Politicizing Guns: If Not Now, When? (Cenk’s Latest Blog)

In Headline Story by Hlarson2 Comments

It’s a trick. When people tell you that you shouldn’t politicize a tragedy like the shooting in Aurora, Colorado they are unwittingly helping to spread NRA propaganda. After a tragedy like that, it is the most logical thing in the world to ask what went wrong and how we can fix it. When you ask that question, the obvious answer is our gun laws. It’s awfully hard to stab 70 people and kill 12 of them in a short period of time like that. It’s very easy to murder those same people if you have an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and two glocks.

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Comments

  1. It is still amazing to me that the arguments over guns, especially after a tragedy like this, is all about the two extremes. It is as if there is no middle ground anywhere in between. I should not be surprised, considering the polarization in this nations politics, policies and attitudes that are so divided we “hate” each other for this divide. Here is my view of the situation and I am a hunter and gun owner myself:

    NRA/gun fanatics: Quit believing all the bull from the NRA about the government coming after your guns and ammunition…they are not going to jeopardize their political ambitions and the millions of dollars they receive from gun and ammunition lobbyists.

    Anti-gun fanatics: Stop shouting that we need to take away all guns. It cannot be done because of the 2nd amendment and it would cause a worse scenario with more guns being in a black market.

    NRA/gun fanatics: Stop equating regulating guns to taking away rights and taking away your guns. Regulations such as identification and background checks, as well as waiting periods, are attempts to prevent having guns land in the hands of murderers like the guy in Colorado. If you cannot wait to get your gun for the time period of the checks, then you have a problem with patience and you should be thinking ahead of your purchase. It is a small thing to ask, to have you wait, to keep killers from getting their hands on these weapons.

    Anti-gun fanatics: Stop trying to brute force laws and regulations that severely limit gun use and ownership. I do not believe there is any reason to have an assault rifle to hunt or even limited reasoning for hand guns, but freedom means both sides have to compromise and not the type of compromise republicans talk about, but truly giving up some ground to get to the middle beliefs and values. Just because you do not like guns does not mean everyone else should not like them.

    The bottom line is the NRA, gun and ammunition manufacturers make billions of dollars by having this debate rage on, year after year. The example I share is when the NRA realized they could not use the old standby that the government was coming for your guns, so they told you they were now coming for your ammunition! Anyone who sold ammunition was sold out in days. I witnessed this when I was at the hardware store that I normally bought my ammunition from and realized their shelves were nearly empty. The NRA said the government was going to cause a shortage of ammunition, but in reality, the NRA caused the shortage by telling everyone to buy as much as you could, before the government came and took it away. Truth? The government had no intention of taking away or shorting the ammunition. It was simply the ammunition manufacturers needing to make some of that money the NRA was “forcing” you to buy…the shortage was YOUR FAULT for believing the NRA. If you need thousands of rounds of ammunition or a rifle with a magazine that holds more than 4 to 6 rounds, it is not for hunting. If there were regulations checking on those types of purposes, this particular Colorado mass murderer would have been caught month ago.

  2. I disagree.

    When people tell you that you shouldn’t politicize a tragedy like the shooting in Aurora, Colorado – they are telling you the exact same thing that people who said Bush should not have politicized a tragedy like 9/11 told you.

    You give those who share your political objectives a pass because you are telling yourself the cause is just … but the behavior itself is no different.

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