I saw this hit piece on the CBS Morning News the other day. To drum up sympathy for what is tantamount to gun confiscation, they did this story on two police officers who were shot nearly point blank range and lived. They want to sue the gun shop where the weapon was sold. CBS twists this piece and almost pushes the viewer to feel sympathetic towards these two who were shot and angered towards the irresponsible gun store owner. They then go on to tack on a narrative at the end that Hillary Clinton is pushing for measures that would allow people who are affected by gun violence to sue gun store owners and gun manufacturers. What a twisted piece of shit. I will straighten it all out for you, then I ask that you watch this piece and just witness how twisted it is.
First – In this instance, a gun store owner was breaking the law by selling firearms to people who were not allowed to purchase them. The laws that were on the books were not being followed. Even with tougher gun laws, if someone decides they aren’t going to follow the law, tougher laws won’t deter them. It only serves to deter those who are law abiding.
Second – How can what happened to these two be compared to what has happened to all the people affected by the horrible mass shootings? In almost every case, the guns used in those mass shootings were obtained legally. Placing a waiting list on gun show sales would not have prevented a single one of these mass shootings. Not a single one! Yet, this is what Clinton, Obama, and the rest of the gun opponents are pushing for. Hell, the gun used against these two cops was obtained through a store, not a swap meet.
Third – Clinton would open the door for people like these cops to sue the gun makers as well. This would only serve to drive the cost of business so high for gun makers that they would go out of business and gun opponents know this. What if General Motors or Ford was allowed to be sued by those whose loved ones were killed by a drunk driver? Can you imagine? Do you think they would be able to stay in business long if they were able to be sued every time someone misused their product? Should Energizer be sued for their lithium batteries being used in the manufacture of methamphetamine? When people misuse a product, there is only so much a manufacturer can do except go out of business, which affects those who use the product the correct way.
As a student of history, I’ve seen this tactic used before. When people are afraid, they are more apt to let the government regulate. Once the government regulates, it hardly ever reverses itself. Remember my example of the automobile above? Let’s look at it’s history as a fine example of this.
When automobiles came out, they were considered by some to be tremendously dangerous machines. Horses hand minds of their own and it was pretty hard to drive a horse straight into a tree or into someone’s home, yet, with an automobile, if you weren’t careful, you could do just that. People were running into things and crashing in ways that were seldom seen with horses. As automobile speeds intensified, the wrecks only grew worse.
Automobiles were also louder than your typical horse and horses were easily spooked by them. In the United Kingdom, they passed a series of laws which curtailed these new fang-dangled machines called “The Locomotive Act”. Many of these curtailments made their way to the United States along with “Red Flag Laws”. These were all laws created in a knee-jerk reaction to automobiles which many found to be scary.
Now, you and I take automobiles for granted and can chuckle at some of these old, archaic laws, but many of the restrictions and overbearing regulations remain to this day. Among them are vehicle registration, license plates, and driver’s licenses. Even automobile insurance came out of this early era of automobiles. Before the automobile, generally speaking, it would have been unthinkable to require someone to possess a license to operate a horse, or for someone to purchase registration for their horse and buggy. It’s my understanding that some of the very large cities did this, but mainly for those who were in the business of carrying passengers or freight, known as chauffeurs. But for common folks like you and me, if you owned a horse and buggy, nobody was going to give you a ticket for lack of registration or license.
Imagine if we had today’s mind-set back then. If we would have allowed people to sue automobile manufacturers for misuse of their product, I dare say that we may not have the luxury of owning our own automobiles like we do today. They would be very rare and expensive, even more so than they are now. No, back then I doubt most common people would have even thought of suing the manufacturer for misuse. People back then seemed to have a little more common sense than people do today, but even with that being said, they did allow for all those regulations, which stick with us even now, and in the case of a driver’s license, it has become something even greater than what it was originally intended to do. Today’s driver’s license is a de facto national ID card assigned by the state, but to federal standards. Your driver’s license photo is stored in a database as a mugshot, even though you have done nothing wrong. Programs are out there that can pick you out in a crowd. This is why they don’t allow you to smile in your driver’s license photo and why it has a plain blue background. Do you see how laws meant for one reason can lead to unintended consequences? This is why allowing the federal government any more control over guns is a scary thought, much scarier than the thought of the wrong person having a firearm.
In fact, if people were to familiarize themselves with firearms, like they have with automobiles, I think we’d see a whole new approach towards firearms from the public. Firearms, like the automobile, in the wrong hands, can kill and hurt people. We’ve seen what happens when someone decides to plow their car through a crowd of people. People drive into crowds regularly, yet we don’t hear about it as loudly as we do when guns are involved. In 2003, George Weller drove his car into a crowd at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market and killed 10 people and injured 63. Just this summer a man decided to kill people with his car and yet, there have been no calls to ban the automobile, or for tougher restrictions on them. This is because we are around cars everyday and they don’t instill the same fear into the population the way that guns do. Whether it be a gun or an automobile, in the wrong hands, it is deadly. What defense do you have against a man who decides to run you over with a car? If you’re lucky, you can jump out of the way, but many times, there is very little warning when someone runs you over. With a gun, there is very little defense unless you are armed too. Most of these mass shootings have taken place in places that are gun free zones.
So, when you watch this piece, or listen to the whole gun control argument that will take place for the foreseeable future, remember, a lot of what gun opponents are pushing for wouldn’t have changed a single thing about the mass shootings that have happened. They are playing upon the general public’s fear of firearms. They are counting on the general public to react based upon emotion and not facts. Hit pieces like this from CBS will become more and more common, and just work people up into a greater lather. No government that operates in a manner that oppresses its citizens wants an armed citizenry. None. Go read what the founding fathers said about firearms, and not just the Bill or Rights, but in their writings. Thomas Jefferson was a strong proponent of people having firearms and he even advocated for the citizenry to rebel against the government every so often.
Our generation is soft. Over time we have been put to sleep. The government will not protect us. We need to protect ourselves, and that starts with an armed citizenry that is able to respond rapidly to sick minded individuals who choose to kill innocent people. I’m all for properly training people and making sure that firearms get in the hands of well qualified individuals. I’m also for making sure that firearms are stored safely in order to keep them out of criminal’s hands. However, this is not what Hillary intends to accomplish by allowing people to sue gun makers. No, Hillary and those like her want to disarm America, but they don’t have the guts to come right out and say it. They have no trouble pointing to other countries who have essentially done this and stating that this is what they want American to look like.
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