World View: Andrew Sullivan and the Gun Control Fantasy

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• The Gun Control Fantasy
• Andrew Sullivan’s proposed solution to gun violence
• The Metastasis of Corruption and Violence

The Gun Control Fantasy

Gun control is one of those issues that politicians use to bash eachother or to make money from. Like it or not, there are already 310million non-military firearms in the United States, and you’d have tohave an IQ of 50 to think that some gun control law, even if itpassed, would have any effect on that number.

Let’s take a quick look at some similar issues:

• Do you remember Prohibition? How did that work out? (By the way, we recently celebrated the 79’th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Cheers!)
• There are plenty of illegal drugs, but (I’m told) anyone who wants illegal drugs will have no trouble obtaining them. Some people say that keeping drugs illegal is a good policy anyway, to prevent sending a message that they’re OK. Others point out that keeping drugs illegal creates a huge industry of drug trafficking, giving rise to drug cartels in Mexico and elsewhere. Prohibition created a huge industry in bootlegging, which mostly went out of business when Prohibition was repealed.
• Abortion. I did a little research on this in the 1990s. There are countries, especially Catholic countries, where abortion is illegal, and other countries where it isn’t, but the figures I saw indicate that illegality made no discernible difference in the rate of abortions.
• Prostitution is illegal almost everywhere in the United States, but prostitutes are easily available. Anti-prostitution laws promote prostitution rings as big business, joining with drug cartels.
• Porn and child porn became explosively available on the internet in the 1990s, and during that period, incidence of child sexual abuse plummeted by 35%. Making porn and child porn unavailable increases child sexual abuse and makes children more vulnerable, while today’s computer software can produce products without exploiting women and children.

The point is that people of all political stripes have this eroticfantasy that they can pass a law to make anything happen. The truthis that anyone who wants get drunk, get stoned, get an abortion, getporn, use a prostitute, or be a prostitute, can do so, and there’s noevidence that prohibitions do anything but promote drug cartels,prostitution rings, and other forms of organized crime.

So, with 310 million non-military guns already available in the UnitedStates, you’d have to be a fool to think that any gun control law willaccomplish anything.

killed in our schools.”

Well, I’m as scared of guns as anyone. I’ve never held a gun(except water pistols) and I don’t belong to the NRA. I don’treally care whether gun control laws are passed or not, exceptthat they have very negative consequences, as do prohibitionsagainst other things — alcohol, drugs, abortion, etc.

There’s only one SOMETHING that I’ve heard that will protect kids frombeing killed in our schools — the NRA proposal to use retiredpolicemen, marines and soldiers to protect schools, on an optionalbasis for those cities and towns that opt to use them.

I can only marvel at the sheer stupidity of the people on the loonyleft making vitriolic attacks on this proposal, but it shows the stateof politics in the U.S. today. The proposal is certainly worthconsidering, as it’s the only proposal I’m aware of that mightactually do some good.

Andrew Sullivan’s proposed solution to gun violence

When Colorado Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in January,2011, left-wing commentator Andrew Sullivan described where the blameshould lie. According to Sullivan, the shooting was caused by SarahPalin, who put a map on her web with with a little cartoon target onthe state of Colorado:

“An Assassination?

Map appearing on Andrew Sullivan’s site

When a congresswoman is shot in the head in the very act ofdemocracy, we should all pause. This is fundamentally not apartisan issue and should not be. Acts of violence againstpolitical figures destroy democracy itself, for both parties. Wedon’t know who tried to kill congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (sheappears to be still alive) and we should be very cautious indrawing any conclusions yet about why. But we can know that,whoever tried to kill her and for whatever reason, politicalrhetoric involving words like “target” and “gun-sights” isinherently irresponsible.

For a public figure [Sarah Palin] who has appeared on a nationalticket and who commands a cult-like following, theirresponsibility is even more profound. …

Giffords was one of twenty members of Congress placed withinmetaphorical “gun-sights” in SarahPac’s graphic. That is not thesame thing as placing a gun-sight over someone’s face orperson. No one can possibly believe – or should – that Sarah Palinis anything but horrified by what has taken place. But it remainsthe kind of rhetorical excess which was warned about at the time,and which loners can use to dreadful purposes.”

Andrew Sullivan’s implication that Sarah Palin was responsible forGiffords’ shooting was repeated by the mainstream media constantlyfor weeks, even though it’s unlikely that the shooter ever even sawthe Sarah Palin web page.

Now, fast forward to the week of the Newtown massacre of 26 children.Earlier in that week, we had Teamsters Union leader James Hoffadeclaring “civil war” on the country, and we had and we have unionthugs running around beating people and destroying property, allbecause of a proposed labor law.

The mainstream media repeatedly justified this violence by saying thatthe union thugs had a right to be angry. A number of left-wingloonies said that Fox commentator Steven Crowder “deserved what hegot” when he was beaten by union thugs.

The union thugs were assaulting people on behalf of President Obama,and Obama said nothing, condoning and supporting the violence with hissilence, implying that violence is OK as long as the victim

These expressions were all over the mainstream media, and it’s likelyAdam Lanza heard them. So in his troubled, twisted mind, he may wellhave thought that his mother and the 26 Sandy Hook elementary schoolchildren “deserved what they got” when he slaughtered them, andthat President Obama would approve.

Union thugs, supported by the NY Times, NBC news, and other mainstreammedia, and supported by President Obama himself, have created acultural environment that violence is OK as long as the victim

• James Hoffa has been declaring war on Obama’s opponents for two or three years. In 2010, he introduced President Obama by saying: “We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches [Tea Partiers] out and give America back to an America where we belong.” President Obama has had many opportunities to condemn this violence and call to war, but he’s refused to do so.
• Obama and the mainstream media glorified the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) mobs, while they were committing violence and rape against anyone who disagreed or interfered with them.
• Charges of rape against sleazebag Julian Assange are ignored by the mainstream media and feminist groups.

President Obama’s supporters, and Obama himself, are creating acultural acceptance of violence towards anyone who “deservedwhat they got.”

Now let’s go back to Andrew Sullivan, who blamed the shooting ofGabrielle Giffords on Sarah Palin’s “rhetorical excess,” which “lonerscan use to dreadful purposes.” Well, James Hoffa certainly usedand Adam Lanza was certainly a loner who may have used Hoffa’s callcondemn the violence of union thugs who support President Obama theway he criticized a little cartoon target used by Sarah Palin?

Piers Morgan on CNN recently called an anti-gun control advocate an

“You’re an unbelievably stupid man, aren’t you? Youhave absolutely no coherent argument. You don’t actually give adamn about the gun murder rate in America.”

Actually, the stupidest man in America would have to be AndrewSullivan:

• He advocates gun control which could have no effect on the murder of school children.
• He blames a small cartoon target for gun violence on Gabrielle Giffords.
• He ignores calls to war and actual violence by union thugs supporting President Obama, and doesn’t blame them for the gun violence at Sandy Hook school.
• He vitriolicly opposes the NRA proposal, which is the only thing I’ve heard that might actually protect school children.

As Piers Morgan might say, Andrew Sullivan is an unbelievablystupid man who doesn’t give a damn about how many children arekilled in American schools.

The Metastasis of Corruption and Violence

I’ve previously described how corruption and violence havemetastasized in America in the last ten years. At first, it was justGeneration-Xers defrauding Boomers and creating the financial crisis.Since then:

• Obama’s union supporters have declared war on America, and Obama, along with the mainstream media, refuses to criticize violence perpetrated on his behalf.
• Obama and his supporters have glorified violence and rape by OWS and anyone else who perpetrates a crime against a victim who “deserves what they get.”
• There is massive corruption in Washington and on Wall Street and in the mainstream media. Respectable people are actually gangsters, and gangsters are treated as respectable people.
• The Obama administration adamantly refuses to prosecute any crook (bankers) who make a campaign contribution.
• Anyone who objects is called a “racist.”
• Obama supporters, led by billionaire George Soros and Obama himself, have been calling for warfare and violence against Fox News.

These left-wing calls for war and violence may eventually trigger aright-wing response at some point.

In the past week, Facebook has suspended an account of someone whoquestioned the official story of the Sandy Hook shooting. Lt. J. PaulVance of the Connecticut state police warned people postingprosecuted.” Vance said he confirmed with with “federal authorities,”presumably President Obama’s Dept. of Justice.

As I’ve written in the past,what’s happening today parallels what happened in 1930s Germany.Germany’s Lost Generation began with discrimination and isolatedviolence against the previous Missionary Generation. Corruption andviolence metastasized into discrimination against Jews, and eventuallythe Holocaust. Anyone who objected was called a “Jew” or “Jew lover”by the mainstream media and politicians.

The fact that America today is on the same trend line as 1930s Germanydoes not mean that America will go as far as Germany did on that trendline.

However, there may well be what might be called a “Kristallnachtmoment,” an incident where violence by Obama supporters againstAmericans is so heinous that it forces the mainstream media and theleft in general to make a “yes” or “no” decision whether to allow theviolence and corruption to continue to grow.

I believe in America’s institutions, and I believe that when theand reverse direction.

We actually have a modern day example of this. In Pakistan on October9, the Taliban shot an innocent young girl, Malala Yousufzai, foradvocating education for girls. This appears to be Pakistan’scountry, at least temporarily. Sometimes the thugs go too far intheir violence, and it backfires against the thugs. But we have toremember that the thugs never went too far for the ordinary people in1930s Germany.

In the meantime, the amount of violence and corruption in Americacontinues to grow. Let’s close with Martin Niemöller’s famousstatement:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me–
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

At least I, Dear Reader, am willing to speak out.

Andrew Sullivan, January 8, 2011 and AFP and CNN and NY Daily News

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