https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMhZW6-B1T4

Making talking head Don Lemon look like a gibbering buffoon is a little like making Kate Upton look breathtakingly attractive. Both endeavors require virtually no preparation, planning or significant effort. During this priceless clip in which CNN’s prattling presenter attempts to rally support for more Second Amendment limits, Don Ferguson – who is apparently not related to the troubled Missouri town – attempts to explain the difference between an automatic and semi-automatic firearms to the not-so-pithy Lemon. Exactly what any of this has to do with the Ferguson (the city, not the guy) protests and riots is anyone’s guess, since the only gun involved in the Michael Brown shooting was Officer Darren Wilson’s pistol. Still, it’s a wonderful illustration of the fact that knowledge of your topic du jour is not a prerequisite for getting a high-paying gig as host of your own tragedy TV show. When CNN hired Don, they got a real Lemon.

[h/t Dirk Diggler]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

78 COMMENTS

  1. If you didn’t want to watch the video: Automatic weapon= any weapon that allows you to “shoot off a number of rounds very quickly.” and the founding fathers would not have wanted us to have such weapons. -Don Lemon.

    • First thing I did (after checking out the Kate Upton link) was look for this comment summing up the video. Thanks.

      • I don’t think Kate Upton is all that.

        She talks like an idiot (and has no other skills or abilities other than being attractive so far as I know), she’s too tall, she has narrow hips, her mouth kind of stays a little bit open all the time, she looks like she has Downs in the face, she’s got white-girl-flat-ass and she’s blond.

        Would I kick her out of bed? No. Is she mainstream attractive? Yes. Is she all that and a bad of chips? Not in my opinion.

        If the writers insist on coming across like middle aged men who never get laid, it’d be nice to see links to like… Aya Ueto, Salam Hayek, Aishwarya Rai, Amy Adams, Natalie Portman, etc.

        If the TTAG writers are going to randomly link models in stories just to bring the professionalism of the site down to a level I cannot share it with coworkers, it’d be nice if ya’all could at least start linking hotties that don’t ascribe to the most mainstream status quo of of beauty possible.

        • I totally agree. Kate Upton is without question the most overrated “attractive female celebrity” we’ve had in a long while. She looks like your average dime-a-dozen attractive blonde American girl, the only real difference being she wears a lot more makeup, has larger than average breasts, and has a great marketing team. If you saw her walking down the street and didn’t know her, you’d think to yourself “she’s a pretty girl” and keep on walking and you’d forget about her a second later.

          This isn’t to say she’s not attractive, far from it. She’s just not anywhere near as attractive as she is made out to be (the media is the biggest offender in my opinion).

          Also, the fact that she’s a Christian (and talks about this often) yet let’s face it, dresses and acts like a slut, makes her seem pretty disingenuous/hypocritical. Same goes for that Katherine Webb girl.

        • Most mainstream chicks are “Christian” to appeal to the largest possible audience. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

          Plus, a lot of people consider themselves Christian because they stepped foot in a church a few times.

        • She was hot a few years back when she was a little chubbier. Now she’s just bone skinny like the rest of the mainstream supermodels.

        • @ TMM “all that and a bag of chips” = so beautiful/charming that even if you were dating/married to her and had to put up with her annoying habits and see her every day, you’d still think she was beautiful in 5 years when with any normal woman you’d be tired of seeing her naked.

          “All that and a bag of chips” is very difficult for celebrity women to pull off (imo) because at the end of the day they are strangers. They have to exemplify some sort of female ideal or have some sort of other amazing talents or personality qualities to accompany the looks. Beautiful women are a dime a dozen. You can go to any mall in America and see beautiful women.

          As a species we’ve been breeding for beauty for hundreds of years. Every culture that marries or has children for “love” incorporates an element of lust, which = beautiful people having children with beautiful people.

          However, beautiful women who don’t just ride the genetic lottery for as long as possible and get off their asses to do something amazing elevates said woman to a whole new level.

          In my opinion, Kate Upton has huge boobs and a great marketing team. That’s it. /yawn/

    • To paraphrase Don: “I don’t think our founding fathers had these” idiots “in mind when the” 1st “amendment was drafted”.

      • Same challenge for you, then! What is the definition of “idiots”? I’ll start; “Able to fire off a large amount of ignorance very quickly, maybe even in one clip.” “clip”, get it? Har, Har, I crack myself up.

    • so does that make Jerry Miculek an NFA item? His revolver shoots are approaching MG42 cyclic rates, and that’s with a couple reloads in the middle.

    • Second synopsis: “I have no idea what I am talking about, but I am a member of the media so anything I say must be accepted as accurate, no matter how idiotic it sounds.” – Don Lemon.

      Mr. Lemon’s role model appears to be Humpty Dumpty in “Alice in Wonderland”:

      “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
      “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
      “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

    • So then I guess Jerry Miculek pretty much makes any and all things that fire a projectile; automatic weapons. Pea shooter, rubber bands, the bird (middle finger). ****sarcasm

  2. I always love hearing Progressives tell us that the Founding Fathers didn’t envision civilians owning and using military firearms, even though the first major conflict in the American Revolution, was fought over the British trying to confiscate the armaments at Lexington, and the American citizens fought off the British using the ubiquitous Brown Bess, the fastest firing, most accurate, most reliable rifle available at the time. Of course, being 1776 that’s not saying much, but it was still the M16A4 of the 18th Century.

    • Simple counter; ask them if the Founding Fathers thought that the First Amendment applied to email, Twitter, Skype, SnapChat, forums, and phonecalls

    • Not to mention the Founding Fathers were quite well read and educated. It’s almost certain they were aware of the Puckle Gun which was invented about 60 years earlier. It wasn’t hard to see what kind of firearms technology was around the corner.

      Folks that say the Founding Fathers couldn’t have imagined fully automatic fire are ignorant in history,not being intellectually honest or fooling themselves.

      • The Puckle gun was only one of several designs either in production or in development during their time.
        High capacity and rapid fire WERE being pursued and the technological possibilities to achieve them were being explored and refined.

      • Benjamin Franklin, founding father, currently ranked #3 in the top 10 inventors of all time, could never possibly dream that there would be future advances in firearms (like which has been ongoing for the previous 700 years). /sarc

  3. Why doesn’t anyone call these idiots out when they say “I don’t think the founding fathers had these military assault weapons in mind when they wrote it”. First off the people had the exact same weapons that the military had. Yes, at the time the citizen had a musket but so did your front line solider. Saying the 2nd amendment doesn’t matter because they couldn’t see the future progress of weapons engineering is like voiding out the 1st amendment because we use cell phones, satellites feeds, and the internet.

    I cannot believe that the founding fathers could never conceive a rifle firing quicker but they could see into the future and think that we would be able to bounce a video signal off a satellite in space to provide 24 hours news coverage, in which we put some of the dumbest people on this planet on it because that is their 1st amendment right to try to negate the 2nd amendment.

    • “Why doesn’t anyone call these idiots out”

      They do, on here ans many other sites. The problem is that the call-out gets buried or ignored in the MSM.

      The old mantra “If it bleeds, it leads” has been replaced with “if it fits the agenda, it leads. If it doesn’t, bury it.”

      Truth and fact have no place in the MSM of today.

      • Sorry, I meant on TV where common American can see. Compare all of them speaking out for 1st amendment freedoms, even the president. Then when the 2nd is brought up “it is an old relic”.
        Their hypocrisy knows no bounds!!

        • I always like it when someone points out that without the second amendment the 1st or really any of the others are really nothing more than a gentleman’s agreement… doesn’t happen much though.

      • Hey, be nice! In the above clip, he was called an ignorant idiot several times, and the truth was explained to him and anyone else watching.

  4. What a bafoon. Anyway, the founding fathers never envisioned a cable network nobody watches so maybe he should question his right to say stupid sh!t on TV.

  5. Is this the same guy who asked- straight faced- if the Air Malaysia plane could have disappeared into a literal black hole?

  6. That level of ignorance was painful to watch, and is just a fantastic example of opinion trumping facts for one person.

    And the question about whether the Founding Fathers thought that military weapons had no place in the hands of civilians, the firearms they used to defeat the British and establish the United States were all military. The fact that they also called for militias for able bodied men should also show that military type weapons were envisioned. That’s before you realize that a lot of the heavier artillery pieces used were privately owned

  7. That guy makes Bryant Gumbel look like U.N. Jefferson (accompanied by funky music) of the original Tri-Lambs instead of Lamar Latrell.

  9. *honest question* So what would have had the potential destructive equivalent to kill a lot of people back in the “founding father’s day”? A canon? Were individuals allowed to own them back in the day? I think so, but I’m not sure.

    • There were privately owned cannons during the Revolution, and privately owned warships with cannons during the Revolution

      • And after the Revolution as well. In the first half of the 19th century, a shipowner could apply for a letter of marque and reprisal. If granted, it would authorize his ship to attack and capture vessels, and turn over to the government for payment. Basically, it was government contracted piracy and the term for it was “privateering”.

        In any case, these privateers supplied everything on their own, the ships, the crew, the guns. All the government provided was the scope and boundaries of their authority: you may take ships under these flags but not those, you can operate in these waters but not those. Stay in the lines, you’re a privateer and a good guy. Stray over and you’re a dirty pirate and we’ll hunt you down.

    • My recollection is that the Concord armory included stores of powder and shot, as well as a 2-pounder field cannon.

  10. Muskets WERE military weapons.
    Can we tell this guy what rapid fire and high capacity riffles were around and already in development the the time of the drafting or the Second Amendments?

    Don Lemon reminds me of my ex wife who confused Cystic Fibrosis with fibroid cysts of the uterus and insisted they were the same……..

  11. OK. I admit I don’t watch TV.

    Now, who is the guy on the right-hand side? His big grin and expressions were priceless. He got it.

    • That’s Van Jones, he was Obama’s former green jobs czar. He’s a self avowed communist. Don’t be fooled by his clean cut looks, he’s a dangerous man.

  13. If he owns a fully automatic AR as he seems to imply (though I doubt), perhaps he should be getting a visit from the ATF? Didn’t he just admit (rather blitheringly) to a felony?

    • Lord that would be priceless. I mean, 3 AM, full SWAT team, break his door down, auto weapons in his face, demanding he surrender his unregistered machine gun, preferably with closeup coverage by the press. Followup at 11, when he will again explain how easy it is to buy automatic weapons.

  14. This is typical leftism. Lie, lie, lie. And when that doesn’t work, lie like lie some more. If that doesn’t work, bring along another leftist who smiles, laughs, and nods his silly head in agreement to things he knows are lies, but he’s just got to back his leftist lying buddy. Obama does it and all leftists do it. Sure there are some Republicans that do it but they don’t have such a blatant disregard for those they are lying to. Leftists will tell you the sky is made of marshmallows and continue to do so with a straight face knowing full well that that’s all they need to suffice and convince their leftist moronic minions. The more you lie, or the better you lie, or the more you continue down a path of comments that are too obviously lies, doesn’t make a leftist look bad. In fact the more criminal or the more bizarre your comments, the more you hailed as a great leader to leftists in America. When Bush was even remotely suspected of lying, that was enough grounds to convict and hang him in the eyes of leftists. But when ANY leftist in government lies, and even if it’s obvious, or even when they tell you they are lying, as with Gov. Jerry Brown, (look up his Youtube vid where he admits that he and all politicians lie and what he’s lied about) they will ignore that and vote for them anyway or follow that leftist leader over the cliff or down the deepest depths of the ocean without any possible way of surviving. It’s just pure stupidity and nonsense. Right wingers hang their own for the smallest of provable lies, and sometimes even just on allegations. That is the huge difference between the left and right. The left knows their minions better. The Leftists have adopted the Nazi creedo uttered by Joseph Goebbels, who famously said that if you repeat a lie often enough, the people will begin to believe the lie. That is what’s happened in this country with the help of the horrible news media.

    • Most obvious example in my memory was “It’s all a vast right-wing conspiracy.” And that maroon is STILL pumping out the BS. And people still love her.

  15. Van Jones is just a bobble headed communist moron that will nod at anything that points people to his agenda, truth be damned with him and all leftist/socialist/communist/(anti-democratic)Democrats/(regressive)Progressives in this country. Leftism is an enemy to the cohesiveness of this country. There is no reason why they should be supported in our society. I understand that people will say that we need to open the doors to all points of view, the fact is we should not. That’s another lie spread by leftists just like when they always say that we need to reach across the isle towards them, but they never have to reach across to us. They also say they believe in the constitution, but only to use it to hang us with while they abuse and disregard the constitution for their own purposes. At that point it’s just an outdated document written by long since dead slave owning white men even though not all authors of the constitution owned slaves at all. But they also count on both the fact that we’re so poorly educated in this country to our historical facts, plus they’ve been spreading that lie long enough and they’re counting on the lies being believed.

  17. What a complete twit. CNN must be proud to have such ignorance spewed out on national tv. Its a good thing that no one watches this crap. Yeah, great idea Don, take full auto rifles away from the military and let’s see how that works out.

  18. This video doesn’t show it, but Lemon went on to say, “No one is saying we should take away anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights, I’m just saying we should examine it.”

    So many things wrong here, ooohhh, where to start? How about (1) If Lemon did buy an automatic weapon in Colorado in 20 minutes, as he said he did, he should expect a visit from BATF pronto. Given his description of the purchase, it had to be a private transfer, which legally cannot happen that quickly. Yeah, I know – he’s a maroon & doesn’t know what he’s talking about. (2) Lemon shouted “Let me finish” while he stood there confidently spewing nonsense & refusing to listen. Ferguson should have cut his mike, and said, “I’m sorry, we are experiencing technical difficulties . . . with Lemon’s mouth.” (3) Ferguson is racist for using his fully automatic brain against Lemon’s fully-idiotic mouth. (4) Instead of examining our 2nd Amendment rights, Don, how about examining your head? (5) Van Jones was smiling b/c he knew Ferguson was eating Lemon’s lunch.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCc-RWIp7XU

    • You forgot to mention he actually stuck in the famous “I support the second amendment, BUT …”

  19. I’d love to inform Don Lemon of his ignorance (and the importance of that ignorance), but I can’t find an actual email address for him…guess he doesn’t want to see any dissenting views from the public.

    • His opinion is important to him, and he believes you should be required by law to observe it. Your opinion? Not so much.

  20. That is a recurring theme from gun grabbers: ban firearms because they are too deadly! Whether that means they “shoot too fast” or whatever else they dream up doesn’t matter. Simply verify with the gun grabber that our standard to ban something is if it is too deadly in the hands of a psychopath. Then tell them we have to immediately ban cars. Why? A psychopath driving a car can easily kill someone. Of course the enterprising psychopath can plow into a crowd of people and inflict unsurvivable injuries much faster than they could with any firearm. Both facts demonstrate that cars are “too deadly”.

  21. Anyone purporting to be a man, that repeatedly screams, ‘let me finish’, is not a man. Typical liberal, racist talking head; refuses to listen to facts.

    • While that is arguably accurate, I, for one, am unaware of whether he plays the man in his encounters or not, so it may not even be insulting to him.

  22. I think we PotG are “taking the bait” in the argument about automatic vs. semi-automatic vs. other-action-types. As soon as we quibble about the Anti’s wrong-use-of-terms we’ve forfeited our opportunity to make a point. The uninformed masses have a hard time grasping the notion of different types of actions. For purposes of understanding the sensational instances of mass-murders the relevant distinction is between single-shot vs. repeaters.
    – – – This insight dawned on me when I took my 9 YO nephew for his first trip to the range. He was shooting a single-shot bolt action 22; very slowly. It dawned on me that a practiced shooter can re-load a single-shot bolt action rifle pretty quickly; at least if it’s cartridge is larger than a 22LR. At Sandy Hook the shooter had 14 minutes between the first shot and the arrival of the police. With a single-shot action he would easily have re-loaded and re-aimed in 30 seconds per shot. No kindergartner, few women and only some men would have rushed a shooter between shots.
    – – – The debate about semi-automatics and magazine capacity is essentially a matter of a (futile) attempt to cap the very high end of casualties in the rare case of a mass-shooting. The only measure that might make sense in this vein is to ban all action types leaving only muzzle-loaders as lawful types. Even the uninformed will recognize the absurdity of such a proposition.
    – – – Upon the development of a relatively ergonomic single-shot action the practical rate-of-fire became ample to accommodate the casualties from every mass-shooting on-record. (Off-the battlefield.) Upon development of a repeating action of any type, the rate-of-fire exceeded our worst nightmare for mass-murders. Multiple repeaters would frustrate any attempt to limit magazine capacity. (New York reload.) Where does this analysis rationally lead?
    – – – The only thing that stops a bad-guy with a gun is . . .

  23. All basic guns used by regular citizens are either military or functionally-identical to the ones the military uses. And yes the Second Amendment was about protecting the right to the basic tools of war, i.e. arms, that is why it is there, because the Founders knew that the government would want to ban them. They might as well be saying that the government can ban political speech, but recreational speech is okay. But political speech is only for qualified people in government. And that this is within the realm of the First Amendment. The whole reason the First Amendment is there is to protect things like political speech.

  24. This is the problem with the news media. Most of them have no clue about firearms or how they work.

  25. Automatic weapon = Don lemon shooting off his mouth.. meaning he holds his mouth open and the words just keep firing out of his incoherent mouth

  26. Don Lemon is indeed, an idiot..He said that the difference between automatic and semi-automatic is semantics. What a fool.

  29. Is anyone surprised? He has claimed “gun murder is up” when in fact it has plunged. Down is up and up is down according to CNN and its viewers.

  31. And here is where gun people are just making noise and the ant-gun crowd is gaining on us.

    Honestly what does it matter????? Semi-Automatic or fully Automatic. Clip vs Mag. Gun people get all hung up on this BS. They try to show the other side that they are STUPID and that they RIGHT.

    This video is a perfect example. They guy in the middle gets all side tracked and looks angry.

    The reporter said “automatic”. He did not say “fully automatic” or “Machine Gun”. He did buy a “automatic AR15 in Colorado. To be specific a semi-automatic. It is like when someone says they got a new pistol and you say “revolver or automatic?”

    His point was that weapons of today were never dreamed of by the founding fathers, that held muskets in their hands. That is probably true and is a valid point. I DONT agree with it but it is valid. Just like they never dreamed of the internet for free speech.

    Gun people need not be so arrogant and help make the other side win the argument because they are know it all ass holes, derailing the conversation by pointing out minor terminology differences.

    • The reporter said “automatic”. He did not say “fully automatic” or “Machine Gun”. He did buy a “automatic AR15 in Colorado. To be specific a semi-automatic. It is like when someone says they got a new pistol and you say “revolver or automatic?”

      Words mean things, especially in the gun control debate. An automatic weapon has a specific, statutory definition. Automatic weapons are subject to specific, statutory regulations that do not apply to other weapons. So yes: it does matter.

      Don Lemon did not buy an “automatic” weapon. He did not buy an “automatic” AR-15. (Does such a thing even exist?) He bought a semi-automatic rifle.

      His point was that weapons of today were never dreamed of by the founding fathers, that held muskets in their hands. That is probably true and is a valid point. I DONT agree with it but it is valid. Just like they never dreamed of the internet for free speech.

      No, it’s not a valid point, and that you would even suggest that it is, suggests to me that you, like him, are ignorant of history. Muskets were the military weapon of the day when the second amendment was written. The founding fathers intended to protect the right of private citizens to keep and bear military arms. The AR-15 that Lemon references is not even a military weapon. So, it would be inferior in terms of relative firepower, when compared to the musket at the time the Second Amendment was written. And further: the AR-15 and the entire class of firearms it represents are used to commit fewer murders each year than either hammers or baseball bats. So, no: Lemon’s point is in no way valid.

      Gun people need not be so arrogant and help make the other side win the argument because they are know it all ass holes, derailing the conversation by pointing out minor terminology differences.

      No. “Gun people” need to stop letting anti-gun people define the narrative, which in turn defines the playing field. Semi-automatic weapons are not automatic weapons. Standard-capacity magazines are not “high-capacity” magazines. The terms “assault weapon” and “military-style weapon” are meaningless, hoplophobic scare-phrasing. Hollow-point bullets are not “cop killer” bullets.

      It’s not a matter of arrogance; rather, it is a matter of ensuring that public policy debates are based on sound reason, rather than on emotion.

  34. It bothers me that people do not correctly use the term Automatic, when refering to firearms.
    (As well as magazine/clip/magclipazine)

    It has been twisted to refer to Fully-Automatic firearms when it originally refered to, as now known, Semi-Automatic only guns. Since the interduction of Fully-Automatic firearmes the term Automatic became a class with two, then three, sub-classes.

    The sub-classes are
    Semi-Automatic – the fireing of a single round per pull of the trigger
    Intermidiate Automatic – the fireing of a set number of rounds per pull of the trigger, depending on desighn the number varries but many are familiar with it being three
    Fully-Automatic – the fireing of round after round per pull of the trigger, only stoping when the trigger is relesed or when it runs out of ammo

    The term Automatic refers to any weapon that, automaticly, loads a round. It also may be used in direct reference to Semi-Automatic firearms as it is the original sub-class to witch the term refered.

    My 1911 is an Automatic and fires .45ACP rounds (Automatic Colt Pistol).
    My FAL is an Automatic firearm that is supposed to be a Select Fire weapon with the options of Semi-Automatic and Fully-Automatic.
    A Sten is an Automatic firearm that originaly desighned as Fully-Automatic only

Comments are closed.