Towards the end of Sunday’s Meet the Press, moderator Chuck Todd led the largely liberal panel on a sorrowful whine session to bemoan how no hastily-crafted-poorly-understood-and-ultimately-useless gun control measures had been enacted nationally yet.
“It does look like we're about to complete the cycle of a gun -- there's a massive tragedy, people wringing their hands, we've got to do something and then the paralysis sets in,” Todd complained. He turned to NBC’s Tom Brokaw and proceeded to read from the Washington Post column of former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson to describe the breakdown:
“It's one of the dirty habits of our political discourse that so many people use they remember nuclear rhetorical weapons as a first resort. It is not enough for defenders of gun rights to be wrong, they must be explicit in murder. It is not enough for gun control advocates to be mistaken, they must be jack-booted thugs laying the groundwork for tyranny.” And that is why we have no gun policy in this country.
Brokaw opined about how he was a gun owner and said he had been in and out of gun stores a lot when he was growing up. He was basically trying to play himself up as some sort of credible source to push gun control. And according to him, we needed to have “a blue ribbon panel out of the Congress and the American people and get together and say, ‘this is what we have to do in a macro sense’” to enforce gun control.
The other hurdle in the way of strict gun restrictions, according to Brokaw, was the idea that such weapons were needed at all. “You've got to change the consciousness of the country about the place these weapons and what we need them for,” he explained to Todd. The former anchor couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the idea that ARs were useful:
AR-15 owners will say I need them to protect myself. So, I went and looked at two or three incidents in which a guy had an AR-15 and defended himself. He did it from four feet away. He would have been just as happy with a short barrel-shotgun or another kind of weapon. He didn’t need an AR-15.
Besides his obvious arrogance in thinking he knew what was best for every single self-defense case based on the “two or three incidents” he just so happened to read about, Brokaw exposed his ignorance of the fact that ARs had a greater range use than just self-defense and that there were hunting rifles with the same capabilities. For crying out loud, the mass shooter in Southerland Springs, Texas was stopped and chased off because he was shot by a civilian with an AR-15.
A short time later, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin chimed in to break up their doom and gloom by expressing her optimism that gun control would soon be the law of the land. She claimed they were “just like Rosa Parks,” because “when she went to the back of the bus, something happened in the civil rights movement.” She then suggested that they were like the #MeToo movement with the gun rights advocates being the sick perverts like Harvey Weinstein.
“I think this Parkland situation and the students and the business guys stepping in right now where there's a vacuum of political leadership, something is happening. We’ve got to believe it,” Goodwin exclaimed, with NBC’s Katy Tur backing her up. And as the network did earlier in the week, they failed to note that Dick’s had made the promise to stop selling ARs years ago, but were selling them anyway.
Todd wrapped up the segment with the ridiculous complaint that President Trump would never oppose his base in restricting their rights to own guns. “He has yet to use his personal capital with his base to do something against his base. He thinks about it, he threatens it, he says he might,” he and Tur whined.
The relevant portions of the transcript are below, click expand to read:
NBC
Meet the Press
March 4, 2018
11:24:32 AM Eastern [3 minutes 23 seconds](…)
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: And also responds when Tom was mentioning that the Chinese leader is now in there for life and he jokes about the fact that sounds pretty good, maybe I could have that. That need to be in the center of the action is so great with him. I mean, Teddy Roosevelt they claimed used to want to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral. This guy wants to be the president for life.
CHUCK TODD: Funny you should say that, it's a good transition to guns, right? And that whole public spectacle that seemed like, well, look at that. It may be more about him just wanting to be at the center of the spectacle. But I am curious here, it does look like we're about to complete the cycle of a gun -- there's a massive tragedy, people wringing their hands, we've got to do something and then the paralysis sets in.
Michael Gerson says the following, Tom, which I think captures the gun debate well: “It's one of the dirty habits of our political discourse that so many people use they remember nuclear rhetorical weapons as a first resort. It is not enough for defenders of gun rights to be wrong, they must be explicit in murder. It is not enough for gun control advocates to be mistaken, they must be jack-booted thugs laying the groundwork for tyranny.” And that is why we have no gun policy in this country.
TOM BROKAW: The gun thing. I spent a lot of my life on it. I’m a gun owner as I said often before. I go in and out of gun shops out in the west and I've grown up with them. I don't think that we can piecemeal it. I have come to the conclusion we have to get holistic about we deal with gun. We have to get a blue ribbon panel out of the Congress and the American people and get together and say, “this is what we have to do in a macro sense.” Not just about the access to AR-15s or the bump stocks. You can't do it piecemeal. You've got to change the consciousness of the country about the place these weapons and what we need them for.
AR-15 owners will say I need them to protect myself. So, I went and looked at two or three incidents in which a guy had an AR-15 and defended himself. He did it from four feet away. He would have been just as happy with a short barrel-shotgun or another kind of weapon. He didn’t need an AR-15.
TODD: Al, you were just in Tallahassee. My theory is: what Tallahassee can pass, is what Washington can pass.
AL CARDENAS: No doubt. I think 20 or 30 years ago, Tom, unfortunately, gun policy went to the states and left Washington. I think what Florida does this week, which is the last week of the session—
TODD: Or doesn’t do. We don’t know.
CARDENAS: Or doesn't do, will set the tone for national policy. They're hard at work at it. I can tell you from speaking to leadership that they have a fairly ambitious agenda. We'll see if it passes.
GOODWIN: I mean, maybe I'm being too optimistic but I do think we've reached a tipping point here. Just like Rosa Parks when she went to the back of the bus, something happened in the civil rights movement. Harvey Weinstein, something happened to the #MeToo.
TODD: Still took 10 or 15 years for some legislation to pass.
GOODWIN: I think this Parkland situation and the students and the business guys stepping in right now where there's a vacuum of political leadership, something is happening. We’ve got to believe it!
KATY TUR: If something is going to change it's got to change on either the state level or business level like we saw with Dick's Sporting Goods and a number of other businesses. At the federal level though, I think we'll going to get mired in another controversy and we’re going to move on with another conversation as we have always done. Look the President the other day, I mean, he is a unique person and he is in a unique position to convince people who otherwise cannot be convinced of things. And if he came out strongly in favor of doing this, that or the other on guns, he could convince folks but he always waffles and rolls it back.
TODD: He has yet to use his personal capital with his base to do something against his base. He thinks about it, he threatens it, he says he might.
TUR: Talks about how he can.
TODD: But he has yet to do it.
GOODWIN: That’s his security blanket.
TODD: That’s right.
(…)
