Look, I get that guns aren’t something your average Democrat seems to understand. The fact that most of the ones we encounter who seem into guns are trying to kill somebody on the right doesn’t exactly help all that much.
So, when someone like James Talarico spouts off on the topic, you need to expect a certain degree of ignorance, at best. More likely, it’s stupidity, though, because Talarico is in Texas. He could learn if he wanted to.
And the fact that he hasn’t is a major problem for him, at least as the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Larry Keane sees it.
Texas state Rep. James Talacrico is vying for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). His November Republican opponent is current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, an avid Second Amendment supporter. Already facing an uphill task in a state that mostly reveres gun rights, some would think Rep. Talarico would at least try to peel some support from Texans who love their firearms.
Think again.
During a 2020 video town hall, Rep. Talarico fully supported implementing strict gun control measures and his reasoning came from his faulty understanding of the Constitution.
“A lot of politicians like to talk about the Second Amendment,” Rep. Talarico asserted to the video town hall participants. “Very few have actually read the Second Amendment because, if they did, they would know that the words ‘well regulated’ are right there in the text of the amendment itself.”
Rep. Talarico’s suggestion that “well regulated” meant that the Founders believed all along that gun rights were supposed to be heavily restricted or conditioned is as laughable as it should be disqualifying. We have a summer reading list for Rep. Talarico, and it begins with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Heller.
In the earliest days of the new American country, the term “well regulated”, as was written in the Constitution, referred to “well trained,” “well organized,” or “well exercised.” Basically, the militia (of “the People”) is trained and ready to go should it be called up into duty.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, dismantled Rep. Talarico’s arguments after he discovered the video of him making the remarks.
I covered Turley’s dismantling of Talarico’s remarks already.
Keane goes on to describe Talarico’s hiring of a…let’s say, “colorful” anti-gun activist whose group’s name isn’t exactly family-friendly, his comments about mandatory storage laws, and his attempt to liken gun control to getting a permit to hold a protest in less than flattering terms, though professional ones.
Then he adds:
All of these gun control schemes are favored by national gun control groups and the most ardent of anti-Second Amendment activists out there, including many of Rep. Talarico’s possible Democrat colleagues in the U.S. Senate. And on top of all of the restrictions already mentioned (none of which would penalize or hold criminals accountable), Rep. Talarico supports banning entire classes of commonly owned firearms, including the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), or AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles. There are currently more than 32 million in circulation since 1990 – more than there are Ford F-150 pickup truck on the road today. Go down any street in Texas and you’ll find an F-150.
The truth of the matter is that Talarico is a radical leftist who was favored by the extreme Left in Texas, but the extreme left doesn’t represent the majority of Texans. While not every gun control supporter in the Lone Star State is an extreme Left, a lot of them are, which is how we ended up with Talarico, who is probably only marginally better than Jasmine Crockett would have been.
Maybe.
Still, Talarico has an incredibly poor understanding of the existing legal structure about guns, including the Supreme Court decisions that have impacted it and even the meaning of the text.
What else does he have an incredibly poor understanding of while maintaining strong positions on?
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is real, and a lot of politicians make it very clear that it’s real, but Talarico seems to be going out of his way to demonstrate it for us all.
Honestly, the only thing benefiting Talarico right now is that Ken Paxton has baggage with a lot of Texans. Even so, Paxton at least respects people’s rights and understands them.
Texans need to wake up, because the polls show Talarico putting up a stronger showing than he should.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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