Poor Gary Legum at Salon.com. How dare supporters of the right to keep and bear arms as clearly defined in the Constitution's Second Amendment push back against the gun control movement's cynical exploitation of Thursday's Roseburg, Oregon massacre?
Legum is outraged that "The right tells us (again) to ignore the elephant in the room." He must mean the fact that the area in question at Umpqua Community College was a "posted" gun-free zone with only unarmed security guards, right? Of course not. Legum is upset over Americans' "irrational attachment ... to weaponry" — so upset that he descended into profanity and name-calling that would likely end his career forever if he were a right-wing commentator.
Let's briefly visit the hypocrisy in Legum's Friday headline:
Gun nuts, the ultimate thought police: Shutting down an open debate after yet another mass shooting
President Obama's statement after the massacre wasn't about an "open debate." It was a demand that Congress bend to his Constitution-violating will. The left's definition of an "open debate" is invariably, "I get to talk. You get to shut up." What the right correctly denounced was the attempt by the President and gun-grabbers to monopolize the media with demands for gun control within hours of the tragedy.
Now to some of Legum's execrable content (some language cleaned up; links are in original; bolds and numbered tags are mine):
Often in the wake of an act like Thursday’s, I have suggested that the anti-gun control crowd have the decency to shut the f__ up for a day or two. [1] That is because for all the caterwauling of gun control advocates, it seems clear to me that they have lost the fight. Contrary to the right-wing paranoia, the Second Amendment is in no danger of being repealed. It is nearly impossible to push even the mildest gun control measures through legislatures at either the federal or state level.
... But no. The news barely broke before conservatives were all hands on deck to find scapegoats and spout the usual litany of talking points. [2] You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a #tcot saying the aftermath of the shooting is too soon to talk about gun control measures because that would be “politicizing” a tragedy.
... National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke was quick to blame the media and second the idea that reporting on shootings leads to copycats. Right-wing rage monkey Michelle Malkin suggested gun control advocates refrain from commenting on breaking news of shootings, for reasons that elude all reasonable explanation. [3] Does she think we’re going to find out the shooter used a marshmallow gun or actually stabbed all his victims with a grapefruit spoon?
... The anger from the left is really frustration with Congress, with the NRA, with what they see as the irrational attachment of their fellow citizens to weaponry. [4] It is impossible for us to know for sure what we can do to reduce gun violence, though reducing access to guns does seem obvious. [5] But to shut down conversation about the issue on the flimsiest of pretexts is a cheap dodge, and an abomination in a society that prides itself on being a – ahem – beacon of open debate.
Notes:
[1] — Gun rights advocates correctly predicted that the gun-control crowd would politicize the massacre in mere moments — and it did.
[2] — Correction: The news barely broke before the gun-control crowd, up to and including the President of the United States, rolled out their talking points and oft-stated falsehoods.
[3] — As noted earlier, such an arguably overtly racist utterance from a center- or right-leaning writer would justifiably lead to howls of outrage and termination demands. But lefties in the fever swamp are apparently untouchable.
[4] — The more the left appears bent on settling for nothing short of confiscation — Obama himself advocated that we be like Australia in how we treat gun ownership, and Australia confiscated guns in 1996, what else are we supposed to think? — the more "rational" it is for citizens to be "attached" to the idea of making sure they can defend themselves by acquiring a gun.
[5] — "It is impossible for us to know for sure"? The truth is that the left has no "effective"ideas other than confiscation. On Friday's Morning Joe show on MSNBC, a discussion panel, challenged by the aforementioned Charles Cooke, "could not name a single policy that would have prevented the Oregon community college shooting."
If Salon's editors and management had any decency, they would demand that Legum apologize for his dehumanizing name-calling and suspend his column for several months. It's hard to imagine that they will do anything besides quietly cheer him on.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
