she pointed to lack of criminal record by many mass murderers in history, including James the Joker Holmes and the nutjob last week. That is, the criminal justice system hadn't previously identified those people, at least not before their murders. Her belief is anyone can "snap" and go on a killing spree, regardless of how normal they seem to be. The conversation even got more interesting when I probed a little further. I asked her is she thought I (as a gun owner) was capable of committing mass murder. Shockingly, she said possibly yes, under the right circumstances - but had no idea what such circumstances might be. Then I asked her is she thought that she was capable of committing mass murder. Even more shockingly, she said the same thing! Holy cow. She told me that many liberals believe that mass murder impulses are in all of us, and just require the right conditions/circumstances to "bring it out". She dismissed any discussion about evil behavior and evil people, and denied that either really exist. It was then clear to me where she was coming from - the liberal mindset dealing with moral relativism (no real right or wrong) and not judging others. My last question was if she thought many others felt the same way - apparently most of her friends and those she stays acquainted with have that belief system or something similar. She did say that not all liberals have the same beliefs, and there are many shades of gray between individuals.

While I found the discussion jarring, it did explain at least one angle of the anti-2A belief system. Since they cannot trust the population at large and we are all individually "ticking time bombs", the only thing that makes sense is a total Gun ban. Some are anguished over hunting rights, and try to walk a train of thought that hunters can have some guns, but nobody else should. Others, who are sometimes viewed by the far left as being more "ideologically pure", favor a complete Gun ban, including law enforcement. Most of those are in the PETA/animal rights crowd.

While the discussion was a bit disturbing, it did at least explain the thinking of some as to why they are so against guns. I told her I absolutely disagreed that anyone can be a mass murderer, although current events and desperation can possibly lead a very disturbed individual to take a final step. However, it was pretty clear that I wasn't going to change many years of indoctrination into liberal psychology and we agreed to disagree.

Anyone else have any similar discussions/observations with family, friends, acquaintances?

Singlestack