In his latest piece for the Independent, Rupert Cornwell is “baffled” by the apparent dichotomy of Americans “clinging to their guns and their religion” despite Barack Obama’s squeaking by in the polls last November. Revealing apparent prejudices, Mr. Cornwell‘s simplistic view of Americans as a lump of bottom-feeding groupthink isn’t even European, despite the centuries of serfdom, the Second World War, and the Cold War. Anyone who is not aware of the granularity of any population could rightly run the risk of being pigeonholed himself as a bigot. At best, Mr. Cornwell seemingly shows himself to have only surface knowledge of the issues about which he writes, and even that knowledge is tainted by his own participation in a groupthink of sorts that is plaguing much of our increasingly lazy journalist profession on both sides of the pond.

Mr. Cornwell is simply perplexed by the fact that even as gay marriage makes headway in liberal states that the majority of Americans could truly understand the facts about abortion. Cornwall, apparently looking for the popular spin among his colleagues, has failed to understand the nature of the gay marriage debate and all of its twists and turns in the U.S., as he simply passes any resistance off as motivated by hate. Indeed, while clearly liberal states have chosen to allow gay marriage, conservative states have passed constitutional amendments banning it, but for reasons quite contrary to Mr. Cornwell’s assumptions. What is happening is not a wave of national acceptance, but a polarization of the issue. What many conservatives and their states are open to is some sort of civil contract, but not marriage: the same position Barack Obama holds on the issue. Yet, Cornwall seems to make this out to be an issue that contradicts the Obama election, such that it was.

As for recent abortion polls, perhaps it’s an issue best understood by the fact that for so many years it was not. After the Reagan years, abortion slowly became an issue fallen by the wayside in liberal mainstream media as it finally began seeing poll numbers beginning to go the media’s way. However, as the barrage of propaganda from mainstream media abated, it left people to think for themselves again (the horror!) and the anti-science liberal media establishment inadvertently allowed common sense and medical science itself to start winning the day once more.

A second factor in the abortion turnabout is likely that the left has clearly overstepped itself. Reasonable people, pro-life and pro-abortion in some instances, cannot see the rationale of aborting a baby when it is clearly viable and certainly not killing it while it is being born or after it has been born or has survived an abortion attempt – issues upon which Barack Obama took extremist pro-abortion positions and voted accordingly during his tenure in the Illinois state house.

A third factor which has likely painted the pro-aborts in a rather poor light of late is the stunning lack of self-regulation and reasonable moderation in the abortion industry and among the lobby in Washington and the media who blindly support it. To wit, the scandal in which several Planned Parenthood offices across the U.S. were revealed by hidden camera to be advising what they believed to be 14 year old minors impregnated by adult males in their 30s not to tell anyone, which is an egregious criminal offense that also directly puts the child in danger of further abuse by sexual predators.  Other scandals involving abortion clinics have included abortions being performed by non-doctors, clinics being run under horrific and illegal hygienic conditions, aborted babies being tossed into dumpsters behind clinics without even the common regard for the biohazard even abortion supporters would be horrified by. And then there are the news accounts of botched abortions leading to the deaths or serious injuries of the women having them or the baby surviving either left to die or allowed to live, but seriously disfigured for life as a result. In a word, the abortion industry has become reckless and sloppy, both of which have likely impassioned the pro-life camp and angered sincere members of the pro-abortion camp that want abortion “safe and legal”, since it has become largely neither. So again, Mr. Cornwall seems to have but the shallowest understanding of the issue.

One also wonders about Mr. Cornwall’s understanding of the American gun issue, choosing instead to use the broadest of generalizations to perpetuate the assumptions and biases of his peers. The fact of the matter is that Obama’s anti-gun rhetoric was the most extreme of any until he realized he might have trouble winning an election if he held on to those ideas; a notion even Mr. Cornwell seems to concede later in his piece. While his rhetoric did soften quite a bit after the Supreme Court decision upholding the Second Amendment last year before the election, the fact is that he has moved a host of government agencies to make it as difficult as possible for wholesalers to purchase the materials needed to make the ammunition to sell to the public, which has caused shortages and higher prices in many markets while demand is at an all-time high. Contrary to Cornwell and perhaps his Kool-Aid-drinking friends, there was no demonization, but rather a pragmatic realization that Obama on this and many other issues is hard-left. Not only is Obama hard-left, he also has been on record stating his belief that the Constitution should give way to his version of “redistributive” social justice. At the same time, Obama’s homeland security secretary has released reports claiming that anyone who opposes the administration politically and peacefully, including protestors, be they opposed to abortion, support gun-rights, support the military or even have bumper stickers on their cars that support candidates or parties other than Obama’s or that mention Obama directly, are considered possible terrorists, along with, of course, U.S. veterans. Meanwhile, liberals in congress are looking at legislation which might restrict the ownership of firearms even further and possibly linking their legislation to such homeland security reports. Such talk clearly smacks of fascism to many Americans, to say nothing of the fact the left is infamous for its being soft on crime: both of which have inspired millions of Americans to “take their own precautions”, which is quite reasonable and quite the opposite of Obama’s extremist views on not only guns, but all weapons, even ceremonial swords traditionally carried by U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

Cornwall, after eviscerating reality in terms of liberal gun policy, then seems to wish liberal gun policy were more liberal:

As usual, gun crimes are in the headlines, this time after the fatal shooting last week by the 88-year-old white supremacist James von Brunn of a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. But after initial outrage, the reaction has, as always, been one of weary acceptance. Even the slaughter of 32 people by a deranged student at Virginia Tech University a couple of years ago – the worst such massacre in US history – failed to generate real pressure for stricter gun laws.

Sadly for you, Cornwell, crimes prevented by guns far outstrip those committed with guns, except in parts of the country where gun restrictions have become extreme. The fact is, the shooting last week at the Holocaust memorial by that anti-religious social-Darwinist socialist was significantly limited because the security guard also owned a gun. Yet, in a liberal utopia, even law enforcement is not allowed to own them. Had guns been completely outlawed, as they largely are in Great Britain, such desperate criminals as this 88-year old assailant would likely do what they also do in Great Britain: acquire illegal firearms. I seriously doubt this man was weighing the criminal penalties for committing his crime in the first place, so once more only the law-abiding sat as sheep for the slaughter. The same holds true for the Virginia Tech shooting. As Mr. Cornwell rightly points out, the ratio of homicidal maniacs is probably the same everywhere – a very small number, so it would therefore be reasonable to assume that the overwhelming majority of the population would use firearms responsibly, such as when a homicidal maniac came their way with gun, knife, or bear hands.  Further, the argument that a small number of gun crimes should justify disarming millions of defenseless Americans, many of whom are elderly, female, infirm or otherwise lacking the brawn to defend themselves, yet not applying the same argument to say outlawing all cars, or, given statistics on the number who die every year due to slip-and-fall accidents, showers is disingenuous. One not need go any further; however, if one should, socialized healthcare in many countries could be examined as well, considering the number of patients who are denied the most essential treatment because the government in essence decided their lives just weren’t quite worth living. However, this is the typical argument made by those who are well-connected and can afford their own private security or other considerations. The reality is that despite the leftwing press and its choice to ignore what is really going on with the use of firearms in America, firearms are used in more instances of self-defense than in the commission of crimes such as murder, and far more times than gun accidents (which, again, are fewer in number than shower stall accidents and by far fewer than auto accidents, and probably fewer in number than the number who die each year at the hands of socialized medicine).

Sadly, Cornwell also chooses to view race through his overly political lens, ignoring what the gun ban in Washington D.C. – one of the most violent cities in the country – really does to average citizens unable to defend themselves from criminals bearing illegal weapons or their fists totally unopposed. Cornwell would have such residents simply ask the assailant to wait while they call 911 and then wait kindly for the police to arrive. As the saying goes, “when seconds count, police are only minutes away.” This is common sense, but no bother to Cornwall, who is far more interested in imposing his completely detached ivory tower view of reality on those who, unlike him, must live it. He also fails to point out that the new and allegedly ecumenical Democrat Congress and Obama chose to end school vouchers for D.C.’s largely minority children that were showing amazing progress helping children who otherwise would not have the resources to attend quality private schools. The Democrats reasoning for this was simply that they wished to placate teachers’ union special interest groups. Meanwhile, the school system that has received more money than nearly any other in the country and every little thing teachers unions could ask for is a cesspool of dropouts, violence – including by those outlawed guns that were supposed to go away and chaos, all while Obama himself along with many in Congress continue to send their own children to exclusive private schools – so not their problem. Here, too, Mr. Cornwell would have benefitted greatly from doing his homework.

As for whether Obama will continue to push his truly radical anti-gun laws and regulations for law abiding citizens along with a host of other policies aimed toward undoing what the Declaration of Independence says with regard to all men being "equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” thus creating a wider divide between the well-off and those seeking to better themselves, may be an open question. That question may well become moot, depending on the results of the up-coming mid-term congressional elections in 2010.