Shannon Watts (courtesy usatoday.com)

usatoday.com takes its Shannon Watts love-fest to the next level, offering readers a Q & A with the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (a wholly owned subsidiary of Mayors Against Illegal Guns). Yes, Ms. Watts’ replies contain the usual anti-gun agitprop. And yes, the McPaper shamelessly accepts the former PR exec’s inflated claims about MDA’s “membership.” But there’s some excellent intel within the highly-edited-by-mutual-agreement exchange. The warm-up: “Q: Did you have any personal experience with guns or violence? A: One in three Americans have, but I had never been affected by gun violence. I did not grow up in a home with guns, but my grandfathers were both World War II veterans and avid hunters.” So Shannon doesn’t have any skin in the game (really) and she’s turned her back on the sacrifices her family made for our freedoms. Who knew? And then it get’s interesting . . .

Q: Is your group anti-gun?

A: We are not; many of our moms are gun owners. We believe that you have the right to protect yourself with a weapon if that’s what you choose to do. I don’t (choose to) because the data shows that a gun in your house is more likely to be used against you or by one of your family members to commit suicide. I have five children that I don’t want to run that risk with. But that’s absolutely someone’s right.

It’s a shame that journalists are so busy sucking up to Mommy Watts that not one of them has asked gun control’s leading light to provide her definition of acceptable gun ownership. (The irony of the word “absolutely” in this context is exquisite.) The Obama supporter keeps her supposed support of our natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms intentionally vague – and for good reason. A closer examination would reveal that she spits on the Second Amendment.

As Ms. Watts continues her fight for gun control, as her stock has risen beyond her wildest dreams, she’s been forced to take a stance on various disarmament proposals. To paraphrase the Good Book, by her screeds she shall be known:

Q: What do you want to see happen?

A: Background checks. Banning assault weapons. If you ban the assault weapons listed in the (Sen. Dianne) Feinstein (D-Calif.) bill, you would still have 2,000 firearms to choose from. That seems like a fair amount. Track and regulate ammunition. It is harder to buy Sudafed in this country than it is to buy ammunition, which is pretty stunning to me.

Do I have to say it? Americans don’t have a right to buy Sudafed (nor do they have to have a background check to buy it). Saying that government-monitored ammunition sales will reduce “gun violence” is alike saying government-monitored condom sales will reduce teenage pregnancies. As for Ms. Watts’ assertion that 2k guns is an acceptable amount of choice for American gun buyers, who appointed her fascist dictator? I want politicians to decide what guns I need like I want the police to come into my house (at a time of their choosing) and inspect my firearms storage procedures. Oh wait . . .

Q: Do you have goals for the coming year?

A: Only 15 states have laws that hold adults criminally negligent for not storing firearms safely. If a 3-year-old gets your firearm, which just happened here, in only 15 states can they bring charges. We want to change the nomenclature. This idea that a shooting that involves a toddler is accidental is asinine. If I was drinking and driving and hit my son, I would immediately go to jail. But if I left my firearm on the top of the refrigerator and he found it and shot himself, everyone says, what a horrible accident.

Gun owners should be held liable for negligence. But there’s no “gap” in the law. Even in states without firearms-specific laws against insufficient firearms storage leading to death or bodily harm, negligent gun owners can be held accountable in both criminal and civil courts under statutes covering manslaughter, child neglect and endangerment and more.

Again, as intimated above, safe storage laws are the thin end of the wedge for government infringement on Americans’ gun rights. Check out the post-Newtown gun control bill in Washington state authorizing inspections in the name of “safety.” Meanwhile, MDA’s media push on “safe storage” laws “for the children” has already found fertile ground. Today’s poughkeepsiejournal.com announces Group seeks to strengthen N.Y.’s law on gun locks. 

Q: Have you been to Newtown, Conn.?

A: I have not. They want privacy. We had 70 events in 40 states on the anniversary of Newtown, and we didn’t have any in Newtown. This isn’t about Newtown. That could have been any town. This is about preventing the horrific, senseless and avoidable pain of losing somebody to gun violence. The gunman in Newtown took out 26 human lives in less than five minutes. It shouldn’t be that easy.

No, it shouldn’t. Which is about the only thing upon which gun rights advocates and Ms. Watts agree.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

142 COMMENTS

    • I’d like Ms. Watts to sincerely answer me why NJ, with its very strict gun laws, is home to some of the most dangerous cities? Go to NJ.com once a day, and you’ll be greeted by endless articles about ongoing violence in cities like Newark, Camden, Trenton or Paterson. All that crime still occurs while we already have an assault-weapons ban, magazine capacity limits, ammunition is sold to FOID holders only, and each sale is recorded by the sales clerk. Concealed carry does not exist, so it’s rather obvious that it’s not the law-abiding citizens who are taking their guns outside and shoot people. So with all the regulations and limitations in place already, can Ms. Watts please tell me how come none of those restrictions are working? We have all the bans in place that she wants, and yet there is no evidence that it makes people safer, quite the contrary.

      Oh, and one more thing:
      http://www.mediaite.com/online/new-study-demolishes-almost-every-gun-control-myth/

      • Mr. Pierogie,

        When you confront gun-grabbers with your argument, they will immediately claim that gun control does work if it is implemented everywhere. Or saying it another way, they will claim that gun control fails in New Jersey only because criminals can easily acquire firearms and/or ammunition in bordering states without New Jersey’s strict gun control laws. So if we could just get every state to implement draconian gun control, it would finally work.

        The death knell to that argument is simple. When the gun grabber admits that gun control is not working in New Jersey, they have tacitly admitted that criminals work around gun control laws. Make sure to point that out to them … and to tell them that criminals always find a way to get what they want. If government manages to shut down one distribution channel, criminals will open another … just like they do right now with illegal narcotics.

        • Ask them if Meth, Crack, Ecstasy, Coke, Weed and the like are legal to own.
          Do they really think gun bans will work any better?

        • That was a favorite tactic of Bloomberg’s – he’d go on and on how criminals in New York City were committing crimes BECAUSE OF lax gun laws in states like Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Bloomberg would blame these states for the acts of New York criminals.

  2. Their agenda was already revealed quite some time ago at http://momsdemandaction.org/about/. If you look at the 6 items they list there, the only thing new in this interview is the safe storage law. Everthing else is covered in these 6 items:

    1.Require background checks for all gun and ammunition purchases;
    2.Ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds;
    3.Track the sale of large quantities of ammunition, and ban online sales;
    4.Establish product safety oversight of guns and ammunition, and require child-safe gun technology;
    5.Support policies at companies and public institutions that promote gun safety;
    6.Counter the gun industry’s efforts to weaken gun laws at the state level

    • 5.Support policies at companies and public institutions that promote gun safety;

      Unless that company is the NRA then scream at the top of your lungs that they are a terrorist organization.

  3. Sure Americans have a right to buy Sudafed, just because the right has been trampled does not mean it does not exist. It comes under the right of free contract, protected by the ignored 9th and 10th Amendments.

    • +2
      I was going to comment on that as well, Human beings absolutely have a right to engage in exchange. Even if it isn’t articulated and protected, it still exists.

    • Furthermore, just because our idiot politicians passed a useless law to address the fictional problem of people buying out Walgreens and CVS to go all Walter White in some excluded trailer in the woods, doesn’t mean we continue to useless laws just because we feel it might, maybe, possibly, probably not, not likely address something.

    • Beat me to it. +1

      Lets not forget the only reason Sudafed is restricted is because of a Drug War most Liberty-conscious ostensibly do not support.

      • Actually it was due to a hijacking of the original Patriot Act by the DEA. They seemed to think that a pharmacy clerk wouldn’t recognize an illegal buy of 10 cases of Sudafed by a walking skeleton with scabs and no teeth because they had a “wicked bad cold, maaaan,”

    • . . . and, the analogy of guns to Sudafed is inapplicable because the very purpose of the 2A is to ensure that we will have guns to use in the event we need to overthrow the government. To make them analogous, imagine Sudafed being regulated by a federation of cold viruses and mucous.

      Every time, someone says “responsible, common sense regulation” you need to ask: “by whom?”

    • It’s been a while since you bought Sudafed, hasn’t it, Chris? It’s now locked up behind he counter. You have to sign your name to be allowed to purchase it, and your name is entered into a nationwide database of purchasers.

      I guess it wasn’t enough that they busted meth labs left & right for years and put the cookers in prison.

      Trampled, indeed.

  4. “We are not; many of our moms are gun owners. We believe that you have the right to protect yourself with a weapon if that’s what you choose to do.”

    Shenanigans!!!

    • Oh she supports to right to bear arms, as long as it is stored unloaded (which includes the magazines), field stripped with a trigger lock installed, a cable lock through the mag well, stored in an expensive safe, and the ammo stored in it’s own safe with all the locks/safes having their own combination with at least one being biometric.

      MDA is about as not anti-gun as MADD is not anti-drinking.

      • ” stored unloaded (which includes the magazines), field stripped with a trigger lock installed, a cable lock through the mag well, stored in an expensive safe, and the ammo stored in it’s own safe with all the locks/safes having their own combination with at least one being biometric.”…

        and down at the police station no less.

    • As long as you dont do something as silly as carry one around with you. Especially not at Starbucks or Office Max.

    • Yeeeeeeeeah …

      In one breath, she says “we believe that you have the right to protect yourself with a weapon if that’s what you choose to do.”

      In the next, she goes out and attempts to bully stores into prohibiting weapons, so that people cannot protect themselves with a weapon, if that’s what they choose to do.

      The contradiction in her words vs. her actions is stunning. Her statement is an outright lie.

      I wish the interviewer had asked her about that obvious contradiction. I would be curious as to her answer.

      • Their goal was to paint her in a good light… make her a saint looking out for our welfare. Not to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth (unless it was on the MAIG bible and sworn on in the name of mikey.)

  5. I don’t hate TTAG posting about Watts and her agenda, but I hate seeing that smug face so often. I’ll ask again. Could you paste some non irritating image over that mug? Even a solid silhouette would be less offensive. Or a unicorn with a rainbow over it.

    • Not quite a unicorn with a rainbow over it, but is this close enough?
      ww.youtube.com/watch?v=qRC4Vk6kisY

    • +2. Can’t stand looking at that dopey face. Have some fun with it…at least draw a Hitler mustache on it for Christ’s’s sake.

    • Watts is the “everywoman” ‘Plumpty Dumpty’ face of gun control propped up by her sponsor Bloomberg who finds it beneficial to have a Pillsbury Dough Girl image fronting the so-called grass roots initiatives of MDA.

      Watts just hasn’t fallen off the wall and cracked her veneer yet to expose the illegitimacy of all she claims to represent. We can thank the non-news media and its non-critical, non-investigative reporting for her – and Bloomberg’s – continued success with the MDA façade.

    • +100
      Please please.. I hate cleaning up vomit off my keyboard!
      I mean really use anything, puppies, unicorns, heck how about clowns! Anything but her face, PLEASE!!!!

  6. When it comes to comparisons (like buying Sudafed, driving cars, age limit for alcohol), can we please STOP ceding the argument that we “don’t have a right” to those things!? We absolutely DO have a natural, civil, and Constitutionally protected right to property! Just because we have allowed infringements upon the procurment, ingestion, use, or dispostion of said property, does not mean it doesn’t exist.

    I understand that you mean the property of arms are specifically mentioned while other property is only generally mentioned in the Constitution, but those who would happily enslave us are counting on ignorance, so let’s not perpetuate it.

    • The vast majority of Americans, including probably a majority of gun-owners (who are not all Libertarians), would disagree with you. Since Libertarians are already anti-gun-control, there’s little sense tailoring an argument towards them. Instead it’s better to aim at a wider audience.

      • Don’t we often look with disdain upon the inconsistency of “liberal” arguments and principles?

        When our position is it’s okay to regulate one product because of a few bad actors but NOT okay to regulate a different product because of a few bad actors, we come off looking silly.

        • Indeed. I’ll also point out …

          The vast majority of gun owners are peaceful people who have harmed no one. There are some bad guys who use guns, but the vast majority of gun owners are decent, law-abiding folks. They don’t intend to harm anyone else. If anything, they intend to defend themselves and other innocent people from the bad guys.

          The argument of “peaceful people who have harmed no one” is often the exact same argument that liberals use when discussing the repeal of marijuana prohibition.

          I’ll fully admit that I am a libertarian and fully support the re-legalization of drugs as well as the full restoration of the second amendment. But it’s not as if liberals don’t use libertarian arguments in their favor – they do, whenever it happens to fit their agenda.

          I see no reason we can’t use this in our favor regarding gun rights.

    • +1

      The right to bear arms is a specifically enumerated right. The founders understood that there were and would be in the future, even more rights that should be protected. The bill of rights just specifically names some rights that they found to be especially important.

  7. since alcohol kills more every yr than guns, why no demand for background checks and mandatory car breathalyzers??

    well, I cannot wait for NRA convention in Indiana this year. Maybe I will get invited to shannon’s house, I mean corporate HQ, for coffee

    • Because Moms dig their white or red wine (whine?) while emoting with other Moms about how tough their lives are. It’s a bonding thing, and those are protected with the full faith and credit of their reproductive systems, otherwise known as Mother Nature. Trifle with the inherent, emotive righteousness of sloppy use of birth control at your peril. Because they’re Moms!

    • This is the absolute height of hypocrisy, especially since alcohol serves to useful purpose beyond pleasure. Guns can bring pleasure, but they also have numerous practical applications (defense, hunting, etc.). There is literally NO REASON to own or drink alcohol. But I d possess alcohol and I drink it, and nobody gets hurt. I also keep and bear arms, and nobody gets hurt. Imagine that…

      If they want to go the whole social utility route, there is a much bigger social argument against alcohol. But oh yeah, we tried that…

      So yes, by their logic we should enact a whole slew of anti-alcohol acts. But no, we do for alcohol exactly what we should do with guns. “Please drink responsibly.” No pre-crime measures are called for, we just prosecute people who harm others through their actions while under the influence. It should be the same for people who own guns. If you harm someone or act irresponsibly, punish the act or the intent.

    • The sad thing is if they ever win the gun issue, the next step in controlling the public will likely be to require the car companies to install ignition interlocks on all new cars. I know there are already people out there who think this is a good idea, but they’re currently more of a fringe group because most of the liberal activists have focused on guns being worse than cars.

      Fast forward twenty or so years and the same people will be saying “nobody _needs_ to drive their own car, we need common sense regulation to ensure everyone lets the car drive itself, for the children.” After all, that tech already exists, unlike the biometric guns they like to imagine.

      • “…but they’re currently more of a fringe group because most of the liberal activists have focused on guns being worse than cars.”

        I think it’s more like “…but they’re currently more of a fringe group because most of the liberal activists drink like fish.” FIFY.

  8. Q:Is your group anti-gun?
    A:We are not; many of our moms are gun owners.

    When I heard that my eyes rolled and the only thought in my head was, you lying piece of s@#!. Of course USA Today is not going to ask what is the percentage of your members that are gun owners.

    • Right. Go to her site and post: “I’m a mom and a gun owner. I support the 2A and believe all moms should be able to own guns for self defense.”
      See how quickly you’ll be branded the enemy and barred, yet Watts claims she agrees with these points.

      • If she is a gun owner I bet a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue that she would not Open Carry at any one of her sponsered events.

      • There’s an idea. Everyone should post that sentence, or variant
        thereof, and see how long they last. Next have someone keep
        record of the number kicked off. Open the numbers to public so
        everyone can see how tolerant and supportive the MDA really
        is of anyone remotely pro 2nd A.

        Would anyone be interested in actually doing this?

        • Next Nashville rally they do I will be there holding a sign that says ‘Support 2nd Amendment? Prove It!”

  9. For 99% of anti-gun folks it’s all about registration, restrictions, banning, monitoring and confiscation. Sounds like Nazi Germany almost. And their belief is they will win this battle someday, and until then in order to feel somewhat vindicated and righteous they know that at least their impotent fight will hurt gun owners by raising prices on the law-abiding folks via politicians and media pushing this fear mongering and fake strength and support the gungrabbers claim to have, leaving them with a faint sense of victory just enough to make them feel like they are actually doing something good. These people are delusional, anti-gun folks could easily be labeled mentally ill and unpatriotic, if this country had grow up and become the nation our forefathers envisioned people like Watts would be dragged from their homes and jailed in public so others could walk by and spit on them. Anti-gun folks are to me as low as gangbangers and most criminals, there should be a law!

    • Agreed, they have little or no “skin in the game” and are after ‘stature’. These lying rhetoric spewing propagandist zealots posture themselves as if they are some sort of silver bullet majority when in fact they are a minority extremist movement *claiming* to represent a nonexistent majority supposedly in lock step with their gun control / gun seizure demands against all honorable law abiding citizens – the only gun holders MDA/MAIG can effectively impact.

      MDA/MAIG should be exposed for what they are – opportunists using a hand wringing issue to advance their political ideology, further their ‘careers’ and create what in their view would be a positive legacy.

      To the stocks with all of them!

  10. She’s a paid Bloomberg mouthpiece. Regurgitating these talking points is her job. She’s the second coming of Baghdad Bob.

    • +1. And USATODAY is as despicable as CNN was in paying for access to the “news” by agreeing to allow Bagdad Bob to approve their “reporting”. (Eason Jordan 2003).

      Makes you wonder how much Bloomie paid USATODAY for this product placement.

      PS: dont confuse USATODAY with news.
      Its an ad rag pur and simple.

      The news is a conglomeration of AP bylines and WX state by state and stale Morningstar data on mutual funds. They fired their news staff in 2010 and hired Callaway who used to work for Bloomie. 50% of the 1.8m “subscribers” are the “free” copies they leave at he door of hotel rooms empty or not and then charge unsuspecting guests…

      http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/08/02/how-usa-today-slips-82-million-a-year-onto-your-hotel-bill/

      • And “opinion” puff pieces selected by their “diverse” editorial staff… (wikipedia).

        Its about as credible as Patch. Or FakeBook.
        Which is close enough for the self-referential liberal PTA Mom segment that Watts represents…

  11. The problem we have with people like Watts is that widely circulated Media, like USA Today, persist in giving her reportage and creating the illusion she has something worthwhile to say and/or that the spurious propaganda drivel she spews constitutes valid arguments. This gives the low-information Public the idea that her agitprop has some validity. USA Today would NEVER consider presenting side-by-side Q&A reportage with Watts and, say, Alan Gottlieb of the SAF because that would result in a “fair and balanced” discussion. Worse yet, some people might come away realizing Watts is nothing but a stooge spouting someone else’s propaganda (Hint: he’s the outgoing Mayor of NYC) and write those checks to SAF instead of MDA..
    Annoying as it may be, it is important to know what propaganda the Anti-Second Amendment (anti-freedom) totalitarians are spreading and by which venues, so I thank RF for reporting on this stuff. However, I would add that there should be a Law banning toddlers from using ladders tall enough to get to the top of a refrigerator…for their own Safety…mind you.

  12. F*ck off woman, what is “fair” is not to be decided by you or any of those hypocritical power hungry govt d-bags…

  13. “If I was drinking and driving and hit my son, I would immediately go to jail.”

    If she was drinking and target shooting, and hit her son, she’d immediately go to jail too.

    “But if I left my firearm on the top of the refrigerator and he found it and shot himself, everyone says, what a horrible accident.”

    But if she left her car keys on top of the refrigerator, her son found them, and crash the car killing himself, everyone would also say what a horrible accident.

    I hate to say it but her analogies aren’t saying exactly what she wants them to say.

      • +1 Me too. Scary thing is, there are too many people out there who don’t see through this and feel it’s a good point that maybe gun laws aren’t restrictive enough.

  14. So she believes you can absolutely defend yourself with a weapon… but that’s as far as it goes.

    Incidentally, given the state in which I live, I would LOVE to be able to buy guns they way I buy Sudafed (takes a signature, photo ID, and about 2 minutes). In states with more freedom YMMV.

    • The way it SHOULD be is that you can buy a gun and/or ammo requiring ONLY your proof of payment to the Merchant…that’s how it was before the GCA of 1968…oh, you could not buy a fully automatic arm because of the Firearms Act of 1934 in 1968, so just to be clear.

    • She says she believes in the “right” to defend yourself with a weapon.

      She just doesn’t believe you should be allowed to exercise that right.

  15. Can’t a bad guy just use one of those 2000 guns she wants us to choose from and still commit 26 murders in 5 minutes? Last time I checked, a 5.56x45mm bullet from a Ruger mini-14 without a collapsable buttstock is as deadly as one from an AR-15. What do they really want to accomplish with an AWB?

    Also, handguns are used to commit murder and violent crime on an exponentially higher level than a rifle of any kind. Yet, they want an AWB and ban guns that are used in less than 3% of crime. Once again, what are they trying to accomplish with an AWB?

    Personally, I see through it. They just need that first step and legitimize banning guns. Once they get their foot in the door, don’t fool yourself, semi-auto pistols are next.

    • In the AWB scenario, that conditions us to classes of weapons being banned. Of course that has no real impact on crime, so now we have to go after the ones actually used in crime. They would probably go after the Semi Auto handgun first. Ban them. Crime still exists, go after revolvers next. It’s the Pavlovian Theory of conditioning without the electricity.

      • Maybe. I think the anti’s will go after semi-auto shotguns (media buzz phrase: “Police-Style Shotguns”) before they will try and go after handguns again. They learned in the 70’s and 80’s that going after handguns didn’t really work for them, hence all the gun control groups changing their names along with their tactics. But who knows, maybe if they start going after handguns they’ll trot out their old “Saturday Night Special” lingo for all the sub compacts and pocket pistols on the market.

    • What do they really want to accomplish with an AWB?
      ——————————————————————————
      Have a precedence of a list of firearms that are banned, then slowly introduce legislation that puts all firearms on that list, all the while claiming they are not anti-Second Amendment.

    • Completely agree. Five minutes is 300 seconds. There are few weapons in common circulation that could not have been used to do what he did.

      The lesson people refuse to learn is the primary weapon the Newtown murderer had wasn’t an AR or any other gun, it was time alone with his helpless victims before an armed response. With all that time, almost anything that amplified the force over his bare hands would have sufficed. This is true of all the other spree shooters, of course.

      As the Arapahoe incident showed, take away that time, and the massacre doesn’t happen. It was tragic that one girl lost her life, but if it hadn’t been for the very fast armed response, there would have been many more lives lost that day.

      • ” … the primary weapon the Newtown murderer had wasn’t an AR or any other gun, it was time alone with his helpless victims before an armed response.” (emphasis mine)

        Ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner.

        A young man in average physical condition could easily kill 26 people in 5 minutes with a mediocre sword (assuming that it was sharp). A spree killer’s choice of weapon is not the root problem. The root problem is that spree killers act out unopposed for 5 to 20 minutes or more.

  17. I bet Sudafed, through conversion to meth, contributes to significantly more death and injury than “assault weapons” as defined by DiFi.

  19. Public Relations
    An industry founded by Bernese, a Progressive, the man who referred to People as ‘animals’ who needed to be ‘herded’. pushed, nudged, shoved,

  20. Does this mean Mrs. Watt’s disagrees with President Obama’s executive action to deny re-entry of US made WWII relics, like the M1, or M1a? Of the 2,000 “exempt” firearms on Feinsteins AWB (most of which are not AW’s, per their own definition), the M1 and M1a are listed as being OK.

  22. “the data shows that a gun in your house is more likely to be used against you or by one of your family members to commit suicide.”

    I hate this myth due to an incomplete outcomes fallacy. I think they are computing “guns used in suicide” / “guns used in justifiable homicide”. The accurate measurement would be “guns used in suicide” / “guns not used in suicide”. To speak nothing of the deterrent value, which is hard to measure but certainly can be described as “common sense”.

    -D

    • I was about to point this out. Maybe a gun in her house “is more likely to be used against [her] or by one of [her] family members to commit suicide.” because she’s such an insufferable pain in the ass – either somebody wants to put her down, or they want to suicide to escape the incessant whining.

  24. “The gunman in Newtown took out 26 human lives in less than five minutes. It shouldn’t be that easy.”

    But it is exactly that easy, thanks to the hoplophobic statists like “Moms” Watts. They have made it nearly impossible for any honest citizen to carry arms in a school or other “Gun Free Zone”, thus guaranteeing that a homicidal nutcase has a perfect killing ground. The effectiveness of an armed responder in the schools was recently proven in Colorado, where the most recent socialist nutcase shooter was stopped within 80 seconds by an ARMED officer on duty at the school. That works in those areas with enough police presences to have one in each school, but it leaves the smaller, poorer areas on their own.

    Ms. Watts, Obama, Pelosi, Bloomberg, Feinstein, and their ilk share the moral responsibility for all deaths in Victim Disarmament Zones.

  25. I love the Sudafed argument.
    If the Bad Guys can’t get pseudoephedrine, they can’t make meth. If they can’t make meth, people won’t get addicted to it. Restrict how much Sudafed people can buy, ask for ID and signatures, and a dangerous drug problem is solved. Pat yourselves on the back for a knee-jerk solution that’s sure to make a better community.
    Problem is, restrictions only work until the Bad Guys find a new supplier for ingredients. The meth manufacturers found a new source and they ended up creating a purer product than they could with OTC medications. Now even more people are addicted to the [more powerful] illicit drug.
    Sudafed restrictions made the meth problem worse, using it as a ‘pro restriction/good example’ prop piece isn’t the best idea.

    • Chris, you didn’t even mention that while those who chose to become meth addicts continue to find their fixes, those who did not choose sinusitis continue to struggle over ever more hurdles (with the decline of antibiotic effectiveness) to get the medication necessary to preserve their lives.

  26. Shameless woman to speak for the dead vets and hunters that her grandfathers supposedly represent.

    I’m a vet and a hunter and she doesn’t speak for me.

    The honored dead of WW2 gave their lives to free people from those who DID take their right to self defense and in the case of the Nazi’s it started with gun registration.

  27. “A: Background checks. Banning assault weapons. If you ban the assault weapons listed in the (Sen. Dianne) Feinstein (D-Calif.) bill, you would still have 2,000 firearms to choose from. That seems like a fair amount. Track and regulate ammunition. It is harder to buy Sudafed in this country than it is to buy ammunition, which is pretty stunning to me.”
    This puppy is being bread on D. Frankenstein’s TIT(can’t find a more apropos word) and backed by FRAU Bloomberg!

  28. “It is harder to buy Sudafed in this country than it is to buy ammunition, which is pretty stunning to me.”

    It really is stunning how much government overreach we already have isn’t it? But hey! Let’s pile on some more. What could possibly go wrong right?

  29. Her job is to appeal to the Oprah/GMA/Today Show/The View/CNN watching set of uninformed and easily manipulated females and metrosexuals, the set who are absolutely freaked out by the sight of a firearm, who are either too indoctrinated or lazy to take the time to learn the facts of firearms ownership and safe shooting.

  30. The reality is that MDA and specifically the high priced whore that is Shannon Watts and her new pimp Bloomberg are exactly the same as child pornographers and sex traffickers.

    They are all in the business of exploiting children to line their pockets. Their children, dead children it doesn’t matter. Whore them all out to further the cause!

  32. Whatever Shannon Watts / Shannon Troughton / Marmion Troughton is talking about, she’s talking about money. That’s who she is. That’s all she is.

  33. Regardless of what the leftists/liberals say, there is ALWAYS an underlying agenda…We all know that leftists/liberals do not live in the real world, they’re living in some 1950’s sci-fi movie world where there is no more violence, just Unicorns and rainbows, for the rest of us who live in the real world, we know and see the truth…

  34. And we see the pattern of carefully staged puff pieces masquerading as news at the reliable State Run Media™ outlets: CNN, MSNBC, and now USATODAY…

    Waiting for the NYT… 3,2,1….

  35. Shannon watts is an attention whore who has figured out what the other liberals have…to profit off of people emotions…plain and simple! she has no real plan to make a difference with guns or mental health.

  36. “I don’t (choose to) because the data shows that a gun in your house is more likely to be used against you or by one of your family members to commit suicide. I have five children that I don’t want to run that risk with.”

    Read: I don’t because I’m to irresponsible to own one. Fin.

    • “And my medicated, sociopathic children secretly hate me and would use a gun on me.”

      Fixed it for her.

    • I would bet quite a bit of money on Shannon having a gun (or several) in her house. But even if we were to play along with the forked tongued puppet’s claim that she does not, I think it’s already been mentioned how she lives in a gated mcmansion community. I wonder if it’s one of those communities that has armed private security… for the children of course.

  37. All that safe storage laws do is raise the monetary bar for gun ownership. They often double or triple the price of buying a first gun, which keeps poor people, the people who often live in the highest crime areas, from being able to defend themselves. Gun control is rooted in slavery and racism. The natural extension of that to the modern world is gun control based on elitism and classism.

    • I agree. Safe storage laws place requirements on owning a gun. Creating laws that punish irresponsible storage after the fact though seems like actual “common sense.” If you want to leave your gun on your coffee table loaded, fine go ahead. There should be no law against that. But if your three year old comes by and picks it up and shoots themselves or someone else, then yeah there should be laws that hold you criminally and civilly responsible for that negligence.

      I hate to say it and give her any credit at all, but her quote on that is actually something the gun community tends to agree on. “We want to change that nomenclature.” Don’t we talk about that all time here on TTAG? It’s not an accidental discharge it’s a negligent one. I think if a state has laws that punish negligent behavior it’s a good thing. Trying to regulate it before hand with safe storage requirements is an infringement though.

      • We already have laws for reckless endangerment and criminally negligent homicide, so it’s covered.

        Here’s a crazy thought: I’ve heard this whole “crime and punishment” thing has been around for a few years, so maybe we could check to see if there are existing laws that cover these situations, instead of making a new one every single time.

  39. Kathy Jackson, author of “The Cornered Cat” and full-time firearms instructor, raised her 5 boys while home-carrying! Like to see her debate Ms. Watts.

    • Or Paxton Quigley, Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, Marion Hammer or Sandra Froman debate her. I’d like to see Watts explain to Sarah McKinley, the young Oklahoma widow who shotgunned a knife-wielding intruder a year or so ago, about how she shouldn’t have killed the miscreant.

  40. //We believe that you have the right to protect yourself with a weapon …//

    My recollection is that a year ago one of the stated MDA goals was the roll-back of shall issue carry laws, which hardly qualifies as supporting self-defense.

  41. With that Disney-esque doe-eyed look, she’d better stay out of the forest during hunting season. Someone might mistake her for Bambi.

  42. No wonder she and her droogs can’t see clearly, they has done so many drugs that her eyes are perma-goofy… (see her pic)

  43. RF…

    I disagree with your “No right to buy Sudafed” comment. One of the most overlooked and important pieces of the Constitution seems to be the Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

    At the time the Bill of Rights was written, many worried the inclusion of specific rights would imply people possessed those rights alone, which was never the intent of the Bill of Rights or any other part of the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment was included to make sure that point was never forgotten. We promptly forgot it.

    The Ninth Amendment says we have the right to keep and bear arms even if the Second Amendment didn’t… which it does. The Ninth also guarantees my right to Sudafed so long as someone is willing to produce it and sell it to me in a mutually agreed upon transaction with a single state (pesky Commerce Clause).

  44. I’m bettering that shes one of those that doesn’t know anything factual about the use of firearms but claims to be an expert and highly knowledgeable.

    • Well she does claim to be an expert in “gun violence” even though she admits she never had “gun violence” affect her or her family.

  45. What Ms Watts and Moms Demand will never openly tell you is that they wholeheartedly support mass arrests of gun owners who will not comply with bans. And I`m going to call BS on her claims that they have gun owners who are members of MDA. Recently I had a Twitter debate with a MDA member who claimed to be a Class 3 dealer. Another load of bull squeeze. MDA never tells you how much gun control is enough.

  46. “I don’t (choose to) because the data shows that a gun in your house is more likely to be used against you or by one of your family members to commit suicide.”

    Is this stat true? Where is this derived from? Anyone know?

    • The statement is from a 1986 study by Arthur Kellerman that stated that if you had a gun in your house, it was 43 times more likely to kill a friend or family member than save your life. That number was called into question fairly quickly due to some shoddy stats with an extremly small sample size (one county over a 5 year period). Kellerman later “revised” the number to 22 times more likely to again face academic scrutiny. The final “revised” number was 2.7 times more likely in the early 1990’s which has also been challenged by several in the academic community including Gary Kleck.

      For more information go here: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html and here: http://guncite.com/gun-control-kellermann-3times.html

        • No problem. There is much more to it though. The progs like to frame the stat as proof there is more danger to owning guns than not owning guns. Which isn’t true (as the most recent study commissioned by Obama and the CDC showed: http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Priorities_for_Research.pdf ) The reality is that of course “gun owners” are more likely to be injured by a gun than those that don’t own a gun. Just as people that own knives are more likely to be cut by a knife, people that drive cars are more likely to be injured/killed in an automotive accident, firefighters are more likely to die/be injured in a fire, etc, etc. Another aspect of the statistics that is ignored pertains to criminals that “own guns” (stolen or not) and are lumped together with law-abiding citizens. There is no effort to even remove those that are shot by police or citizens during a criminal action. I could go on of course, but I’m sure you get the idea. There is some good information out there from academic sources including a great read in the Harvard Law Journal of Law and Public Policy (done, in part, by a professor from Yale) http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf that has similar challenges to the “more likely” argument. Hope that gets you started. As you know, a good solid knowledge base is what separates us from the anti’s. Happy hunting.

  48. Yeah, they’re always after me lucky charms.

    (Okay, so she is wearing a necklace instead of a bracelet. Work with me!)

  49. I agree with her. Buying a gun should be as hard as buying Sudafed.

    Show your ID at the counter, pay for it and walk out the door. And you’re limited to one transaction per day, per store.

  52. That woman look CRAZY. I’m surprised anyone could look at that picture and think otherwise.

    Make that SHOCKED. She do look crazy; she look crazy as a drunken owl!

  53. The data also shows that:
    A criminal who breaks into your home can hurt your family, these days, sometimes even for fun.
    If you have your firearms in a safe nobody can get to them other than you when is needed.
    If you have some decent training in emergency handling and firearms your home and family will be a lot safer.

    And finally, if you are hopeless and cannot hold a job you might not have the little wisdom necessary
    to consider any of the above then in this case it might be wise also to stay away from firearms but also
    engaging on any activity where some caution and minimal intelligence is needed like driving a muscle car or
    operating any dangerous machinery.

  54. This is the same chic running the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which by the way is such a BS facebook page, anyone, and I mean anyone, who posts anything other than there agenda is immediately banned from the page and posts will be deleted. I posted on there FB page that they “the moms” should also look into how SSRIs(Zoloft, Prozac and the like) are directly related to most, if not all, school-shootings, and that they should do a search on the subject. And guess what, post deleted and I was banned from posting on that page ever again, why, because Im exposing Big Pharmacy and the real core problem of kids with guns, but they dont want people to know this, they just want to go after all persons, and all guns. PERIOD ! Dont believe me, log into your facebook profile and just simply post on their page that “theres a correlation to drugs(SSRIs) and gun violence in schools”. And I guarantee you 100% your post WILL be deleted, and you WILL never again be able to post on the site. That in itself speaks volumes. Or say anything about the NRA(unless its negative) and again, you will be deleted/banned. They dont wanna hear any truths or facts, they just wanna cram there agenda down peoples throats. So not only is she anti-gun, she is anti-free-speech.

  55. THEY still believe that the proven false study that guns in the home are more dangerous than safe for the home owner. The Kellerman study was made up of nothing but lies without thread of accuracy. Dr Kellerman was found to be a charlatan and was dishonored by Emory University.

    • Pardon me, but I think you’re referring to Michael Bellisiles, who wrote a book purporting to show that gun ownership in the early years of the Republic was rare. His findings were scrutinized by a panel of three persons, who found him engaging in fraudulent scholarship, and bogus research. He won a prize for his book, that wound up being rescinded.

      Kellerman’s “research” was also debunked because he compared Seattle with Vancouver B.C. – their crime rates and gun ownership rates – and came up with that 43 number.

  56. These people always say the same thing; “the lessor citizens will still have over 2,000 guns to choose from”, yea, revolvers, and bolt action or pump rifles and shot guns. In resisting the bad guys or tyranny, we might as well be using spears and arrows. In the old days one could own a rifle with less than a 16″ barrel or a shotgun with less than a 18″ barrel or a long gun with less than 30″ over all length or a pistol with a butt stock or a semi auto rifle with detachable mags and a pistol grip or a folding or telescopic butt stock or a fore grip or a flash suppressor,or all of the above or a machine gun if the same handed over finger prints, registered the weapon and paid Uncle Sam a $200 tax. The same applied to a silencer, because all of the above were considered useful militia weapons. Oops, did I use a four letter word. In California we can only use 10 round magazines, while the bad guys and the govt uses whatever size mags they deem necessary.

    Today, we have been programed to believe we are the servant class and the bureaucrats and politicians the ruling class. Really, the opposite is true, we are the ruling class. Where I live in California, if I join the local police force as a volunteer reserve officer, I all of a sudden become worthy to carry a concealed weapon while off duty and am then in a position to protect myself and family while away from our home, where the FBI says most violent crime occurs.

    My nephew became a deputy in another state, joined swat and was promptly given a machine gun to take home to keep with him at all times. I am trying to figure out why that irritates me so much. The servant class dictates to the ruling how individual rights will be interpreted. And to be sure, whatever restrictions they put on us, never applies to them.

    I’m just saying

    Can you think of any other individual right in the constitution where individual states can restrict that right more than the Federal govt does?

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