Live, from New York, it's time for some more anti-gun hysteria!

The New York Times ran a very disapproving editorial last week about Senator Allen's bill to repeal the current prohibition of concealed weapons in national parks. Not surprising, of course, given the NY Times' virulently rabid opposition to armed self-defense, but it's amusing to look at some of their "arguments."

Here's my favorite part:

America’s confusion about the Second Amendment is now nearly total. An amendment that ensures a collective right to bear arms has been misread in one legislature after another — often in the face of strong public disapproval — as a law guaranteeing an individual’s right to carry a weapon in public. And, in a perversion of monumental proportions, the battle to extend that right has largely succeeded in co-opting the language of the Civil Rights movement, so that depriving an American of the right to carry a gun in public sounds, to some, as offensive as stripping him of the right to vote.

So there you have it--they acknowledge that most Americans, along with most of our legislators, recognize the Second Amendment as a guarantee of the fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms--but we're all wrong (good thing we have the wise editors of the Times to straighten us out). As the NY Times explains, the Second Amendment is a "collective right"--which apparently means it's a right of the government, not the people (they don't explain what the "right of the people" part of the amendment is doing in there). Then, they go on to describe defense of the right to keep and bear arms, as a "perversion of monumental proportions." There's definitely some perverse confusion here, but it doesn't lie with those of us who treasure the Second Amendment along with the rest of our civil rights.

The editorial goes on to call the bill "an assault on public safety." How long will it be before the anti-gun extremists realize that this lie doesn't work? They've been trying that for almost 20 years (Florida started issuing concealed carry permits on a large scale in 1987). Every time concealed carry is introduced somewhere, we're bombarded with doom and gloom predictions of mass carnage and mayhem, and every time, it keeps not happening. Law abiding citizens of almost every state can now carry concealed firearms, and contrary to the anti-gun extremists' hysterical fear mongering, the streets continue to not run with blood as a result. But we're now supposed to believe that national parks are different from the rest of the country, in that concealed carry licensees--with an excellent record of responsibility, safety, and lawfulness everywhere else--will suddenly turn into blood thirsty killers if they are permitted to carry their guns into national parks.

Law abiding citizens with concealed firearms are indeed very dangerous . . . to rapists and muggers, and the like. The NY Times editors have made an interesting choice with regard to whom to protect.