Gun Grabbers Search for the Philosopher's Stone

This is still not the Second Amendment article I was writing, but since it highlights a piece at the American Thinker, I thought it was worthy of bringing to readers' (both of you) attention. In the Second Amendment Culture Wars David Paulin attempts to highlight the current state of thinking on the Left for those who may not be following along with the New York Times on a daily basis. His take on the gun free zone issue is priceless:

Gun-hating liberals may be surprised to hear it, but it's virtually unheard of in Texas for people with carry permits to commit crimes or be involved in unnecessary shootings. They don't hold up convenience stores; don't get involved in shoot-outs at bars or after traffic accidents. Nor do they shoot people whom they feel have "dissed" them -- a common occurrence in gritty parts of Chicago and Detroit. It all underscores a fact that gun-hating liberals overlook: Culture plays a big role in gun violence. Switzerland, after all, is armed to the teeth, with members of its large citizen militia keeping military-issued weapons at home -- yet gun-related crimes in Switzerland are rare.

Yet at the University of Texas, professors, staff, and students with concealed carry permits are prohibited from carrying their guns on campus when, say, they must walk to and from a night class and a dark parking garage. The absurdity of campus gun-free zones prompts the National Rifle Association to ask: "Should you have less freedom and safety than anyone else simply because you go to college?" Besides personal protection, gun-rights advocates note that a person with a carry permit could stop a Virginia Tech-style massacre in its tracks.

Recently, legislative initiatives to abolish gun-free zones were the subject of an article in the New York Times, an agenda-setting paper for liberal elites. It soft-peddled the obvious: Gun-free zones don't make anybody safer -- except for gun-toting criminals. If the Times thinks otherwise, it should disarm the security personnel who presumably guard the New York Times Building. Then it should put up a sign that sanctimoniously proclaims: "Gun-free Zone." But don't count on that happening; even Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. wouldn't be so stupid. Yet gun-hating liberals nevertheless portray gun owners in fly-over country as bubbas and hayseeds: people who cling to their guns and religion as President Obama put it.

The emphasis is mine, and not in the original story.

This aspect of "liberal" behavior has always puzzled and amazed me.  I remember as a teen arguing with someone about the relative merits of living in the U.S. as opposed to the Soviet Union.  I finally blurted out that if my opponent thought the Soviet Union was so great, he should emigrate to that paradise on earth and leave the hell hole we lived in.  He mumbled something about having too many relatives and friends here.  I have never asked another person that question, but I do still wonder.  Then there was the (at the time) Goofball Wormening fanatic who insisted that we should all stop driving our automobiles now.  "Really," I asked, "And how do you get to work."  When he told me he drove his Ford Explorer, I was again floored.  He defended his choice of cars by saying that it wouldn't do any good unless everyone did it.  I pointed out that if he and others showed leadership by buying tiny vehicles, business would respond by making more of them cheaper.  He just wandered off.  So it is with gun control.  Many of the liberals I speak with have no problems with guns, just with OTHER people having guns.  They are comfortable with themselves, and their friends.  But they see you and me through the eyes of the New York Times as being a bunch of uncultured rubes who would kill at the drop of a hat.  I will admit that if I thought that, I would be frightened too.

Another thing that amazes me is how unexamined such ideas actually are.  If forced to confront and defend in a rational way such ideas, they could not do so.  That is one thing that seems to provide endless entertainment for gun rights bloggers, like this video that appeared several months ago. Of course, it is funny, and ridiculous, and even gun grabbers can see that. But it doesn't stop them in the eternal search for the magical incantation that will render guns useless, and cause the world to sing "Kumbaya" together. It would be like telling an alchemist to stopping searching for the philosopher's stone.