The horrifying June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando
is just the sort of tragedy that demands government action. The death toll –
whether it was the worst mass shooting in US history depends entirely on your
definition of the former – was 49 people; around 50 were injured.
Government rode into action after Omar Mateen’s savagery. The people, such
as they are, followed with demands that we do something, and do it quickly.
No matter the tragedy – real or bizarre moral panic – elected officials and
their constituents demand a fix. Unfortunately, quick government fixes for serious
problems tend to look like alcohol and drug prohibition, the dangerously flexible
Afghanistan invasion’s Authorization for Use of Military Force, or the PATRIOT
Act.
And on Wednesday, some 40 House Democrats decided to sit on the floor and protest
the lack of a vote on gun control legislation that they support. Parts of this
legislation is a disturbingly bipartisan support for a denial of Second Amendment
rights if someone is on a watchlist.
Regardless of your stance on the broader issue of gun control
(I’m against it), the dismantling of gun rights without due process via a would-be
buyer’s status on the no-fly list, or other terrorism watchlists should be something
of concern to all Americans. It is in fact so concerning that the good people
at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) don’t support this legislation.
It has also been critiqued by the left-leaning folks at outlets as diverse as
The Intercept and Gawker.
The day of representative civil disobedience was brought to you
by Congressman John Lewis, who was once placed on the no-fly list himself. It took him a good while
to get off of it, thereby proving that it takes a concerted effort for even
the most privileged among us to affirm their innocence. (Lewis was joined by
the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, so insert your no-drive list jokes here). It’s a
bit harder for nobodies who go to the airport, and learn that they mysteriously
can’t be allowed on an airplane, but don’t know why.
More frustratingly still, Lewis also was a bona fide Civil Rights
era bad-ass, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr., and who was a Freedom
Rider that was beaten for his trouble. (It doesn’t hurt to remind people that
King himself had guns and armed guards for part of his career, and his application
for a concealed carry permit was rejected.) Lewis,
it seems, should be able to remember that once upon a time, gun control was
a purposeful effort to disarm minorities, and now those minorities are more
likely to be Muslims, but the principle of due process should still be upheld.
In short, a man who has done incredible things in his life lead a plush, catered
government protest which advocated for denying rights of people because
the…