Peggy Noonan

Peggy Noonan defended Biden again in the weekend edition of the WSJ. Quelle surprise. Do you think she would have given Trump the same pass?  Not a chance. I appreciate her frustration in pointing out that Biden was in a difficult position having to comment on the Uvalde shooting, but to suggest that he was “emoting” when he said “ when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” is to politicize the issue and imply that the gun lobby is indeed at fault. Rubbish. And stating that “he doesn’t mean to be divisive” is just, well, disinformation. The old warhorse then goes on to state that she’s all for “deeper background checks and longer waiting periods” not because they will solve the problem but “might get us an inch on the yardstick”. An inch on the yardstick going where, Peggy?  Of course, “move to ban assault weapons again, those sinister killing-machine weapons of war”.  Really. Where to start?  Anthropomorphizing a semi-automatic rifle as a “sinister killing machine” conjures up images of futuristic android terminators and is just plain silly.  So called assault weapons are modernized semi-automatic rifles dressed up to look like their fully automatic military counterparts. Pull the trigger and it goes boom, one at a time. Just because you paint your Kia red does not mean it performs like a Ferrari. Even with that ridiculous wing on the back. And recall we tried the assault weapon ban back in the Clinton years with the opposite effect. Gun crime increased. So much for that. You only have to look at Chicago to glean the results of total gun bans. Responsible citizens are left to the old government standby of “duck and cover.”  Nothing says stupid like repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Why not choose something that has been proven to be effective, like incarceration, perhaps? And she even wades into psychiatry by announcing that “we are in the middle of a mental health crisis”. But in a deft reversal, rather than addressing the crisis, she faults republicans for continuing the practice of “putting long guns in the hands of young men.” So if some people are nuts we should take dangerous things away from everybody.  Guns today, chainsaws, knives, fertilizer, diesel fuel and pointy sticks tomorrow. And when I think about long guns in the hands of young men, by free association I think of our military. Peggy ends  her screed by declaring “we must evolve.”  She certainly has morphed……by apparently devolving to the left.