Germany Strips “Extremist” AfD Members, Supporters of Gun Licenses, Guns - Ammoland.com

 It’s been only a few years since the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution calling the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization.”

Earlier, in 2018, then-Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo – who had previously announced that pro-gun supporters were extremist conservatives that “have no place in the state of New York” – tweeted that the “NRA is an extremist organization. I urge companies in New York State to revisit any ties they have to the NRA and consider their reputations, and responsibility to the public.”

The takeaway is that you can’t take at face value how political actors characterize their opponents. Which brings us to Germany, where political incumbents are using charges of “extremism” to crack down firearm possession by members and supporters of a popular opposition party.

Earlier this year, in a speech that “stunned Europe,” Vice President J.D. Vance warned European politicians that the biggest challenge they faced was not Russia, China, or some other external actor, but the “threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” In particular, freedom of speech was “in retreat,” he said, citing incidents of government censorship of so-called “misinformation” or offensive speech; arrests and convictions of those silently praying in abortion buffer zones; and the annulment of the results of a Romanian presidential election based on “flimsy suspicions” of Russian advertising that may have swayed voters. The organizers of the Munich security conference Vance was speaking at, he noted, had even “banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations,” presumably because the views of such parties were, as political differences invariably are, not in accord with the ruling government’s standpoints or policies.

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