Gun control is almost always supported by people who have almost no experience with guns. They seem like scary things that are only in gangster movies, so if we just ask our benevolent politicians to save us, they can make it all go away. That’s not how the real-world works, though — and this ignorance ends up killing people.
Earlier this week, the main anti-gun congresswoman from Colorado, Rep. Diana DeGette, apparently didn’t understand that magazines could be reloaded. That’s something you learn in the first 5 minutes in any basic firearms safety class — and she’s based her life career on putting people in prison over her gun laws. She’s the lead sponsor of the magazine ban. It’s insane.
Obama is now showing off his own particular style of almost intentional ignorance. After campaigning and voicing his opinion and crafting policy recomendations for years, Obama apparently doesn’t even know the difference between semi-auto and full-auto guns. WhiteHouse.gov reports him giving a speech in which he stumbled over the two phrases in a confused manner, and finally decided to refer to the Aurora shooting as happening with a “fully-automatic” weapon. Oops.
Here are the exact words from the speech:
“Now, over the next couple of months, we’ve got a couple of issues: gun control. (Applause.) I just came from Denver, where the issue of gun violence is something that has haunted families for way too long, and it is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen, but also make sure that we don’t have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon – by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly.”
Here are the exact words from the Colorado Democrat Rep. Diana DeGette who didn’t know magazines could be reloaded, from the Denver Post:
“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those know they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”
Let me make this as clear as I can: this kind of blatant, in-your-face ignorance is going to kill people. These power-greedy ignorant politicians have blood on their hands. It’s a disgrace.
Some have rightfully pointed out that perhaps Obama wasn’t confused — perhaps he was just lying. Either way, the man is ignorant, or a liar, or both. His credibility on gun issues is non-existent, and he’s the epitome of what’s wrong with politics. Politics is when we organize society by giving the most ignorant people the power over an issue — rather than the free market. There’s a reason it never works.
