This is of a piece with ACLU's re-thinking of its absolutist pro-free-speech stance. It's the exact same logic in both cases: "abuse" of this one freedom is making us net less free. In both cases they're sorta over the principled position, & that's unfortunate.
Also, that bullet list kinda floors me. It's a list of stuff the police state does or wants to do using mass shootings & gun ownership as a pretext. Instead of saying, "that's just a pretext, I call BS," they go "let's take away this particular pretext."
The ACLU absolutely knows that things like increased government surveillance and use of databases has zero to do with mass shootings or civilian gun ownership. But instead of pushing back on that flimsy rationale, they're ready to swallow it in this one case because gunz.
"The police state is using guns as one of many pretexts to oppress us further, so let's hand them all our guns, thereby robbing them of at least that pretext! PHEAR MAH LOGICAL JUJITSU!" has to be the worst argument to come out of the ACLU that I've ever seen.
"They can't take your liberties if you voluntarily hand them over."
It's true, man. Along with the 1st and 2nd amendment, I expect the ACLU will go soft on the 4th soon using the same argument. "All this civilian privacy stuff is causing us to be net-net less free. Routine home inspections == less databases"
I also should point out, as is so often the case with guns, this guy's basic argument template along with many of the specifics can be applied to civilian use of encryption. In fact it often is when it's the state talking.
Note: I found this article via this takedown thread, which is worth checking out:
At this point I think it's time for somebody to stand up a new ACLU type org, where the pitch is: "We are what the ACLU was about three years ago, before TDS set it nationally & we decided we need to hand over liberties we don't like to keep nazis from taking ones we do like."
I mean, I get it: screw nazis, & screw that orange guy. But still, terminal TDS is an ugly business, and apparently principles are the first thing you lose when it sets in.
