PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Re-committed to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 6, 2024
The ACLU Finally Supports Real Liberties :: 12/18/2015
It wasn’t until last week that I realized the ACLU opposed gun control. The co-chair of the Colorado ACLU announced his support for use of guns in self-defense on Facebook.
Unfortunately, in the resulting furor he was forced to resign. Indicating that he owned a firearm apparently was too much for his colleagues to bear.
Of course, Loring Wirbel’s original endorsement was a bit unusual. He wrote: “we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before Election Day.’ They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force.”
Maybe his colleagues had a point in getting him to quit.
While Donald Trump isn’t my style, threatening to execute his supporters is a bit much. Of course, he’s not the first Republican to be the target of Hitleresque insults. They illustrate how intolerance has come to dominate much of modern liberalism.
Unfortunately, that philosophy also has taken over the agenda of the ACLU. Not only is it frustrating to have a powerful organization working on the wrong side of so many issues. It’s also a great name. Liberties once were understood to be freedoms responsibly exercised by individuals held accountable within a system of ordered liberty.
That’s why I wish Mr. Wirbel’s rather lurid suggestion actually sprang from a principled belief in the liberty to own guns. Although I’d advise him to ease up on the Trump supporters, at least he would be actively upholding one of Americans’ most basic civil liberties.
Alas, that’s not to be.
Indeed, Mr. Wirbel apparently doesn’t even believe in the ACLU’s work on free speech. When challenged on Facebook, Loring explained that Trump was a “hate-speech felon who should be in prison.” While later calling that “a little droll,” he declared in a letter-to-the-editor that “hate speech” was not protected by the First Amendment. You don’t want to be on his naughty list!
As for Christmas, I don’t know what Mr. Wirbel believes about religious liberty, but I do know the ACLU is always ready to punish people for living their faith in the name of “civil liberties.” For instance, on its website the ACLU lists “religious liberty” among its issues. Yet of four categories, only one, “free exercise of religion,” actually has anything to do with religious liberty.
The other three are excuses to restrict free exercise. One is “government promotion of religion,” which the ACLU interprets to mean as even the smallest mention of religion, such as erecting a cross at a veterans’ memorial, in a nation founded by people of faith.
