Republican Bill Drennan is running in Virginia’s 87th district state legislature against Democratic candidate Suhas Subramanyam. Last week, the candidates spoke at a forum on the Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun Campus. Hosted by the League of Women Voters of Loudoun County, an interesting moment came when Drennan, upon being asked about gun safety laws, decided to create a truly tortured analogy to women’s rights. After giving a basic primer on why we have the Second Amendment, he went on with what I imagine he and others believe to be a very clever bit of debate rhetoric.
BILL DRENNAN: The number of abortions in Virginia in 2017 was 17,210 and the number of gun deaths and misuse of guns was 1,041. That's a ratio of 16.5 to 1. How about this? Contrarian. [sic] I’m going to impose common sense restrictions on the constitutional right to an abortion. How about ankle bracelets? I don't think very many people would agree with that.
No. No they wouldn’t, Bill. Then again, no one is asking anyone to “impose common sense legislation” asking all gun owners to wear ankle bracelets. In fact, if you murder a bunch of people, no one is asking you to wear ankle bracelets either. If you have a bunch of DUIs and/or DWIs a judge may require you to wear an ankle monitor as part of your sentence. Are you suggesting that there are people asking gun owners to wear ankle monitors to check their alcohol levels?
DRENNAN: It’s analogous to commonsense—
At that point the moderator cut him off because his time both on stage and in the world of intelligent beings had come to a close.
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