By now you’ve probably heard that President Joe Biden is making good on his promises to the gun control lobby by launching his first salvo of attacks on the Second Amendment. “Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden said in a statement last weekend. This should come as no surprise to gun owners. Biden has been threatening these policies for years, and now that the Democrats control Congress, only the Senate filibuster stands in his way. Once that falls, it’ll be open season on American gun rights. It’s easy to get caught up in the weeds of each of these proposals. “Assault weapon” has no legal definition, which will allow regulators to ban virtually every semi-automatic firearm. Only law-abiding Americans will follow a universal background check mandate, which totally negates its ability to stem violent crime. I could go on, but you get the idea. Biden’s gun control platform is ineffective at best and unconstitutional at worst. SEE ALSO: Citizens: Stay at Home. Immigrants: Come On In. But I want to take a step back and consider a larger issue: why are guns necessary for self-governance? Lots of folks on the left imagine gun owners as macho mouth-breathers just itching for a chance to unload their .357 on some unsuspecting thief or trespasser. This op-ed in the Huffington Post, for example, is titled, “8 Things Guns Compensate For (Besides Your Penis).” It begins, “It’s hard out here for a P.I.M.P.H. (person inclined to be macho and pack heat)” and continues, “Guns are used for a lot of valid reasons: hunting, protecting the homestead, protecting yourself, party tricks at your Uncle Carl’s house, backing you up in case you run into trouble in that strip-mall Chipotle full of middle-school cheerleaders.” The message of this article is obvious: guns have no purpose in modern American society, and only the most insecure people would feel the need to carry them. SEE ALSO: Pork Barrel Spending Hurts Americans. So Why Does Congress Want to Bring It Back? The reality could not be further from the truth. The vast, vast majority of gun owners, including myself, carry firearms for the same reason we keep a fire extinguisher under the kitchen sink. We aren’t looking for a fight—we’re trying to avoid one. But when a confrontation is unavoidable, guns allow Americans to survive a life-threatening situation without having to wait for the police to arrive. In this way, guns are an essential component of self-governance. Guns keep Americans from becoming too reliant on the government, and they give us a level of independence citizens of other countries do not enjoy. That’s why the president’s attack on the Second Amendment is so dangerous. It’s about more than target shooting. It’s about more than hunting. It’s about more than the free market. Biden’s policies would further erode our ability to take care of ourselves, and that’s the most dangerous kind of law on the books.
