Glenn Beck – Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns (Mercury
Radio Arts/Threshold Editions)
I remember the conversation vividly. The national director
of one of the nation’s largest gun control advocacy groups was in town for a
second straight year to appear on at a local college campus to preach the need
for gun control.
It was at a time when guns were a hot issue, with a spate of
school shootings ranging from Pearl, Mississippi to West Paducah, Kentucky and
Jonesboro, Arkansas had hit home with the shooting death of local Edinboro
teacher John Gillette. As with all high profile incidents, the push was on for
new, allegedly tougher, gun control measures to be put in place to “prevent
this tragedy from ever happening again.” You never want to let a good crisis go
to waste.
I had desperately tried to get the gun controller to appear
on my show to debate the issue. On his first pass through town I got no
returned phone call from his DC based office or from the local folks at the college.
I had debated a wide range of folks on the issue of gun-control; capped I
thought by a discussion with children’s book author Stan Berenstain, who had
authored one of his Berenstain Bears books entitled No Guns Allowed; during which my responses to his silly points so
enraged the author that he gutlessly slammed down the phone, leaving me to
finish the debate with a dial tone.
On his second trip through Erie, the gun controller choose a
different venue, where I had better contacts and while I still got the cold
shoulder on him appearing on my show, I did manage to get in the same room with
him prior to his appearance. When I asked him why he would appear on my show,
he took my arm and took me to an empty corner and quietly said to me, “I’ve
heard you debate the issue and I know I can’t win, so I won’t do [the show] it.”
And that is truly the cornerstone of the debate over gun
control for me and the basis of Glenn Beck’s new bestselling book; Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns. Beck
cites example after example after example of how gun controllers frame their
case for more laws and more control based on fiction, half-truths and outright
lies. It’s as if they borrowed a page from Joseph Goebbels, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it.”
I can see the impact that the repetition of the lies has had on
family and friends. At a holiday gathering shortly after the Newtown,
Connecticut shootings, the inevitable discussion of “doing something to put a
stop to this” came up. While I try to keep things on the lighter side with
family, the hockey lockout was still in full effect so I could avoid the
discussion. I may have let my blood pressure slip just a bit when I heard the
standard lines about “assault weapons” and the need for background checks; I
calmly (or so I thought) asked exactly what my family member thought an assault
weapon was? Like most clueless members of the media, I received a blank stare
and a shrug of the shoulders and a limp, “like the kid used in Newtown.”
I’d like to personally thank Glenn and his team for saving my
familial relationships and my blood pressure! Now instead of trying (!!) to
remain calm and explaining the where my family and friends have been mislead, I
simply visit the truck of my car, take out another copy of Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns, hand
it to the misguided individual with the promise that I will gladly discuss guns
and gun control with them after they have finished reading the book. If I ever
have the opportunity to cross paths with the likes of sniveling Piers Morgan or
Rachel Maddow (that guy really pisses me off!) I plan to slug them in the nose
for all the money they have cost me for these books!
One little addition I would make for those who end up
arguing with idiots on gun control that truly stops these gun control nitwits
in their tracks; ask them if they truly are so set against guns if they would
be willing to post a small sign outside their home stating “NO GUNS ON PREMISIS.”
It would show how strong their beliefs truly are and act as an open invitation
for bad things to happen.
