Comedian Jim Jefferies: Gun Ownership Should Go the Way of Slavery

Michael Buckner/Getty Images/AFP
Michael Buckner/Getty Images/AFP

On June 26, the Huffington Post ran a column focused on how Australian comedian Jim Jefferies “shoots down [the] 2nd Amendment with humor.”

A central component of this “humor” is to equate gun rights with slavery and talk about how a constitutional amendment—like the one that banned slavery—could be used to overturn the protections the Second Amendment affords to the rights of self-defense and bearing arms.

After all, Jefferies makes clear that he does not believe guns are actually used for protection. And he tells an anecdotal story to explain why:

I had a break in in Manchester, England where I was tied up. I had my head cut. They threatened to rape my girlfriend. They came through the window with a machete and hammer. Americans always go, Imagine if you had a gun. Alright, I was naked at the time. I wasn’t wearing my holster. I was staring at the window waiting for machetes to come through.

Jefferies punchline for this story: “What world do you live in where you are waiting, constantly f*ckin’ ready?”

Perhaps he could have told a condensed version of the story by simply saying, “I wasn’t ready, so you can’t be,” or “I don’t understand guns, so you don’t understand them either.” Either one of those summations makes the same point that he made in explaining that he sat unarmed, at the mercy of intruders holding knives and building tools.

Jefferies also made clear his belief that the right to keep and bear arms ought to go the way of slavery.

He did this by suggesting that when people say, “You cannot change the second amendment,” he counters by saying, “Yes you can.”

He explained that an amendment could be added to the Constitution to overturn the Second Amendment, thereby eliminating any protection for gun rights. He pointed to the repeal on prohibition as proof of this, as well as the passage of the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery.

Throughout the comparison of gun rights, prohibition, and slavery, Jefferies mocked, as stupid, people who acted surprised at the thought of amending the Constitution to erase Second Amendment protections on the right to keep and bear arms.

On December 15, Breitbart News reported that Jefferies responded to the hostage crisis in a Sydney cafe by saying the crisis proved that gun control works. How did it prove this? According to Jefferies it proved gun control works because the hostage taker was armed with a “shotgun” instead of “semi automatic weapons and hand guns.”

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.