Gingrich Schools Gun-Grabbing Piers Morgan: 'Isn't Your Real View That You Would Ban Pistols?'

Townhall.com ^ | January 25, 2013 | Scott Whitlock

[Kaslin]

Newt Gingrich on Thursday night interrogated the gun-grabbing Piers Morgan, pushing the CNN host as to what his real motives are. An aggressive Gingrich insisted, "So, why don't you share your real view?...Isn't your real view that you would ban pistols if you could?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.] The Republican also told the British anchor why the Founding Fathers were able to defeat "your army."

Morgan swore that his concern was "the high-powered guns of any variety which can fire 30 or 40 or more rounds in less than a minute." He added, "...That would be my primary concern right now." The former Speaker pounced, "Right now? Okay, right now." Gingrich lectured, "The reason you find so many of us very reluctant to go down this road is we believe each step down this road leads to the next step and the next step and the next step."

Gingrich Schools Gun-Grabbing Piers Morgan: 'Isn't Your Real View That You Would Ban Pistols?'

The ex-presidential candidate grilled:

NEWT GINGRICH: And we actually think the Second Amendment is central to our liberties, not just something there for hunters, not something there for target practice, but actually there because the founding fathers remembered that when your army tried to defeat us, luckily, our peasants weren't peasants. They were citizens. And as citizens, they were in fact armed. And that's the only reason we were able to win the Revolutionary War.

On January 10, Morgan sneered at another conservative guest who cited the Constitution: "You brandish your little book." 

On January 16, he mocked a female gun rights activist: "Do you want the right to have a tank?"

A partial transcript of the January 24 segment can be found below:

NEWT GINGRICH: So where -- so where are you -- so where are you on pistols that have fairly large capacity? Where are you on the pistols that killed most of the people in Chicago, Piers?

PIERS MORGAN: My position --

GINGRICH: It's okay if we kill them individually?

MORGAN: No. Let me make my position.

GINGRICH: Are you saying three, four, five, and that's okay?

MORGAN: Let my position very, very clear. What is happening in Chicago is completely outrageous, completely unacceptable. I think there's been a total breakdown in the effectiveness of the law enforcement. Because when you compare it to New York, they have solved a lot of the gun problems in New York with very stringent gun control and they've enforced it properly. There are -- it's like the Wild West situation in parts of Chicago. I've been there, I think it's outrageous. And I think the fact that 11,000 or 12,000 people die a year in America from gun fire and a lot of that is from handguns used by criminals and gangsters is disgraceful.

GINGRICH: Right.

MORGAN: And I think many of the other --

GINGRICH: So why -- right. So why don't you share your real view?

MORGAN: Many of the other proposals --

GINGRICH: Isn't it --

MORGAN: It's all wrong to me.

GINGRICH: Isn't your real view that you would ban pistols if you could?

MORGAN: No, it wouldn't. What --

GINGRICH: Wouldn't you ban pistols if you could?

MORGAN: Let me -- let me explain what I would do. I would agree with Diane Feinstein. It is the high-powered guns of any variety which can fire 30 or 40 or more rounds in less than a minute that can cause mass murder that would be my primary concern right now. And the AR-15 is a prime example of that.

GINGRICH: Okay, right now, and the reason you find so many of us, and by the way, it's a substantial majority, I think the last time I saw, 63 percent of the American people agree that the Second Amendment is actually there to protect us from tyranny. The reason you find so many of us very reluctant to go down this road is we believe each step down this road leads to the next step and the next step and the next step. And we actually think the Second Amendment is central to our liberties, not just something there for hunters, not something there for target practice, but actually there because the founding fathers remembered that when your army tried to defeat us, luckily, our peasants weren't peasants. They were citizens. And as citizens, they were in fact armed. And that's the only reason we were able to win the Revolutionary War.

MORGAN: And you think -- and you honestly think the founding fathers sat there and thought, okay, automatic weapons are banned because they are very dangerous. The semiautomatics that can fire 100 bullets in a minute are not dangerous and they should be lawful?

GINGRICH: I think the founding fathers would have found this entire debate strange because they actually believed in individual freedom and they were very suspicious of big government, and they would find the idea that you're going to permit, to use the word you kept using. You're going to permit us to have a few liberties right now, was the antithesis of the American experience.  

[Sherman Logan]

all English citizens from the nobility to the peasants were obliged to privately purchase weapons and be available for military duty.

Actually, not all peasants. This applied to all "free men." A very large percentage of the peasantry were serfs or slaves at this time. So the gamut ran from nobility to yeomen or franklins.

Actually, that was more or less the legal distinction between a free and unfree man. The freeman carried arms, while the unfree man was prohibited from doing so.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Here is another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokeville_Elementary_School_hostage_crisis

[Uncle Miltie]

LOL. Yup; more like 50%.

[MrB]

Gingrich is doing what we all need to be doing - not allowing the left to argue their “front” argument, but jumping right at their real intent and thwarting their weapon of incrementalism.

Prov 26
4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.

[chuckles]

ping for later

[RC one]

how many people are killed with assault rifles every year Piers? How many killed by cheap hand guns in the hands of BLACK AND MEXICAN GANG BANGERS? Go to hell you limey POS. Better yet, go back to Britain.

[DuncanWaring]

MORGAN: ...It is the high-powered guns of any variety which can fire 30 or 40 or more rounds in less than a minute that can cause mass murder

In 1914, Sergeant Instructor Alfred Snoxall put 38 rounds into a 12" target at 300 yards in one minute with a No. 1 Enfield, a bolt-action rifle.

The cartridge fired by this rifle was designed to stop a cavalry charge by disabling the horses at a range of 600 yards.

I presume this would fit Morgan's definition of "30 or 40 rounds in less than a minute that can cause mass murder".

Does he thus presume to outlaw century-old bolt-action rifles?

[onyx]

Me too!

[zeebee]

I love how Newt said, "when your army tried to defeat us"

[onyx]

Support Free Republic

[demshateGod]

I’d be looking at spending 400.00 for an AK-74 instead of 900.00.

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

“Go to hell you limey POS. Better yet, go back to Britain.”

Is there a difference?

[Littlejon]

MORGAN: And you think -- and you honestly think the founding fathers sat there and thought, okay, automatic weapons are banned because they are very dangerous. The semiautomatics that can fire 100 bullets in a minute are not dangerous and they should be lawful?

OK, I'll give you that the Founding Fathers couldn't have imagined the weapons we have today. But, I don't think they would have cared because the KIND of weapon was as irrelevant to the reason behind the Second Amendment as hunting is. The wrote the Second Amendment because they wanted to make sure people in this country didn't have to worry about some President FORCING his ideology on the country by usurping the checks put in place with no way to stop it. It is precisely because of what we see Ovomit doing RIGHT NOW that the Second Amendment is so important.

BUT, where I WISH Newt had gone is to follow that line up with something like this:

"And do you honestly think the founding fathers sat there and thought, okay, killing a person who is able to breathe on their own is banned because that is wrong. But one day medicine will allow a doctor to stick something sharp into the head of a child while still in the womb and that should be lawful because it is the mother's "choice"? And what about the FIRST Amendment. Do you think the Founding Fathers ever dreamed that what they wrote would justify allowing porn and all kinds of depravity to be shown to anyone in the name of "freedom"? What about the press they also wanted to protect? Do you think they sat around and said "well, you can go to jail for lying about someone, but as long as the press does it (GM trucks "exploding") or if they choose to ignore one story (Benghazi, Fast & Furious) while pushing another (No WMD's in Iraq, Bush dodged the draft) because they don't like one person as much as another, that is OK?

I would have LOVED to see Piers answer that one.

[ConjunctionJunction]

It’s the Overton Window approach to political change:

http://www.mackinac.org/12887#overton_window_container

The gun grabbers are trying to shift the window in their direction.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

http://pjmedia.com/blog/where-did-piers-morgan-come-from-anyway/

[karnage]

Your post is as funny as your handle.

[GBA]

Love or hate Gingrich, one must admit he is a good debater and is usually on point in a Constitutional or American history debate.

I understand without fully understanding that some, like Glenn Beck for example, see Gingrich as a closet progressive and therefore a potential danger to the Republic.

But, in situations like this one against the british progressive twit, in defense of the 2nd Amendment, he does a nice job taking that boy to school.

[Uncle Chip]

That is why people who fight the fact that a Bushmaster was used in Sandy Hook are playing right into their hands. They would rather ban the handguns than the ARs.

Note that in Connecticut it was illegal for Adam Lanza [being under 21] to possess the handguns but it was not illegal for him to possess the Bushmaster.

[Inyo-Mono]

Bookmarked.