MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell has joined the list of his colleagues deciding to disgustingly politicize the tragic Colorado shooting. On Tuesday night, O’Donnell felt the need to attack Wayne LaPierre of the NRA and Republican Senator Ron Johnson (Wis.) for their support of the Second Amendment.
O'Donnell started off his "Rewrite" segment claiming LaPierre was a "blood-drenched lobbyist" who is a "defender of mass murderers’ right to use hundred-round ammo clips." O’Donnell appeared shocked that Sen. Johnson believes a mass-murderer like James Holmes would still seek to obtain high-powered weapons regardless of stricter gun-control laws. [Video followed page break; MP3 audio here.]
At issue to Lawrence is LaPierre and Johnson’s defense of individual freedoms when it comes to law-abiding citizens' right to bear arms. O’Donnell tries comparing the risk of losing one’s freedoms to having to remove one’s shoes when going through TSA screening at the airport, which Lawrence claims is:
"The crazy, incompetent al-Qaeda loser got caught and every day since then, all of us, every American boarding an airplane has to take off our shoes, in deference, in honor of that crazy incompetent al-Qaeda loser and Sen. Johnson has never complained about restricting our freedom to keep our shoes on."
Of course a commercial airplane is and should be a weapon-free zone, except for pilots who may be carrying sidearms and federal air marshals who are in plainclothes. Security screenings are designed to prevent the smuggling of weapons and, yes, explosives on board. The shoe-bomber had a bomb in his shoe, which is why shoes are screened for explosive material, something you don't want in the cabin of a pressurized metal tube flying thousands of feet above the ground.
That's a far cry from restricting gun rights on the ground in settings where it's impossible to ensure that no one is carrying a weapon.
Unfortunately, but not surprising, O’Donnell took his disgusting rant to a new low, attributing a fiendish, bloodthirsty motive to gun rights advocates:
Wayne LaPierre wants you to be stuck in your theater seats, while the mass murderer fires another 90 bullets at you. Wayne LaPierre thinks people like me who don't think anyone should be able to buy hundred-round magazines are more dangerous than people who empty hundred-round magazines in crowded movie theaters.
Really? LaPierre actually wants people to die in shootings in darkened theaters? Is that kind of like how Republicans, according to Ed Schultz, like it when women get cancer and die?
O’Donnell ended his segment with one last attack by claiming:
[LaPierre] scares them into actually thinking and believing that someone is coming to take their freedom away. He needs them to believe that. So he can continue to siphon $1 million off their dues money every year to stuff into his blood-drenched pockets.
O'Donnell is entitled to his views on gun control policy, but his over-the-top, offensive comments should be a disgrace to MSNBC executives and make O'Donnell's colleagues embarrassed to be assocaited with him.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC
The Last Word w/ Lawrence O’Donnell
07/24/2012
10:45 p.m. EDT
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: In tonight's "rewrite," freedom. The defenders of movie theater mass murderers' right to use 100-round ammunition clips on their assault rifles, insist that the hundred-round clip is the very definition of American freedom. Wayne LaPierre, the blood-drenched lobbyist who diverts $1 million of National Rifle Association dues to his own income every year never mentions hundred-round ammo clips in his stirring speeches, but does mention freedom a lot.
WAYNE LAPIERRE: We, the majority, see the soul of the nation, of our individual freedom, and we see it on the brink of being destroyed, and gun owners are answering the call, all across this country, to fight back. To save America.
O’DONNELL: The NRA's mouthpieces in Congress insist that it's all about freedom.
SENATOR RON JOHNSON: It's really an issue of freedom.
O’DONNELL: And you know that whenever someone brings up the hundred-round ammo clip that was used in our most recent mass murder, the defenders of mass murderers' right to use hundred-round ammo clips will talk about freedom.
CHRIS WALLACE: Let me ask you, I mean, we're not talking about handguns. Does something that would limit magazines that can carry a hundred rounds, would that infringe on the constitutional right?
JOHNSON: I believe so. People will talk about unusually lethal weapons, that could potentially be the discussion you could have. But the fact of the matter is there are 30-round magazines that are just common all over the place. You simply can't keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demonstrated individual who want to do harm. And when you try to do it, you restrict our freedoms.
O’DONNELL: You restrict our freedoms. This from a guy who obediently removes his shoes at airports to prove he's not going to blow up an airplane, even though he can also prove to all those anti-freedom TSA agents that he is a United States Senator. The hundred-round clip is not about freedom. That, senator doesn't care about freedom. Wayne LaPierre and every NRA member have their freedoms restricted by government every day.
JOHNSON: When you try to do it, you restrict our freedoms.
O’DONNELL: Wayne LaPierre and Senator Johnson and every NRA member are told by government where they can and cannot park their cars. They are told by government how fast they can drive their cars. They are told by government where they can and cannot smoke cigarettes and they are told by government that they cannot smoke marijuana. We take off our shoes at airports for the flimsiest of reasons. A crazy, incompetent al-Qaeda loser wanted to blow up an airplane with something in his shoe that could not have actually blown up the airplane, even if it worked. The crazy, incompetent al-Qaeda loser got caught and every day since then, all of us, every American boarding an airplane has to take off our shoes, in deference, in honor of that crazy incompetent al-Qaeda loser and Senator Johnson has never complained about restricting our freedom to keep our shoes on. The freedom lovers at the NRA don't complain that the "take off your shoes" rule restricts our freedom, even though it does restrict our freedom. Our government has enacted and this country has accepted the "take off your shoes" rule as a reasonable reaction to exactly one, one incident in our history. One incident of a crazy, incompetent person thinking, imagining that he could blow up an airplane with something in his shoe. Exactly one incident that hurt no one. Exactly one incident that killed no one. That one incident has changed all of our lives. Has restricted all of our freedom. That crazy incompetent person who has us now in our tenth year of taking off our shoes at the airport did not kill 12 people, he did not injure and wound 59 people. He didn't shot a baby. He did next to nothing. And still our government, with the general agreement of its traveling public, believes that it is perfectly reasonable, every day at American airports, to take off our shoes, because of that one incident that did no damage and could have done no real damage. In the same country, when a mass murderer uses a hundred-round ammunition clip to kill and wound as many people as he possibly can, our government believes that we should do nothing. Wayne LaPierre and Senator Johnson believe we should do nothing but wait for the next mass murderer to enter the next public place and see if the score is higher or lower than 12 killed and 59 wounded. Because to do anything else would restrict our freedoms.
JOHNSON: When you try and do it, you restrict our freedoms.
O’DONNELL: California has made the sale of hundred-round clips illegal. California restricts those magazines to ten bullets. And so if you're an aspiring mass murderer here in California and you decide tonight to obtain your killing tools legally, as our most recent mass murderers have done, you will be forced to reload after your first ten bullets, and if you try doing that in a packed movie theater, I promise you, you will not finish reloading. You will be taken down by the freedom of the people in that theater to attack you the second you have to stop firing and reload. The ten-bullet clip is about the freedom to stop mass murderers after they've fired ten shots, instead of a hundred. Wayne LaPierre doesn't want you to have that freedom. Wayne LaPierre wants you to be stuck in your theater seats, while the mass murderer fires another 90 bullets at you. Wayne LaPierre thinks people like me who don't think anyone should be able to buy hundred-round magazines are more dangerous than people who empty hundred-round magazines in crowded movie theaters. Wayne LaPierre scares people. I know he scares some of you with his relentless determination to make sure American mass murderers are the very best equipped mass murderers in the world, but he scares the simple-minded members of the NRA even more. He scares them into actually thinking and believing that someone is coming to take their freedom away. He needs them to believe that. So he can continue to siphon $1 million off their dues money every year to stuff into his blood-drenched pockets.
