Every Sunday I watch pretty much the all the talking heads / pundits Sunday morning shows (isn’t DVR a wonderful thing?) and easily the topic of the day was the horrific shooting in Aurora, Colorado at that midnight showing of the latest Batman movies (Part 1 on my thoughts, specifically on irresponsibility of ABC here, Part 2 on my thoughts on responsible concealed carry here). It was rather predictable in content and in slant – I knew that just about all of the Liberals would kvetch about getting more gun control into our laws. Unfortunately, I was not disappointed as my low expectations were met. In almost all cases, the concern (and rightly so) was about safety and security. The problem for me (and I figure that some commenters are ready to pull the trigger on this) is they have placed safety and security above all else but refuse to acknowledge how much government would have to do in order to actually achieve it.
The line of thought, however, was especially clear on ABC’s This Week, hosted by one half of that dubious TEA Party smearer duo and Democrat rumpswab, George Stephanopolous (and I kept waiting to see if the apology would be offered again but to no avail). It can be summed up by: “You don’t need that“.
Sidenote: before the round table that I’ll comment on, Georgie had Philly Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey on and whose first response on an answer was “For me, the question has been is what will been what will change as far as any gun control legislation…” Like many cops in urban areas that can’t adequately control the violence in their cities, he has a dim few of Concealed Carry: “Unfortunately many states that authorize concealed carry have no provisions at all for people to receive training, marksmanship, proper handling of firearms or whatever. Now you have two people randomly shooting in a movie theater; I don’t know how that helps.”
No, he wouldn’t. I keep listening to these folks and keep thinking – where are the highest murder rates / gun violence rates? Yeah, DC and Chicago. I “get” that he has a lot of gun violence. But here was the first instance of “I don’t know why people have to drive faster than 55” – oops, wrong topic!
“I don’t know why people need assault weapons“. Just another way to say “You don’t need that“. I haven’t looked, but I’m betting that the use of “assault weapons” is a deflection – how many of the gun crimes in Philly are exactly that – the use of ordinary long guns that just happen to look like military grade ones versus handguns (the likely culprits)? He wants “reasonable” gun control…”we don’t need this stuff” – that would be “US” vs “HIM”, as the militarization of police forces has accelerated big time the last few years (like, why does sleepy Keene, NH need an armored up tank?). Once again, a “Fine for me but not for thee” from our public officials.
During the “round table”, the split was easily seen between the Conservatives (George Will, Jennifer Rubin) and the Liberals (Joe Klein, Cokie Roberts, Ed Rendell); the former were on the side the mentally deranged or just those that were plain EVIL (something that the Left pretends doesn’t exist, unless you ARE a Conservative). The latter focused on the gun instead.
Another instance of “You don’t need that“:
Ed Rendell:
“No one in America, no citizen, should be able to have an assault rifle, an automatic assault rifle. No citizen should be able to have a clip that has 10 bullets in it.”
And this talking head (former Gov of PA) showed his ignorance of the knowledge domain when Jennifer Rubin brought up Virginia Tech and that the 30 odd folks killed there were killed by handguns and he said “they were automatic handguns”. No, they were SEMI-automatic – fire one bullet each trigger pull. They DO make automatic handguns – Glock makes one and the range at which I go to, the owner has the correct licenses to have it – but that was not the case at V.T. (but never let a fact get in the way of a demogogic argument, eh Ed?). Note: Holmes did not have either an assault rifle nor an automatic weapon (pull trigger once, gun keeps firing). Often, we see the rhetoric of “ban this high end thing, but really go after this lower level one”; sort of like taxes when Obama says “Higher taxes for the Billionaires and Millionaires” and then find out that the definition of billionaires and millionaires starts at $250K.
Another instance of “You don’t need that” from Cokie Roberts
Cokie Roberts:
“buying thousands of rounds of ammunition in a short amount of time….hundred round magazine…he had 6,000 rounds; who needs that much?“
I’m no crazy person – but I have in excess of several thousand rounds at home. And I buy them in bulk. Why? ITS CHEAPER THAT WAY!!! If you go to a range, there are times you DO rapid-fire exercises to see if you can perform adequate muzzle control to stay on target (and yes, sometimes, it is just that much fun). My Colt AR-15 (chambered in 9mm – I’m a cheap dude and I only range shoot anyways) and it came with 30 round clips – it is FUN to shoot that fast at time.
Plus this – at an indoor range, you pay for lane time. The less time I have to spend reloading is time I get to have more fun shooting – time is money there and I don’t want to spend it reloading. If I only had to load large capacity mags at home that would take me through that expensive time without wasting it, I would.
Another nit: she brings up that an AR-15 costs $2K. Note to the clueless: that is at the LOWER end of the price point, deary. “Fine” rifles (be they semi-automatic, bolt action, breech-loaders, or muzzle loaders) can easily go for 10s of thousands of dollars.
In this guy’s eye, a gun is a tool. It can be used for fun (as in participating in the shooting sports or just plinking), it can be used for self-defense, or it can be used for evil. The difference is what is the intent of the person holding it. When that person is evil or deranged, there is no stopping that last purpose – and trying to do so only classifies and treats everyone else as being as equally culpable as the deranged / evil ones. And as has been seen in the UK where gun control is tighter in this country, now they talk about club control and knife control – which only shows that when you take away one thing, the deranged or criminally intent will just pick up another.
