Apply anti-mosque logic elsewhere and realize the flaws

Let’s apply the logic and main talking points of opponents of the Lower Manhattan Muslim Community Center to another freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Millions of Americans have died from gun violence through the years. Now, I realize that the Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to own firearms, but your owning a gun is an insensitive insult to the memories of gun violence victims.

Don’t you think that the gun violence victims and their friends, family and survivors have opinions on whether people should own guns? Don’t their opinions count? Then why do you so insensitively own a gun?

You stab a knife into the hearts of gun violence victims and the people who mourn their loss when you own a gun.

Now, I realize that the vast majority of gun owners out there are responsible gun owners. But do we really have any way of knowing what is in their heads? The only way we can be sure that they are responsible gun owners is for them to renounce their Second Amendment right to own guns. Then, when they no longer own guns, no one will have to view them with the suspicion that they are irresponsible gun owners.

How many gun owners out there were convinced to give up their constitutional right to bear arms based on this argument? I imagine very few were, and that they may have found the argument insulting and patronizing.

Why should we expect our Muslim fellow Americans to feel any different when we say that they should not exercise their constitutional rights out of sensitivity to the victims of terrorism whom they did not kill?

If you do not want people lecturing you on how to exercise your Second Amendment rights, you should not lecture others on how to exercise their First Amendment rights.