(this may be a repeat).

Making sense of the
Million Mom March

by BILL WINTER
LP News Editor

Last month, I saw the face of evil.

Or rather, the 125,000 faces of evil. Or 500,000. Or 750,000, depending on how many people actually attended the Million Mom March in Washington, DC on May 14.

It was a nice sunny day, so I decided to walk over to the grassy Mall in front of the Capitol Building and check out these Moms who so fervently believed that one of their “inalienable” rights should be taken away from them.

Sometimes, you see, we Libertarians make the mistake of thinking that our only opponents are politicians. In fact, it’s frequently our fellow Americans who clamor for the anti-freedom laws which politicians obligingly pass.

I wondered: Who were these Second Amendment-hating “Million Moms”? When I looked into their faces, I would see — what?

A word before I continue: I am not what is sometimes uncharitably referred to as a “gun nut.” I don’t own a firearm. I am no more passionate about the Second Amendment than I am about the First, or Fifth, or Tenth amendments — but no less, either.

I simply wanted to look into the faces of the people who think they have too much freedom. It is a peculiar irony that in America, we have the freedom to demand less freedom.

It was a bright, warm day. The Mall was thronged with an overwhelmingly female crowd. They appeared to be mostly white suburbanites, many with children, but with a scattering of black women, too.

The mood was festive. Vendors hawked “Million Mom March” tee-shirts. There were refreshment stands that gave away free bottles of water. (Nice touch.) Huge TV screens and amplifiers were set up so the distant crowd could see the speakers on stage.

In tents, you could log on to the Internet and send an electronic petition to Congress, demanding more gun control. A memorial was set up listing the names of people who had died from gun violence in various cities. (No one commented that one of the longest lists was from Washington, DC — a city with perhaps the strictest gun laws in the nation.)

Small children — mobile human propaganda billboards for their parents — carried signs that said: “Keep Me Safe.”

Adults carried signs that said: “What part of ‘a well-regulated militia’ don’t you understand?” And “Safer Guns = Safer People.” And “14 Children Die from Gun Violence Every Day.”

The crowd applauded and cheered whenever a celebrity speaker opined that guns were evil. Or that tragic, accidental deaths were, well, tragic. Or that the NRA was the right hand of the Devil.

One female politician ranted, “We will win — because we love our children more than the NRA loves their guns.” Cheers. Applause.

The partner of singer Melissa Etheridge asserted that her children were safer than most because there were no guns in their home — and because her kids had “two Moms.” (Nice PC touch.) Cheers. Applause.

Courtney Love, the widow of the late Nirvana singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain, blamed her husband’s death on…yes, guns. Her clinically depressed husband — abused as a child, tormented by fame, a longtime heroin addict — would not have committed suicide if he hadn’t been able to get a shotgun to blow his head off, she sobbed. Cheers. Applause.

The most popular word among the speakers was “sensible.” They didn’t want any radical new gun laws. Or oppressive laws. Oh, no. Just “sensible” laws, they assured us — like mandatory trigger locks, gun licensing, limits on gun and ammunition purchases, an end to TV programs and movies that “glamorize” weapons, more regulation of gun shows, and much more. Cheers. Applause.

Needless to say, I wasn’t applauding. There really is something repugnant — and scary — about Americans who demand that their own liberties be taken away. (And mine, too, while they’re at it. And yours.)

I looked into the faces of these women. They were smiling faces. Young faces, old faces. Pleasant faces. White faces, black faces.

They looked like anyone’s mother, or daughter, or neighbor, or girlfriend, or coworker, or grandmother, or aunt.

Evil can fool you. Sometimes the face of evil is ordinary, and bland, and cheerful. Sometimes the face of evil can be seen on a sunny day on the Mall. Sometimes the face of evil looks exactly like the women at the Million Mom March, cheerfully demanding that the Second Amendment be repealed, one new “sensible” law at a time.