Friday, January 18, 2013

Joe Scarborough on the NRA Ad: What is Wrong with These People?

15 comments:

  1. The NRA didn't use the Obama children. Did you see either of his daughters in the video? These elitist talking heads running their mouths about how the proletariat doesn't bow down when the nobility passes is what's sick here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nobody's saying anything about bowing down to anybody. Are you that insecure and unhappy with your life?

      Delete
    2. Did you watch the sycophantic shock on the part of those talking heads that we citizens would ever question the actions or the security of our leaders? I'm not insecure or unhappy. I'm also not servile. I bow to no one, and I honor only those who have earned it. I respect everyone's rights.

      Your constant attempts to psychoanalyze me are pathetic.

      Delete
  2. All of the opposition to the ad centers on it being an attack on protecting the first family with the Secret Service and it dragging the girls into the argument.

    Instead, the ad was targeting the private security employed by the school that the President Chooses to send his daughters to. The offense taken by those who say "Why doesn't the NRA want the first family to have Secret Service protection?" is a red herring.

    As for the objection to referring to the first daughters, the argument is based on their father's choice of school for them--not based on them.

    If anything, the ad is a bit of an anachronism since later on the day it came out, one of the President's executive actions was to suggest incentives for schools to hire more resource officers. He hadn't waded into the debate before then, but everyone on the gun control side had been harping on how it was impossible to pay for these officers, how putting cops in schools turned them into prisons, how it was distracting and detrimental to educations, and how it was just part of an NRA plot to sell more guns to police departments.

    The NRA assumed that the President would come down on the issue the same way his supporters did. It turned out to be a bad assumption, but if he had, the ad would have been a valid point. As is, it's anachronistic, but it is telling that the same people who thought cops in schools were a horrible idea when proposed by Wayne LaPierre, and who said he was advocating for the police state we gun rights people fear, suddenly have no problem with the idea being proposed by the President.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're wrong on a couple points. One, people weren't so upset at the suggestion of armed guards in schools as at the fact that you guys are suggesting that INSTEAD of doing something about the background checks and other obvious problems. Two, the real red herring here is that schools with armed guards are still gun-free zones. You guys are flip-flopping all over the place on that one. VA Tech, for example, was a gun-free zone with armed guards. So are one-third or the rest of the schools, according to reports I've heard. So, I suppose what you're saying now is, armed guards aren't enough, but armed teachers and janitors will be.

      Delete
    2. Mike,

      I was only addressing the armed guards issue because that was all I heard Wayne talk about at the presser and on Meet the Press--I didn't hear anything else about armed teachers coming from him or the NRA, and that's all the ad was talking about.

      As for the comment about the NRA only proposing the armed guards being why people were upset, that's just not the case. Dog Gone posted a pic of the pepperspraying of the college kids in California and a caption saying "Cops in schools, what could possibly go wrong" or something to that effect (Which I'll acknowledge is a valid concern). The examples of opposition to having guns in schools that I gave were all pulled from my memory of what I heard on MSNBC, CNN, and even from some of the Fox anchors after the NRA presser.

      If the offense was only because the NRA said to put cops there instead of enacting gun control too, then the outrage would have been stated that way, the same way the press said "Yes, tackle mental health, but do guns too." I never saw this reaction to the idea of cops in schools until recently--a little bit right before the executive action, and a lot since then.

      The gun free zone thing is a separate, but related issue. When it comes to the NRA ad, it's dealing with the idea of having school resource officers or private security in the 2/3 of schools that don't have them.

      I didn't address arming teachers in my comment above since that was outside the purview of the ad. I have made arguments regarding allowing armed teachers in the past, however, and if you want to discuss that issue, I'm ready and willing to.

      Delete
    3. Mikeb, why do you keep repeating that deceptive line? Virginia Tech has 125 buildings on its main campus of 2,600 acres. Over 30,000 students attend, and there's an academic staff of almost 1,400. There are forty-nine sworn officers in the campus police force and eight security guards. They cover the campus day and night, so we can imagine that at any moment, there are around thirty security personnel present. That's one for every eight-seven acres, one for every thousand students.

      Delete
    4. Greg, you're the one being absurd every time you talk about armed guards being the answer. VA Tech is an example of how it's not.

      T., I'm still a bit unclear. Would "having school resource officers or private security in the 2/3 of schools that don't have them," make them non-gun-free zones. Or would the schools with armed guards still be gun-free zones? Do you see the confusion? Many people have been overlapping the two arguments.

      Delete
    5. Mike,

      I understand the overlap--and I've seen the confusion come from both sides. Basically, the NRA has proposed cops/resource officers in schools. The schools would still be "gun free zones." The President has agreed that this is a good idea.

      GOA has advocated ending gun free zones and allowing concealed carry by teachers and others. They've been joined by various school districts who have done this.

      The media question people about the NRA's position, and if they feel the person is doing too well, they suddenly shift the argument, without signaling, and try to make the person defend GOA's position.


      Also, with regard to your and greg's fight over VA Tech, his stats show why campus police can't be everywhere and thus can't stop attacks like this on college campuses which are small cities within cities.

      Armed guards in other schools that have a central building can help and are a good way to deal with mass shooters, but they are limited in what they can or can't do. They can be ambushed, circumvented, etc.

      This is why so many of us think that a distributed solution where those teachers who are interested in carrying are allowed to carry. Regulated the carry--require a good holster, require concealment, require that the gun not be handled at school, etc. but let it happen.

      The advantages here are that a potential shooter doesn't know who might be carrying, so it's not so easy to ambush the person who can shoot back, or to circumvent them. It also allows those who can stop the shooter to be distributed across the campus at a college campus. This solution would also mean that we wouldn't have to hire so many new cops to station them in all schools, though we could still do so as an additional layer of security.

      I'll leave it to you to proposed downsides. I can think of a few you may bring up, and of answers to them, but I'm not going to record them here at the moment because I don't want to set up and destroy straw men.

      Delete
    6. Mikeb, stop confusing me with the NRA leadership. I want armed teachers. I want students with carry licenses to be armed. I'm not talking about adding one or two more security guards.

      Delete
  3. Obambi is a raging hypocrite just like David Gregory,

    DG kids go to the same school as ole JugEars and are afforded armed protection. What makes DG kids so special....

    According to Washington, D.C. police, "NBC contacted MPD (D.C. Metropolitan Police Department) inquiring if they could utilize a high-capacity magazine for their segment. NBC was informed that possession of a high-capacity magazine is not permissible and their request was denied."

    In other words, somebody on Gregory's team was warned by D.C. police not to use the large capacity ammunition magazine... and Gregory ended up using (waving around a high capacity magazine)it anyway.

    One year in jail and or a $1,000.00 fine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thomas,

      In what way is it helpful to post something calling Obama JugEars? I suspect that you mean that simply as a way to make fun of his appearance rather than as some racial slur that I've never heard of, but you know how it will be taken by the opposition. And even if it is just a comment on his appearance, and only taken as such, that's not exactly helpful to our side. David Gregory's willful violation of the DC law is a good point to question the gun control proponents about, but I'm afraid that we'll not have that discussion now because everyone will focus on your moniker for the President.

      I keep calling for civility from some of the gun controllers who do nothing but spew aspersions and libel, but your frequent personal attacks on Obama are doing nothing to help the goal of reasonable discussion and trying to convince gun controllers to look at other options.

      I'm not saying not to criticize the President, or not to be harsh in your criticism. Lord knows I can't stand the man. Just keep it to his policies and to the things he says and does, not his appearance which is apropos of nothing.

      Delete
    2. You know why we haven't heard more about Obama's jug-ears, because as you mentioned they have no racial significance. The true Obama-haters, the ones who go so over the top it's inexplicable, are driven by secret racism. That's my best guess. I can think of no other explanation, can you?

      Delete
    3. Actually, I can. Ideological differences.

      I may have still been a kid during the Clinton administration, but I was already into politics, and I can remember hearing awful things said about him. Some of the things said about Bill were worse than what I've heard said against Obama.

      The hatred of his policies isn't new and has nothing to do with his race. Dislike of the man is due to his policies and the way he pursues them.

      Your insistence on "secret racism" shows a great deal of pride on your side. On one level, a pride that your views are so enlightened that there can be no rational reason to oppose them, so anyone who opposes you must be driven by racism, or by avarice, or by some perverse fetishization of guns, etc. On the other level, it's a pride that claims to be able to tell what is in the secret, innermost thoughts of other people. You have no more insight to tell whether those who hate Obama are secretly racist than I have to look into your heart and tell if you are secretly a communist trying to pave the way for the revolution by relieving the bourgeois of their arms.

      Delete
  4. The NRA posed a question which these elitist swines can't/won't answer, instead, they opt for killing the messenger. This looked like something you might see in England, if gawd forbid, someone said something about Prince William or Harry. OMG!!!!!! Gawd Save the King/Queen.

    The first question I'd ask his Royal POS is why aren't your kids in a public government school?

    orlin sellers

    ReplyDelete