Statements made by broadcasters including CNN’s Piers Morgan and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, as well as comments on social media have contributed to an environment of hate directed against law-abiding Americans who are being demonized for a crime they did not commit, said Joseph P. Tartaro, the president of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation.
Morgan called one national gun rights leader Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America: “an unbelievably stupid man,” he said.
Matthews suggested gun owners are, “..people on the far-right (who) never lose their passion…Normal people have other interests like their spouses, their lives, their children, and even their generalized politics isn’t driven by one issue,” he said
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“This kind of rhetoric does not contribute to any rational discussion,” [Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF executive vice president] said.
“Vitriol like this only promotes hate, but apparently it’s okay to perpetuate bigotry so long as you are an anti-gunner, and a liberal. If anyone is harmed as a result of this hate campaign, we expect them to be prosecuted under the hate crimes laws,” he said.
“If this hate speech leads to hate crimes,” Gottlieb concluded, “people like Piers Morgan and Chris Matthews will be partly responsible.”
I never cease to be amazed at the myriad ways gun nuts find to make the gun control debate about them. I suppose if you view your rights as sacrosanct, inviolable, and superior to any and all other considerations, expectations, and laws…sure; why not? It’s arrogant and dismissive of any other legitimate viewpoints, but the gun nuts and the NRA are all about crushing anyone or anything they see as potentially threatening to their interests. When those interests are represented by crackpots and paranoid conspiracy theorists, this is about all you could reasonably expect, right?
I’ve becomes something close to immune to the silliness and verbal vomit spewed by those who believe with all their heart and mind that President Obama is going to devote his second term to taking away their guns. I’d thought I’d heard pretty much everything…until I ran across the argument that calling out gun nuts for the wingnuttery constitutes hate speech. That was a true and genuine “WTF??” moment if ever there was one.
Advocating for gun control and calling out gun nuts for their firepower-uber-Alles lunacy is de facto hate speech? How arrogant and thoroughly self-absorbed do you have to be to believe that free speech which doesn’t parrot your beliefs is hate speech? Welcome to the debate over gun control, where believing that those who care for guns more than human life should be called to account is hate speech and those who believe in gun control are guilty of hate crimes. I have to wonder if the gun nuts even know what a hate crime is? Hint: it’s not calling them out for their lunacy and callous inhumanity.
Is it any wonder why one side won’t tolerate a reasoned, rational discussion?
So, let me see if I understand Gottlieb correctly. Simply by pointing out that those clinging to their guns out of paranoia, Morgan and Matthews are guilty of “hate speech,” which could place gun owners at risk of becoming victims of “hate crimes?” Wait, aren’t they the ones with the guns…and isn’t their main argument that they need guns for protection?
Perhaps they’re unaware that hate crimes legislation is applicable only to crimes committed on the basis of “race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.” Gun ownership isn’t on that list; it’s not covered by any hate crimes law…not that it will stop the gun nuts from claiming to be a persecuted and oppressed class.
The moral of this story would seem to be that there’s no length which gun nuts will not go to in order to portray themselves as victims. Not the innocent victims of gun violence. Not the families and loved ones of those killed by gun violence. No, only the gun nuts themselves are worthy of claiming the mantle of victimhood. It’s really just another strategy designed to keep Americans from discussing the real issue- our national gun problem.
When you get right down to it, groups like the NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, and Gun Owners of America care far less for human life than they do their “right” to own whatever weapons and however much firepower they see fit. These organizations are led by unbelievably cold, calculating, and inhuman zealots who care for little save their unbelievably broad and murderous interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
Piers Morgan is correct in calling out Larry Pratt as “an unbelievably stupid man,” a description that could just as easily be applied to Alan M. Gottlieb and Joseph P. Tartaro. Yes, I realize how arrogant and dismissive that may seem at first glance. When you consider that their intransigence and hypocrisy continues to kill innocent civilians, referring to them as “unbelievably stupid” is actually rather charitable.
In Pratt’s case, he’s argued with a straight face that Obamacare will “take away your guns”…and his remedy for school shooting is more spanking. Gottlieb’s and Tartaro’s arguments display about the same level of intellectual and moral agility.
Brilliant….
