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That's exceptional, America: Printed crosshairs bad, but actual Glocks OK

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86 comments

That's exceptional, America: Printed crosshairs bad, but actual Glocks OK

POSTED: Monday, January 10, 2011, 3:45 PM

In my fair-and-balanced article today on hateful political rhetoric and the mass murder in Tucson, I noted that Philadelphia Rep. Bob Brady is proposing a law that would make it a crime to use certain violent imagery against members of Congress -- an idea that he acknowledges is inspired by Sarah Palin's infamous 2010 map that targeted Saturday's assassination-attempt victim Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and others, with the image of crosshairs.

I'd like to go deeper on that at some future point, but let's just say for now that Brady's idea is wrong-headed and goes way too far. If he was truly offended by Sarah Palin's actions -- as he probably was -- then he had the remarkable power as a U.S. congressman to go on national TV and condemn her. The best remedy for hate speech is to drown it out with good speech. We don't need no stinkin' law.

But you do have to wonder about a nation that considers laws and other harsh measures against political rhetoric, but at this point is scared (bleep)less about even talking about whether we should even begin a conversation about the legality of purchasing the actual devices that kill or maim our fellow human beings.

I thought Gail Collins of the New York Times nailed this today:

Today, the amazing thing about the reaction to the Giffords shooting is that virtually all the discussion about how to prevent a recurrence has been focusing on improving the tone of our political discourse. That would certainly be great. But you do not hear much about the fact that Jared Loughner came to Giffords’s sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it.

If Loughner had gone to the Safeway carrying a regular pistol, the kind most Americans think of when they think of the right to bear arms, Giffords would probably still have been shot and we would still be having that conversation about whether it was a sane idea to put her Congressional district in the cross hairs of a rifle on the Internet.

But we might not have lost a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Giffords’s 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked.

Adds Peter Goodman on the Huffington Post:

We Americans have developed an agreed-upon social protocol for how to react to the gun-related horrors that regularly capture the news pages. Journalists spring into action with a standard-issue set of questions: What happened? Who did it? What made him snap? Should someone have known? Yet this whole exercise of seeking to identify the unique strain of madness at work seems more about enabling false comfort then fully elucidating how we got here, a sideshow distracting us from the hard work that would be required to take on the gun lobby and limit access to the only part of the narrative that weighs in as a hard, cold fact: the weapon.

Don't despair, you gun lovers who read this. One of the remarkable stories of our time is that even as deadly rampages like the one in Tucson increase, support for gun control among Americans steadily drops, and currently is at a historical low. How we got to this bizarre moment in time is something that will hopefully be disected and understood in the months and years to come.

Will Bunch @ 3:45 PM Permalink | 86 comments

86 comments

Comments (86)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:29 PM, 01/10/2011

I'm glad those concealed gun laws helped all the victims on Saturday. Where were all the minutemen to "spring into action" and defend us from the bad guys? Good work on allowing extended mags, if not for a broken spring, the devastation would be worse. And also nice to see our Discrimination loving RG defend Beck, Palin and the other nitwits on the Right. Keep thinking words don't have consequences.

— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:49 PM, 01/10/2011

Yeah, because strict gun laws at Fort Hood stopped the shooter there. Way to be another scumbag willing to use this tragedy to push your agenda.

— RG

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:54 PM, 01/10/2011

The guy who is fine with discrimination calling me a scumbag?!? Hide behind your "ideology" RG. You are a coward!

— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:05 PM, 01/10/2011

I'm not exploiting a tragedy to score cheap political points. You couldn't give two s--ts about those who were shot, but you'll use the attack as ammunition against your opponents. Your faux intellectualism is actually kind of entertaining, though. Words have consequences, man. You are so deep.

— RG

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:54 PM, 01/10/2011

RG the racist is now the defending the indefensible. I'm glad you find this tragedy all so entertaining.

— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:05 PM, 01/10/2011

Too funny.

Glenn Beck admits that his own show is dangerous.

And yet, our beloved ARts will continue to claim that it isn't.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/37879_Glenn_Beck_Says_9-11_Truthers_Are_Dangerous_But_Guest_Host_of_Becks_Show_is_a_Truther

— Talking point sleuth

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:32 PM, 01/10/2011

Check it out, RG. More "scumbags" willing to use a tragedy to push their agenda:

--snip--

Sal Russo, the leader of the Tea Party Express, said on Fox News today that shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner “was obviously a leftist. He admired Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. Those are not volumes that are popular with the Tea Party so he was obviously a left-wing anarchist, he was probably Anti-Semitic.”

--snip--

— Talking point sleuth

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:40 PM, 01/10/2011

And more mommy mommy posts from you.

— RG

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:44 PM, 01/10/2011

Glad to see that you agree, RG, that sloboat and the Tea Partier leaders calling the guy a leftist are "scumbags."

I guess you are at least occasionally capable of accountability. Kudos.

— Talking point sleuth

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:01 PM, 01/10/2011

I'm basically done commenting on this horrible tragedy. I would suggest that everyone watch this interview with Christina Green's father. I could use the words dignity, decency, and strength, but they wouldn't do this man justice. He's the one person whom could have said anything, blaming anyone, and I would have given him a pass. Instead he gives us a lesson in humanity. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100071227/john-green-father-of-nine-year-old-shooting-victim-tuscon-such-a-wonderful-city/

— RG

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:05 PM, 01/10/2011

What exactly is the protocol for reporting an individual who is showing signs of mental illness and mixing it with delusional ramblings and extremist political rhetoric?

— Mr. Smith

Comment removed.
Comment removed.

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:22 PM, 01/10/2011

Rightwing violence?

What rightwing violence?

Oh, that righwing violence.

http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insurrection-timeline

— Talking point sleuth

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:29 PM, 01/10/2011

===]]] I'm basically done commenting on this horrible tragedy [[[===

What? You're finished before calling sloboat, those Tea Party leaders, and all those rightwing pundits "scumbags" for politicizing the shooting?

I'm shocked.

— Talking point sleuth

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