He really does!
And you, Mr. Twain, are a prolific poster of amazing, thoughtful, and insightful articles. Thank you for your work on FR.
I’ll ignore for a moment the utterly false notion that self-defense was never mentioned by any of the founders (Adams mentioned it, several founders carried pistols for self-defense, and it’s mentioned in many state analogues to the 2nd Amendment)
Here’s one of the best ways to argue a Leftist into the firmament on the gun control:
1) First ask them if they believer they have the right to defend themselves – as in my tag line.
Most likely they will hem and haw and try to deflect away from the question – as per usual when leftists are confronted with unimpeachable logic.
But keep on pressing the same question on whether they have that right.
After awhile they will have to agree with the proposition – the alternative is that some can do what ever harm they want to them and they can’t retaliate, hence the aforementioned hemming and hawing to avoid the question.
2) Once you have established that they believe they have a right to self-defense you then transition to the proposition as to the means of that self-defense – which has to be a firearm because that’s what the lawless may have.
Again you should expect the same kind of hemming and hawing on that point, but if question #1 is true then it logically follows that question #2 has to be true.
Bottom line: Taking away someone’s means of self-defense deprives them of the basic human right of self-defense.