WaPo Defends Rationing of Gun Rights: One Gun a Month Is Enough, Virginia!

Print newspapers are an ecological nightmare, what with the trees felled to make them, the fossil fuels burned to print and then deliver them, and the tons of unrecycled paper that millions of Americans toss into the garbage instead of a recycling bin.

As such, do newspapers really need to print everyday? Isn't once a week, say Sunday, the most popular day for newspaper reading, enough for most people? Surely such a law wouldn't unduly infringe on the freedom of the press, while doing wonders to save the environment. Indeed, making sure newspapers can print only once a week, or better yet, once a month, may actually save lives!

Of course I'm being facetious, and if such a law were ever passed, I'd loudly join in the chorus coming from the nation's print newspapers that the law was misguided and unconstitutional. 

Yet when it comes to gun rights, the Washington Post  is of the opinion that rationing law-abiding citizens' Second Amendment rights is wholly legitimate.

Now, newspapers are entitled to their opinions, and we at NewsBusters respect that. But from time to time it behooves us to expose the far-left-wing tack that newspapers take in editorials that deal with fundamental constitutional liberties.

Today's top Washington Post editorial "Gun in Virginia: One per month is plenty" is just such a case.

The editorial takes the Obama administration to task for being silent on the debate in the Virginia General Assembly regarding a repeal of the 1993 law that limits law-abiding Virginia residents to the purchase of one handgun per month. Although both Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and his vanquished Democratic opponent last year favored repeal of the law and the Virginia state constitution forbids the abridging of a Virginian's right to keep and bear arms, the Post rails against how the "national gun lobby" has cowed the Justice Department into silence on what it sees as a local matter.

Of course, if by "national gun lobby" the Post really means "conservative midterm election voters," it may have a point. 

President Obama and Democrats would do well to be gun-shy of playing up the gun control issue, especially in a midterm election year in which conservative voters are already energized to go to the polls and vote liberals out of office.