Ben Stein, who is normally an eminently sensible guy, posted a column in yesterday’s American Spectator that made us wonder if his computer had been hacked one of MSNBC’s pop psychologists whose specialty is the remote psychoanalysis of Trump voters and other deplorables.

In the column, “The Time for Civilians to Own AR-15s Is Over” Ben wrote:

But for the life of me, I cannot see why any American civilians need an AR-15 or any other military-style semi-automatic rifle. I understand why people want them. It makes your ordinary nerdy guy seem like he’s tough and rough and ready. It makes him feel as if he’s got some part of him that’s always steely and ready for action. But that’s not enough reason to own a gun that just begs to be used against people.

If you look at an AR-15 or any other similar weapon, it doesn’t look like it’s made for hunting. It doesn’t look like it’s made for target shooting. No, it’s made to kill other people. At least that’s what it looks like.

It looks like weapons in newsreels used to kill insurgents. It looks like weapons used in disgusting, violent video games to kill people. It looks as if it won’t ever be happy until you use it to kill someone.

Notice the emphasis on how the gun looks and the assumption that there’s a Freudian element to gun ownership: “It makes your ordinary nerdy guy seem like he’s tough and rough and ready. It makes him feel as if he’s got some part of him that’s always steely and ready for action.”

Ben may be an “ordinary nerdy guy,” who needs a gun like an AR-15 to make him “seem like he’s tough and rough and ready,” but the AR owners I know have them because they are good in three-gun competition, or the pistol caliber carbine division of the steel challenge, and they make the ultimate home defense weapon.

Also, did anyone else who read the column find it weird that Ben engaged in a strange anthropomorphizing of the AR-15; “It looks as if it won’t ever be happy until you use it to kill someone.”

Does any other inanimate object in your house have feelings of happiness or desires?

Is your car only “happy” when it goes fast, or does it get bummed-out when you load-up the kids and cruise sedately to the park?

Maybe my fishing poles are only happy when I have a fish on or my golf clubs get depressed when I hit one in the rough, but they’ve never said so, nor have any of my ARs expressed a desire to kill anyone – they just sit there waiting for me to tell them what to do.

Ben then proceeds to launch into a lengthy screed about “automatic” pistols, camel’s noses in the tent of the Second Amendment, the need for an FBI and BATF that work and the benefits of severely restricting machine guns, ending the column with this stunner:

We’ve seen the hell that these devices can cause in the hands of any of the millions of maniacs out there. We don’t need any more proof. Let’s have at least a modicum of common sense. The time for civilians to own AR-15s is over. No issues about background checks. Just no more manufacturing or selling of AR-15s. Period.

Ben’s conclusion “no more manufacturing or selling of AR-15s. Period.” is clearly motivated by emotion, not by what he claims is common sense.

What’s more, while acknowledging the role that violent movies and video games play in triggering some of the “millions of maniacs out there” Ben’s piece is strangely silent on the notion that perhaps we should ban them; after all their role in adolescent antisocial behavior is beyond question. Perhaps Ben’s reluctance to go down that road is due to his Hollywood connections, but surely one’s policy preferences could never have professional or financial considerations behind them, could they, Bueller?

“Everyone knew” is a refrain we hear repeatedly when these tragedies happen, but it is easier to call for banning guns than it is to confront the real reason Nikolas Cruz did what he did.

What Ben Stein and the others in the blame the gun crowd don’t want to confront is the fact that killers like Nikolas Cruz are created by parents who cover for them and excuse their antisocial behavior, and school officials, police and community mental health professionals that play pass the problem and refuse to use the tools presently available to identify them and get them help or incarcerate them.

Common sense tells me if there are “millions of maniacs out there” then we should concentrate our efforts on identifying them and getting them treatment, or locking them up, rather than violating the numerous foundational elements of constitutional liberty necessary to confiscate my property to accomplish a gun ban.

Ben Stein is an eminently sensible guy, but like many eminently sensible sounding proposals, his proposal that the United States government should ban the AR-15, and similar so-called “assault weapons,” is a cop-out to avoid fixing the real problem; parents and government officials who ignore and cover for antisocial, near feral, humans like Nikolas Cruz until they kill someone.

CHQ Editor George Rasley is a Glock ® certified pistol armorer, a member of American MENSA and a veteran of over 300 political campaigns, including every Republican presidential campaign from 1976 to 2008. He served as lead advance representative for Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and has served as a staff member, consultant or advance representative for some of America's most recognized conservative Republican political figures, including President Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. He served in policy and communications positions on the House and Senate staff, and during the George H.W. Bush administration he served on the White House staff of Vice President Dan Quayle.