Thursday, December 17, 2015
Strike Four
Why won't the Republicans talk about things we think are important? whines the NYT editorial board today here. I can answer that one; because your proposals about gun legislation are not worth talking about. But let's look inside the whining.
Of course the NYT editorial board members have to blame someone for not listening to them or taking their silly legislation recommendations seriously. They constantly attack the lobbyists, as if they were doing something nefarious rather than exercising their first amendment rights to petition the government for redress of grievances. Of course for the NYT the first amendment stops after "freedom of the press." That part they like.
So, the Republicans are talking how to prevent Islamic terrorist attacks and the NYT would rather they discuss how to disarm law abiding citizens. Someone has no sense of priority and it ain't the Republicans.
Of course the NYT (cough, the paper of record, cough) inflates the gun violence stats it uses with suicide numbers. That's a different problem, guys.
All in all a very weak effort to shame the Republicans.
We already have laws to prevent mass murders with guns, the murder statutes. If that doesn't stop the mass murderers, gun legislation isn't going to do the trick.
Instead, the nine Republican rivals spent much of their time dwelling darkly on potential threats from Islamic State terrorists. And when they brought up the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., this month, carried out by a couple found to be inspired by Islamic State violence, the discussion never veered to the easy gun access that enabled those killers — and many others — to commit swift and horrific slaughter of innocent people.I'm not sure why the NYT obsesses over the imagined power of a fully functional death star gun lobby. It isn't a powerfull lobby at all. I can't find its ranking in expenditures towards swaying legislators, but I do know it's not in the top 20. It's not in the top 68. The NRA is not concerned with the gun industry but with individual second amendment rights. There's a huge difference there.
That would have complicated their pitch, and more important, would mean thinking about gun violence in ways that would displease the gun industry and its political lobby.
Of course the NYT editorial board members have to blame someone for not listening to them or taking their silly legislation recommendations seriously. They constantly attack the lobbyists, as if they were doing something nefarious rather than exercising their first amendment rights to petition the government for redress of grievances. Of course for the NYT the first amendment stops after "freedom of the press." That part they like.
So, the Republicans are talking how to prevent Islamic terrorist attacks and the NYT would rather they discuss how to disarm law abiding citizens. Someone has no sense of priority and it ain't the Republicans.
Of course the NYT (cough, the paper of record, cough) inflates the gun violence stats it uses with suicide numbers. That's a different problem, guys.
All in all a very weak effort to shame the Republicans.
We already have laws to prevent mass murders with guns, the murder statutes. If that doesn't stop the mass murderers, gun legislation isn't going to do the trick.
Labels: NYT idiocy; Gun Control, Why Won't They Listen to Us?
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 11:32 AM 
