Opinion
By Mark Oliva
In her speech, Pelosi argues that voters are “blocked” from making good, rational decisions and voting Democrat because of their culture and views on God
Watch: pic.twitter.com/YAtkNoBGVN
— Winston Marshall (@MrWinMarshall) May 11, 2024
Today’s gun control politicians are making it clear. It’s not just guns they despise. There are two other primary obstacles to civil disarmament that they loathe.
One is the Second Amendment itself. The other, well, it’s you – the gun owner.
It wasn’t that long ago when President Barack Obama lambasted gun owners who refused to roll over to his gun control agenda. Stumping for his first election to The White House, he told fundraisers at a San Francisco event of smalltown Pennsylvania voters that were left behind, especially by the political elites.
“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” President Obama said in 2008. Interestingly, it was former U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), later Secretary of State, who rebuked him.
“I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America,” she said. “His remarks are elitist and out of touch.”
Of course, that was before she labeled half of America “a basket of deplorables” in 2016 when she was making her second run for the Oval Office.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” former Secretary Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
Those were also a whole lot of gun owners who couldn’t buy into her gun control agenda – which included banning the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), the most popular-selling centerfire rifle in America.
‘Poor Souls’
Fast forward to 2024 and senior Democratic Members of Congress are repeating the same epithets. These were also same politicians who were the vanguard of President Obama’s, Secretary Clinton’s and President Joe Biden’s gun control agendas. Turns out, insulting and dismissing gun owners as “lesser” Americans is a popular attitude among Blue State elites.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was rebuked as an “elite” at an Oxford Union debate on April 25 when she said that certain Americans are “poor souls who are looking for some answers.” Their biggest sin, according to the Speaker Emeritus, is not bowing to the orthodoxy of the gun control elite.
“These poor souls… are looking for some answers,” Rep. Pelosi said. “We’ve given them to them, but they’re blocked by some of their views on guns… they have the three Gs: Guns, Gays, and God.”
Rep. Pelosi didn’t think that was enough. She said, “cultural issues cloud some of their reception of an argument that really is in their interest.”
Did you catch that? Gun owners who reject a politically-driven gun control agenda aren’t thinking in their own self-interests.
After all, every other gun control idea – especially the most recent overreaching of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to run roughshod on the separation of powers to write criminal law in the place of Congress – isn’t a bad idea in her mind. She believes President Biden’s big government abuse of the rulemaking process is good for voters. They’re just not bright enough to see it for themselves.
What makes it more insulting, Rep. Pelosi was making that argument at the Oxford Union, a debating society that’s held at Britian’s Oxford University. She trashed American voters on an overseas stage that pitches itself to hosting internationally prominent individuals across politics, academia and popular culture. That stage has hosted President Ronald Reagon, Mother Theresa and Albert Einstein. It has also hosted former Secretary of State and Climate Envoy John Kerry, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Stacey Abrams and deposed and murdered former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Forgot “the People”
That’s rare air for a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. She’s not alone in her ideas. Rep. Jerry Nadler (R-N.Y.) last week thought he was a tad smarter than the Founding Fathers, including James Madison, who wrote the Second Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Heller decision, that upheld the Second Amendment as a right belonging to the people, not the government.
“The Second Amendment reads – quote – ‘A well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed,” Rep. Nadler said during a hearing last week. “It is clearly a right, the Founding Fathers, the Framers were opposed to standing armies. They thought that those were instruments of tyranny and that, militia what should be had and the Second Amendment was the guarantee – was framed as a guarantee that you could have a militia, a well-regulated militia, being safe in the security of a free state.
“That was the understanding for 200 years until the radical Supreme Court in the Heller decision upended 200 years of Constitutional interpretation and said that Second Amendment has nothing to do with militias,” he continued. “It’s a personal and basically unlimited right. The Supreme Court was wrong in that decision.”
Except, that’s not what the Second Amendment says. He cherry-picked the parts that support his big-government and gun control agendas. Madison – and the U.S. Supreme Court – must have collectively rolled their eyes at his continued ignorance to the Bill of Rights. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
“Apologies to Ranking Member Nadler if this isn’t what he stated but I think he might have left out some key words when he read the Second Amendment, and I’ll read it here,” Rep. Massie explained. “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And I’m not sure if I heard him say ‘the people.’ Which applies to all of the people as we well know, and I yield back.”
It’s insulting to American citizens when Members of Congress intentionally leave “the people” out of the rights they are endowed with by their Creator. It’s insulting to voters when elite politicians disregard them as “bitter clingers,” “deplorables” or “poor souls” who can’t be trusted to think, act and vote for themselves. Worse than that, it is breaking faith with the very “people” these elites are elected to represent and protect their rights from an overreaching government.
Those poor souls – the more than 100-plus million gun owning homes in America – and the industry that provides the means for exercising their Second Amendment rights know that no one is buying the gun control they’re selling.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
Our government has become a complete clownshow under the Democrats rule . Gun owners are the only thing standing between them and total tyrany and the evil actors know this so they must make all gun owning Americans the bad guys to complete thier total control over all citizens. FJB and all Democrats.
I believe Nadler is a bit addled; no, actually he is a partisan idiot.
Nadler should be the POSTER child for “Term Limits”
Yeah, and Weight Watchers.
As long as we’re putting labels on people and throwing them into buckets to explain their behaviors, I think we should all be aware that most of the people mentioned above, Rep Massie (R-KY) being the exception, are what the Founders regarded as “Loyalists” and “Torys”. They’d have no problem fitting in with those colonists who agreed with and supported George III and his prime minister, Lord North. If you carefully read the first eight amendments in what we now call “The Bill of Rights” you need to be aware that they did not come from some conspiracy theorists’ fever… Read more »
When you refuse to acknowledge The Creator, all those so-called rights come from government and may be curtailed by government at whim. And that’s where we are with our current Marxist-oriented government. Personally, I still recall “from Whom all blessings flow.”
One must understand 18th century Rhetoric.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.
That means a state of freedom. Not a State!
I always love reading biographies, letters, quotes, etc from people back in the time frame. Just fascinating the
the way folks back then constructed and used the English language. Their writing was always so eloquent. Much more nuanced back then than today’s straight forward writings.
Apparently, Nadler can’t connect the dots that militias were, and are today, made up of everyday citizens that provide their own arms and ammo.
In the days of the founders a militia member not only had to supply their own firearm, they needed to also have about a pound of powder and a set amount of shot.
There can be no militias if the a erage citizen can’t exercise their full 2A right.
Nadler can’t see his feet.
Isn’t it ironic that atheist Pelosi would use the term “souls”? She doesn’t believe in souls. It will be a good day when the World is relieved of such “souls” as Pelosi, HRC, and Bidumb. Really, what are these geriatrics contributing to society? Pelosi used her seat in Congress to enrich herself with insider trading, HRC is just a micro-manager who is bitter that she will never be president, Biden has been a moronic grifter and parasite for over 50-years in DC. None of these “souls” and their fellow travelers (democrats) had done anything worthwhile in their entire lives.
Mark, this is a great article! But are you sure Nadler is a Republican???? (Rep. Jerry Nadler (R-N.Y.) last week thought he was a tad smarter.)
He must be one heck of a RINO to carry that title……….the little waddling piece of whatever.
Nadler has never been a republican. He is a dyed in the wool democrat/socialist. Always has been.