CONSERVING CONSERVATISM MOST CONSERVATIVELY: David Brooks Doesn’t Know Why Australian-Style Gun Control is Controversial.

New York Times columnist David Brooks is, in theory, supposed to be the conservative counterweight to Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart when the two join PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff every Friday to recap the week’s news, but in reality Brooks mostly ends up repeating liberal talking points. A case in point was Friday’s episode where he wondered why Australian-style gun control is so controversial.

Brooks’s remarks came at the end of the segment’s gun control portion after Woodruff asked, “You agree the likelihood of there being any more federal action on guns is very unlikely?”

After noting his agreement, Brooks lamented, “I have never understood why an Australian-style gun buyback is an affront to anybody. It’s an open choice. You can sell your gun or not. But if we’re going to reduce 400 million guns, it would take something like that, not even just banning future purchases. I mean, we have got 400 million here.”

Maybe because it was not “an open choice,” but mandatory and Brooks will probably escape the ire of the fact checkers.

But men with extremely fine trouser creases all assured Brooks that Australia was the way to go.