DMN Today Op-Ed

[jimlongley]

This morning's DMN included a piece by Dahlia Lithwick, who unashamedly steals from T.S. Elliot.

http://www.slate.com/id/2216248/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and of course, my answer:

Yes, it's a cruel month, but not much more cruel than May; with the memory of Bath Michigan in mind, or March; with the Boston Massacre, Gnadenhutten Ohio, Moro Crater, My Lai, or Dunblane Scotland in the heavily gun controlled British Empire; or just about any other month.

I find your impassioned defense of Obama’s gun control policies very interesting, and disturbing too. “You shall know a man by the company he keeps.” is an ancient Greek saying, and “You shall know a man by his works.” is not attributed in my lexicon, but was used during Obama's campaign as a positive point about him, and both apply well. He keeps some very anti-rights company, indeed the quotes below, from the whitehouse.gov web site read as though they were copied from a Sarah Brady broadside, and his works include some extremely anti-gun efforts.

I also find your mention of the Oklahoma City bombing, which had only a fleetingly tenuous acquaintance with any sort of gun issue, in a diatribe against guns, to be just a little bit over the top in terms of sensationalism. Did you really need to add another 168 bodies to the count to trigger more of an emotional response? That’s more than the “gun massacres” you mention combined, even including the somewhat questionable Waco massacre.

It’s not that guns have nothing to do with gun deaths, it’s intuitively obvious that if there were no guns there would be no gun deaths, but would there be "jawbone of an ass" deaths? How do you prevent someone from misusing ANY tool and killing someone with it? Guns exist, and criminals will get them, and children are persistent and innovative in their attempts to break through restraints, and despite the rise in gun ownership that you acknowledge, there is not a corresponding increase in violent crime, there is actually a reduction, which must mean something.

Keep in mind that Obama is a Chicago politician, which means he’s as slick as lizard snot and if his mouth is moving he’s probably not telling the truth, and there is no reason to expect him to change his ways just because he was elected President. He has been anti-gun, and he will continue to be anti-gun unless and until he proves otherwise, and his words are not proof of anything except he may be biding (Biden?) his time until he sees the time is right to strike for the draconian restrictions he has espoused in the past. And Biden’s gun rights policies are even worse.

Obama has a gun control agenda, similar to yours, and it is just as misguided and uninformed as yours, and we can only hope that he will not find a way to remove our rights if we intend to stay a free country.

This is not from the NRA, although I am a member, just simple observation.

Found on the whitehouse.gov web site, with my comments inserted:

“Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade.”

(From Tiahrt’s bio on wikipedia) “Tiahrt is the author of the Tiahrt Amendment, which prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) from releasing information from its firearms trace database to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a criminal investigation.”

An amendment that has nothing to do with the ability of law enforcement officials accessing trace information, which they can do, and everything with the various filers of junk lawsuits against the firearms industry and gun dealers obtaining trace information from BATFE, including traces that have nothing to do with “crime guns.” This is pure Brady propaganda.

“Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals.”

As long as they get to dictate what “commonsense” means, which may be neither common nor sensible. Also a page right out of the Brady handbook to ban handguns.

“They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof.”

A non-existent loophole and an impossible dream, combined in one sentence, another sentence that reads like the Brady bunch wrote it.

And perhaps least sensible at all:

“They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.”

A ban that accomplished nothing, that expired because it was shown to have no effect of any nature on crime or illegal gun trafficking? They forgot to mention that the proposed permanent ban would expand the definition of “Assault Weapons” beyond the ridiculous well into the sublime. A Brady gun control scheme for a long time.

Why would they want to do that? The name of the game is control, not gun control, just plain control.

Jim Longley

[jimlongley]

Of course, Lithwick's email addy bounced.

[Rex B]

Good response, Jim.

Did you send it to the DMN?

Think they will print it?

[ClarkLZeuss]

For every restriction that Obama proposes on average citizens, there should be a corresponding restriction on his Secret Service detail. Then, maybe, he will get the point.