As the government shutdown drags on, it has brought greater insight into what the Trump administration values and considers worth preserving and paying for. It’s certainly not the White House, save for his big dumb ballroom. And it also isn’t keeping our national parks functional.
Nope. It’s guns. Guns and people with guns.
Yes, while so many necessary federal workers remain furloughed, the administration has carved out another exception of workers it deems necessary for the nation’s continued functioning: the folks who make sure you can buy some of the most dangerous firearms.
Firearms examiners are now essential workers, and they are back on the job because the gun lobby said jump, and the administration asked how high.
Nothing has stopped you from buying most types of firearms during the shutdown. Americans have had no pause in their access to copious amounts of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and handguns. But if, for some reason, you needed silencers, short-barreled rifles, or pre-1986 machine guns, you were deprived of that core fundamental right for about three weeks.
Gun silencers are on display at a trade-show booth in Las Vegas in 2016.
But now the freedom to buy these guns—often known as “gangster weapons”—is back, baby.
These weapons are all deemed to pose an unusual danger, because well, obviously they are. Therefore, a special group of firearms examiners regulates them. And of course, because America is profoundly broken, these guns sell well.
These examiners were initially deemed nonessential and were furloughed, but conservatives couldn’t let that stand.
First, House Republicans were burbling about how if Americans faced a delay in purchasing a subcategory of dangerous weapons, then we had no freedom at all, or something. Then the far-right America First Policy Institute yelled about how a gun purchase delayed is a gun purchase denied and also how Democrats are giving your health care to illegals. No kidding. This was in the gun-related press release:
Instead of focusing on reopening the government, some radicals in Congress are using the shutdown as leverage to push for taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens. The federal government should never prioritize unlawful taxpayer-funded benefits to non-Americans over its own citizens. It’s time that these radicals reopen the government and abide by the Constitution—not their own political games and egos.
Remember former President Joe Biden’s quip about former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani? “There's only three things he [needs] to make … a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.” That’s the America First Policy Institute, which couldn’t just pound the table and demand more guns. It also had to make it about those mean Democrats and those evil immigrants.
Given that the Trump administration was already making sure that federal workers who carry guns get paid, why not make sure all Americans have access to a truly staggering amount of unnecessary firepower in their private lives?
