If you managed to sit through the state of the union speech the other night, you were treated to sympathetic shots (so to speak) of victims. Victims of gun violence — people who had either been shot themselves or had a loved one killed by someone with a gun while committing a crime. Like all SOTU speeches, they were there as an act of political theater — agitprop designed to further the President’s civilian disarmament agenda. As Emily Miller describes the evening’s stage management, “Arrangements were made so TV cameras would pan to the faces of victims of gun violence in the House galleries. Emotional drama, as opposed to reasoned argument, is the primary weapon in the administration’s campaign to undermine a fundamental constitutional right.” And the Congressional gun-grabber caucus made no bones about it. They’d practically advertised the fact in advance . . .
They’d invited “dozens” of victim-participants to help push new, more restrictive gun control legislation. So what was the response to all this by the GOP and others who ostensibly support Second Amendment rights?
Ted Nugent. Make no mistake, Ted did a pretty good job of representing the pro-2A side without going his usual full gonzo. But where were the victims who, because of (the MSM would say despite) their experience, advocate expanding concealed carry and protection of Americans’ right to keep and bear arms?
Mark Hess is just such a shooting victim. He took a bullet to the leg in a spree shooting at an Air Force hospital near Spokane in 1994. He’s since moved to his home town of Dixon, Illinois so he knows from bad firearms laws.
“Lawmakers sit behind metal detectors and guards to go to work every day, while school kids never get that luxury,” Hess said in his letter. “If we lose our Second Amendment right to these lawmakers, then we deserve what we get. Stand up and tell them to change the law or step out from behind their security and live the risk we live with every day.”
If saukvalley.com can manage to find someone like Hess, why the hell couldn’t Congressional Republicans? The NRA could certainly have dug up just as many pro-2A shooting and DGU survivors to present the Constitutional side of the coin as the anti-freedom side managed. Why didn’t they? Is anyone in a position of authority on the RKBA side awake? Hello?
Give that man a cigar.
Indeed. Where the hell are the women who were raped or family members of people killed because they were forced to wait to long for a carry permit or to buy a firearm? Where are the people who successfully protected themselves and others by using (or brandishing, or threatening to use) a firearm? What about the victims of gun violence while in ‘gun free zones’ who wish they had a firearm and are arguing for self empowerment through personal responsibility and the use of a gun?
I don’t smoke. Thanks anyway
DEMAND A BODYGUARD.
They need more ppl like this guy showing idiots the truth!
They are idiots because they know the truth and ignore it.
A modest proposal: A constitutional amendment requiring all state and federal officials to live under the laws they pass for everyone else. Hey, they used to say powered flight was impossible, till it happened.
i am also waiting for the meme that says “Why does anyone need a AR15 rifle?”
and have Obama and all the other gun grabbers, with Dorner’s face at the end.
Pinning normal AR15 gun owners with the likes of Lanza and Holmes is their MO, we can fight back
True. There’s no law that says the enemies of freedom get to set the terms of debate. These people are bullies, and if they think they’re going to get hit in the nose, they’ll run. Remember 1994.
“The NRA could certainly have dug up just as many pro-2A shooting and DGU survivors to present the Constitutional side of the coin. Why didn’t they? Is anyone in a position of authority on the RKBA side awake? Hello?”
That attitude bothers me. Too bad the SAF is too busy sleeping to be winning landmark court cases. And of course the NRA is doing absolutely nothing right now, right Dan? Are they supposed to enact every single idea some random guy on the internet has? Their resources aren’t unlimited. Plus, we have logic on our side. We don’t need to stoop to the level of using this emotional BS. Getting shot doesn’t make you an expert on anything other than what it feels like to be shot, and definitely doesn’t confer some magical ability to be an expert on gun laws. THEIR side thinks like that. We dont.
And are you even a voting member of the NRA? Do you actually vote? Why don’t you run for election as a board member?
You’re an employee of the largest gun blog on the internet, why don’t you use your “position of authority on the RKBA side” to profile these people yourself?
Complaining like that accomplishes nothing. How about using your position to promote the best tool we have in the RKBA arsenal rather than crap on it?
This is not an unreasonable response.
You might have noticed that a large portion of the anti-gun population does not use or accept reason.
I would like to add a meaningful comment to this post, but that H&R Block ad is raping my screen.
this ad thing is seriously ghetto.
We libertarians and empowered individualists have a distinct disadvantage to authoritarians and collectivists. They prey on and pursue us, relentlessly. They spend most of their energy and resources imposing themselves, their ideology, views and lifestyle choices on us. We spend most of our time and resources fending off the onslaught. We just want to be left alone.
At best, we stand still, and rarely that. Until we start pushing back HARD, and exposing their bigoted, tyrannical and fascist tactics, we will continue to lose ground.
Agreed. We can spend our whole day pushing back against them, or we can shove their butts to the ground and rest a little while that get up and dust themselves off. Arguable that rest has been 2004 -2012. We are back to pushing, so whats the next initiative for putting them back on their butts?
They didn’t want to find any. Simple as that. Just wait till all this crap come to a vote and watch how quick main-stream “Republicans” cave and “compromise” in a “spirit of true bi-partisanship”
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Just look at how bad the republicans have screwed up the last two presidential elections. And then they elected that cry baby as the speaker of the house. Some days I truly believe they’re just closet progressives who have taken over the party.
I am old enough to remember when the news reports were about the conservatives and liberals fighting in congress, the conservatives were Democrats, and the liberals were Republicans. The Republican party was the party of progressivism and statism form it’s birth. They are conservative now only in relation to the Dems, who made a sharp left turn about a hundred years ago, ending up somewhere just barely right of the CPA
Quit voting for them.
This popup ad nonsense is ridiculous. Someone needs to slap a web designer.
Considering the Dems could enter political chambers with AR’s and pistols while the Repubs were denied the same, maybe this fallacy applied to victim types as well?
A Must See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6R3rx5LfUo
“Less than 20 years ago, I was the target of a terrorist group. It was the New World Liberation Front. They blew up power stations and put a bomb at my home when my husband was dying of cancer and the bomb was set to detonate around 2 ‘o clock in the morning, but it was a construction explosive that doesn’t detonate when it drops below freezing. It doesn’t usually freeze in San Francisco, but on this night it dropped below freezing and the bomb didn’t detonate. “I was very lucky, but I thought of what might have happened. Later the same group shot out all the windows of my home and I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself, because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. When I walked to the hospital when my husband was sick, I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out I was going to take them with me.”
I think pro-gun legislators should attach an ammendment to every piece of anti-gun legislation that does exactly what he says, makes them step out from behind their protections. If they are going to vote away our means of self defence, they should give up their own.
This isn’t what I wanted to be famous for. I’d rather people were aware of the fact that when the Government finally settled with victims , I was excluded. spent a year trying to find out why on that one.
Momma , don’t let your babies grow up to be soldiers.
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