A recent editorial by U.S. Senator Mike Lee in the Deseret News has me again disappointed in our elected leaders. Lee’s lectures on the constitution are usually harmless, if totally annoying and condescending, but his most recent exegesis of the 2nd Amendment should leave Utahns unusually worried about their senator.
In the editorial, Lee begins with a history lesson about the 2nd Amendment before jumping into a tirade against universal background checks. It isn’t immediately clear what the history lesson has to do with universal background checks–especially since many rights, the First and Second foremost among them, have long been regulated by reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. But even more discouraging than Lee’s shoddy historical work is his willful ignorance of contemporary concerns.
As I’ve noted numerous times on this blog and elsewhere, 82% of Utahns support universal background checks. For Lee, that’s 82% of his constituents. And those findings weren’t published by bleeding heart liberals, but by Lee’s own alma mater, Brigham Young University.
Why do we, as otherwise reasonable, sensible Utahns, continue to vote these schmucks into office?
