This is a long one and this forum's design is hard on the eyes when viewing in a mobile device like most of us probably do but your post provoked a detailed response:
1) This Harold Cook piece is loaded with textbook liberal rhetoric, so I don't believe for a second he owns firearms. I believe he's nothing more than a lib impersonating a gun owner in order to condescend to and derogate the 2a, the NRA, and all gun owners, with feigned credibility via this 'I'm a gun owner too' and 'I used to be a member but i left the NRA' crap. But if he does own firearms, he's one of those hypocrite gun-owning libs; he IS a lib - don't doubt it.
2) He says he used to be an NRA member - well again I doubt it. but for the record, I think anyone who owns firearms and isn't an NRA member has his head up his ass. Do you realize there may be up to 100 million gun owners but only 4 million NRA members? And the NRA is THE ONLY reason that in 70's/80's America our second amendment didn't go they way of UK gun rights? Their representatives who testify to the congress; the NRA-ILA legal team who fights our anti 2a federal AND state legislators in both supreme courts; and the member contributions that fund all of this; they are THE ONLY reason our 2a has not been repealed or legislated null. It is surely NOT because of our elected NON representatives; those self-serving, liberty-robbing, parasitical elitists - republican AND democrat - have done vastly nothing to preserve our 2a and other rights unless it was - first and foremost - politically expedient to them.
3) He says 'surely we won't do NOTHING in response to Sandy Hook'? 'Surely we can do better than that'? Boohoo you maggot puke lib - that statement moots anything else he says cause it reveals his motivation is simply that we have to pass some kind of gun control law to show we care; to make a political, social statement that we feel bad. Not because it will prevent future Sandy Hooks, nor because it would have prevented the 'first' sandy hook, because that's irrelevant; we have to show we hurt for them, and exploit their pain for political gain.....sick f'ing libs.
In contrast, I feel utter, hopeless pain for what happened to those kids and their parents, but my reaction is not to demand my representatives legislate some pointless emotional statement that will not stop future tragedies, but to demand they enact a law that would allow every law abiding citizen to carry a firearm so future attacks can be prevented or at least mitigated. Yeah, I'm a radical gun nut advocating people have the right to defend themselves and their children....what craziness.
4) again, this lib talks about the boogeyman private sale loophole - second only to the gun show loophole boogeyman. He says expanding background checks would 'stop wackadoodles from harming our children'? f'ing, f'ing moron lib....name one gun crime committed with such a gun. Name a sandy hook type or other mass shooting that involved such a gun. I won't hold my breath. And regardless, this is a boogeyman because with scant exceptions, the smallest municipalities' local laws require background checks for private sales/transfers like here in Hawai'i's counties. So this is a non issue, but that doesn't stop cook.
5) he says relax, there no longer credible arguments against the 'individual right'......wrong, Heller and McDonald WILL go away if O'fricka puts just one single additional lib activist judge in the scotus, because those cases (that cook alludes to) won by only one vote. and anyway we'll likely get three more lefties during o'bastard's second reign, and Roberts has already drank the coolaid so byebye 2a.
6) he says the NRA is violating HIS 2a right? What madness infects this abysmally obtuse puke lib's brain? A truly twilight zone ironic moment there. But hey, he's a lib and his hateful rhetoric towards the NRA doesn't have to make sense.
7) he uses lib rhetorical buzz words like 'sensible gun restrictions', so he loses me right there. But for the record, what he calls sensible is purely arbitrary: 15rd limit, 10rd limit, now 7rd in NY - pointless, arbitrary, and therefore just stepping stones towards no semiautos at all. Also, do I even NEED to ask if anyone thinks the arbitrary ban of semiautos based solely on appearance, is "SENSIBLE" as cook says? And this maggot cook supports this?
in case you don't see his lib rhetoric yet, how bout that classic - the justification for limits on the 2a since there are limits on other a's like 'you can't tell fire in a crowded theater'. Well I've never heard ANYONE attack this decades-old gun control lucky-charm, but even a "r-word" (jab at the pc libs) can see the apples and oranges.
so lets make all apples so we see this argument is invalid: the object of the constitutionally protected 1a right, the yelled word 'fire' (equivalent to the 2a protected object; a semiauto w/30rd mag), is not illegal; what IS illegal is saying that word in a circumstance that would put people at risk (equivalent to USING a semiauto w/30rd mag unlawfully), right? You understand?
The gov doesn't prohibit the word fire, just some limited circumstances in which you may say it. Well than similarly, the gov shouldn't prohibit you from owning a semiauto rifle, it should just prohibit limited circumstances in which you may use it.
So you CAN yell fire, just not in a crowded theater, cause that could put people at risk. Well similarly, you can own a semiauto rifle, but you can't go plinking on a highway because that would similarly put people at risk.
In case that's not clear....owning a semiauto doesn't put children in a nearby school at risk any more than storing the word 'fire' in your lexicon puts people in a nearby theater at risk. So we shouldn't ban a specific type of semiauto rifle any more than we should ban the specific word fire.
To really show how crazy libs are, consider an analogy:
banning an AR type but allowing a garand because of the AR's scary, military appearance, would be like banning the word 'inferno' but allowing the word 'fire' cause inferno is an ominously evocative term - shooting up children with a M1 Garand is no more deadly than doing so with an AR10; and screaming 'inferno' in a crowded theater is no more dangerous than screaming 'fire'! Libs are morons.
SO....that's why that argument is obtuse lib rhetoric - because limiting WHERE you may yell fire is vastly incomparable to limiting WHAT firearm you may possess.
9) he says smugly 'the past Assault Weapon and mag ban didnt shatter our constitution' so we shouldn't worry about a new one? Lord, Jesus, God....where to start....the mag limit is as effective as bloomberg's 16oz soda limit: if i cant have a 30rd clip, I'll buy three 10's. sure, that'll encumber those mass shooters.
Oh I know, the reload will allow someone time to tackle a shooter, right? Yeah, while people are scattering and diving for cover, someone will stick close, waiting to pounce during the 1+ second it takes him to reload. No. NEVER happened; NEVER will.
10) smugly again, he says since 'the past Assault Weapon and mag ban didnt shatter our constitution' we need to 'have faith in the durability of our constitution'. ahhh....classic lib patronization 101. you can see he's a condescending lib implying gun control opponents are just alarmist, paranoid, black helicopter types.
Well Wilson and FDR were vocal about their disdain for the constraints of the constitution and its amendment process, & Clinton and O'fricka were/are their modern analogues. so we are not paranoid - we are simply aware of the left's agenda - the incremental dissolution of the 2a through the legislative process and activist scotus judges. Remember, Wilson and FDR knew they could not amend the constitution via the constitutional process cause they'd never have the votes, so they did it - and now Obama is doing it - by judicial and legislative activism. So so much for the 'durability of the constitution'! And this turd cook knows this...he's nothing but a arrogant lib who thinks he's more clever than his readers.
11) in the beginning of the piece, in support of the new gun control proposals, and to assuage gun owners' fears of confiscation, he says the proposals are 'less likely to prevent another sandy hook since people will still have the guns they have now'. But at the end of the piece, in support of the new gun control proposals, he says they WILL work by 'keeping our children and teachers safe'. So which is it, moron...huh? What a classic puke frigging lib who can't manage to be consistent within a few paragraphs of bilge?
12) AND...he says 'nobody credible has proposed legistlation to take anyone's damn guns away'? Oh my God....really you lib moron? NOBODY credible? How bout googling for text and video of THE VERY CREDIBLE AUTHOR OF THE CURRENT AW BAN ITSELF - DIANE FEINSTEIN - saying in the past, 'if I had the votes I'd take 'every single gun away from you, mr and mrs america'!!!! Hows THAT for you harold cook!!!??? is that a CREDIBLE enough threat of confiscation from a CREDIBLE enough senator; you liberal bilge-spewing snake? She, schumer, and countless others have historically alluded to their ultimate goal of legislating away the 2a, but cook knows that TOO.....he's an intellectually dishonest, snake, maggot lib!
13) here's a thought exercise; one i have rhetorically asked people - who are not aware of the tyrranical nature of gov and the hidden meaning behind pointless laws - to engage in:
"If the purpose of a law will not be satisfied by enacting that law, then why do they want to enact that law?". Well, there are a few answers:
a) for its political value; to make a statement; to pander to constituents and show solidarity with a given lobby
b) it enables ideologue lawmakers to achieve a small level of control over people they despise
c) it sets a precedent for future, further constraints on a given right; constraints that facilitate the incremental destruction of liberty, be they 2a rights or any other rights - enumerated or not.
You can conclude this after assessing innumerable lib/progressive laws that are proposed - passed or not - but most prominently in reactive gun control legislation. recall the oldies-but-goodies from various states: ban desert eagles, they use a browning grizzly; ban tec-9's, they use an AR type pistol; ban AR rifles; they get a ruger mini; ban 30rd mags, they get multiple lower cap mags, et cetera.
So if a gun control law (say limiting to 10rd mags) doesnt satisfy the purpose of the law (prevent mass shootings) then why enact the law? Well, you fill in the blank. Hint: "incremental dissolution......"
But now, lets see where the gun control crowd knows pointless gun laws will go. To do this, lets consider a hypothetical series of sandy hooks, and the passing if reactive gun control legislation in response to the specifics of each massacre, as far as the weapon type used:
1st sandy hook: bushmaster; bushmasters banned.
2nd: AR type; all ARs banned.
3rd: ruger mini 14; all semiautos with detachable mags banned.
4th: en bloc garand; ALL semiautos BANNED.
5th: bolt action .308; ALL high power rifles banned.
6th: bolt action .22 mossberg; ALL rifles banned.
7th: multiple high caliber revolvers; all pistols above .38 cal banned.
8th: .22 revolver; all revolvers banned:
9th: derringer .22; ALL handguns banned
10th: a black powder firearm; all black powder firearms banned
11th - n......repeat the above with air guns....all air guns banned...
That's where it goes and that's how we get there.
Now, you think that scenario is absurd; that they wouldn't go that far? Well here's an intellectual exercise that predicts they would:
for you to think gun control laws WON'T go that far ABSOLUTELY requires that you to believe that there is a certain number of murdered-with-guns dead children the gun control lobby is willing to accept; that they will restrain themselves from further reactive legislation, when they hit a certain point, thereby asserting they've gone far enough and the country is just going to have to accept a certain number of low-casualty sandy hooks......you get it?
For my assertion NOT to be true, in a hypothetical, Feinstein'd have to say, wait....a guy with five 7-shot .22 revolvers just killed 35 preschoolers? Well that's unfortunate but we can't ban revolvers too. We'll just have to accept that such events are in the realm of possibility and will happen occasionally.
Well you have to know the gun control lobby - private and in the congress - doesn't work that way. even if they banned all centerfire, rimfire, primerfire, and black powder firearms, and a guy with a single shot pump air pistol walks into a preschool and kills even ONE toddler, the fienstiens and Bradys of our country will react by banning that last type of 'gun'.
They will not tolerate the possibility of a shooting death of even a SINGLE child - and why would they? Not because they truly care solely about murdered children, but because they hate guns, gun owners, and the 2a...and want them, us, and it, to be punished and extinguished - and any single murder-by-gun death of a child would serve that goal. Truly....because if they really did care about preventing child deaths they'd have to start banning a million other things that, yearly, kill children in vastly higher numbers than any type of 'firearm'.
So that is why libs will ultimately nullify the 2a if we let them, and that is why Harold cook is a disingenuous, moronic lib gun hater.....whether he knows it or not.