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Facts Don't Work on Gun Control, so Obama Uses Emotion
Townhall.com ^ | October 6, 2015 | David Limbaugh

Posted on 10/06/2015 4:46:48 AM PDT by Kaslin

In his speech on the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon last week, President Obama sounded more upset about America's gun laws than about the horrific massacre.

We barely had the preliminary facts about the shooting, the shooter and the victims, and he was already lecturing the nation again on gun control.

Instead of calling the nation to prayer, he said we would learn about the victims in the coming days and then "wrap everyone who's grieving with our prayers and our love." Those words out of the way, he immediately pivoted to complaining that "our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It's not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel (or) prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America -- next week or a couple of months from now."

We didn't hear much "heartache and grief" in his speech, but his anger was palpable. It wasn't anger at the shooter, and it wasn't sympathy for the victims. It was outrage -- or apparent outrage -- at America's Second Amendment advocates.

"We are the only advanced country on earth," said Obama, "that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months. ... The United States ... is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws -- even in the face of repeated mass killings." He said these events happen so often that they've "become routine. ... We've become numb to this."

He may speak for himself, of course, but I don't know too many people, especially gun rights advocates, who are numb to such savagery. Many of us believe our society would be safer against gun violence if there weren't so many "gun-free" zones and if we had more armed guards.

As he has so often done before the powder is dry after similar incidents, he used his bully pulpit (emphasis on "bully") to misstate statistics as if he were trying for a record number of Pinocchios from fact-checkers.

He said: "We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work -- or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns -- is not borne out by the evidence."

What he conveniently omitted is that Oregon had recently strengthened its laws on gun sales and is above average among the states on gun regulation. It is one of only 18 states that require universal background checks before the sale of any firearm.

Being a proud Chicagoan, Obama is surely aware that his beloved city, which has distinguished itself in recent years for epic gun violence and death, is in a state that has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. How, then, can he claim that gun laws work? And how would implementing his idea of "common-sense gun-safety laws" make sense?

Though the United States has a high actual number of fatalities from mass shootings given its larger population, Obama ignores that other nations -- such as Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel and Switzerland, which all have restrictive gun laws -- have higher ratios of such shootings per capita.

The president also fails to acknowledge author John Lott's findings as of 2010 that all the multiple-victim public shootings (where three or more were killed) in Western Europe and in the United States occurred where civilians were not allowed to carry guns.

Charles C.W. Cooke, in his "The Conservatarian Manifesto," urges that we regularly debunk "the claim that America is in the midst of a gun-violence 'epidemic'. ... Two reports, both released in May 2013, revealed a striking drop in gun crime over the past twenty years." Cooke writes that "during the very period that gun laws have been dramatically liberalized across the whole country, gun crime has dropped substantially."

In his rant, Obama didn't just distort the evidence. He effectively accused the Republican Congress of allowing these deaths by opposing gun control laws for political reasons, proving that projection is still an important weapon in his partisan arsenal. At a time when he should be using his office and his influence to urge healing and unity, Obama uses them for strident community organizing to advance his agenda.

It is instructive that Obama rages at conservatives and scapegoats the weapons themselves rather than the criminals involved or the state of the human condition that underlies their actions.

It is remarkable that he demands an unconstitutional and meaningless change in the laws purportedly to save innocent lives but vigorously opposes all laws that would protect innocent babies in the womb.

And it is disgraceful that he seeks to inflame our emotions to seduce us into ignoring the facts and suspending our critical faculties long enough to surrender our vital Second Amendment rights.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: banglist; guncontrol; guncrime; guns; libmyths; massshootings; resident0bama

1 posted on 10/06/2015 4:46:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

2 posted on 10/06/2015 4:52:38 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Kaslin
One thing he knows is how to pull the emotional strings of his brainless, full of feels supporters.


3 posted on 10/06/2015 4:54:17 AM PDT by dead ("I'm up to my eyeball in virgin goats!" - Mullah Omar)
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To: Kaslin

Emotion is all the Liberals EVER use.

“Where there is emotion, there is no substance”.

When you’re emotional ... you cannot act... you can only RE act!!


4 posted on 10/06/2015 4:54:39 AM PDT by SMARTY ("What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self. "M. Stirner)
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To: Kaslin
He opens his mouth and lies come out - no different than every other day he's been in the white hut.

But facts don't matter to anti-gunners because their opposition to gun ownership by the citizens (I notice he isn't advocating disarming the SS or the police) is not based on what their stated goal is (protecting the public).

Their goal is to disarm the populace so that there is no potential check to tyranny. Liberals want to rule our every action "for our own good" Since we obviously can't make the decisions they think we should on stuff like "green energy", "globull warming", etc., sooner or later they're afraid that they'll cross a threshold where people start shooting, and you can't start shooting if the government has disarmed you.

Anti-gunners cannot be reasoned with because their position is not based on reason. Have you ever heard an anti-gunner say something like "Oh this gun free zone stuff isn't working?" They cannot be bargained with because the NEVER keep their side of any bargain and they don't have anything to offer anyway. (when have you ever heard an anti-gunner say "we have enough gun control now?" Or have you ever heard them say anything like " we'll we'll remove all restrictions on the type of weapons you can have if you go for a waiting period?" Of course not. They only take. They cannot be ignored because they work tirelessly to steal our God given rights. They'll only be satisfied if there is not a single firearm outside of their beloved police or the military. or we're killed by their SWAT teams in the process of collecting our firearms.

5 posted on 10/06/2015 5:10:17 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: Kaslin

Emotion is the favorite tool of the scam artist...it works so well on the ignorant.


6 posted on 10/06/2015 5:20:39 AM PDT by FrankR
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To: Kaslin

I have the solution..... make it illegal for bullets to invade another’s personal space!


7 posted on 10/06/2015 6:04:10 AM PDT by Lockbox
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To: Lockbox
Zero is like the bully who get beat up and then tries to pick on someone else


8 posted on 10/06/2015 6:07:10 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: Kaslin

Though the United States has a high actual number of fatalities from mass shootings given its larger population, Obama ignores that other nations — such as Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel and Switzerland, which all have restrictive gun laws — have higher ratios of such shootings per capita.

...

Ignoring? More like an outright lie.

The people need to be disarmed to make way for a more oppressive and corrupt government.


9 posted on 10/06/2015 6:35:49 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Kaslin

Been using emotion since 1962 to try and force gun registration (the real goal) on the American public.

This has been the liberal’s wet dream since 1962 when Thomas J Dodd and Emanuel Cellar called for the registration of ONLY HANDGUNS! Rifles and shotguns would not be affected.

Then two years later they called for the registration of ALL guns,
then a ban on small “Saturday Night Specials”,
then a ban on all handguns,
then a ban on semi-auto rifles and shotguns. And so on it goes.
You can go on certain Lib web sites in which they call for the abolition of all private ownership of guns, and prison time for scofflaws. Think of how many prisons will have to be built!


10 posted on 10/06/2015 6:47:19 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: dead

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over.


11 posted on 10/06/2015 6:49:16 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Ok. We won't call them 'Anchor Babies'. From now on, we shall call them 'Fetal Grappling Hooks'.)
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To: Kaslin

How about making it illegal to murder people instead of making guns illegal. That should solve the problem...;)


12 posted on 10/06/2015 6:56:50 AM PDT by Dave278 (Keep your change I will keep my freedom!!)
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