Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's NewsMichael Medved: The Nobel Prize Encourages A Dangerous Fantasy
In another inane choice for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee selected an organization known as ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The idea of “abolishing” nuclear weapons is absurd, of course: if the world enacted the restrictive treaties proposed by the campaign, then decent, law-abiding nations would be disarmed while rogue states like North Korea and Iran would continue developing the nuclear weapons they might use with impunity.
Similar flawed logic underlies the current gun debate: just as they wish nukes had never been invented, so too many liberals passionately wish that firearms had never been designed or manufactured. But that’s a childish fantasy, since you can’t magically “abolish” a familiar, well-established technology, or prevent destructive forces from accessing it. As with dreams of “abolishing” nuclear weapons, attempts to regulate guns out of existence will leave the bad guys much stronger while the good guys became vastly more vulnerable.
Similar flawed logic underlies the current gun debate: just as they wish nukes had never been invented, so too many liberals passionately wish that firearms had never been designed or manufactured. But that’s a childish fantasy, since you can’t magically “abolish” a familiar, well-established technology, or prevent destructive forces from accessing it. As with dreams of “abolishing” nuclear weapons, attempts to regulate guns out of existence will leave the bad guys much stronger while the good guys became vastly more vulnerable.
