Other Words Columnist Says He’s Giving Up Writing About Gun Control
We thought maybe Donald Kaul, columnist for Other Words, had seen the light. He vowed he was giving up gun control. But he’s the typical left-leaning columnist that argues from the heart rather than the brain. So his vow isn’t real, in fact in making it he continues with the usual passion over logic based rant:
I’m also giving up on gun control.
Over the years, I’ve written I don’t know how many columns urging that some control be placed on the sale of weapons that go bang. Dozens probably, possibly even scores of them.
Every time some clown would go berserk and mow down a baker’s dozen of his fellow citizens, I would deliver a rant about the idiocy of our failure to do something about the proliferation of guns in our society.
Did it do any good? Even less than my global warming columns. There are more guns out there now than ever, and states have grown increasingly permissive about where and how people can pack heat.
Maybe Mr. Kaul should realize that crime has also fallen as gun ownership has gone up. This is a point his ilk seem intent to often overlook.
In other words, the battle has been lost. The absurd arguments of the National Rifle Association and the Merchants of Death lobby have carried the day.
Why? Money, of course. Too many politicians have learned that to deviate even the slightest degree from the NRA’s absolutist positions is to invite a truckload of money into your opponent’s campaign, ensuring your electoral defeat.
Ah yes, it is the money. The NRA must have a private a gold mine or somehow print their own money. It isn’t that more Americans simply want firearms now is it? It couldn’t be that the voters are the real power? But for types like this the truth doesn’t matter.
And finally, yet another example of a writer who tries to play the Constitution game:
The argument I find most absurd, by the way, is the constitutional one. Yes, the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. But “arms” back then had as much resemblance to modern weapons as an 18th-century schooner has to a nuclear submarine.
Do you think our founding fathers would have looked at an assault rifle that can fire at a speed of 400 rounds a minute and said: “Oh yeah, that’s a good thing to have around the house”? Or “Everybody should have one”?
There is irony in someone writing about the Second Amendment and posting to the Internet while trying to say what the Founding Fathers thought, as they wrote about the Freedom of Press granted in the First Amendment when there was no Internet, radio or TV!
But let’s also consider that this writer doesn’t understand the difference between a military style semi-automatic and a military firearm. First, no commercially available firearm – that is available to the average law-abiding citizen without special permits – can fire 400 rounds a minute. Here this is total misinformation, but let’s hope Mr. Kaul stands by his word and is done writing about gun control. Maybe he should just stop writing now that we think about it.
NRA: Obama Administration Endangered Lives to Justify Gun Control
Chris W. Cox NRA-ILA Executive Director
Editorial Appeared in Townhall.com
In all of my years fighting on behalf of the National Rifle Association to defend the Second Amendment, I never thought I would see a White House so vehemently opposed to gun ownership that it would be willing to arm violent criminals and endanger American lives in pursuit of a gun control agenda. Read more
National Rifle Association: U.S. House Passes NRA-backed National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Legislation
From the NRA:
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an important self-defense measure that would enable millions of Right-to-Carry permit holders across the country to carry concealed firearms while traveling outside their home states.
H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, passed by a majority bipartisan vote of 272 to 154.
All amendments aimed to weaken or damage the integrity of this bill were defeated.
“NRA has made the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act a priority because it enhances the fundamental right to self-defense guaranteed to all law-abiding people,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “People are not immune from crime when they cross state lines. That is why it is vital for them to be able to defend themselves and their loved ones should the need arise.”
H.R. 822, introduced in the U.S. House by Representatives Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), allows any person with a valid state-issued concealed firearm permit to carry a concealed firearm in any state that issues concealed firearm permits, or that does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms for lawful purposes.
This bill does not affect existing state laws. State laws governing where concealed firearms may be carried would apply within each state’s borders. H.R. 822 does not create a federal licensing system or impose federal standards on state permits; rather, it requires the states to recognize each others’ carry permits, just as they recognize drivers’ licenses and carry permits held by armored car guards.
As of today, 49 states have laws in place that permit their citizens to carry a concealed firearm in some form. Only Illinois and the District of Columbia deny its residents the right to carry concealed firearms outside their homes or businesses for self-defense.
“We are grateful for the support of Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor, Majority Whip McCarthy, Judiciary Chairman Smith and primary sponsors Congressmen Stearns and Shuler for their steadfast support of H.R. 822. Thanks to the persistence of millions of American gun owners and NRA members, Congress has moved one step closer to improving crucial self-defense laws in this country,” concluded Cox.
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military.
NRA: Assistant U.S. Attorney General Wants Gun Owner Registration
NRA:
After weeks of stonewalling by the Department of Justice, a clearer picture of what its top officials knew about BATFE’s Operation Fast and Furious, and when they knew it, is slowly beginning to emerge.
On Tuesday, Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism about his knowledge of BATFE’s gunwalking operations, and his support for gun control.
In April 2010, Breuer says, he knew that BATFE agents had allowed hundreds of guns to be illegally purchased and smuggled to Mexican drug cartels in 2006 and 2007 as part of Wide Receiver, a Tucson-based operation similar to Fast and Furious, which was hatched out of Phoenix. Read more
NRA: U.S. House Committee Advances National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act
National Rifle Association:
Last week, the House Judiciary considered amendments to H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Bill, and defeated all anti-gun amendments offered in an effort to weaken or gut the legislation.
The legislation is an important pro-gun reform that will provide for the recognition of carry permits in all states that issue permits. (For detailed information on the legislation, click here http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=189&issue=003.) Read more
NRA University
Bringing the truth about the Second Amendment to college campuses nation wide.
Adam Winkler Huffs and Puffs About NRA
Once again Adam Winkler uses an op-ed for The Huffington Post as an excuse to promote his book and spread his misinformation on gun control. In a piece titled, “When the NRA Promoted Gun Control,” he offers this thought:
“Reports indicate that the Obama administration may be considering new gun control proposals to limit the size of magazines or to strengthen background checks on gun purchasers. One thing you can bet on is that the National Rifle Association will oppose any such measures.
“Yet it wasn’t always this way. Indeed, the NRA used to draft and promote restrictive gun control laws.
“In researching my book, Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, I discovered that the NRA used to be far more open-minded on gun control — and, amazingly, paid almost no attention whatsoever to the Second Amendment.”
He recites the usual claims that the NRA was founded by a reporter for The New York Times, a paper he says “not exactly known for its love of gun rights,” but fails to mention the political spirit of the paper evolved quite a bit.
Winkler takes it a step further concluding:
“Next time someone complains about that a modest gun law tramples on the Second Amendment, remind them of the old NRA — and of a time when even the nation’s leading gun rights advocates supported gun control.”
So what’s the point? While Winkler isn’t quite accurate on it, does it matter if the NRA did change its view? Things change, the country changes, mode changes, opinion change. So what if the NRA changed.
What Winkler is trying to do is make the NRA look anti-gun, which in fact it is not. To push this point, let’s consider that the Founding Fathers, who drafted the Constitution, probably had different views as well. For example wasn’t Thomas Jefferson, today considered one of our greatest Presidents, an owner of slaves. Does that imply that he was right? Or was he even right for the thinkers of his era? This spurs a debate.
So while Winkler notes that the NRA may have been in favor of the National Firearms Act of 1934, which restricted ownership of machine guns, hardly casts the NRA in the role of those in favor of heavy gun control.
Of course the book reviews of Winkler’s book suggest it is filled with just as much misinformation, so what should we really expect. He has opinion and unfortunately he tries to preach it without sharing all the facts.
Once Again Truth Doesn’t Matter to Media Matters for America
This week liberal watchdog Media Matters for America wasted time and space to defend Rachel Maddow for attacking the NRA. The blog post notes:
“On Friday’s edition of her MSNBC program Rachel Maddow highlighted a variety of right-wing extremist activities on gun related issues, including National Rifle Association (NRA) executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre’s increasingly infamous suggestion that because President Obama hasn’t pursued gun control he must be secretly plotting to ‘erase the Second Amendment.’ Maddow also highlighted Fox News mainstreaming right-wing blogger Mike Vanderboegh, who gained notoriety last year for advocating throwing bricks through the windows of Democratic offices in response to the health care reform bill.”
Why was this post even necessary? It just repeats the sentiments that Media Matters had made, and yet Maddow is as guilty. She never mentions that President Obama had told Sarah Brady he was working on gun control, but “under the radar.”
This also never notes the M1 rifles that were blocked from importation a year ago. It doesn’t mention that the EPA had taken proposals to ban lead ammunition. It doesn’t mention that the White House had a summit on what it called “reasonable gun control.”
This is just more Obama loving cronyism that tries to defect the truth from the issues.
More From Media Matters
Media Matters has compiled a page dedicated to “Extremist NRA” and how the group has gone “Over the Edge.” It offers this thought:
“Over the past two weeks, leaders of the National Rifle Association have embarked on a campaign of extremist rhetoric and wild conspiracies. They have called federal law enforcement agents ‘jack-booted thugs,’ referred to President Obama as ‘Communist-trained,’ and described a ‘massive Obama conspiracy’ in which the administration plans to push for the repeal of the Second Amendment. The organization has also pushed a radical legislative agenda during that period, calling for a national concealed carry reciprocity bill that law enforcement groups call ‘dangerous’ and pushing for concealed firearms on college campuses.”
We won’t waste the time to go through all their posts, but let’s just tackle the above paragraph. How many times during the Bush administration did liberals and progressives refer to “jack-boot thugs” when talking about the military, CIA or other organizations? Now that the jack-boot is on the other foot these same progressives have a problem with it.
As for the “massive Obama conspiracy” that might go a bit far, but let’s look at the situation. Guns were allowed to walk to Mexico, and the President says he knows nothing, the Attorney General knows nothing and multiple Senators call for a ban on assault weapons because American guns are showing up in Mexico. Do the pieces fit? We’re just asking.
And that “law enforcement groups call ‘dangerous.’” We think many law enforcement groups consider private gun ownership dangerous.
But it is nice that Media Matters for America knows how to put on a good spin.
Newsbusters Calls Out MSNBC’s Matthews
This week our friends at Newsbusters noted that “Chris Matthews Lumps NRA in With ‘Crazy, Far-Right’ ‘Hatred’ of Obama” in response to comments made by Wayne LaPierre.
Here is how it played out:
MATTHEWS: Well, here’s something, another strain of the crazy, far right. Here’s the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, and I’ve known this guy a long time. I’m astounded by this new accusation that the President is leading some conspiracy. Anyway, here he is, Wayne LaPierre, head of the national- not National Public Radio- National Rifle Association, at the conservative conference if Florida last week. Let’s listen to Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association.
WAYNE LAPIERRE: The President will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment. But it’s a big, fat, stinking lie. It’s all part, it’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country. Before the President was even sworn into office, they met and they hatched a conspiracy of public deception to try to guarantee his re-election in 2012.
MATTHEWS: You know, I got to tell you, again, Ron, this- the language, “lie,” “conspiracy,” it’s almost like, I don’t know, Lincoln talking about what was going on in the Civil War below the Mason-Dixon line. I mean, this is Civil War talk about a president of the United States.
But again, missing is the fact that Obama has been anti-gun in the past, and has said he is working on gun control “under the radar.” Why is what LaPierre so shocking, except for the fact that it could get Obama voted out of the White House? Maybe that’s the real issue.
