By Cody J. Wisniewski
Some people move away from utopian thinking after being “mugged by reality.” The latest evidence of this can be seen in leftists belatedly embracing the right of self-defense amid spiking violent crime rates and a dipping police presence.
But for some truly committed ideologues, even experiencing a literal armed robbery fundamentally changes nothing. Instead, it reinforces their fantasies of “common sense” gun control that would counterintuitively stop criminals and (supposedly) make us all safer.
Such is the case for Pennsylvania Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon. Scanlon was the victim of a recent carjacking, as well as her own truly astonishing ideological blindness.
On the afternoon of December 22, near FDR Park in Philadelphia, Rep. Scanlon was threatened by two armed men who took her vehicle and other possessions. The crime drew national coverage, with some noting Scanlon’s support for a 2020 bill that would replace some police with “mental health professionals.”
Instead of being chastened by the experience, however, the congresswoman held a press conference at which she doubled down on her naïve and dangerous ideas about crime, especially her desire for more gun control.
Credit where it’s due: Rep. Scanlon did get one thing right. She acknowledged that “no one should have to experience this lawlessness.” Unfortunately, her remarks were all downhill from there.
Scanlon remained unshaken in her view that crime was mostly a problem for social workers to respond to, as she renewed the call for more government-funded “mental health services.” Unsurprisingly, the press hasn’t pushed her to explain how an armed carjacking, by multiple men in broad daylight, would have been thwarted through the intervention of “mental health” professionals.
Above all, Scanlon seemed focused on scapegoating guns and calling for more gun control, using the Orwellian language of “common sense gun safety measures.”
Ultimately, what this sort of “gun safety” means is you, the ordinary citizen, can’t have one, even if criminals do, and even if people like Rep. Scanlon regularly benefit from personal armed security, often paid for at taxpayers’ expense.
There’s zero evidence that authoritarian gun laws improve public safety. And Scanlon’s “City of Brotherly Love” offers a case in point. Philadelphia already has incredibly strict gun laws, the most restrictive in Pennsylvania. And gun control hasn’t made the city safe. It is in fact notoriously violent, surpassing its own all-time homicide record in 2021. By any standard of real “common sense,” Rep. Scanlon’s “common sense gun safety measures” are already a failure in Philadelphia.
Doggedly impervious to such facts, the congresswoman rebounded from her brush with death by repeating the stalest of stale partisan talking points.
“During the press conference,” Newsweek reported, “Scanlon spoke about a discussion she had with President Joe Biden following the incident, where she expressed frustration over not being able to get Republicans to pass ‘common sense gun safety measures like background checks, like doing away with ghost guns.’”
For all the rhetorical fog around these issues, the truth isn’t hard to see—and Rep. Scanlon could see it if she wanted to.
The truth is this: if someone is willing to carjack a woman at gunpoint, the week before Christmas, during daylight hours, they are not going to be stopped by a background check, or by a ban on so-called “ghost-guns,” or by any other law at all. It should go without saying that carjacking a person at gunpoint is already very illegal in Philadelphia.
The kind of person who is willing to threaten someone’s life for their car is more than willing to acquire a gun illegally and do whatever they want. Stricter laws don’t stop those who already break laws—they only stop peaceable Americans from defending themselves from criminals.
Instead, the way to stop a criminal is to exercise the natural right of armed self-defense—a right Rep. Scanlon still shows no regard for, even as she frets about “lawlessness” that “no one should experience.”
It is very fortunate that Rep. Scanlon is safe after the carjacking incident. What is unfortunate that her absurd, immoral policy ideas have survived this brush with reality.
Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is the director of Mountain States Legal Foundation’s Center to Keep and Bear Arms. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional restrictions.
To learn more about the Center to Keep and Bear Arms’ work and support their fight for your natural right to self-defense—from both man and tyranny—visit www.mslegal.org/2A and donate today.
Yup, even if if the thugs killed her, her relatives would be pushin the same bullsh!t!
“Liberalism is a mental disease.”
-some prescient dude
Tim, actually it is factual. Any “liberal” will tell you you can operate a government ad infinitum on a deficit budget. Now that is lunacy.
More proof liberals have severe learning disabilities
What, the existence of dacian the stupid isn’t ENOUGH proof????
Normal people, with common sense might reflect on the incident and possibly change their thinking. However, the true ideologues, like this one will redouble their efforts even when reality smacks them upside of the head with a 2×4.
A truly pitiful learning curve.
Her ideoligy can be explained in a simple phrase, “Can’t fix stupid”. more accurate words have never been spoken.
Well, Scamlon is correct: mental health services in this country are inadequate. The fact that she holds public office is strong evidence.
Scamlon clearly believes that if we keep law-abiding citizens from possessing guns, the bad guys will not be able to obtain guns.
Reality-testing: not a strength of the lefties.
If we keep law-abiding citizens from possessing guns, criminals will not be able to obtain guns. Just like dressing women in sofa covers will prevent rapists from obtaining sex.
“Philadelphia already has incredibly strict gun laws, the most restrictive in Pennsylvania.”
Oh, for fucks sake! Pennsylvania has PREEMPTION. Philadelphia CANNOT HAVE GUN LAWS STRICTER THAN THE STATE. The need to have a License To Carry Firearms for all carry in Philly (as opposed to only for CC, vehicle carry, declared state of emergency carry outside Philly) is written in STATE LAW, not a Philadelphia city ordinance.
Philadelphia (and virtually every other large city in PA) passed lost and stolen ordinances a while back that are in violation of preemption. Several law suits were filed. The courts dismissed them and held that only those prosecuted under the ordinances would have standing to sue. The cities have not prosecuted anyone under the lost and stolen ordinances because it would give them standing and the law would be struck down.
I hear the same tripe about Chiraq CP. You won’t further 2A if yer prevaricating…
Who is prevaricating? Philly cannot have stricter laws than the state. That is the law. Here is an example of them trying and getting smacked down by the courts.
https://www.gunowners.org/philadelphia-ghost-gun-ban-blocked-by-state-court/
They try, we smack them down. Or, as in the case of lost and stolen, they won’t enforce their own ordinance because then we will smack them down.
Never said you were…reading comprehension is fundamental…🙄
Dont have a gun or live in PA,but Totally support your defense of Constitution.Cannibal bolsheviks are are using war of attrition and Chinese waterdrip style attacks.Little bit of erosion of law here and there with unenforced laws there.Many nonregistered things r weapons. Creativity and historys your friend.Asymmetric warfare.Constitution Article18:code:241 and The Logan Act The False Claims Acts= Victory.Theorionlines.o
prevaricating, I had to look that one up. Good one.
Wonder why all those state and local laws did not prevent this daylight robbery?
Surely the criminals know about all the laws!
Anytime anyone tells me that passing a law will stop criminals from committing crimes I think about growing up around Philly and laugh hysterically. There are enforcement actions that over time can mitigate some activities but criminals gonna criminal and the law really only effects the ones who follow it. As to the official can’t bite the hand that feeds.
And there’s the rub. She simply cannot admit that her policies are harmful and legal gun ownership is a good thing.
If she does, she loses funding, votes don’t get bought, favors don’t get purchased, and she no longer occupies a position of privilege within her leftist bubble.
What do you want to bet, though, that she hires bodyguards if she hasn’t already? The “progressive” American left is corrupt and borderline insane, but they’re not stupid.
Thank goodness she wasn’t armed.
See, just give the robbers what they want and no one gets hurt. After you run out of stuff you won’t be robbed anymore.
She just reinforced the idea that she and her peers are special and the rest of us are all animals that need locking up.
I can see how they would think they were special, after all they got enough suckers voting for them they got elected.
Getting jacked is one thing but fear for escaping the democRat plantation is worse. Why being blackballed and shamed by her democRat Party comrades means losing her standing among the pompous pillars of society. Oh but not to worry the congresswoman will keep something hidden she can use to defend herself all while working against your right to defend you and yours. Frankly there is little difference between criminals and gun control zealots…Like two peas in a pod both savor the thought of you being unarmed and obedient.
Yes Debbie W., they aid and abet!
Congresswoman Mary Gay Scalon is once again exercising her suburban “white privilege”.
My take from this:
Newsweek still exists?
Is it kind of like the tree in the forest that falls? If no one is there to hear it, did it make any noise?
if more mental health services would increase her access to them, fine. she looks like her brain is tied in knots.
It is written that in the End Times, people will suffer delusions. There is another example of delusional thinking.
“….End Times…”
I tried to subscribe but could not find a link.
When someone violent person with mental health issues and is aggressive to other people, the best cure is multiple lead injections. ( Copper is a viable alternative if lead is banned in your state. ) Required since Democrats refuse to lock these people up.
I’m just waiting for dacian to grace us with its pearls of “wisdom”. LOL
A conservative is a liberal mugged, but I guess a liberal carjacked is just a liberal without a car.
if i had been there i would have told her, “tell your story walkin'”
quote————–There’s zero evidence that authoritarian gun laws improve public safety.——————quote
Falsehood. Out of all the industrialized countries the U.S. has the highest homicide and crime rate with guns and it is because anyone can buy a second hand gun with no paperwork.
And Great Britain has the highest homicide rate with knives.
Why?
Because that’s what’s available.
Having a multitude of “Africans” in the population is a great contributor to the “highest homicide and crime rate”. Their absence would take the U.S. rate below Sweden.
For a lot of the killers out there, it’s also very important that just anyone can steal guns without any paperwork at all! And if the police catch them it would be due to a coincidence, no one even normally investigates.
Don’t tell anyone, but word on the street is you can buy meth…without any paperwork! Crazy, huh?
to Larry
That is exactly we also need safe storage laws. Most gun thefts are smash and grab.
dacian, And just how do you “enforce: those laws. You Lefties think that all you have to do is pass a law and everyone will comply. Gee, then why do we have so many criminals in prison and jails? (Shaking my head)
dacian, The falsehood is your propaganda. There are thousands of people who have been saved by the use of a firearm by a civilian.
Here are just a few:
https://www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/11-more-cases-which-responsible-gun-owners-saved-lives
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/05/gun-owners-america-guns-save-lives-every-day-editorials-debates/1916643001/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2018/03/20/any-study-of-gun-violence-should-include-how-guns-save-lives/?sh=774155ee5edc
If you need more, I am sure I can find many more for your sorry behind. I bet you are a card carrying member of the Communist Party USA or the “People’s Socialist Party”….
For every one of your isolated examples
there are many more that would have been saved if they had not resisted.
I have posted accredited studies proving it. Resist and you are far more likely to be killed in a robbery.
dacian, prove it or lose it. You keep going on and on with the same crapola, but that is all it is, crapola. This studies not NOT “accredited”. You see those studies don’t provide the back up of how they came to their predetermined conclusions. Nice try, though. But your mouth wash just isn’t cutting.
Walter,
” . . . that is all it is, crapola.”
You have just summarized dacian the stupid’s entire “contribution” to this board. Crapola. Male bovine excrement. Cherry-picked and/or “gamed” so-called studies.
A new thought and a cold drink of water would end that boy.
dacian the stupid, was that your actual comment, or just the sound of the wind whistling through your empty head. Great hyperbole, there, champ . . . now ‘splain to us why countries like El Salvador, Mexico, and Jamaica, ALL of which have stricter gun laws than the U.S. (including most of your “patent medicine” nostrums you are lobbying for here), ALL have significantly higher murder rates than the U.S. Go ahead, we’ll wait.
Maybe when you come back with the answer, you can also tell us the wonderful story about what a GREAT job your senile, serial-child-groping idiot of a president is doing. Oh, and your super “education”. We can make it three fairy tales at once.
quote————–Scanlon remained unshaken in her view that crime was mostly a problem for social workers to respond to, as she renewed the call for more government-funded “mental health services.”———quote
Scanlon was correct.
Most of the mass murders are committed by mentally deranged people who could not get or afford mental health care. It has been consistently blocked by Republicans who know that more tax money spent on helping the public will mean less tax dollars for Corporate Subsidies (Corporate Welfare) that amount to billions in stolen tax dollars given to the upper super rich 1% which in turn filters back to the prostitute Republicans in the way of lobbying (Legalized Bribery) amounting to millions of dollars. Richard Nixon on a salary of only $200,000 became a multi-millionaire while in office as just one example of hundreds.
Tell that to the Social Worker stabbed to Death in Illinoistan a few days ago. The 2nd in less than 5 years Murdered. Even though after the 1 Murdered 5 years ago. The Illinois Democrat Leadership guaranteed it wouldn’t happen again after passing more Laws.
Mentally deranged people are on the streets precisely because progressives decided a generation ago that it “wasn’t fair” to institutionalize the mentally ill. Your a$$hole ilk pushed this, dacian.
Now your progressive paradises like SF, L.A., and Philly are so jammed with mentally ill, drug-addled, homeless encampments that you need an app just to avoid stepping in their dung.
You’re a horrible person, dacian. Small wonder everyone hates you.
Wrong Tim. Stingy Ronald Reagan closed many mental institutions because he was too cheap and stingy to keep funding them.
dacian, Not hardly. It was the California State Legislature that closed those facilities. The fact is that you Lefties considered it “inhuman” to confine this people to mental hospitals. So your cronies released them to the streets without the necessary mental health assistance. Nice try, yet again.
You see, I know how it was your Left leaning cronies who thought of this as a “civil rights” (sic) issue.
dacian the stupid,
No, it wasn’t. The bill you appear to be TRYING to think of was passed by the California Assembly (which had a majority of Democrats, at the time). It was also caused by Supreme Court rulings which determined that it was unconstitutional to institutionalize someone against their will unless the were a criminal or presented an immediate danger to society.
You could actually look it up, if you weren’t so stupid and ignorant. But, then, if you weren’t so stupid and ignorant, you wouldn’t be dacian, would you???
True dat, Walter. It was primarily the execrable Warren court’s doing. But, dacian is WAY too ignorant to know something like that, and way too dishonest to admit it, even if he did.
dacian, More Horse Pucky! The fact is that mental health is the RESONSIBLITY of the STATES. You see we have this thing we call the Constitution and the 10th Amendment. Have you ever read either?
Here is the 10th Amendment for you: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” I know it is rather difficult for you to understand, but give it a shot. (No pun intended)
Except Walter that the Supreme Court has ignored the 10th Amendment whenever it suited them especially when it came to regulating and banning guns. In other words the `10th Amendment means nothing. Many Court decisions have proven it. Just as 2A means nothing for the same reasons.
Excuse me, but when did the SCOTUS “ignore the 10th Amendment”? Oh, I know, you think that the 2nd Amendment does not count in the Constitution, right? The 2nd apples to the WHOLE country, meaning all the states. Again, Nice try, but your mouth wash isn’t cutting it.
People that need mental care and meds do NOT want it. We would have to make laws to force them to take the care and the meds. They won’t do so, because they prefer to self medicate(which does work a bit), they can’t stand the meds because they make them feel bad.
Wrong rt66 its just the opposite. Meds make them think they have been cured and that they do not need them anymore so they stop taking them and then regress right back to their former deranged selves,
dacian, For the first time you are right but you don’t come up with a solution. What to know why? Because there is no solution. What do you want to do, pass another law? LOL
Nixon must have had the same financial advisors as joe xiden joe’s been in public life most of his life and yet, on a .gov salary, he got rich.
And there’s always hunter. Has the artistic talents of an untrained chimpanzee. But his paintings sell for big bucks. Hell of a bribery operation going on there.
“Fortunate” !?! No we are not “fortunate
A Philadelphia Congresswoman Clings to Her Gun Control Delusions Even After Being ‘Carjacked by Reality’
Yeah, morons are like that….Unfortunately she’s already bred…
who would want to mate with that!!
CAN’T FIX STUPID !
“…surpassing its own all-time homicide record in 2021.”
It wasn’t the “racist” police, either. It was BLM, along with their corporate sponsors, the media, politicians, and their brain dead followers that voted for them. Congratulations BLM! I hope everyone’s happy with themselves. Make sure to listen to the news and place a black square and/or a rainbow flag on your social media when everyone else is doing it. I’m sure it will become a tradition for certain months and holidays. It means you’re a good person, and totally not a follower that helped to get people killed.
I don’t get it. The woman’s logic is unassailable: take guns away from law abiding citizens, and criminals will see no need for their guns. Thus, gun control (confiscation) is a self-healing solution for violent crime.
Sam I Am,
Wry and dry.
You do not understand.
If one takes guns away from the lawful, then eventually there will be no more guns in the hands of the unlawful. Once all of the guns are gone, when the clipazines are all empty and cannot be replaced, crime with guns will instantly cease.
That, of course, says nothing about crimes with knives, or pointy sticks, or rather large rocks, but that is beside the point, as it hurts SO much more to be killed with a gun that with those other things.
So, like, instead of being carjacked at gun-point, which can really hurt, one would instead be carjacked, say, at knife-point, which is much less hurty, because guns.
Fact!
Why is it so difficult for us (that’s Derpian, and Minor69er, and them other guys) help you see the truthiness of all of this?!
“Sam I Am,
Wry and dry.”
Happy to be here, grateful for the opportunity, proud to serve.
Cody J. Wisniewski: “It is very fortunate that Rep. Scanlon is safe after the carjacking incident.”
But she’s not safe AFTER the carjacking. It could happen again at any time. The probability of getting jacked a second time is exactly the same as getting jacked the first time, assuming you’ve replaced your car.
If you meant that it is fortunate that she wasn’t injured or killed DURING the carjacking, I’ll have to think about that a bit. SHE’S fortunate, but I’m not sure the rest of us are.
She is not a truly committed ideologue she is a liberal/leftist and therefore suffers from a mental health disorder, Who’s clinical name is rectal cranial immersion.
Well, Scanlon is right about the need for more mental health professionals. She should be at the top of the list for consulting one.
I see many, many interchanges with Dacian; maybe more than normal. Don’t know the reason, but than you for keeping Dacian active (alive?). Of the 87% of screen names I created and control on TTAG, Dacian has been the most effective troll to date.
I am impressed with the number of screen name people, other than those I operatel, who insist on trying to remove Dacian by arguing with him (it?). Although, I must admit that since most of the contenders are me acting as others, Dacian causes more work than I expected. Henceforth, I am going to decrease the number of my screen names that attack Dacian, and let the rest of you pick up the slack.
Thanks for playing, all ya’ll. It’s been fun.
Yes, you do see a lot of us confronting “dacian” and his cronies. You see, Sam, if he is not confronted there are people reading this blog who will swallow his drivel and take it as gospel. Lefties like dacian must be confronted and their drivel countered.
Well, Walter, that may be true in your case, but for me, the fun of punting that little ignorant, uneducated, delusional, Leftist/fascist chazzerai (you could look it up, dacian, if you could actually read) around the board every time he pops his little, empty head out is more than worth the effort. I don’t think any sane reader (which would include almost everyone coming to this site EXCEPT dacian, MinorIQ, enuf, and the nameless, brainless troll would believe anything dacian the stupid said.
LampOfDiogenes I am sure you would not be surprised to learn that there are a LOt of Gullible people out there. Even on this blog.
Walter,
Fair comment, but . . . in general, I find that most POTG (i) are quite knowledgeable about their hobby (unlike dacian the stupid), and (ii) have a fair amount of common sense. I know, I know . . . “common” sense isn’t common at all. But, after all, I expect, and generally find, more common sense on this blog than most I see. If you are expecting “common sense” to become common? I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed, my friend.
LampOfDiogenes I’ve been in law enforcement since I was 21. I have a pretty good idea that common sense is far from common. But I still will do what I can to spread the truth countering the Lefties here.
Since I find it hard to believe that anyone with two brain cells can be that ignorant, she must be on the Soros funded payroll.
Maine_ExCop,
Not going to debate you on the “two brain cells” part (personally, I would suggest that she has two defective ones, and they don’t speak to each other), and she MAY be Soros-funded (God knows a ridiculous percentage of Leftist/fascist bureaucrats and politicians are!), but . . . Occam’s Razor, my friend.
Or, as the other old saying goes, “Never attribute to malice and conspiracy what can be easily explained by incompetence and stupidity.” She may simply be as dumb as dacian.
But, whether she’s dumb, evil, or both of the above . . . she’s a walking, talking example of why Darwin needs to get to work. He’s been falling down on the job for about a century or so.
That old Philly filly needs to have a reality check with Col Jeff.
“Killing is a matter of will, not weapons.
You cannot control the act itself
by passing laws about the means employed.”
The late Col Jeff Cooper, 1958
Handgun expert and founder of Gunsite Academy
But, then, reality and Democrat never fit in the same concept.
Ignorance can be corrected. Stupid is forever.
Somebody should ask the Congresswoman to look into making armed carjacking illegal.
That should fix it.
For all you dimwits who think you’re gunslingers, if there were better gun control, the carjackers wouldn’t be able to get their hands on weapons. You are in no way qualified to stop crime. Your fantasies aside, you would either shoot yourselves in the foot or get shot. Or you’ll shoot an innocent person or use the gun to commit suicide or domestic violence. We know your racial intent here – don’t stop prowling black neighorhoods.
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