Posted on 06/18/2015 6:10:54 PM PDT by Kaslin
Please pray for those who have lost their lives in Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, for their families and friends, and for their entire community. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering, and need our prayers and support. Let’s start by spreading love rather than division.
With that said, if I had to give one piece of advice to any politician, it would be that any argument starting off with “We don’t have all the facts” is one that should probably remain unspoken. Another piece of advice would be that gathering the relevant facts before speaking will avoid embarrassments like this portion of Barack Obama’s speech, which comes after a whole raft of examples to the contrary (via Daniel Halper at The Weekly Standard):
Obama Pivots to Gun Control: 'This Type of Mass Violence Doesn't Happen in Other Advanced Countries'
We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.
Now is the time for mourning and for healing. But let’s be clear, at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.
I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now. But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it. And at some point it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it.
This is the standard argument for gun control, particularly in comparison to other Western nations. We’re just too violent, and we shoot each other at a breathtakingly higher rate than other similarly situation countries. The problem with this argument is that the solution hinted at here by Obama doesn’t work either. The UK saw gun violence skyrocket in the first decade of the century despite having some of the toughest gun-control laws in the West, while the Left governed Great Britain no less.
Besides, this year’s most notable shootings took place not in the US but in France. Two al-Qaeda-inspired gunmen massacred the staff at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, apparently not daunted by firearm restrictions there. In Copenhagen, another radical Islamist shot up a meeting at a cafe, killing two and wounding five police officers. The 2011 massacre in Norway was conducted by a man who obtained his weapons legally in a nation that requires a license to own firearms.
People who commit these kinds of attacks out of hatred will find weapons with which to conduct those attacks. My colleague at The Week, Damon Linker, supports gun control but objects to Obama’s simplistic construct:
I’m all for gun control, but fact is that we will NEVER be able to eliminate enough guns to keep terrorists from getting hands on one.
— Damon Linker (@DamonLinker) June 18, 2015
This Charleston massacre, where people had gathered in prayer and love, is a horrible, despicable act by one deranged and hateful individual. Rather than turn it into a political platform within hours, a real leader would have led the nation in honoring those who died rather than make it about his own agenda. That’s advice that Obama rarely, if ever, follows.
Update: With all due caveats about the sourcing, Wikipedia has a list of rampage killers in Europe that show 10 such events in the past five years. Note this qualifier, too: “The list does not include school massacres, workplace killings, hate crimes, or mass murders that took place primarily in a domestic environment, like familicides, which form their own categories.” Charlie Hebdo doesn’t make the list, nor did Anders Breivik with that categorization. (via Laura Fillault)
Ever heard of a place called Mexico ya moron?
The MS 13 scumbags we’ve been importing have a history in their native land.
They’ve been known to stop buses on mountain roads and kill everyone on board just to send a message.
It happens in Muslim countries every day.
Because the zero is not in charge
13 black people shot by other black people in Chicago last week. Just sayin’.
FUBO Obummer, You Marxist a$$wipe!!!!!
Obo the idiot.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/two-killed-gunmen-swedish-pub-gothenburg-biskopsgaarden
there was a mass shooting in China this week too.
Now now, don’t be so hard on the Feckless Fool on the Hill. Remember, he does not have a brain.
That’s right . . . it could only happen in a country that is equally as hated as the one Obambi and Her Royal Large Hind-Ass Moochelle live in.
Heres a couple. Charlie Hebdo. 77 Kids, also killed in Norway.
Apparently France and Norway are not civilized
This mans arrogance and stupidity is unsurpassed.
This may be it, friends: the event that gave the final push to the 2nd American Civil War.
This *Man* is a shameless anti American gun grabber, who constantly tries to divide America.
Take a look at Kenya Obie.
BECAUSE GUNS ARE BANNED IN CHURCH, the murderer could not be stopped. People are sitting ducks in a “no gun zone.”
Let’s see . . . how many Christians were lined up by those masked cowards and had their heads cut off? Bet that was just work-place violence and certainly not a hate crime.
Too bad this helpless, brainless sock-puppet doesn’t just STFU.
What a stupid liar we have for a (p)resident.
“In just 100 days in 1994, some 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists. They were targeting members of the minority Tutsi community, as well as their political opponents, irrespective of their ethnic origin.” http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506
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