Every time you have a mass shooting, you see headlines about how this latest shooting has “Reignited The Debate on Gun Control!” See this USA Today headline as an example. The only people I see debating gun control are journalists and vacuous TV talking heads like Piers Morgan. If ordinary people were debating gun control, I’d have people all over my blog taking exception to nearly everything I say. But where are they? This is called manufacturing news and controversy. My message to the media is this: we had a debate on gun control, and your side lost. Get over it.
4 thoughts on “Another Media Meme That Annoys Me”
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Not sure if it is NY state or city law, but the Taylor act makes it illegal for any public employee to advocate a strike, or to strike. Bloomberg is a public employee. If police strike, that’s illegal. Bloomie’s statement is an illegal act.
Between his armed security, taxpayer and private, and illegally proposing an illegal strike unless citizens surrender their Constitutional freedoms to his satisfaction, his attitude toward himself, the police powers he has and wishes he had and citizens are quite obvious.
Relief of duty and impeachment are the proper course.
What really gets me is all the recent lines like “why can’t we have a debate on gun control?†Seriously? We have been debating “assault weapons†for the past 20 years straight. And a debate means we offer counter points to our opponents’ points. So when they say “these are weapons of war and have no place in ‘civilzed’ [sic] societyâ€, and we counter with “these are not the weapons used in war- those have selectable burst or full auto modes. Semi-auto functionality has long been established as protected exercise of the right to keep and bear arms. And please explain how the lack of a pistol grip or flash suppressor on his rifle would have saved lives in Aurora…†When they answer with “umm… these are weapons of war!â€, then there is only one side engaging in actual debate.
Similar gun-control debates surfaced after the shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and Tucson, said Dennis Henigan, vice president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Little if any policy change resulted from those incidents, he said. A 1994 federal ban on assault weapons that was allowed to expire in 2004 also would have kept the AR-15 rifle out of Holmes’ hands, he said.
Of course! Without a pistol grip, how could he have possibly held it in his hands? Take away the grip, and you keep guns out of people’s hands. Brilliant!
There is a limited “discussion” going on, but it’s just between control freaks who echo each other. Most of America has stopped listening. Gun control advocates call for reasonable limits and common sense, but that’s just what someone who’s losing wants. We have to keep up the pressure and keep on educating people about guns.
What’s most interesting is pro-gun blogs have open comments, and rarely an anti-gun counter-post to be found…and when you do find one they’re simply name-calling and trolling and obviously not interested in the least bit about debate.
And anti-gun blogs are generally run by lobbyists, and their comments section is closed, or heavily edited.
The writing is on the wall.