The Conservative Case For Gun Control

It's hard to believe that there is one, especially after this week's idiotic blocking of common-sense gun reforms.  But this illustrates that such a case can be made by a conservative.  Of course, given the role that Tom Coburn played in the aforementioned idiotic blocking, there's every reason to question the sincerity of the speech as described in the article.

But just because a statement may be insincere, that doesn't make the statement untrue.  And, on the surface, Coburn's essential argument is correct:  when it comes to gun violence, we are often our own worst enemy, inadvertently providing guns to the criminals who misuse them.  Sandy Hook itself is an illustration of that truth.  And the fact that Coburn is willing to make that argument to his own deeply conservative constituents tells you something about his confidence in its plausibility.

Why is all of this important, even as supporters of gun control are swallowing the ashes of defeat?  It illustrates the reason why we will win in the end--reason itself.  We have the better arguments, and with that goes the burden of making those arguments, again and again, until they carry a better day than yesterday's painful succession of Senate filibusters.

Want more proof?  Try this on for size.  Maryland, which (at one time) reliably produced conservative office-holders, is about to enact a law that will achieve on the state level many of the same goals that some of the filibustered bills would have achieved.  Are conservatives in this state going to put it to referendum, as they did with the Maryland DREAM Act and marriage equality?  Not on your Glock they won't (especially given the results of those referendums),  They're going to file a lawsuit and play judicial roulette, hoping that they get one or more judges who, by temperment and/or training, will come down on their side.  There's more than a faint whiff of desperation in that strategy.

Coburn's speech, and Maryland's new law, are where the future lies.  It's up to those of us that know better to fight for the day when the future becomes the present.