In a Sunday op-ed piece for the Houston Chronicle, Biden: Background checks are key to gun safety, Vice President Joe Biden once again puts the NRA in his sights. [Full editorial after the jump.] It’s a mean meme and the gun grabbers mean business. In his graduation speech at Ohio State University, the Prez warned the young’uns “Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works.” That would be the NRA. “They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” If the S H’s the F, the administration will SWAT NRA HQ in a New York [Mayor Bloomberg] minute. I bet Wayne’s warriors are ready for it, too. How great is that?
In recent years, Americans have witnessed a series of senseless tragedies resulting from mass shootings. Perhaps the most shocking of all took place on Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn., when 20 beautiful babies and six brave teachers and administrators were massacred at an elementary school.
But every community, Houston included, suffers from the carnage of gun violence. In the aftermath of Newtown, President Barack Obama asked me to help him identify common-sense solutions to keep guns out of the wrong hands. As the National Rifle Association slogan goes, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. So why not close giant loopholes in our laws that allow criminals and other potentially dangerous individuals to arm themselves?
In one of the many meetings I held as I prepared those recommendations, I met a young man named Colin Goddard who had survived the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech. To this day, Colin has several bullets in his body. “I’m not here because of what happened to me,” he explained. “I’m here because what happened to me keeps happening to other people. And we need to do something about it.”
To Colin and to the victims and families affected by every senseless death caused by a gun in the hands of someone who shouldn’t have one, I say this: We will do something about it.
We reached a consensus in this country back in 1993 when we enacted the Brady Bill that a background check is a reasonable requirement to impose on an individual who walks into a gun store to purchase a firearm. These checks take just a few minutes. All we are seeking to do now is to expand that requirement to people who shop for guns at other venues such as gun shows, through classified ads and over the Internet.
Two U.S. senators with sterling NRA records, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have written legislation that would do just that. We fell short on our first effort to pass Manchin-Toomey in the Senate, but we will not be deterred by one setback. We have an obligation to make sure that the voices of victims, not the voice of the NRA, ring the loudest in this debate.
For too long, members of Congress have been afraid to vote against the wishes of the NRA, even when the vast majority of their constituents support what the NRA opposes. That fear has become such an article of faith that even in the face of evidence to the contrary, a number of senators voted against basic background checks, against a federal gun trafficking statute and against other common-sense measures because they feared a backlash.
Today, those very senators are discovering that the political landscape really did change. They are learning that Newtown really did shock the conscience of the nation and that inaction will not be tolerated by Democrats, Republicans or independents.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., for example, voted against the background check bill even after he wrote a letter to a mother of a gun violence victim professing his support for tougher screening. In the weeks since, he has seen his approval plummet so dramatically that he took to Facebook to describe his popularity as being “just below pond scum.” And Sen. Flake admitted something important: “I would assume that my poll numbers have indeed taken a southerly turn since my vote” against the Senate background check proposal, he wrote. “It was a popular amendment, and I voted against it.”
On the other hand, red-state Democrats like U.S. Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana learned that when they stood up to vote in favor of background checks, their constituents stood firmly behind them. According to a recent poll, Louisiana voters say they are more inclined to support Sen. Landrieu in the aftermath of her vote. North Carolinians said the same of Sen. Hagan. This was not what conventional wisdom predicted a few weeks ago. But it is reality today.
Taken together, these polling numbers have turned the traditional political calculus on its head. Whether senators are rewarded for bucking the NRA or punished for following its orders, the message is clear: If you don’t support gun safety, your voters won’t support you.
In the end, I believe we will prevail. And those who wrote off gun safety legislation last month will come to realize that moment wasn’t the end at all. It was the turning point.
I realize editors editorialize, but I don’t see anywhere in that speech that Biden “brands the NRA a terrorist organization.” When I saw the headline, I hoped it was hyperbole. I think it’s more than that. I think it’s incorrect and misleading.
It’s also disappointing. There’s enough going on (and you pushing out enough content every day) without you pushing blatantly misleading headlines.
Agreed. Inferencing and stating are two entirely different things.
Do you mean implying? I didn’t get that, either.
I get that he believes that we’re all “wing-nuts who misuse our outsize influence,” [paraphrasing, rather than a quote] but again terror ain’t in there.
It’s not specifically said there, but it’s been said often enough that we, you, should know they HAVE designated the NRA and 2A defenders as “terrorists”.
You win on a technicality, but it won’t do you one F of good when your guns are gone and the re-education camps are filling up. Along with graveyards.
Their intention to designate us as terrorists and enemies of the state is not open to question.
You seem to be kind of a wingnut, and I can’t think of any of your comments that I’ve agreed with aside from those stating patently obvious facts like “the sky is blue.”
I don’t know what exactly that has to do with your comment, but I just wanted to put it out there.
Heh.
You are not alone in your assessment. I’ll leave it at that.
Matt, I don’t think you get it, he’s totally right. I happy to be an intern at the global NWO headquarters (where they launch all the black helicopters from), and I just overheard Klik’tilk’lak, Obama’s lizard overlord, telling Biden that they are to start opening the re-education camps by August at the very latest, or he would be sent to the Mother B’zor and replaced by a clone.
‘Bama and his gang are trying to lie, mislead, bully, buy and leverage their way to craming gun control legislation down the throats of the American people however they can. Any time they can they demonize gun owners and gun groups especially the NRA whether subtley and not so subtley as part of their campaign to discredit all who support gun rights, they will do so.
Biden’s likely ghost written piece is just another effort toward accomplishing that end. They’re trying to pointedly display how they are scaring a US Senator through various social media means and blatantly biased poll results into rethinking his vote as an example to others and to flaunt their supposed popular power.
Ever hear of “brainwashing”. They want to discourage and scare 2A supporters everywhere they can whether they are citizens or politicians, but especially politicians.
Plagiarism in college, Ghost Writing in the VEEP’s office
LMAO, things NEVER Change!
We gotta defeat these clowns! Some people will believe Anything I guess…
“Their intention to designate us as terrorists and enemies of the state is not open to question.”
Actually, it is. Unless you can read minds.
Biden’s op-ed is nauseating tripe and it plays the usual blame-the-NRA card, but it didn’t “brand the NRA a terrorist organization.” This article and especially its headline are inflammatory and misleading at best.
“members of Congress have been afraid to vote against the wishes of the NRA”
^^^ I think that’s it. An organization that serves to instill fear is, by many peoples’ definition, a terrorist organization. Now it’s a little bit of a stretch to infer that this is truly what the writer believes the purpose or intent of the NRA is, it’s a further stretch to use this op-ed from a 3rd party to infer Biden’s own thoughts on the subject, and it’s a huge stretch to make another leap in logic on Biden’s behalf and actually state those thoughts/opinions as coming from his mouth. It’s reading deep between the lines of one person’s opinion and then applying that to another person, and it’s definitely grasping at distant straws…
I understand what you’re saying, but I just want to point out that it’s not 3rd party. Biden (or his staffers) wrote the op-ed piece. So it’s not someone inferring outlandish meanings on what Biden said. Unless that someone is RF, which is who my initial comment was directed at. He was the “editor” I was referring to.
If you think this isn’t the message the tyrants in charge are trying to send, you’re fooling yourself. Incrementalism works in speech as well as gun control. Of course they’re not going to come out and say it, but rather steadily implant it in the public conscious through ever-increasing extremes of propaganda.
Sens. Isakson, Flake and Ayotte are ready to cave: http://guardamerican.com/index.php/blog/35-politics/654-gun-control-sens-isakson-and-flake-ready-to-cave
This is all utter nonsense. Polls show that very few people give a rodent’s patootie about gun control, and those who do are probably a lot of us who want less gun control, not more.
But hey, they need a distraction with the economy still sucking along, Obamacare about to kick in and Benghazi finally getting the attention it deserves.
Y’know, I liked Biden when as a senator he mopped the latrine with Alberto Gonzalez.
Now, not so much. :[
I don’t blame him for the Inquisition burning my spiritual and genetic forebears at the stake.
Why can he not return the favor and not associate me with A.L. or the Butcher of Batman?
What do you expect from Robby Boy? He is the one that said that they were going outlaw pump action and lever action rifles when there was no such law even proposed. Remember? Yeah, Robby doesn’t want to talk about that. Anything for some hits, that is money. You see, hits mean advertising dollars. That is why he says such inflammatory things. He is transparent. I am happy you people called him out.
What is really strange is that nobody seems to be talking about why the Democratic leadership wouldn’t even allow Coburn’s amendment to come up for an up or down vote (“even though 91% of Americans back it”).
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/rightnow?ContentRecord_id=8147edd4-7225-41ab-8780-749e076817c3
Yeah… crickets on that one.
Any speculation on how the popularity of those who’ve taken a hit for voting for liberty would have changed if they’d voted with Biden? Just because Flake has supposedly taken a hit doesn’t mean he’d not have taken a larger one if he’d voted the other way.
It’s hard to say, the polls ask if the respondent is less likely to vote for the candidate because they voted against background check legislation.
It doesn’t say the Manchin-Toomey amendment, nor does it say “legislation to ban almost all private party non-dealer firearm transfers as well as banning almost all handgun sales to persons under 21 even if they would otherwise be legal in the State”. Admittedly a bit long for a survey question, but still.
You have to wonder when the polling companies push misleading information like M-T being just a “background check” bill. Even politifact put out an article denying that the bill bans private party non-dealer firearm transfers.
Here’s the letter that I wrote to each of the “wobbly” Senators, Ayotte, Flake and Isaccson:
Dear Jeff/Johhny/Kelly (as appropriate),
I am writing to ask you to stand firm against the forces pushing you to vote in favor of new gun control laws. I supported your campaign for the Senate, a modest donation to be sure, because I believed that you would be a defender of the Second Amendment and by corollary the rest of the Constitution. Press reports are out saying that you are “going wobbly” and might vote for background checks this time. Please don’t do that. You know that once this sort of law is on the books it becomes a mere matter of procedure to amend it. The Obama/Democrat agenda is background checks now, registration and confiscation later. Please stand strong and keep voting against this disarmament agenda. It is the right thing to do.
Sincerely yours,
Michael A. Crognale, Captain USAF (ret)
and this is what I just got back from Jeff Flake, understandable:
Thank you for contacting me.
Because of the overwhelming number of e-mails I receive every day, I can only respond to residents of the State of Arizona. If you live in Arizona, please include your postal address in your e-mail, as all correspondence from my office is sent via the United States Postal Service. If you do not live in Arizona, I encourage you to contact your Senator by visiting http://www.senate.gov.
Thank you for your understanding.
Senator Jeff Flake
Damn. Just…just “Damn”….
Robert Farago circa late October 2012: “Obama is not coming for your guns guys. Not going to happen. Get over it.”
Robert Farago circa early May 2013: “I’m confident NRA headquarters can repel a false-pretense, government-ordered paramilitary assault.”
To live to see such times…
Uh… So tell me again where the “NRA is a terrorist organization” bit is in those two news bites? Maybe I’m missing something, but I didn’t see anything like that.
Notice now that the Biden dingbat machine is all for Toomey Manchin bill the AWB is DOA for this congress. Agree Ralph?
Okay, I’m getting a little sick of this: first graders are not “babies”, FFS. What, is it not sensational enough to sell it if they can walk and talk?
I for one will be voting against Hagan and I will be voting against her for that very one vote that you were kind enough to remind me of.
Here! Here!
Further, Hagan needs to see a strong primary challenge. One way or another these bums need to see that there is a stiff price to pay for attacking our rights.
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.”
Funny, that’s exactly how they try to portray the NRA: some scary entity separate from its millions of members.
Standing before several thousands of kids who just spent the last four years being taught to question authority and telling them NOT to question authority is either sheer hubris or grasping at straws….
lets not throw terms around lightly here.
There are editorials in the Press that think all NRA members should be labeled terrorists and imprisoned. But we expect this kind of libel from “journalists”.
Lets not exaggerate the verbal war, lest we find out if one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.
we dont need to accelerate a bad situation prematurely!
Good God. Slow Joe is at it again. Who cares what the polls say, or what the majority says? If the majority said playing in traffic is a good idea, I’d tell them to shove off. Also, Robert, no one called anyone a terrorist. It wasn’t even implied. At least, not bin Laden terrorist.
If someone pulls out the “the majority of Americans want…” card, ask them if they then agree with Stephen Douglas.
When they ask you “who?” Remind them of the Stephen A Douglas and the “Lincoln-Douglas debates” of 1858. Douglas took the position that the Unites States were a democracy, and as such the will of the majority ruled. If a majority of Americans had voted to accept slavery as an institution (or at least that the cost of dislodging it was too high), then slavery was good and right.
Abraham Lincoln, in contrast, argued that there was an absolute moral standard from which our natural rights (recognized in our Constitution) sprang. That against this standard, chattel ownership of other human beings was abhorrent – and even if a majority of Americans lined up and voted for it, it would still be inherently wrong.
Human Beings have a natural right to defend themselves and their posterity – from threats meek and gross. The 2nd Amendment recognizes the means of upholding that right from the most dangerous threat a citizen could potentially face. The vote of a legislature, or even a majority plebiscite, cannot change that.
biden is such a f^cking statist its absolutely hilarious and absurd
Slow Joe spent a lot of time talking about voices. Maybe he was the only one hearing those voices. Did anyone notice if his audience was backing away, putting distance between themselves and the 5150 drooling on about voices?
Last I checked it wasn’t the NRA funneling weapons to Mexican terrorists on the taxpayers dime. It also isn’t the NRA giving F-16s and various other weapons to Islamic countries that hate us.
Joe definitely puts the term “schmo” in Joe Schmo.
The value of Propaganda is to create doubts in the minds of the mass of The People. Creating said doubts opens their minds to manipulation of what the majority believes as generally true. Layering levels of plausibility about what is generally true slowly enables the State to divorce truth from what the State wants The People to accept as generally true. Once the State can control what The People accept as generally true, the State can assert its Will as it deems fit in the Laws, Policies and Procedures it implements. Only a slight majority of The People need to accept the State’s Propaganda and those who disagree can be marginalized and eventually subdued to the State’s Will (by force, if necessary) and the majority of The People who support the State will approve because they accept the Truth as defined by the State.
This stuff being said by Biden et al is part of the layering process, so no it doesn’t have to flat-out say “The NRA and its Members are ‘terrorists’…” it only has to introduce a plausible doubt or question. It has to paint the NRA and its members as the antithesis of “Public Safety” because the NRA cows elected Law Makers to vote against “common sense” legislation that would enable the State to “better protect” The People. Truth does not matter in this process. Right does not matter in this process. It is institutionalized Political Propaganda designed to facilitate fundamental changes to The American Republic by altering what The People accept as generally true.
It is being done slowly and deliberately, and has been in progress for many years. Because it is subtle and slowly implemented it keeps those who oppose it off guard. While we are writing comments about our Rights and Freedoms in the traditional American view of what is generally true, our children are being taught quite a different view in the Public Schools. While we reject the MSM’s biased reporting of “News” and sycophantic adoration of Obama and his supporters, many of our fellow countrymen lap-up the lies and deceit like nectar and honey. While we want to stand on our own and be the Traditional self-reliant, independent thinking/acting American, many, many of our fellow Citizens want the State to take care of them, decide for them, and provide for them.
All this is why, despite setbacks and failures, the present POTUS and Administration/Supporters confidently persists in repeating the same slanted disinformation and twisted “facts”, pursuing the same flawed Policies, spending money recklessly, refusing to work with their opposition in the House of Representatives, telling The People “things are getting better”, and believe they have a majority of support (however slight) because they know this is and has been a gradual process which believe they are on the verge of “winning”.
So, you can “poo-poo” Mr. Farago’s “alarmist” postings and (correctly) point-out “Biden didn’t actually say THAT”, and, in so doing, play right into the hands of the POTUS and his Supporters because they are counting on skepticism and denial to mask what is being done and REALLY don’t care what you think because you are being marginalized and slowly undermined and won’t even recognize it, or so the Socialist Democrats think.
Think about it and how the contents of the National dialog has changed over the past 75 years, more dramatically since the end of WWII and even more so since the War in Viet Nam. We are at a crucial pivot-point and only clear, objective thinking will determine the outcome.
So now, all they say they want is background checks. Did they not also say that this is only the beginning (the clear definition of a slippery slope)?
Stupid evil libtrards.
while obama sends medical and lethal aid to al qaeda infused ‘hardest of the hardcore’ Al Nusra and Al Ahrar factions of the FSA (and most plentifully armed, explaining their popularity with new hires: “they join for the weaponry”)
NRA is an American Original Institution since 1871 [New York], ‘hey Joe’ is a tyrannical klown whose wife got nailed by an assault truck.
I never thought any president could be worse that lincoon.
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