Maybe Obama can re-energize by leading a fight to ban swords and knives

Robert Tracinski wrote an excellent article calling Obama the worst president ever. I urge you to read it. His opening point, which is that Obama is bored by the disasters he’s let loose in the world,and excited only about fighting to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights got me thinking. Combine that with today’s story about the swordsman in the Apple store, and I ended up with a snarky post:

President Obama seems bored lately. It’s no surprise why. Once he determined that Islam has nothing to do with massacres in Boston, Kenya, Mumbai, Paris, Mali, etc. (all committed with weapons that are already illegal in the U.S.), he was left with nothing to say. If you watch his lifeless statement after the Paris massacre, you can almost see him thinking “Same old, same old. I can’t even pretend emotion by this time.”

What gives Obama vigor is speaking out about massacres committed using semi-automatic weapons, pistols, and rifles. Thanks to those massacres, he can focus his energy on his real enemy: the National Rifle Association and conservative Americans, both of which believe that the Second Amendment protects their right to bear arms. Look at his energy as he attacks the Second Amendment (starting at about 4 minutes in):

If Americans want to keep Obama from getting bored, they need to give him more of those kind of fights, the ones where he attacks our own Constitution and our right of self-defense. With that in mind, I’ve got the perfect weapon picked out. It’s time to ban a weapon that has both Second and First Amendment protection. Yes, it’s time to ban the sword and its little brother, the sharp knife.

Most people don’t realize it, but the Second Amendment protects swords and knives as well as guns. They too were arms that were part of every 18th century American’s arsenal. Eighteenth century armies also relied heavily on the bayonet. What will make this fight especially exciting for Obama is that, while the National Rifle Association might sit it out, CAIR could very well mount a constitutional attack against a sword ban. After all, both swords and beheading are central to the Koran, which is their sacred text:

So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom [them] until the war lays down its burdens. That [is the command]. And if Allah had willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them [Himself], but [He ordered armed struggle] to test some of you by means of others. (Koran, Sahih International Ed., 47:4.)

Inspired by Muhammad’s clear, to-the-point instructions, radical Islamists have worked their way across the Middle East, the Malaysian Peninsula, England, and even America, beheading infidels as they go. Knives are suddenly the go-to thing for the angry, the crazy, or the radically Islamic. Indeed, just in the past few months there have been four newsworthy sword and knife incidents involving those factors.

In September, a Muslim factory worker beheaded an Oklahoma woman. In October, a racist sword-wielding attacker killed two students in Sweden. Last week, a robber used a sword against a Port Huron Dairy Queen and an angry Spokane man attacked his neighbor with a sword following a garbage can dispute. And just yesterday, a possibly crazy sword-swinging man terrified shoppers in an Apple Store on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

Or perhaps it’s time to stop talking about banning weapons, whether constitutionally protected or not, and start talking seriously about the mindset that leads to weapons attacks. In some cases, the attacks are the ordinary violence that exists in all societies. But with increasing frequency across the world, the problem isn’t the weapons at all – it’s men and women in thrall to Muhammed’s explicit instruction that they must start holy wars and, once started, they must slaughter their enemies. So maybe, President Obama, it’s time for you to get excited about what really matters.