Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me
I know the answer to this one!
At the Seattle Post Intelligencer (which is a stupid name for a newspaper . . . I mean really what does that even mean?), Gail Collins laments that nobody is talking about gun control on the presidential campaign trail:
During this presidential campaign the nation has experienced an extraordinary number of grisly shooting incidents, including four mass murders on college campuses, two at suburban shopping malls and the slaughter of city officials at a Missouri town meeting.
Yet the subject of gun control never comes up. If people ask, politicians who have not been outdoors in months start tossing out hunter-talk in a manner that suggests that they’re driving around in a pickup with a deer carcass in the back.
Clinton used to be very vocal about gun control when she was running for Senate in New York, but now there’s nothing about it on her Web site. Barack Obama has a 64-page “Blueprint for Change” manual that you can download if you feel burdened by an excess of both leisure and paper. It does not mention gun control once.
And she notes the various flips of the Republicans, concluding with:
There was a time in this country when we seemed within reach of a sane gun policy that would have included licensing, laws against multiple gun purchases and bans on weapons that were of no use for sports or personal protection, like say, assault rifles. There was vast public support for these ideas, but they were extremely unpopular among critical pockets of voters in swing states. Many people believe Al Gore lost West Virginia — and the 2000 election — because of National Rifle Association attack ads.
So, you think policies that have been shown to have zero impact on crime are sane? Not a single one of your pipe dreams would have stopped a single mass shooting. And, FYI, there was never vast public support for these ideas. One need look only at the 1996 1994 elections for evidence of that.
And Al Gore lost his own state due to gun control and his support for it.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:40 am
The SPI is really an awful rag these days.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am
And she misses the purpose of the Second Amendment entirely.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Tennessee moonbats hate Tennessee wingnuts because we saved the Republic from Lord Gore.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
We need to return to the sane gun policies in place before 1968.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
“no use for sports or personal protection, like say, assault rifles.” I love it. I think my WASR 10 is great for personal and family protection that you very much. Even the US military uses REAL assault rifles to protect us. . . so I guess you are off a bit on that one eh?
February 27th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Seattle Post Intelligencer (which is a stupid name for a newspaper . . . I mean really what does that even mean?),
It means the person in Seattle who ensures that there is some intelligence around has already left.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Like Post-modern, “Post-Intelligence” means they’ve gone beyond Intelligence to a new realm, the “-er” means they’re more beyond it than you or me…
February 27th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
“bans on weapons that were of no use for sports or personal protection”
So who is Gail Collins to decide what firearms are useful and what ar’nt? With people like her onboard that paper is badly misnamed.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
If the pen is mighter than the sword, somebody take away her keyboard.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I believe that it was the 1994 elections that had to do with the assault weapons ban and health care
February 27th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Rick, and in 1996 (after the ban passed) what happened?
February 27th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Not much, aside from Clinton being re-elected, and both houses of the Republican Congress staying Republican.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:04 am
D’oh. Dammit. Ok, 1994. I had my years all wrong.