Clueless Liberals Weigh In On Guns Control

Even before we knew the identity of the loser who shot up Umpqua Community College in Oregon, learned the identity of his victims, or the type of weapon he utilize to perpetrate his crime we had a volley of cluelessness hurled by President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, candidate Hilary Clinton and a raft of drooling morons in the liberal media.

The talking points are familiar enough; the National Rifle Association has blood on its hands, we need “common sense” gun control laws, the second amendment had nothing to do with individual freedoms it was about militias, blah blah blah, yackity yackity.

Never one to let a good crisis go to waste, Obama practically sprinted to the microphone to once again politicize a mass shooting and proclaim the need for “common sense” gun legislation that would close the so called “gun show loophole”, with universal background checks and a band on so-called ‘assault weapons.” And this is where the rush to the camera tripped up the President; Oregon had already passed legislation to require background checks on all gun purchases, so it did not and would not have prevented the shooting at UCC.

Then the liberal pinwheels in the media started weighing in and pontificating about the need for more gun control. Amanda Marcotte, who regularly weigh in with the liberal take on things for Rolling Stone Magazine quickly served up 4Pro-Gun Arguments We’re Tired of Hearing. While all four are about what you’d expect from an uninformed moron, my favorite is number two which reads- “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” in which she laughingly goes on to proclaim “No mass shootings in the past 30 years have been stopped by an armed civilian.” Which is laughable on its face; first she mixes her metaphors, I would argue that the UCC shooter was “stopped by a good guy with a gun.” In fact two of them! Armed officers put this loser down and prevented greater loss of life.

As to the armed civilian part of her stupidity, it’s pretty clear that in many cases, disaffected losers who are hell bent on trying to inflict mass damage have been stopped in their tracks by armed civilians before they can escalate to multiple killings. Perhaps that might take a bit more brain capability than Ms. Marcotte can muster.

The better argument would be to look at these mass killings as a whole. It seems more often than not that these killings take place in locations like UCC that freely post what amounts to an equivalent of a sign reading
Whack Jobs Welcome” when they choose to post “Gun Free Zone” signs; which is notable in the case of Oregon which is a state that allows for concealed carry. Imagine how different the outcome might have been.

Think about what prevents bad guys from busting in your front door and taking your stuff…the greatest weapon is doubt; not knowing exactly what might await them on the other side of the door. Ask folks like Ms. Marcotte to post a sign outside their homes that simple states “No guns on premise” and I bet you will get a whole different opinion on these gun free zone.

Common Sense Gun Control   

I love when politicians and the media start thumping their collective chests and proclaim the need for “common sense gun control”. What exactly is that? Please name the law that we can pass that would have prevented this loser from perpetrating this tragic loss of life? (Insert cricket sounds here.) Still Waiting…okay, let me help you out; the answer is that with over 20,000 state and federal guns laws on the books we have not prevented these mass killings so what would make you think that we could possibly concoct a law to prevent this kind of thing from happening again?

The National Review’s Charles Cook raise this very point when he twisted the entire Morning Joe panel on MSNBC in knots by asking that same question. Check out the video-

Chicago

You got to wonder why is that Obama and his liberal pals in the media are SO outraged about the UCC shooting that left 9 victims dead and yet they haven’t really said a thing about the 15 murders over just last weekend in the President’s adopted home town of Chicago and the record 60! In the month of September. Could it have something to do with the fact that while Chicago and the state of Illinois have some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, those laws have done NOTHING to prevent a staggering amount of gun crime?!

Simply put, so even politicians and the liberal media can understand, gun laws will not stop a determined killer from perpetrating his crime. Bad people don’t get background checks and gun law only impact good people. The only thing that will put a dent in these kinds of crimes is to stop talking about the losers who perpetrate them; one look at the social media profiles of these assholes and you will more often than not see mentions of the losers who proceeded them down this path of destruction. We have to stand up and say you were a loser before this and you’ll go to your grave a loser and not achieve the fame you seek. This will go a long way to eliminating the copycat mentality.

The second step would be to take down these ridiculous “gun free zone” signs! Put that level of doubt back into the minds of these losers and raise the specter of a potential armed response. Let’s talk publicly and loudly about training people to respond in the event of someone trying to start a mass casualty event. Talk about a message that will have a REAL impact.

Dylan Ratigan – Greedy Bastards (Simon & Shuster)

I have always found the portrayal of Conservatives as “angry white guys” entertaining and misguided. Grab your Advil, tune in MSNBC, which is guaranteed to induce a headache, and soak up to nearly non-stop anger and bitterness of the cavalcade of Liberal hosts.
That is the point you have to start from when you read Greedy Bastards by Dylan Ratigan, host of MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, described by the press materials accompanying the book as “one of the highest-rated, daytime shows on the network.” Talk about damning with faint praise…given the cable news channel’s less than stellar audience numbers.

In Greedy Bastards, Ratigan attempts to details his perspective on our “broken system.” He runs down what ails a wide variety of problems ranging from banking to the stock market and healthcare to big oil/energy. Taking off on his crusade to remove money from politics, Ratigan attempts to draw correlations between the root cause of the problem and the flow of cash to politicians.

I don’t disagree! But I do find it interesting that Ratigan spent much of his early career as a financial journalist covering Wall Street yet he didn’t do a whole lot to raise red flags about the ridiculous Ponzi schemes and outright fraudulent financial instruments that the folks he was charged with covering were creating that became part and parcel of the financial meltdown tsunami that mowed down the housing, banking, finance and insurance industries in it’s wake. These guys created a financial house of cards that got a total pass from the regulators and politicians that wrap themselves in the cloak of looking out for the little guy and Ratigan stood idly by and said nothing until now.

Full disclosure; my day job is in the healthcare industry, so I read that section of the book with great interest. Ratigan lays out a classic example of his friend “Larry” who was clearly suffering a repetitive stress hand injury and was offered medical advice to address the issue with physical therapy which would have offered some relief. “Larry” decided not to follow through on the exercises that were recommended…let me stress that point; “Larry” decided not to follow through on the exercises that were recommended, and later needed to have surgery to solve the problem. It seems more than a bit ridiculous to indict the entire industry based on a patient choice.

Surprisingly, Ratigan does offer up a market based solution to the problem of the high cost of healthcare, rather than turning to the government to fix the problem. He advocates for a solution that I have pushed for many years; allowing market forces of health savings accounts and patient choices to drive down the cost of healthcare through competition and increasing quality.
The roadblock to most solutions tends to be the government and a HUGE increase in regulation. Ratigan bemoans some regulation, while pushing for new regulations, never accounting to the very real costs of those regulations and the fact that regulatory costs get passed through the so-called “greedy bastards” and get paid by the end-users.
The cartoonish cover may not have been the best choice, because it sets the tone for Ratigan’s BAM, BIFF, POW, approach; skimming the surface of very real issues, yet not really offering much in the way of in-depth solutions to the problems. Instead he chooses to nibble around the edges of solutions or offering up tried and failed solutions; like the electric car to solve the so-called energy crisis.
The real solution is not getting money out of politics, which is a limitation on free speech. The real solution is an energized, alert and informed electorate that pays attention and calls their elected officials when the put self-interest over public interest and an electorate that understands that the government is not the source of solving problems, but the source of creating problems.