<![CDATA[Dick Durbin]]>

The Senate is now in the hands of Democrats. Completely.

As a result, that body can do all kinds of silly things, such as hold hearings on gun control, which is exactly what they did.

That’s when committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin said about the dumbest thing he could have.

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard from both sides of the gun control debate in a hearing to preserve public safety in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the court struck down a New York state law that made it difficult to obtain a concealed weapon permit.

Under Bruen, courts must consider the text of a law and the history of firearms regulation. Before Bruen, courts used a “history and means-end scrutiny” test to consider the law in light of Constitutional principles and the current issues and circumstances.

Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Bruen fails to take into account modern legal, social, and technological issues. The founders were only familiar with muzzle-loading rifles and could not have foreseen modern firearms, he said at the March 15 hearing.

“I don’t believe the founders of this nation would want this radical new framework,” Durbin said.

This is an old, tired talking point. “The Founders couldn’t have imagined anything but single-fire guns.”

Durbin’s comment ignores so much it’s almost hilarious.

First, the idea that failure to foresee new technology should change anything is bogus. We don’t accept that reasoning with regard to things like the internet. Sure, there were questions of how to handle things, but there was never any doubt that people were going to have free speech despite the new technology, which was well beyond what our Founders likely imagined.

We don’t ignore someone’s Fourth Amendment rights because it’s a cell phone and not their home, either.

Our rights don’t change simply because technology did.

As for our Founding Fathers not being able to picture modern firearms, that may be true but only as a matter of degree. The puckle gun showed that repeating firearms were certainly feasible and the Lewis and Clark expedition had a Girardoni air rifle that had a capacity of 30 rounds and was lethal to humans. Oh, and it was in service with the Austrian Army between 1780 and 1815 while the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791.

So yeah, I’m sure the modern AR-15 wouldn’t be that big of a leap for them.

Further, let’s also remember that the Second Amendment covered heavy artillery. If you had the money, you could outfit an entire warship at your own expense and there was literally nothing illegal about it. That’s enough firepower to destroy a small down back in the day, so don’t even try to claim that the Second Amendment covered less lethal weapons than what we have today.

I love my AR-15, but it doesn’t blow up buildings, contrary to what many seem to think.

The truth is, the Senate wants to see gun control passed and they’re ignorant, at best, of the history of firearms. They don’t realize that while the specifics may have changed, the broad strokes really haven’t.

So, they’ll have their hearings on gun control and pretend they’re doing something. If they get their way, they will actually do something.

They’ll step all over the Second Amendment, contrary to what they’ve deluded themselves to believe.