“I remember ickhe hours and days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy opines at newstimes.com (excerpted from recent Senate testimony). “I remember feeling like I needed to be restrained about talking about the obvious policy issues that tumbled out of the facts surrounding that tragedy.” Huh? You’d kinda expect a rabid anti-gunner like Senator Murphy to stick to the playbook. Wave the bloody shirt. Talk about your feelings. Call for gun control. In this op ed, Murphy skips the whole touchy feely thing. Right there we get insight into the man’s mentality . . .
It seems to me that Murphy is disassociated from his own emotions. This is a bit of surprise, given his liberal credentials. Modern liberals/progressive usually wear their hearts on their sleeves, appealing to their constituents’ hearts rather than their heads. You know; the right to “feel” safe should balance the natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Like that.
But I held back because it felt like the mourning and the grieving should take precedence over action. It took me only up to the first wake that I attended to realize I was wrong.
A wake-up call (no less) from a man who claims that he was reluctant to politicize the Sandy Hook slaughter. If true, and let’s not forget that he’s a politician whose lips are moving, the Constitution State Senator overcame his reticence in a big way.
In the years since, these mass shootings have become as commonplace as rain storms. Since 2011, the number of mass shootings in the United States has tripled — tripled. After each one, the forces of the status quo — the defenders of the gun industry — tell us we can’t talk about policy reform in the days after a shooting. How convenient that, at the moment when the world is watching, when the country is asking itself what we can do to make sure another mass slaughter doesn’t happen again, the rules say that we can’t say a word.
Again, the Senator misses an opportunity to talk about his own feelings after the massacre. And presents an interesting analogy: mass shootings and rain storms. For one thing, rain storms aren’t particularly horrifying. Nor are they preventable. The fact that he lies about their frequency is neither here not there. The clear implication: Murphy has accepted the reality, the inevitability of mass shootings.
Murphy’s reference to the “status quo” is boilerplate politician speak: I am an outsider! He adds to that entirely incredible assertion by stating that he was muzzled – muzzled! – by “the rules.” Murphy’s implying that his failure to even talk about gun control was not his fault. Strangely, he doesn’t play the “NRA as Satan” card. He blames the very system that gives him a platform and power for rendering him mute and powerless. I reckon he actually believes that.
Of course, Senator Murphy did talk about gun control. A great deal. On the national stage. To suggest otherwise is beyond delusional, beyond lying. It’s pathological. But the mantle of faux persecution is key to Murphy’s self-image. He sees himself as a victim. More precisely, he wants his supporters to see him as a victim. I find it astounding that statists like Murphy even attempt to position their “brand” that way, but then I’m not a low-information voter. Nor was I elected to the U.S. Senate.
If we can’t talk about anti-gun violence policy the day after a large number of Americans are shot, then you will never talk about anti-gun violence policy. But even if you accept that there is never a bad time to talk about how we can end this carnage, then we also have to have the courage to take on all of the other ridiculous arguments about why we can’t act.
Here Murphy’s mask slips. By labelling anti-gun control arguments as “ridiculous” – an inadvisable adjective for anyone trying to appear open-minded – he reveals himself as a condescending elitist. The switch in pronouns at the top – “you will never talk about anti-gun violence police” – betrays frustration at his supporters inactivity on gun control. Again, he’s signaling perceived superiority.
Now, the first one is familiar because it comes right after the mass shooting happens. A former NRA board member trotted this one out within hours of Charleston: He said that the solution was to just arm more pastors and parishioners in churches so that they can defend themselves. The more people that have guns, the less people will die from guns — goes this logic.
The problem with that is — it is a boldfaced lie. Study after study show that the more guns there are in a community, the more crime there is. The more guns, the more gun homicides.
I’m always amused when anti-gunners do such a great job at representing the pro-gun position. Notice that Senator Murphy does so without citing statistics. Notice also that he relies on unattributed statistics to make the counter-argument. The bold-faced lie accusation raises the question: why? Why would someone say that arming pastors and parishioners was the answer when it isn’t? Normally, antis suggest that they do so to increase gun sales. Murphy ain’t got time for that. He’s busy blaming the electorate.
The second argument is one that I have heard from my Republican colleagues in the Senate just in the last few days — that these laws can’t stop a madman like Dylann Roof or Adam Lanza from perpetrating violence. Some of my colleagues say that our only recourse is to close our eyes and pray that this doesn’t happen again.
But again, these stubborn facts betray that argument. Now that we have states that have loose gun laws and states that have tougher gun laws, we can see what happens. Over and over research shows us that jurisdictions that make it a little bit harder for bad guys to get guns have less gun deaths.
Murphy sets-up what’s called a false dilemma. The only choices he presents are not being able to do anything to stop mass murders or making it a “little bit” harder for bad guys to get guns. “Allowing” Americans to arm themselves in their own defense isn’t an option. By relying on this technique, Murphy shows us that he’s no better than a car salesman. As someone who was in that business, I can tell you that the cynicism required eats away at your soul. If indeed you have one.
There is evidence that a different set of laws could have — not would have — could have stopped Dylann Roof without having any effect on law-abiding gun owners in South Carolina.
Rhetorically, this statement is the dictionary definition of weak sauce. People don’t want to know what could have stopped the carnage in Charleston. They want to know what would have. Or, if you prefer, what action would have had the greatest chance of stopping the slaughter? What law or laws would have stopped Dylann Roof from getting a gun? Murphy doesn’t – can’t – go there. Those laws don’t exist.
Separate and aside from the specific case-by-case impact of any law is the collective moral and psychological effect of non-action.
No matter how maligned Congress becomes, we still set the moral tone for the nation. When we declare something to be morally out of bounds, especially when we do it in a bipartisan or nonpartisan manner, Americans listen.
That is why, in my heart of hearts, I believe that our silence has made us complicit in these murders. When we do nothing year after year, our silence sends a silent message of endorsement to the killers.
Murphy is flat-out admitting that laws wouldn’t have stopped Roof and calling for entirely symbolic action. He bases his justification for this move with the wildly erroneous assertion that America listens to Congress; Americans recently gave Congress a 16 percent approval rating, continuing a dramatic 15-year downward trend.
This inane argument reveals Murphy’s exaggerated not-to-say-delusional feelings of self-importance. At the same time, the last sentence in that paragraph highlights the Senator’s sense of guilt at his own powerlessness, which he invites his readers to share. Can both things existent at the same time? They do here. More evidence:
Those hanging on the edge of reason, those contemplating the unthinkable take a cue that we don’t really mean it when we condemn mass violence, because if we did, we would try to do something — anything — to stop it and we don’t.
Does Murphy really think that “those hanging on the edge of reason” give a damn about society’s [supposedly non-genuine] condemnation of mass violence? Is he saying that he and his supporters didn’t try and do something to stop it? (Not to mention the fact that calling for people to do “anything” to stop mass violence contradicts his own argument; opening the door to arming potential victims.) Again, it’s a combination of delusional thinking, exaggerated self-importance and guilt.
So we need real action, a real debate. We need real, honest policy to happen here. And no, it’s not all about guns. It’s about mental health, it’s about law enforcement, and it’s about a culture of violence and hate that we have just become immune to.
The U.S. gun homicide rate is 20 times higher than that of our 22 peer nations. Since Sandy Hook, there has been a school shooting, on average, every week.
How on Earth can we live with ourselves if we do nothing, or worse, if we don’t even try?
Never mind the mind-bogglingly high firearms-related homicide rate in countries with strict gun control. Murphy uses a Euro-centric, heavily-massaged stat designed to bolster his argument. Why wouldn’t he? Common sense and proper scientific data reveals his desire for gun control as an inherently impotent course of action.
The real question raised by his final entreaty: how can Murphy live with himself given his own failure to embrace the simple, elegant, effective answer of armed self-defense? Answer: not easily.
“how can Murphy live with himself given his own failure to embrace the simple, elegant, effective answer of armed self-defense? Answer: not easily.”
Without knowing the man but knowing what he does for a living, I’d guess he lived with himself just fine, thank you very much, and loses more sleep over his reelection prospects than anything else.
But then I’m a cynic.
He also sleeps soundly behind the community gates, and armed guards. I think EVERY ONE of these jackwagons who call for more gun restrictions should move to the hood, with NO armed guard. Watch how fast they gun up.
Nope, you’re just a realist. Nothing wrong with that.
Sen. Murphy was born in 1973 and graduated college in 1996. Having first won election to the CT state House in 1998, he’s climbed without interruption through government: to the CT Senate, to the U.S. House, and to U.S. Senate.
This guy has never had a real job. He has no marketable skills. He views the entire world through a political prism and assesses each event in terms of its impact on his own re-election. He’s a parasite on society worse than the most gifted grifter on the streets.
Jonathan, you nailed it perfectly: Murphy is indeed a gifted grifter, and those whom he fleeces have no clue that their pockets have just been picked. No wonder they come back for more.
Agreed for all career politicians, D or R, or even L if they never did anything else except to grift money out of the unsuspecting and then do the bidding of their truly criminal handlers.
Slide 13/48. Zionsville, IN. Where Shannon lives. Richest town in Indiana. Armed guards and private subdivisions. ’nuff said.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/generalmoney/the-richest-towns-in-america-state-by-state/ar-AAbYbkq?ocid=mailsignout#image=AAbILic|13
He is a politician and his lips are moving. Why are we listening?
“Peer Nations” = “Ethnically homogenous island nations are in, quasi-failed states with which we share a 2,000-mile land border, from whence a sizeable fraction of our population hailed, from which we annexed a significant fraction of our territory, are out. “
Are you dissing Canada?
vote him out the next round…there…next!!!
“That is why, in my heart of hearts, I believe that our silence has made us complicit in these murders. When we do nothing year after year, our silence sends a silent message of endorsement to the killers.”
YOU ARE COMPLICITE In murders. Everyday YOU along with your legislators DENY DENY DENY the means for law abiding citizens the choice to protect themselves in public.
It incomprehensible that an educated elected representative fails in reason to address this. Time and again YOU plot an easy course, one that does not require funding and burdens the people who elected you. STOP imposing your will against us, we want nothing more than to live in peace and lawfully defend our lives.
“Over and over research shows us that jurisdictions that make it a little bit harder for bad guys to get guns have less gun deaths.”
Maybe Chris should spend a little more time in his home state then. The ammunition certificates, long gun purchase licensing, pistol permitting, and all the other garbage they pushed through sure hasn’t seemed to stop violence in Hartford. As of mid-January they had already had 10 homicides. “Normal” yearly numbers are in the low-to-mid twenties. We’ve had many more shootings in recent weeks. Granted, these are the same people trumpeting “42 PERCENT DROP IN HOMICIDES IN HARTFORD!”, when they actually mean certain neighborhoods saw that drop; the overall number of homicides in the city went from 23 to 19. Hardly something to write home about.
Not to mention the regular shootings in Democrat-controlled cities like New Haven and Bridgeport. Murphy is so delusional that he would take a victory lap if there were 500 homicides in Hartford that were all committed by knife. Because guns *derp*.
We all know Chris has latched onto the gun control thing, not because he truly believes it, but because it’s his only chance to be somewhat relevant in a Congress that ignores both Senators from Connecticut. This guy’s a professional panderer.
Name a Republican-controlled city in the USA. Having trouble? That’s because there are only 2 or 3 of any consequence. Republicans have been total failures when it comes to managing urban areas or getting elected.
It really is the same situation in Argentina where the Eaters are in the big metro areas and the working providers are in the suburbs and countryside. The Eaters are going to vote for those who will give them free stuff.
Republicans have a hard time getting elected in these same cities because so many of the inhabitants rely on the Santa Claus promises of free things from the Democrats. You aren’t seriously going to point to such liberal utopias as Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Memphis, New Orleans, Detroit and New York as paragons of safety, are you?
San Diego, next.
Why would that be a surprise. You have two non-entities whose only claim to fame is that one of them imagined he was a Marine Vietnam combat vet. You’re in the running for Senate laughing stock with my home state of NJ. We have a indicted hack politician from Hudson Co. and a former Newark mayor who most people don’t even know is in the Senate – except at election time. The Senate is a joke.
Still Blue, still (D), still broke-d_<k.
"Those hanging on the edge of reason, those contemplating the unthinkable take a cue that we don’t really mean it when we condemn mass violence, because if we did, we would try to do something — anything — to stop it and we don’t."
Those wanting to stop home and business fires would ban everything, including stone age implements, except for fire-engines which would be installed anywhere a human could possibly inhabit, and the firemen atop the would be armed, as well as the tax agents necessary to collect the taxes to affect that.
IF YOU LIVE IN A BLUE STATE. . .
STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID
“There is evidence that a different set of laws could have — not would have — could have stopped Dylann Roof without having any effect on law-abiding gun owners in South Carolina.”
There exists some mythical law that could have stopped this evil person from committing his heinous crime, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. You will just have to trust me. I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
Snake oil salesman trying to sell his epiphany.
Keep him in office and he’ll reveal what it is.
‘I’m working for YOU, my children.’
“And no, it’s not all about guns. It’s about mental health, it’s about law enforcement, and it’s about a culture of violence and hate that we have just become immune to.”
This reminds me of all the sugary talk about “sustainability” when the practical reality actually means you have to create police state. The kind of society this guy’s talking about is just like that. We can easily have effective gun control. We just confiscate all the guns. We can easily keep mentally unstable people from committing acts of violence. Once “properly” diagnosed, we just closely monitor their every move. We can easily combat a “culture” of violence by censoring all forms of literature, even casual communication, that we think might be threatening. So, by instituting a police state, by eliminating the concepts of liberty and freedom that are essential to our kind of society, we create the exact kind of totalitarian state that history repeatedly shows are horrendous failures. Been there, done that. No thanks. Molon labe!
Using a liberals version of logic and lies instead of feelings to push an unconstitutional anti-gun agenda still makes him a statist liberal hack.
The problem with that is — it is a boldfaced lie. Study after study show that the more guns there are in a community, the more crime there is. The more guns, the more gun homicides.
More guns in the hands of gang bangers, drug addicts, felons, and mentally ill people sure does equal more deaths. But if you’re cherry picking the worst communities for your studies, do we get to cherry pick the best for ours? If that is the case, having all the guns looks like a paradise of friendliness, cooperation, and community. If you look at the country as a whole, you have to look at each and every individual community and have to realize that guns aren’t the underlying cause of killing, it is the communities themselves.
Some of my colleagues say that our only recourse is to close our eyes and pray that this doesn’t happen again.
Past a certain point, yes, that is all you can do. Just as we must pray that a category 5 tornado doesn’t sweep through the middle of a community in Kansas, or a 9.0 earthquake doesn’t break near one of the large city centers on the west coast, or that some lunatic doesn’t feel like he is having a good day and decides to drive his car through the middle of a crowd.
“Since Sandy Hook, there has been a school shooting, on average, every week.”
Anybody know how to fact-check this statement?
It’s been done. http://www.factcheck.org/2014/06/spinning-statistics-on-school-shootings/
That claim is simply wrong but, like a good liberal, repeat a falsehood enough times and it effectively becomes ‘fact.’
…appreciate it – thanks for the link.
Politicians must be aware of the risk they run when they spout such easily debunked claims. My guessis that they’ve calculated both the risks associated with being exposed and the benefits of people believing the false information they promulgate, and they decide to go for it.
Their decision is probably made easier by the realization that the media will largely give them a pass for being dishonest. Because, you know, guns are bad.
Which, in the end, makes them the very definition of calculating liars.
CNN debunked their claims back in june 2014, when they said 74 school shootings had taken place since SH. They found that only 15 of those “shootings” were actually considered real school shootings. A more recent debunking found that one of the school shootings that they said took place, didn’t actually take place; a woman called police saying she thought she heard gun fire in the area. Police investigated the incident for awhile and found no shots were actually fired, but MDA kept the incident on their record as being a school shooting.
So we need real action, a real debate. Something that never happens on liberal media websites.
The U.S. gun homicide rate is 20 times higher than that of our 22 peer nations. I assume he is crowing about white north western european nations. Well, if we kick out the black and hispanic homicide rates, the white homicide rate is about the same as Finland. Not from Storm Front, but from Bearing Arms.
http://bearingarms.com/black-america-bloody-mess/
Shhhhh, quiet Tom, somebody will call you the “r” word.
Right?
“how can Murphy live with himself”?
He can’t. He needs to leave the country. He needs to go live in one of those Utopias he dreams about. In a commune.
Say! How about with Jim Jones?
Oh wait
“No matter how maligned Congress becomes, we still set the moral tone for the nation.”
Has there ever been a pronouncement more evident of either delusion or egregious dishonesty?
“When we declare something to be morally out of bounds, especially when we do it in a bipartisan or nonpartisan manner, Americans listen.”
No. You’re wrong.
How can he live with himself? I’m sure he will trudge on making $ on the public dole(or dime)…
I’m sorry. I did my best but they only let me vote once.
Surprisingly, Washitngton Post does a pretty good job on backing you up, RF. They break down the number of school shootings reported by Everytown, and find the numbers are way lower than what they report, but we already knew that. Still, good to see others taking Everytown and those who repeat their lies to town.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/29/has-there-been-one-school-shooting-per-week-since-sandy-hook/
I think they may be gearing up for presidential debates next year. Gun control has bubbled to the surface as an important issue this time around, probably intentionally. Same-sex marriage will be an issue long behind us by the time the candidates take the stage, and the networks and newspapers need something juicy to keep people interested.
If I’m right, this could be a very interesting turn of events, because the candidates will have to parse their claims more carefully in the spotlight of a presidential debate. Stuff like “It simply doesn’t happen in other countries” and “The data proves that lawful self-defense with guns never happens” will no longer be accepted at face value by all except easily written-off conservative news sources.
I, for one, would love for that to happen, because it would put a serious—perhaps fatal—hole in Bloomberg’s con game.
I think they may be gearing up for presidential debates next year. Gun control has bubbled to the surface as an important issue this time around, probably intentionally. Same-sex marriage will be an issue long behind us by the time the candidates take the stage, and the networks and newspapers need something juicy to keep people interested.
If I’m right, this could be a very interesting turn of events, because the candidates will have to parse their claims more carefully in the spotlight of a presidential debate. Stuff like “It simply doesn’t happen in other countries” and “The data proves that lawful self-defense with guns never happens” will no longer be accepted at face value by all except easily written-off conservative news sources.
I, for one, would love for that to happen, because it would put a serious—perhaps fatal—hole in Bloomberg’s con game.
History has shown that attempts at real infringements on the right to arms have failed in this country time and time and time again. Those who try to “elevate” the rhetoric in yet another preposterous attempt at infringement have become, in my mind, simply laughable, stupid, and predictable. Each one thinks their arguments, odd notes mixed together in some pathetic new tune, are newer, more unique, more powerful, more moving, more timely, more focused, more impassioned — and all the while, like angry children unable to hear or see, are deaf and blind to the overwhelming and contrary will of the majority of law abiding and voting citizens, courts both low and high, and truly responsible lawmakers in the only country on the planet where the right to arms is so strongly and clearly protected by law. What a useless waste of time and breath they are. They make fools of themselves in the very face of the constitution; and in the vain hope of a just a few more, usually meaningless votes.
Robert, I think that should be “I remember THE hours and days …”
“The more people that have guns, the less people will die from guns.”
That’s not what we say at all.
We say, “The more the RIGHT people have guns, the less INNOCENT people will die from BAD people with guns.”
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