Posted on 01/11/2011 7:50:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
When the obviously disturbed John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan in 1981, pundits blamed guns for the tragedy; they didn’t blame an ideology, left or right.
In the New York Times, David Rosenbaum quickly dispatched with the theory that Hinckley harbored political motivations. Citing Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan B. Sirhan, Rosenbaum identified a line of assassins who “were deranged loners, social misfits apparently acting alone.” Hinckley, Rosenbaum added, “fits that mold.”
Later, Rosenbaum enumerated three elements that “authorities agree contribute to assassinations”: lax security, a glorified presidency, and “availability of hand guns.” “Few doubt that it would be a deterrent to assassinations if handguns could be eliminated,” Rosenbaum argued.
In the Washington Post, Bill Prochnau and Art Harris picked up on a similar theme: a culture of violence in America. “The acts of violence were becoming so regular, so ingrained, so much a part of American life that the latest shootings — even with a president involved — left many Americans almost immobilized during the long day of televised irrationality when Reagan was shot,” they wrote. Further in the piece, they quoted former president Gerald Ford who lamented it was “impossible to protect presidents against attacks by ‘loners, kooks, screwballs, whatever you want to call them.’”
Years later, Sarah Brady, wife of press secretary Jim Brady, who was wounded in the assassination attempt, would take up the cause of gun control. But in the immediate aftermath, she conspicuously declined to ascribe ideological motives to her husband’s attacker. “I don’t know much about him, I haven’t read much about him, and I just don’t even want to think about him,” she told the Washington Post.
Indeed, gun control was the only blatantly political battle that flared then. As Steve Hayward notes in The Age of Reagan: “Senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) took to the Senate floor to proclaim that America was a ‘sick society,’ and Ted Kennedy called for more gun control; Pat Moynihan noted the irony that Reagan would instantly veto any new gun control law that Congress might pass.”
But Hinckley was never used as a tool against an ideology. In fact, he was often described as a loner, and it was left at that.
When it comes to Jared Loughner, some on today’s Left don’t have the decency to do the same.
they always blame everyone and everything but the correct target... oops, did I just use “hate” speech..
The liberal argument sounds like this to me in a nutshell:
1) Hinkley, Loughner, the Columbine kids all have legal guns.
2) They used legally owned guns to kill people.
3) Therefore, owning guns legally will ensure that tragedies like Reagan’s shooting, Columbine and Tucson will happen.
4) SOLUTION : BAN THE OWNERSHIP OF LEGAL GUNS.
If you counter-argue that this will not prevent determined nut jobs from getting their guns illegally, they will challenge you to show cases of insane, mass shooting where the killer obtained his gun illegally.
you read it here first.
A local radio host came up with an interesting take on the violence issue yesterday evening.
Note how the media has recently been reporting that this was the safest year since 1968, when it comes to violent crime.
Then this shooting comes around, and they wail about the violent nature of our society.
Okay, which is it Lefties. Are we safer or aren’t we?
With the 111th Congress, yes. But not with this one.
LLS
The left has been sitting around waiting to smear Conservatives with their narrative so long that they collectively jumped the shark on Saturday.
They have such a hatred and fear of the right that they believe is the “collective consciousness” of the whole country. Reading the tweets and blogs of the day of the shooting show what an echo chamber of misinformation and seething hatred that NYC, LA and DC are toward the rest of the country. This was not the same case in 1981. Gun control is and always has been a leftist fetish, but hatred of the people for not embracing Progressive ideas is a new concept.
LLS
Millions of us will see to it that your vision never comes to pass.
LLS
I don't think that's the issue. If you banned the legal ownership of guns, over time you probably would reduce the availablity of guns legal and illegal available to nut cases.
But at what cost? "We the people" would be defenseless against thugs, household intruders, governmental tyranny, and even foreign invaders.
And to what benefit? Would it deter nut cases from committing murder? Or would they just redirect their efforts to bombs, driving cars through crowds, or other mayhem?
Reducing availability of guns to nut cases does make sense, but the costs of doing so are far too large, and the benefit is questionable.
It sounds like people knew this kid needed help and nobody took action. Probably because nobody realized how easy it would have been in that state. I heard on the news, that apparently anyone, including his classmates, could have called the state and requested that he be evaluated. In fact, that seems almost too easy.
I don't think that's the issue. If you banned the legal ownership of guns, over time you probably would reduce the availablity of guns legal and illegal available to nut cases.
But at what cost? "We the people" would be defenseless against thugs, household intruders, governmental tyranny, and even foreign invaders.
And to what benefit? Would it deter nut cases from committing murder? Or would they just redirect their efforts to bombs, driving cars through crowds, or other mayhem?
Reducing availability of guns to nut cases does make sense, but the costs of doing so are far too large, and the benefit is questionable.
It sounds like people knew this kid needed help and nobody took action. Probably because nobody realized how easy it would have been in that state. I heard on the news, that apparently anyone, including his classmates, could have called the state and requested that he be evaluated. In fact, that seems almost too easy.
Perhaps the MOST IMPORTANT driver for these shootings is PUBLICITY. Commit a heinous act and immediately you are famous. Your name is now a household word. Your facebook picture (one you selected because it makes you look good) is flashed over every TV and newspaper in the country. Everyone is talking about you all over the media. They will even print your manifesto if you have one. It doesnt matter if it is good or bad publicity, no one cares about that anymore. YOU ARE IMPORTANT. Ever wonder why there are so many copycats after some creep poisons a box of pills at the local pharmacy? MEDIA ATTENTION IS LARGELY RESPONSIBLE.
If the media is really interested in preventing these atrocities, they should minimize discussion of these events, and especially not mention the shooter’s name. If it is mentioned, it should only be in derogatory or mocking terms such as coward, loser, mental defective, etc.
She may not be an opportunist like you think. I agree with you that many liberal politicians think this incident is their ticket to furthering their gun grabbing agenda. The weapons/tools are not the thing to blame for the incident. Jerrod acted under his own free will. The founders had enough foresight to realize that guns are an important deterrant to takeovers from either enemies (foreign or domestic) and also a tyrannical government. The bottom line is that there are bad people who do bad things. Living in a police state is not the answer; remember, citizens stopped the attack, not the police. They were just there to mop up the aftermath and take a report. Notice that the sheriff is pointing his finger everywhere but towards himself.
Sirhan Sirhan, the killer of Robert F. Kennedy, may have been a nut too, but he was a politically motivated nut. From Wikipedia:
“A possible motive cited for his actions is the Middle East conflict.[11] After his arrest, Sirhan said, “I can explain it. I did it for my country.”[11] According to Mel Ayton, Sirhan believed he was deliberately betrayed by Kennedy’s support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War,[18] which had begun exactly one year to the day before the assassination. During a search of Sirhan’s apartment after his arrest, a spiral-bound notebook was found containing a diary entry which demonstrated that his anger had gradually fixated on Robert Kennedy, who had promised to send 50 fighter jets to Israel if he were elected president. Sirhan’s journal entry of May 18, 1968, read: “My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming the more and more [sic] of an unshakable obsession...Kennedy must die before June 5th”.[7][11] They found other notebooks and diary entries which contained his growing rage at Zionists, particularly at Kennedy; his journals also contained many nonsensical scribbles, which were thought to be his version of “free writing”.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Sirhan Sirhan’s notebook
The next day, on June 6, the Los Angeles Times printed an article, which discussed Sirhan’s motive for the assassination, confirmed by the memos Sirhan wrote to himself. Jerry Cohen, who authored the article, stated,
“When the Jordanian nationalist, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, allegedly shot Kennedy, ostensibly because of the senator’s advocacy of U.S. support for Israel, the crime with which he was charged was in essence another manifestation of the centuries-old hatred between Arab and Jew.” [19]
Dr. Mohammad Taki (”M. T.”) Mehdi, then secretary-general of the Action Committee on American-Arab Relations, believed that Sirhan had acted in justifiable self-defense, stating: “Sirhan was defending himself against those 50 Phantom jets Kennedy was sending to Israel.” Mehdi wrote a 100-page book on the subject called “Kennedy and Sirhan: Why?”.[20]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirhan_Sirhan
Using the left’s logic, we should really blame Jodi Foster for Reagan’s attempted assassination....she is the one who inspired the jerk.
Reynolds threw up his hands and yelled..”OH! DALLAS!” obviously having a flashback to 1963.
And the next day on Good Morning America, Actress Lee Grant demanded...The NRA is a rifle organization! They should give up their handguns AND THEY CAN KEEP THEIR RIFLES!”
Do you or anybody else know if Sirhan got his gun legally or illegally? Thanks.
Godspeed.
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