Former Gawker editor has bizarre take on guns and Second Amendment :: 05/10/2023

Elizabeth Spiers is apparently the founding editor of the now-defunct site Gawker. Today, she’s a regular with the New York Times and Slate.

Sounds like she’s one of the intellectual elite, the kind of person many think should be shaping our opinions on various topics like guns and gun control.

If so, they really need to rethink that after her rather bizarre tweet on Monday.

Now to back up, we need to start with this tweet she was that frames things just a bit:

My degree is from Duke, and in public policy and political science, and I know that the founders did not intend that civilians own military grade weapons to fire any time they felt threatened uncomfortable and they did not foresee weapons like the AR-15 even in a military context https://t.co/pHnWsegMmr

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) May 7, 2023

Now, we’ve debunked the whole “the Founding Fathers couldn’t have foreseen modern guns” thing before, so I won’t delve into it again.

Yet when called out on it, she offers this:

Some people are just determined to telegraph their own ignorance in public. The founders intended that the public own limited weapons in the context of protecting against a tyrannical coup, not a hypothetical home invasion, or general feelings of discomfort https://t.co/KDnP0De1za

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) May 8, 2023

First, the Founding Fathers were able to own artillery, not just muskets. They could outfit their own warships, for crying out loud. To say they wanted weapons limited without evidence is bizarre in the extreme.

Then we have this strange idea that somehow, the weapons needed to resist tyranny would be less dangerous than those we use to defend against home invaders.

I’m willing to concede the possibility that the Founding Fathers were unworried about home invasion. Such things weren’t exactly common during the colonial period, all things considered–especially if you discount the frontier–so maybe they didn’t write the Second Amendment for that.

Yet the idea that this somehow negates the private ownership of guns is…well, there’s no other way to put it, it’s just flat-out stupid.

The guns that existed and were in civilian hands at the time of the Second Amendment’s writing were either on par with the military or actually superior to them.

Unless, of course, Spiers is suggesting that I give up my AR-15 and take ownership of a Ma Deuce, in which case I might be willing to listen.

We all know that’s not the case, though.

See, the problem here is that Spiers is like a lot of other anti-gunners. They think that the Second Amendment means whatever they want it to mean. Somehow, she’s gotten it into her head that the Founding Fathers were actually in favor of restricting guns and she’s trying to mangle the English language in such a way that it looks like she’s right.

That’ll only fly if you allow it.

The truth is that Spiers doesn’t care what the Founding Fathers really thought of guns. She’s sure she’s one of the intellectual elite and so she’ll tell you what she thinks you need to know. This all started because she claimed her degree gave her insight into what these men thought, despite likely having never read any of the things they actually wrote on the topic of guns and the Second Amendment.

But I found the word salad there to be kind of fascinating.

If we were to take her comments as accurate, then we all need to give up our single-shot guns and start carrying belt-feds to defend our homes.

After all, I can make the case for an AR-15 being useful against a tyrannical coup. (Let’s not get into the fact that those same Founding Fathers actually thought we should have a coup from time to time.) I can’t make the same case about a single-shot .22 rifle.

The upside is that Spiers doesn’t know what she’s talking about. In fact, she’s so ignorant she should probably demand a refund from Duke.

Assuming the university doesn’t send her a cease and desist letter for making their alumni look like morons.

https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2023/05/09/gawker-guns-n70289