MSNBC’s Scarborough: ‘NRA Made Millions Off of Newtown’
Once again, MSNBC pseudo-conservative Joe Scarborough has disgustingly smeared conservatives and pro-gun rights advocates. Speaking on Friday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough sneered, “Do you know how much money these people have made over the slaughter of 20 innocents in Newtown?”
Scarborough has joined fellow MSNBCer Toure in slanderously accusing the NRA of profiting off of the Newtown tragedy. The entire segment featured Scarborough ranting against the nation's oldest civil rights group: [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]
This is about gun manufacturers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. This is about retailers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. Do you know how much money these people have made over the slaughter of 20 innocents in Newtown? Do you know how much richer these rich gun manufacturers have gotten over the past month and how the NRA uses that tragedy to gin up fears and websites use that tragedy to gin up fears that they're coming to take your guns away?
The liberal Morning Joe panel naturally failed to challenge Scarborough for this tirade, instead joining in the attack on the 2nd Amendment-defending group. It's a shame Joe didn't bring on MSNBC's only real conservative, S.E. Cupp, to push back against his slanderous attacks.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
January 11, 2013
6:15 a.m. EST
JOE SCARBOROUGH: The only way they can win and get re-elected is by having the vote in support of people who believe the federal government is coming to kill them and seize their property in 2013, then that is a party that's headed towards extinction. It just is. and Mark McKinnon was actually absolutely right. Peggy Noonan wrote about it this morning in her Wall Street Journal column. This party is going to have to start choosing its fights more wisely, Richard. If we decide that we're going to fight universal background checks so gang members can go to gun shows and get assault weapons.
RICHARD WOLFFE: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: If we're going to fight all these basic, common-sense gun safety measures that most of Americans’ support, then we are a Republican Party that's headed towards extinction. And all the screamers and all the squawkers on talk radio who are going to scream and squawk because they want
WOLFFE: Fire them up.
SCARBOROUGH: They want to fire up a very small base. They need a very, very small group of people to be successful and drive ad sales for gold bullion compared to a Republican presidential candidate that has to get 270 electoral votes.
WOLFFE: Or even a statewide candidate. You know, there is a framework for this. You know, the Republican Party has traditionally prided itself in being the party of personal responsibility. There is a personal responsibility frame for these kind of measures.
DONNY DEUTSCH: That’s turning the brand, staying true to their brand value, but turning it. Exactly.
WOLFFE: Which is to say responsible gun ownership means it's okay to say yeah, I'm qualified to have a gun because I'm sane. You know, undergoing background checks, these aren't any greater regulations in fact, they're lesser regulations than you need to own a car.
SCARBOROUGH: And by the way, can we just break through the b.s. Here? This is not for the NRA about Second Amendment rights. Justice Scalia clearly laid out in Heller what Second Amendment rights were and what they were not. The most conservative justice on the Supreme Court, Anthony Scalia, made it very clear, assault weapons were not protected by the second amendment. This is not about protecting the Second Amendment. This is about gun manufacturers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. This is about retailers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. Do you know how much money these people have made over the slaughter of 20 innocents in Newtown? Do you know how much richer these rich gun manufacturers have gotten over the past month and how the NRA uses that tragedy to gin up fears and websites use that tragedy to gin up fears that they're coming to take your guns away? Hey, got a message for you. They can't take your guns away. We've got something called the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Anthony Scalia in 2009 said they can't come and take your guns away. You can have a handgun to protect your family. But outside of that, they can regulate guns. And if you're a survivalist and you really believe the federal government is coming to kill you and your children, if that's your view in 2013, your paranoid, sick, twisted view, well fine, good luck getting the Republicans to jump in your pickup truck and drive off the cliff towards political oblivion. Because that's what's going to happen Republicans. Wake up.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That group of people. And then there's the towns and cities that are the home base to gun manufacturers. If you look at colt firearms outside Hartford, Connecticut, the state voted against -- or actually put off a vote on a certain inscription on the guns so they can track them better because colt threatened to leave. Money.
MIKE BARNICLE: To that point and to Joe's point, gun profits are largely what this is about more than regulation.
SCARBOROUGH: It's money.
BARNICLE: Sure. It's gun profits.
SCARBOROUGH: The NRA is about money.
BARNICLE: But a derivative of it in terms of a strategy to develop, to get the vote for, you know, universal background checks, I would suggest that the phrase "gun control" be dropped and "gun sense" be used in going forward with a strategy. Gun sense.
SCARBOROUGH: Guess what? This isn't gun control.
BARNICLE: No. The word "regulate" is in the Second Amendment.
SCARBOROUGH: And by the way, the big lie that the NRA is pushing on gun owners to try to whip stupid people into a frenzy is they're coming to take your guns away. And I say stupid people because you have to be stupid in 2013 to believe that the federal government can come and take your handguns or come and take your shotguns. You have to be stupid. The law of the land is they cannot -- there is a constitutional right that the Second Amendment says what I always believed the Second Amendment said, and Richard Wolffe, in 2009, Scalia said it. You have got a right to keep and bear arms. Not a musket, a handgun.
WOLFFE: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: Or a shotgun in your house to protect yourself.
WOLFFE: And candidate Obama and President Obama said yes, I agree.
