By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Socialism is a threat we should all be worried about, according to Gabriella Hoffman, an award-winning outdoor writer and Virginia gun owner, whose parents fled from Lithuania to the United States.
She is a first-generation American-born advocate who provided the Gun Rights Policy Conference audience an unpleasant look at what the nation could be facing with the rise in socialism here in the U.S.
“It’s a threat we should be concerned about,” she stressed. “Especially with these new kinds of socialists; these people who sound very similar to the same socialists that my family had to deal with firsthand.”
She quoted different statements posted by the Democratic Socialists of America, first in 2013 and then in 2018.
“There is simply no constitutional right to individual gun ownership.”
“The Second Amendment is a threat to us all.”
She cautioned the activists in the audience, “This is what could be happening in a few short years if we’re not vigilant.”
Hoffman provided a quick history of communist and Nazi regimes, where gun ownership was banned. In China, people who refused to surrender their firearms faced punishment up to execution. In Germany, Jews were prohibited from manufacturing and then even owning firearms. What followed, she recalled, was the Holocaust during which millions of Jews and others were murdered.
“All these examples of gun control whether communist or fascist are pretty illuminating and that’s something we don’t want to forget,” she said.
“We know the brutality and the violence that was clear throughout these regimes,” she said, “but unfortunately for our gun control friends here in the United States, they say that restricting firearms will actually help to mitigate crime. But that’s not true as we know.
“And many blue state lawmakers and even people who purport to be freedom loving – sometimes Republicans also support gun control unfortunately – they need to be reminded that whenever you enact more gun control there’s an inverse relationship with crime diminished.”
Hoffman also touched on the connection between gun ownership and conservation, alluding to the Pittman-Robertson Act which has raised billions of dollars over the past 90 years for wildlife restoration and conservation. She said this is a key point gun owners can make when confronted by people who dislike guns and hunting.
While the Second Amendment is not about hunting, she noted, the argument can be made that without civilian gun ownership and hunting, there would be no major conservation efforts.
Her advice is to amplify stories about people who have fled socialist and communist regimes to come to America. Like her, many of these people have come to appreciate the Second Amendment and civilian firearms ownership.
