Posted on 12/06/2013 5:48:14 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
Losing the vote on gun control in the Senate last week was a huge political blow to President Obama. While 90% support the Second Amendment and only 49% of the population support tougher gun laws, the president pushed through with his proposals regardless.
Blaming the NRA did not help his cause as polls showed that the Manchin-Toomey bill was voted down because it would have had no impact on gun crime or future mass-shootings. It only made more legal gun sales subject to federal databases, but did nothing about illegal gun sales or mental health or any of the issues actually related to gun crime and mass shooting.
Obama's defeat was equally a defeat for the pro-Obama media, who unashamedly does his bidding. Instead of educating the public about the complexity of the debate and the history of gun ownership, the mainstream media was more intent on placating the president than educating the public. So, with the large-scale media support, why did the president lose the Senate vote?
He lost a golden opportunity to bring rational debate to a country where gun ownership is a constitutional right. Had he convened a cross-sectional group of advisors to investigate whether gun controls are properly applied, the outcome would have been less divisive. Keen to win, he railroaded this bill through Congress with tactics that boomeranged in his face rather embarrassingly.
The Sandy Hook massacre propelled Obama into action in a way that his hometown, Chicago, with its excessive gun killings, failed to do. Why? Gun killings in Chicago is mostly black on black violence whereas Sandy Hook was about a young white man who killed a number of white teachers and children in a gruesome attack.
How better to put the National Rifle Association (NRA) on a guilt trip, often tarred as racist and right wing. The NRA pre-empted this by proposing a federal plan, supported by the Sandy Hook community that would arm and train security guards to stop assassins from targeting schools.
To add insult to injury, Obama used Gaby Giffords, his former party colleague who was a victim of a near-fatal shooting, and the Sandy Hook victims, to grace the halls of Congress to play on the emotions of those opposed to his proposal.
When five Democrat Senators voted against Obama he threw a hissy fit, unbecoming of a president. In a fit of rage, one of his minions, Organizing for Action (OFA), promised to harass those Senators to alienate them from their constituencies, with a view to the 2014 elections.
This fit of pique, ignores the history of gun ownership in the USA and how it ended up as the Second Amendment in the American Constitution. If Obama is really keen to transform the law, then he should start a public conversation and take some lessons from SA's first democratically elected President Nelson Mandela.
A unifier par excellence, Mandela knew that the two hot potatoes of his presidency - the death penalty and abortion - could potentially leave deep fissures within an already divided society. His tactic was to enhance conversation rather than shut down debate.
Using Parliament in its true Socratic sense, he opened up these ideological powder kegs to the public and invited all constituencies to make submissions and debate the death penalty and abortion in public. He turned Parliament into a veritable demonstration of multi-party participation and consensus building.
Perhaps the time has arrived for the USA to open up this powder keg for rational unemotional debate. How it is done is the trick. Meanwhile those who judge Americans harshly for clinging to their Second Amendment, spare a thought for those saved by guns.
Apropos the USA's gun control laws, some perspective on their crime rates is instructive. While the USA's murder rate per capita is the highest in the developed world at 8 times higher than similar economically and politically developed countries which are on average below 0.5% and none over 1,0%, with a population of 313 million, its murder rate is 15 200 of which 9,960 are firearm related.
The gun-related death rate per 100 000 is 3.2. South Africa with a population of roughly 50 million has a murder rate of approximately 17 000 of which 6,400 are firearm related. Gun-related deaths per 100 000 account for 12.8 persons.
Lest we become arrogant and judge the USA, a close look at SA, should let us hang our heads in shame.
Also, let us remember HE took up arms against a government he considered oppressive. I would hope, therefore, that he would be a supporter of the Second Amendment.
Thoughts?
I'll settle for Obama learning to go to jail for a few decades as a start.
Mandela and Obama both Communists!
“Also, let us remember HE took up arms against a government he considered oppressive. I would hope, therefore, that he would be a supporter of the Second Amendment.”
So did Fidel Castro.
Communists oppose anything that threatens their rule.
Obama has done untold damage to this nation. The truths will trickle out slowly over the years, I suspect. In my opinion and the opinion of many, I believe Obama’s treasonous behavior warrants a swift trial and the highest penalty for his malfeasance and deliberate destruction of this country. Prison is too good for him.
How to make a “necklace?”
No enemy in our history has done more to damage the fabric of our nation. Others probably strengthened us. This roach is destroying us slowly....water torture style. The worst part about it is we have no one in power opposing him!!!!
Mandela impressed me as a man of character. The same way that George Washington does. A different age. A different culture. But still very similar men.
Both are leaders who sacrificed a large part of their lives in service of a great and noble cause. Humble servants of their people, not a self aggrandizing master.
Mandela was an early and ardent communist. He learned as he matured, that communism was an unobtainable lie given the flawed nature of man. He learned that you must extend mercy to obtain it. That to have peace, you have to bind up wounds rather than inflict fresh wounds.
He left in his wake a representative government. Like him flawed, but a hell of a lot better than any other post-colonial country on that hell hole of a continent.
We would do well to have more men like Mandela and Washington, whether as ally or adversary.
Obama cannot learn a thing from Mandela. Mandela had class and character. Obama has neither.
Don’t know that either can be learned. It has to be taught.
I pray every night that Mr. Obama has his Damascus moment.
Knocked on his ass, if not off it, by the illuminating lightening of the Lord God’s humbling Truth.
27 years in prison showers would be an adventure for Obama.
You should be ashamed.
Washington did not leave the US a hellhole.
“...I believe Obama’s treasonous behavior warrants a swift trial and the highest penalty for his malfeasance and deliberate destruction of this country. Prison is too good for him.”..
Perhaps they can try him in a state that has the death penalty, like Kalifornia for starters. Nah, it’ll never happen!
Comparing an unrepentant, murderous commie and GW is the height of ignorance.
Agreed. I was shocked.
Aye, S. Africa seems circling the big toilet bowl of history in a long ugly flush. Not as fast as Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, but on the way to the septic tank of black cronyism control.
Current events with our own US big eared Mugabe would seem to indicate that General George’s bequeath is headed to the same cesspool as Mandella’s unless we do more than talk big like the Boers then fold in the clutch.
The Boers were outnumbered 8 to 1. Even including the Anglo descendants of much thinner blood, it was 5 to 1.
We have a 3 or 4 to 1 edge and don’t seem to be doing much better right now.
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