Michael Moore says quiet part out loud: ‘We need moratorium on gun sales — time to repeal the 2A’

(Video: MSNBC)

Within hours of the Texas school shooting, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore suggested the time for slowly eroding the rights of the American people had passed and, in opposition to the actual position of the Founding Fathers, argued, “it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.”

Moore was appearing on “MSNBC Prime” with host Chris Hayes Tuesday where, throughout his diatribe against the right to keep and bear arms, he attempted to contend that his radical position was both reasonable and historically prudent. After suggesting that the American people were more violent than the Nazis during WWII, Moore presented his case that our founding was at fault and a change would have to be forced on the American people

“We won’t acknowledge that we are a violent people, to begin with.,” Moore stated. “This country was birthed in violence with the genocide of the native people at the barrel of a gun. This country was built on the backs of slaves with a gun to their backs to build this country into the country that we got to have. We don’t want to acknowledge our two original sins here that have a gun behind the ability for us to become who we became.”

Ignoring the fact that it was by the barrel of a gun that the Civil War was fought and won to end slavery, the filmmaker went on with his position that Americans needed more than a gentle nudge to change.

“I don’t know, to nickel and dime this, I don’t know if that’s gonna do it. I think we need some really drastic action here,” he said.

“We need a moratorium, perhaps, on gun sales. Who will say on this network or any other network in the next few days it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment? Oh, you can’t say that. Well, why not? Why not?” he cried out.

“I truly believe if Jefferson and Washington and Madison, if they all knew that the bullet would be invented – some 50 years after our revolution, I don’t know if they would have written it that way,” Moore argued. “They didn’t even know what a bullet was. It didn’t exist ’til the 1830s. If they had any idea that there would be this kind of carnage, you have to believe that the Founders of the country wouldn’t support it…I support all gun control legislation, not sensible gun control. We don’t need the sensible stuff. We need the hard-core stuff that is going to protect ourselves and our children.”

Holding to the living document notion of the Constitution, Moore suggested the exact grounds by which free speech would be curbed in the United States. The Founders could not have envisioned the internet, but they made clear that no law would be made to regulate or abridge the freedom of speech.

Contrary to Moore’s argument, in his first State of the Union delivered on January 8, 1790, President George Washington stated unequivocally that, “Among the many interesting objects, which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defence will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a Uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.”

As one astute individual pointed out, Moore’s own film on the shooting at Columbine High School had the filmmaker supporting Washington’s assertion that discipline was an integral part of freedom and as such, “the issue isn’t guns per se, but unique American cultural pathologies.”

Taking away the rights of the innocent will not stop the “psychologically disturbed,” as Dan Bongino pointed out, from committing atrocities. What would have stopped the suspect would have been Americans armed and ready for “the common defence.”

Kevin Haggerty

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