It seems any topic imaginable gets split between the political right (Republicans) and left (Democrats). Laws against abortions are generally considered right, laws allowing for abortions are generally considered left. Laws allowing gays to marry are usually considered left, laws prohibiting gays from marrying are usually considered right. Guns are no different, laws supporting gun ownership are usually seen as right while guns opposing gun ownership are usually seen as left. There is a problem with such thinking though: there is no right and there is no left, just one giant authoritarian party:
Of course, the biggest piece of anti-freedom, anti-gun legislation was the 1968 Gun Control Act, which stopped the unrestricted, ungoverned interstate sale of firearms and gave us the immortal BATFE Form 4473. “HEY, HEY, LBJ, HOW MANY KIDS DID YOU KILL TODAY?” Yeah, old Lyndon put that one through and it sailed through a Democratic House and Senate and was signed by a President I’ve despised all my life.
This is where everybody likes to stand up and say, “See! The Democrats hate our gun rights!” What these same people seldom stand up and say is that Republicans hate our gun rights as well. Let’s not forget what the man who is an symbol of all that is supposedly conservative, good, and holy to the Republican Party did to fuck gun owners over:
Ronnie Reagan is the one who really stuck it to Gun Owners. He signed the legislation that capped the NFA pool at what it is today and stopped the New registration of machine guns. What few on our side of this issue want to talk about is the fact that more than a few prominent machine gun collectors lobbied FOR this law. Dolf Goldsmith being the most prominent one I could find in the testimony in the Congressional Record. Why? Because it made him Rich! It was Greed, pure and simple and Good Ole Ronnie signed it into law.
The cap on licensable machine guns, brought to us courtesy of the Huges Amendment, was not only signed by the “most amazingest conservative president EVAR!” but was also supported by those who owned machine guns. It’s not surprising to see machine gun owners supporting such a bill for the same reason many companies that face additional expenses from regulations public support said regulations: it eliminates competition and therefore makes the good or service you provide more valuable.
When the state gets an idea in their head to regulation some inane process related to a business the large businesses will usually jump in and exclaim their undying support. They do this because they realize their smaller competitors won’t be able to afford complying with the regulation and will therefore go bankrupt.
The very same mentality went through the heads of machine gun owners when the Huges Amendment was introduced. Think about it for a minute, you own a machine gun that is valued at, say, $500.00. The value of your machine gun doesn’t go up because new ones are constantly being produced. Suddenly a politician comes out and says he wants to halt the production of new machine guns, which would mean new ones won’t get produced to compete with the one you own. It’s in your best interest to support the legislation because it will cause the value of your machine gun to increase over time as the pool of available machine guns slowly dries up and no new ones are being produced to refill the pool.
Another example of this are tax cabs, the number of which many cities put a limit on. This is one of the classic examples of state enforce monopolies given by Murray Rothbard and he talks about it extensively in his microeconomics lecture on monopolies. Needless to say, like machine gun owners supporting the Huges Amendment, taxi cab drivers support the cap on the number of taxis that can operate within a city. Let’s move on to more of this left/right paradigm destruction:
After Reagan, Bush the Senior outlawed the importation of ‘assault weapons’ and then Clinton stuck us for 10 years with the ban on over 10 round magazines. Fortunately, that last piece of anti-freedom crap had a sunset provision and died a natural, but none too soon, death and some sanity has been restored. We still wouldn’t have many different ‘assualt rifles’ if the 922(e) provision for American manufactured parts hadn’t been introduced. Otherwise, you would have AR’s, M-1A’s and, Oh Yeah, a whole bunch more AR’s and damn few other options.
Most gun owners remember how Clinton screwed us but few remember how Bush Sr. screwed us (or the fact Geore W. Bush said he would sign a renewal to the “assault” weapon ban if it crossed his desk). So what’s the conclusion? Can’t we just blindly vote for Republicans to defend our gun rights? Nope:
So, if you evaluate Presidents and political parties by what they’ve done and NOT by their soundbites, my feeling is the Republican Presidents have screwed gun owners more than the Democrats have. Only 2 Democratic Presidents have signed anti-gun, anti-freedom national legislation; Johnson and Clinton, while on the Republican side, we have Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush Senior.
There is no right and there is no left, there are no Republican and there are no Democrats. When it comes to issues there are only politicians who will screw you over at the drop of a hat if it means they gain money, power, or a better chance to be reelected so they can get more of the two latter things. Saying Romney will protect our gun rights more than Obama is an argument not backed with any factual information. Romney’s record on guns is horrible. Both Obama and Romney state support for “assault” weapon bans but only one, Romney, has actually signed a ban.
Between the two Romney will be the candidate promising gun owners protection but the rhetoric is irrelevant, whether or not he will deliver is the only important question. Judging by his voting record he won’t support us. Some people are claiming he’ll support us because he needs us to get elected , which is false. Romney doesn’t need to pander to us because he knows our options are either him or Obama and most gun owners hate Obama to such a degree that they’ll vote for anybody else.
When it comes to gun rights there is no lesser evil. I will not support either candidate and I encourage my readers to abstain from supporting either candidate as well. If two candidates who oppose my right of self-defense want to duke it out in a popularity contest they can, I don’t recognize the authority of the state anyways so whichever dictator gets into office is entirely irrelevant to me. Those of you who plan to donate your time and money to Romney know that you’re only helping sow your own destruction. Have fun with that, I’ll be sitting this out. While I may be powerless to stop any destruction of gun rights in this country I certainly will not help the bastards planning that destruction.
If you are going to sit it out you might as well vote Libertarian and help them preserve their ballot access, so they don’t have to waste money trying to get on the ballot they can instead focus their resources on trying to run a competitive race.