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RF went toe to toe with Stop Handgun Violence’s Jon Rosenthal on Boston’s Fox affiliate. Enjoy.

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108 COMMENTS

      • He strongly believes that the Founding Father’s wanted to protect our right to have .22’s for shooting paper targets. Anything else makes you a mentally unstable criminal terrorist.

    • I agree. Bravo, Robert. And thank you for making the point about Connecticut’s restrictive gun laws. Your opponent showed his desperation at the end when he blurted out “More guns, more crime”. Rosenthal is about as pro-Second Amendment as Diane Frankenstein. And why do they always have to have the last word? What a maroon.

  3. So Rosenthal is a gun owner and supports the 2A. But only what HE thinks is necessary or required. Gee thanks DBag.

    • +1

      By Rosenthal’s rational, only colonial era firearms would be appropriate for a well armed militia to keep tyranny at bay. I’m sure the framers didn’t imagine any of our country’s modern weaponry, but I believe they intended for us to be able to defend ourselves and our country from enemies foreign or domestic.

      • The connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon–so long as there is no answer to it–gives claws to the weak.The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans–even Tibetans–could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one …The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon–or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting–not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.

        — George Orwell
        October 19,1945

  4. I’m impressed. Mr. Farago maintained his cool very, very well in the face of some very insulting, offensive, and, honestly, childlike behaviour. Very well done!

    • That’s why we’ll win in the end. Their side only has emotion, fantasy and wishful thinking. We have fact, rationality and empirical experience. People will almost always err on the side of those factors, when confronted with sufficiently compelling evidence.

      Well done Robert. You showed the cool, calm rationality that is our side’s trade mark. My only gripe is when you said that there are 150 million guns in civilian hands in this country. We all know that there are over 300 million guns in civilian hand. I attribute this to a glitch under pressure. No harm, no foul.

      Jon is an elitist ideologue and a very immature one at that. I was embarrassed for him. But I got over that fairly quickly.

      In this country, the genie is long out of the bottle and will never be re-corked. Ever!! You can talk all day about AWB’s, magazine capacities,, waiting periods, micro-stamping, loopholes, sporting purposes, yada, yada, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. We are too far past any of that. The debate now centers on existential threats, micro and macro. They are real, they are omnipresent, they are a part of our everyday lives. What and how is the best way to deal with them?

      • “My only gripe is when you said that there are 150 million guns in civilian hands in this country. We all know that there are over 300 million guns in civilian hand.”

        Mr. Farago was correct. Unfortunately 150 million firearms have been lost in tragic boating accidents, including mine.

    • He did? Must have been in the second half. After Rob finished his first bit and the moron started talking again, I had to turn it off. I just can’t deal with that level of stupidity.

  5. We stayed quiet a few days to not try an profit from the tragedy… Now its time to meet the Gun Control fools head on and crush them.

    The only way to protect children is to let teachers get carry permits and bring their guns to school.

    • No what we need is people who know how to use a gun protect each other.
      How do you know a janitor armed could not have stopped this wacko.

      Stop trying to treat the Symptom and go after the causes.

  7. thank you RF for being a knowledgable and respectable representative of us who share you views. as for the guy talking about “clips”, higher capacity doesn’t = more carnage. ask the CO movie theater shooter.

  8. Nice job. Hey??? Did the guys who recieved firearms through fast and furious have to get a back ground check? That was a government run program right? There was a US agent killed in that debacle….. Brian Terry… Right? So, the US government can give fully automatic weapons away to criminals but a law abiding US citizen has to endure multiple hoops and BS to exercise a constitutional right?
    I have to be misunderstanding something….

  9. Well done RF. Remember not to argue with idiots. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

  12. God, I hate to be a d!#k, but when did we go from over 300 million guns in America, down to 150 million? Or did I misunderstand what you said Robert?

      • I was hoping after his comments about “Those guns didn’t show up in crimes, so the scary looking weapons ban worked!” that you would point out the FBI report (as well as other reports) analyzing the effect of the AWB on crime, which showed no effect at all. I hate idiots like this guy who think it’s OK for someone to be murdered with a handgun, but not with an AR-15.

  13. W… T… F…

    Hezbollah and Al Qaeda come to the US…. to buy guns…. Yeah I heard that too. I am surprised you didn’t pounce on that. Where’s proof of that BS statement?

    I think you made him mad Robert. I wish you had more time. We need a good, educated debate that is televised.

    • Yeah, I caught that one too. I haven’t heard that one before. It’s funny that they call us lunatics because we stick up for our second amendment rights and yet this guy was making up lies left and right.

    • Yeah, that had me laughing out loud. Hezbollah and Al Qaeda arming their entire organization by lining up at gun shows… Best joke I’ve heard all day. (Wait…he was serious?)

    • Hezbollah and Al Qaeda come to the US…. to buy guns???
      Yeah Right???
      Just like the Drug Cartels come to the USA??? Because they can’t get them anywhere else???.
      LOL
      RF you did good, but I would have called him on Hezbollah and Al Qaeda???
      Guy22

    • if they did, they wouldn’t have to buy them. the gov would start fast and furious part 2 and give them to the terrorists.

  15. They should have allowed you 20 minutes to firmly put your boot in that guy’s ass and call him out on every single false statement he provided.

    • No he did not win that all most people will see is the Idiot Interrupting and you letting him.
      Smack them down as soon as they go off the rails.
      He got the last word not You.
      Why do you think he kept repeating I am a gun owner I am reasonable and just want another set of Unrealistic Gun laws till the Next time.
      The second exists to overthrow Tyrannical Governments.
      You know the Kind who let crazies run around and Kill people instead of having them in a reasonable Hospital to get reasonable care.
      and To protect a reasonable amount of Folk from harm.

  19. Rosenthal relied on the typical sensationalization and emotion. He belts out that the 2nd amendment wasnt written to allow criminals and the mentally ill to have guns. Instantly the uninformed think that gun rights folks dont care about criminals having guns, which is ridiculous. RF you shouldve fired back immediately on that, and on his perpetual distortion of fact. We all do. We cant go those kind of statements go unchallenged.

    • It’s more important to be respectful and calm than it is to shoot down every bit of erroneous information. I felt I was able to avoid the “gun nut” label and make the point that needed making: gun laws don’t work. Guns do.

      I consider it a bonus that John was the stat-spouting guy (zzzzz) while I appealed to the audience’s emotions. Normally, with gun control debates, it’s the other way around.

      And man did I get an adrenalin hit. Keep calm and carry on? Not as easy as it sounds. But worth it to spread the message.

      • Quite frankly I’m impressed with the way you handled yourself and I’m glad you were the one who debated. I think many of us would have fallen for the bait.

        I found it interesting that the host had to quiet Rosenthal, who was acting very immature. It was even funnier since I get the impression that the host is pro gun control (though I could be wrong). Also, kudos to the station for actually having a debate instead of just having a grabber on to further his agenda.

      • RF, you did what 85% of us could not have done… stay cool and be the clear winner.

        we cant give you enough thanks.

      • Wow. Robert, you need to hit me up next time you blow through UT. I got a pitcher and some wings with your name on them.
        As one anonymous poster to another like minded guy, you made me damn proud to frequent this site.

      • I thought you did a great job Robert. It is nice to see someone that looks respectable, and is well spoken speak up for us. Thank you. You completely avoided sounding/acting like a gun nut, and showed your opponent respect (even if he was childish). Great job representing us.

      • As a gun owner, i owe you a debt of thanks. You did us good speaking on the show. And on this blog. Keep up the good work.

  20. Way to stick to the simple morals and reasoning of our argument. Even though we could crush the individual little historical and technical data points (and lies) (as Bruce brilliantly did in your other post), in a 5 min blurb like this it’s best to stick to the basics.
    How can he claim there are no regulations on manufacturing (among so many other fallacies).
    And finally, just to vent on Rosethrall’s final comment, I hate how reducing crimes where a gun is used is their all-holy goal, while seemingly ignoring total crime. Removing (not banning) all yellow shoes will stop yellow-shoe-crime, but who cares if shoe-crime (or simply “crime”) doesn’t drop?

  24. Should have said too the AR was CT complicit so the AWB didnt do anything it had no Evil Bayonet lug or flash hider. The Picture is of a Military M-4 not a AR. But good Job RF you make me happier today.

  25. All one has to do is visit a prison to see what happens when no one has guns. Drugs, murder and rape still happen.

  26. How incredibly rude of Joe. Interrupting, feeling the need to squeak in the last word…

    Great job RF on being the bigger man here.

  27. So those folks I see walking around the gun shows wearing camouflage are al-Qaeda and Hezbollah ?

    Oh and גוט דזשאָב

    • +1, what a tool! Way to go RF, educated and calm. I wonder if it is TTAG readers spiking the station’s gun laws poll or if 81% (when I voted) of people out there really do realize that more gun laws would not have stopped this shooting.

  29. RF good job!!!

    I always love when a Grabber says he owns guns!!!

    Ask what make and model???
    How did you choose the caliber???
    Ask hows it feel in his hand???
    How many rounds have you fired though it???
    Man it is cool that you are into guns??? Let go shooting some time???
    Any time I see: “I own guns, but…”
    I figure they are lying???

    Guy22

  30. Well played.

    So basically what the other side is saying is we don’t have need or right to guns that look scary to them or might actually be effective fighting tools. Why don’t they ever send a grownup to one of these debates?

  31. RF, well done, sir.

    As someone who engaged in these sorts of debates in California in the early/mid-90’s when the Brady and AWB laws were being pushed (and after the 101 California shooting), I can tell you that your calm, factual, delivery and not rising to the infantile bait wins points – especially among women. I had women tell me after some of the debates where I had a clone of your opponent here that about halfway through the debate, when it became clear who was going to remain civil and calm and who was going to start dishing out the snark and sarcasm, changed who they were favorably disposed to believe.

    BTW, it’s time to get you familiar with the FBI’s UCR:

    http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats

    His assertion that MA has the lowest rates of firearm crime is false. Wyoming and Vermont both are lower – for 2010, we had rates of homicide (all causes) of 1.2 and 1.1 (respectively), while MA was at 3.2 (again, all causes). MA isn’t a low crime state – it’s lower crime than many other states, but there are states with lower rates – WY, VT, MT, ND come to mind. None of these states has gun control laws anything remotely like MA’s.

    Vermont and Wyoming are now both “Constitutional carry” states. As for rates of gun ownership: Wyoming is armed to the teeth, and then some.

  32. Great job! I don’t know how you kept your calm… I was yelling expletives at the computer screen while that guy spoke. I’m glad you were able to take the higher ground and not be dragged down into the muck by him. He was looking for a shouting match, I think.

  33. Stop HANDGUN Violence?

    I thought assault rifles were the problem? Whatever *rolls eyes*

    Good job Mr. Farago.

  36. kudos to both RF AND the moderator… i’ve NEVER seen a moderator be so “unbiased” on such a hotly debated topic. i fully expected him to give the lion’s share of the time and “softball questions” to the other guy.

    it would have been nice to draw attention to the misleading statistics about MA’s gun laws… specifically that while the “gun-related” homicides/crimes might have been reduced, the OVERALL rates were likely unchanged (i’d have to verify that for sure but i suspect that’s the case) – meaning that criminals will commit violent crime with or without guns. but in such a short time period i’d say you did an excellent job.

  37. I feel like I’m just reiterating what has already been said but, man that guy was a child. Spouting lie after lie,raising his voice constantly acting like his opinion is the only one that matters. What a shitbag, good job keeping your cool and looking proffesional mister farago.

  39. and where on earth did he get that there have been 60-some “mass shootings” since the GG shooting??? talk about playing fast and loose with stats…

  41. Rosenthal seemed to know he got his clock cleaned — I’ve never seen him act like he did at the end of this debate.

    • I’ve seen bratty children behave better than Rosenthal did. He might as well just have gotten up out of his seat and stamped his feet at the end.

  42. “Never has it been so easy to get military style weapons” – apparently this idiot thinks that guns didn’t exist before the NFA or GCA of ’68. I paused it right there because I wanted to punch my monitor.

  45. I find it amusing that as a “gun owner” he uses the term “Clip” when clearly anyone worth their salt knows its a magazine, second, you made him look like a pompous jerk. Good work, Sir.

  46. congrats on a good job RF, personally I would have been a bit more aggressive than you, but i’m sure you had your reasons.

  47. Nice job. I like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda come to the US to get their AKs because … I’m guessing the background checks are so onerous in the Middle East? Nice try at some misdirection and plain pulling stuff out of his butt.

  48. Anyone else miss how he went from ” reasonable” gun laws to more guns equal more gun crimes… His ( and their) true agenda come out, not better laws, just getting rid of guns…,

  49. Well done overall….but I’m afraid the public will not support an “arm everyone so we can fight back” approach to solve gun violence.

    Any sort of laws putting more registration, back ground checks, limits and restrictions are unacceptable to the gun rights purist, but I’m afraid the majority of the American public will support new laws.

    Be prepared for Obama to push a national plan for CA-like gun laws soon. Mark my words.

    He can care less about re-election. He’s going to go to town.

    ETA: I wanted to smack the hell out of that moron who kept interrupting you. He’s a gun owner and 2nd amendment supporter? Yeah, right.

  51. Good job last night.

    I can’t believe that Rosenthal is still pushing that “Massachusetts has the lowest gun death rate of any industrialized New England State” line, he’s been using it for about 20 years now.

    So, the NE states less densely populated than Massachusetts have lower crime & gun death rates even with less restrictive gun laws, the more densely populated states have higher rates.

    Of course, if he were to acknowledge that, he’d be confirming that the problem isn’t caused by guns.

  52. Rosenthal lied when he said an “assault weapon”was used at Virginia Tech,America’s worst firearms massacre-Cho used two handguns on a disarmed campus full of helpless victims-the college police weren’t even armed.There is a chilling sameness to mass murderers-and it isn’t any affinity for “assault weapons”-it is the fact that most of them exhibit behavior over a period of time leading up to the incident which was ignored.This goes all the way back to Whitman,the Texas Tower shooter.Very few just “snap”with no warning.That does happen,but not usually in a mass killing situation;more often in a personal relationship homicide.
    Bottom Line:Rosenthal is a scummy,lying weasel.

        • No, accurate would be, gun rights OUGHT not be infringed, or I WISH gun rights were not infringed, or IF we took the Constitution literally, they WOULDN’T BE.

          Anything else is fantasy stuff.

          • Americans (who live in America) have a Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. “Shall not be infringed” is clear enough. Whether or not the government abides by the Constitution (it doesn’t) is another matter. But the text is clear. As are our firearms-related rights.

            • That’s nit-picking semantic nonsense. Your 2A rights have always been infringed and a couple years ago the Supreme Court said it’s right that they are. Have you gone completely over the edge of the extremist cliff?

    • @ Joe and RF..
      Chiming in late, but I think I caught that too. Didn’t the VA Tech guy use 22 caliber pistols? Maybe one was a rifle. Also Columbine, minus the pistol some sort of tec9 variant, the others were shot guns etc…
      Okios was a CA compliant pistol, Texas university were standard rifles. Am I missing something here?
      RF was right as well, long rifles are used in 5% I believe of shootings. So really folks are focusing so hard on a scary rifle when it will do little to reduce gun crime overall.
      Now Jon Rosenthal did touch upon mental illness. I think that could be a point of serious discussion, but what about arming our teachers?

  54. Holy carp, you absolutely kept your cool and didn’t fall for his “clip” troll.
    Probably the best (and most balanced) debate I’ve seen yet.
    Hahaha he totally flipped his shit and knew he was beat! Nice job!

  55. “Hey, let’s have a discussion” and of course, when that involves an anti you get exactly what we got – the anti continually talking over the pro-gun side. Good job RF.

    • I forgot to add, I was not aware that Hezbollah and Al Qaeda were flying to America to get their guns. Maybe we should make some kind of “no fly” list to keep these BGs off the airlines, or maybe make the automatic weapons they’re using illegal, or something.

  56. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mMloa_eU5gA

    A Daughter’s Regret:
    “Suzanna Gratia Hupp will live the rest of her life with regret. Had she been carrying her gun the day a madman executed her parents while she cowered helplessly and then fled, she is convinced she could have stopped one of the worst massacres in U.S. history.

    It was October 1991 when an unemployed merchant seaman drove his pickup truck into a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., leaped out and opened fire. He killed 23 people and wounded more than 20.

    Hupp and her parents were having lunch in the restaurant when the shooting started. Hupp instinctively reached into her purse for her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, but she had left it in the car. Her father tried to rush the gunman and was shot in the chest. As the gunman reloaded, Hupp escaped through a broken window, thinking her mother was behind her.

    But Hupp’s mother had crawled alongside her dying husband of 47 years to cushion his head in her lap. Police later told Hupp they saw her mother look up at the gunman standing over her, then bow down before he shot her in the head.

    “I’d like people to think about what happened to me, and try to place themselves in that situation,” Hupp said yesterday between a string of interviews in which she relived the tragedy as Exhibit A in her argument against restrictive gun laws. “Now, instead of thinking of their parents, have it be their children

    “Even if you choose not to have a gun, as the bad guy who ignored all the laws is getting close to you and as he levels that firearm at one of your children, don’t you hope the person next to you has chosen to carry a gun and knows how to use it?”
    The story is powerful, and not only because the question assaults the brain and invites no easy answers. With its implied alternative of an armed Hupp gunning down the bad guy before he gets too far, the story invokes the American legend of the frontier lawman who acts alone to thwart evil.

    Unable to don that mantle when it could have saved her parents, Hupp, now 40, has been trying ever since to rally people against gun control.

    When Texas debated the issue of concealed weapons in 1995, she strolled around the table at a committee hearing molding her fingers into a gun that she aimed at state senators. The next year, she ran as a Republican and won election as a state representative, an office she still holds.

    “Better to be tried by 12 than carried by six,” she recalls her patient advising her. Another friend gave her a pistol as a gift and taught her how to shoot it.
    She carried it in her purse. But, afraid of losing her chiropractic license if she were arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, she often kept it beneath the passenger seat of her car.

    That’s where it was, 150 feet from Hupp’s grasp, the day George Hennard burst into Luby’s. The what-ifs haunt her. Hennard stood barely 10 feet from her. He was up, she was down. She had clear aim. The upturned table would have steadied her hand. Though not a crack shot, she had hit smaller targets from farther distances.
    “The point is, people like this–no, scumbags like this; I won’t put them in the people category–are looking for easy targets,” said Hupp. “That’s why we see things occurring at schools, post offices, churches and cafeterias in states that don’t allow concealed carrying.”

    Nothing sways her. After the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, Hupp seemed to suggest that teachers should carry concealed weapons. She insists that what she said was something different:
    “I wanted to know why the state treats teachers like second-class citizens, when plumbers and doctors are allowed to protect themselves on the job,” she said. “I would be happier sending my child to a school where a teacher whom I trust is armed and well prepared.”

    She is equally oblique when talking about places where guns are banned. Even in Texas, which began allowing concealed weapons in 1996, guns are banned from several types of establishments, including churches, sports arenas, government offices, courts, airports and restaurants serving alcohol. Hupp refuses to say outright that she believes people should be allowed to carry guns to church. She picks her words carefully.

    “A gun can be used to kill a family, or defend a family,” Hupp said. “I’ve lived what gun laws do. My parents died because of what gun laws do. I’m the quintessential soccer mom, and I want the right to protect my family. What happened to my parents will never happen again with my kids there.”

  57. • A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school’s vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
    • A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
    • A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
    • A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
    • A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
    • A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
    • A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
    • At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.

    https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/425666_10151295735662726_1275947269_n.jpg

    https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/425666_10151295735662726_1275947269_n.jpg

  58. all this guys including the president are hypocrites. I bet if you go to the school were the first kids or kids that belong to congressmen or senators you can’t even enter let alone stroll trough the front lawn with an semi auto rifle or gun cause the guards on duty would shoot you dead in seconds.

    “She (the first lady) said Sidwell can provide the security and privacy that Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, will need as part of the new first family and Sidwell can help with that”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/21/sidwell-friends-obama-gir_n_145606.html at beginning of third paragraph.

    but they have the courage to stand there and tell you average citizen that you don’t need more guns at school that the security currently in place works if you take away the evil intent of people (in their minds the guns) so lets get rid of the evil intent.

    They think that if you own a black rifle or 30 round “clip” magazine you carry such rifle under a trench coat everywhere you go and at the first sign of trouble you shoot your way out of the situation.

  60. John Rosenthal is frequently dishonest and deceptive in what he says.

    He claims to be a gun owner. He is…he owns a shotgun, but none of the frequent attenders of the local gun clubs have ever seen him out there shooting it. Best theory is that he goes out quietly to a range about once a year and shoots a couple of skeet, then goes home.

    He always makes sure to say that he supports the 2nd Amendment…but never actually comes out in support of anything other than more gun control.

    He knows what he’s doing: he’s pretending to be the “reasonable voice” of gun owners. Reality? He’d gleefully turn in his shotgun if it was part of a wave of mass confiscation.

  61. How did I miss this? RF kicked ass.

    It’s the same thing I tell my students when we have classroom debates & discussion: people who are calm and rational are convincing. People who yell, scream, and lose their temper? They’ve already lost.

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