Oh great. True conservative™ David French is at it again, this time taking aim at the right to bear arms:
Gun idolatry is repulsive. Trigger-happy Americans shed innocent blood. Some are even spoiling for a gunfight. Time and again gun-owners reject the moral weight of their responsibility. If the public turns against guns, their recklessness is to blame: https://t.co/cYwd5WGtqK
— David French (@DavidAFrench) April 23, 2023
In the piece, he wants to assure conservatives like us that he understands: ‘I also share [his story of self-defense] to tell my gun-owning friends that I get it. I understand. I’ve faced more threats in the last few years than they might experience in 10 lifetimes.’ But he also explains to us that Kyle Rittenhouse was bad, somehow, for putting his life in danger to protect others, and red flag laws are good, actually, and of course, conservatives are bad because they worship guns.
So, let the conservative dragging begin!
You’ll get plenty of plaudits from your leftist handlers for this, but real conservatives aren’t going to be bullied by the “everything conservatives believe in is idolatry” smear.
— John William Sherrod (@jwsherrod) April 23, 2023
Can’t right now. On my way to sacrifice some goats to my AR15. https://t.co/xr6ceuiGWz
— Rev. Ducati 🏁🏴☠️ (@Reverend_Ducati) April 23, 2023
Brilliant.
Mr. French seems to know little about religion, rights, or the so-called right-wing.
Nothing in his article smacks of idolatry. His attempt to smear an entire subset of the population by the henious acts committed, supposedly by one or some, is ethically and morally repugnant.
— Francis White (@whit1736) April 23, 2023
Pure projection from a drag and porn for kids free speech idolator.
— J (@ARaised_Eyebrow) April 23, 2023
The man who worships the sound of his own voice and his own opinions, even when those opinions go against every moral he claims to have, isn’t in a position to lecture anyone about “idolizing.” You have allowed the left to use you as their idol, the “conservative” totem who…
— Faye Hausendorff (@FayeH321) April 23, 2023
Harsh but true.
“Repulsive” is spending your entire life writing about freedom and God-given rights, only to whore yourself out to the communist cause for thirty pieces of silver. What a wretched Judas you’ve become. Amazing you can look at yourself in the mirror. https://t.co/K6OUs7e809
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) April 23, 2023
So sorry this is happening to you, David.
— Getty's Uncle (@red_barchetta2) April 23, 2023
I don’t think he’s actually sorry.
Talk about a false flag lol.
Read this, David. Maybe it’ll help you. https://t.co/nGVhhAYiQH
— Jenna Ellis 🐊🇺🇸 (@JennaEllisEsq) April 23, 2023
Hi Dave, what about the responsibility for the people actually committing crimes with guns? When are they held responsible?
Literally Les Grossman.
— Han Brolo (@bxlewi1) April 23, 2023
In these tough times I guess you gotta go where the money is, hey Dave?
— Nik Berlin 👊🏻🧐 (@spazafraz) April 23, 2023
This article is Disinformation
Emotion based, definitely
Fact based, not at all
— DANGER: DISINFORMATION (@RetiredCrimeDog) April 23, 2023
People who don’t respect the rights of others are repulsive.
— Shay (@ShaylanaWalker) April 23, 2023
I want to know why anti-2A lobbyists and turncoat Republicans won’t debate with the those that oppose them instead speaking to a crowd that only agrees with their agenda. Kinzinger is typical of this…cowards https://t.co/MfyifHDi0y
— Joe Local (@JoeLocalSoCal) April 23, 2023
Good questions.
The conservative case for disarmament.
Is there anyone who still thinks that @DavidAFrench isn't a leftist scumbag? https://t.co/frgnnBxTCv
— Ordnance Jay Packard Esq. (@OrdnancePackard) April 23, 2023
Every survey for the last two decades shows acceptance of gun ownership going up. This is concern trolling + attacking a strawman.
In other words, a perfect NYT op-ed. https://t.co/YMz6yZlnvz
— Daniel Vaughan (@dvaughanCI) April 23, 2023
This news is going to be painful for him https://t.co/OZKoJLPdID https://t.co/HwX3oMaSZw
— Joseph John (@JosephJ73519126) April 23, 2023
Mr. John links to a CNN article lamenting that mass shootings are driving more gun ownership—or, more likely, the fear of gun control is driving it. Every time there is a fear of more gun control, more people buy guns. It’s sort of like the Second Amendment equivalent of the First Amendment’s Streisand effect. Maybe we should call it the ‘Obama Effect.’
"A joke in the gun industry is that Obama was the greatest gun salesman of all time. Numbers bear this out. In 2013, the year after his re-election, American gun companies produced 10,844,792 firearms, 222% more than they produced in the year after 9/11." https://t.co/MtspeHnges pic.twitter.com/bxQhzGZO8G
— Ward Harkavy (@WHarkavy) September 1, 2019
Returning to the dragging:
An anti gun redditor just shot up a bank to make the same point.
The bad timing of French’s tweet is intentional. He gets off on being owned online. https://t.co/CqJov22BWV
— Lord Nathaniel Higgers, 18th Earl of Enward (@18Higgers) April 23, 2023
He is referring to the fact that the Louisville bank gunman was apparently motivated by a desire to encourage gun control (as was Chris Dorner).
Louisville bank shooter reportedly massacred innocents in an effort to justify more gun control in America — and Democrats were ready to oblige him https://t.co/jG4zFef87q
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) April 21, 2023
Typically, when a person slaughters innocents to advance an agenda, we don’t think it is an argument for giving the killer what he or she wants if only to avoid the bad incentives it creates.
His Holiness has the sads again. https://t.co/7QN3q9E81v
— G (@stevensongs) April 23, 2023
"He used his semiautomatic weapon to kill two people who attacked him at the protest,"@DavidAFrench will never admit what happened in Kenosha was a riot, bc he feels that BLM & Antifa thugs should be allowed to terrorize the populace with impunity & YOU should cower at home. https://t.co/CEUP76JSco
— Sarcastic Cupcake (@SarcasticCupcak) April 23, 2023
Indeed, French’s entire discussion of Rittenhouse is the product of moral deformity:
Take Kyle Rittenhouse. At age 17, Rittenhouse took an AR-15-style weapon to a riot in Kenosha, Wis., to, he said, ‘protect’ a Kenosha business.
When you travel, armed, to a riot, you’re courting violent conflict, and he found it. He used his semiautomatic weapon to kill two people who attacked him at the protest, and a jury acquitted him on grounds of self-defense. But the jury’s narrow inquiry into the moment of the shooting doesn’t excuse the young man’s eagerness to deliberately place himself in a situation where he might have cause to use lethal violence.
‘Sarcastic Cupcake’ makes another valid point in taking down this nonsense.
"It's YOUR fault that I hit you!" a husband shouts to his wife. https://t.co/CEUP76JSco
— Sarcastic Cupcake (@SarcasticCupcak) April 23, 2023
But more basically, French seems to believe that when people are rioting, that law-abiding people have a duty to cower in their homes and, at most, only intervene when their property or family are being attacked. That is moral inversion. Putting your life in danger to protect others and their property, like Rittenhouse did, is not a bad thing: it is actually heroic. If half the city of Kenosha had done that, the riots might have stopped immediately.
As for French’s support for ‘red flag’ laws, even the ACLU is troubled by such laws:
ACLU of Rhode Island Raises Red Flags Over “Red Flag” Legislation https://t.co/Xx9iej4NAZ #HB687 #NHhouse #NHSenate #NHPolitics #2A #DueProcess #STOPRedFlagLaws #BillOfRights #NH pic.twitter.com/G8j1XicpAU
— WDL of New Hampshire (@WDLNH) March 5, 2019
This is because any lawyer knows that as a practical matter, anti-gun judges will hand out red flag orders like candy, with only lip service paid to due process or the Second Amendment.
And as for French’s claim that he gets it about the right to bear arms, he does not actually get it. While he speaks endlessly about the right of self-defense, he doesn’t mention a word about the most important purpose of the Second Amendment: preventing tyranny. We will let this conservative, writing to defend the right to own an AR-15, explain it to Mr. French:
Moreover, an assault-weapon ban (along with a ban on high-capacity magazines) would gut the concept of an armed citizenry as a final, emergency bulwark against tyranny. No credible person doubts that the combination of a reliable semiautomatic rifle and a large-capacity magazine is far more potent than a revolver, bolt-action rifle, or pump-action shotgun. A free citizen armed with an assault rifle is more formidable than a free citizen armed only with a pistol. A population armed with assault rifles is more formidable than a population armed with less lethal weapons.
The argument is not that a collection of random citizens should be able to go head-to-head with the Third Cavalry Regiment. That’s absurd. Nor is the argument that citizens should possess weapons ‘in common use’ in the military. Rather, for the Second Amendment to remain a meaningful check on state power, citizens must be able to possess the kinds and categories of weapons that can at least deter state overreach, that would make true authoritarianism too costly to attempt.
And who wrote this pretty full-throated defense of the Second Amendment? A guy named… (checks notes)… David French:
David French five years ago: ‘Assault Weapons Preserve the Purpose of the Second Amendment’ https://t.co/BgrS0qGRM6 https://t.co/nmDjB2RKAu
— MikeBates (@MikeBates) April 23, 2023
French made his name on the Right by being a 2A supporter.
There are no conservative principles that French is willing to defend after he sold his soul for clicks and dollar bills https://t.co/vjfrWkdbXp
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) April 23, 2023
So somehow in five years and after taking a job writing tsk-tsking columns criticizing conservatives for the New York Times, he forgot what the most essential purpose of the Second Amendment is.
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