They Have To Lie To Win
Seems it’s not just the anti-gun folks who are guilty of it.
As a side note, per a user comment (Egregious Charles, maybe?), I tried to categorize this post under “Flaming Bag of Poo,” but I don’t have permission to add new categories. 🙂
UPDATE: PolitiFact.com is even less kind to the NRA mailer — be sure to send some of your vitriol that way, too:
Here’s what LaPierre wrote about the vote: “When Obama turned thumbs down on the bill, he voted against the most basic element of the Second Amendment ? the right of defense of self and family ? the reason that millions of Americans own firearms.”
That’s a bit of a leap. In concrete terms, Obama’s thumbs-down was a vote against the state legislature tweaking a local gun ban. In any event, there’s no fair way to interpret it as evidence that Obama has a future plan to ban the use of firearms for home defense.
…snip…
Ignoring that sort of evidence, and instead extrapolating from one vote on a jurisdictional debate in Illinois a broad-ranging plan to ban guns for home defense, is not just misleading, it’s intentionally dishonest. That is, Pants on Fire wrong.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Let me help you out, T.
I don’t want to ban homosexuality. I have to problems with two members of the same sex having relations so long as they both go through extensive background checks, fingerprinting, medical exams for disease control, have their names printed in the local paper, do not have sex within 500 yards of a school, church, neighborhood with small children, bars, etc. There must be a 5 day waiting period between meeting new partners and coitus (each with a new background check). They may not have relations (nor be together) on school properties, post offices, courthouses, or public parks. Private displays of homosexuality are ok, but not public. You must have a permit to be gay and walk around.
There’s also training and a “Gay Tax” that’s only $150 every few years, and in some states that’s a “may issue”.
If you caress the left buttock with the right hand, that is illegal and a felony (however, caressing the left buttock with the middle finger of the left hand on Wednesdays after Labor Day is permissible with a $200 Extra-Flaming-Tax). The middle finger caress is illegal if the fingernail is more than 1/8th of a centimeter. Eye contact is permissible, but not prolonged eye contact (which is defined by the arresting officer and subject to change).
And we must close the “Neighborhood Gay Bar” loophole where homosexuals can meet without proper checks.
You see, when you apply all those constraints, you’re not “banning” gays. You’re making their lives so fucking miserable you might as well ban them.
Obama has done the same thing with gun ownership. When you regulate something to death, you “take it away” all but in name. I can “hire” a person, refuse to let them leave my property, force them to do work they do not wish to do, but paying them minimum wage doesn’t take away the fact they’re a slave.
And seeing Obama’s own handwriting on a note that explicitly states
“35. Do you support state legislation to:
a. ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns? Yes., well, you’re going to have to do better than calling the NRA a bunch of liars.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 pm
that should read “I have no problems with“
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Lets say for sake of argument that all Republicans are liars. Does that mean America has to go further down the road to full-on socialism? If so, why?
Now lets say for sake of argument that everyone in the NRA is a terrible person– a liar, a thief, and a child rapist. Does that mean the Second Amndment is now null and void? If so, why?
Lets further say that Obama has had a decidedly anti-gun position is his short political carreer, which is in fact true. Should we now, all of a sudden, believe him when he says, with zero record to back it up, that he “supports” the second amendment? If so, why?
What, exactly, is your point here?
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Uncle; Are you and tgirsch the same person? Sometimes I wonder if you created tgirsch as an on-line alter ego of sorts– the Mr. Hyde to your Dr. Jeckle. It’s just a wild thought, but it would fit.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I’ll take this apart tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, it’s entirely shit. Obama did indeed vote against a bill that decriminalized the use of a handgun in self defense in the home, and he does indeed support an AWB.
Trying to pretend that he’s not hugely antigun is Karl Rove politics writ large, but on the left.
Tgirsch, sometimes it disgusts me that we’re on the same team ostensibly.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Except that FactCheck doesn’t do any more than quote Ted Kennedy when it claims that the “armor-piercing rounds” don’t include normal rifle rounds.
How were they defined? Did the bill give the ATF leeway to determine what is armor-piercing?
(If you look below this post, you’ll see comments about a gun that might become an “AOW” under Federal law at the whim of the ATF. How do we trust Kennedy and co. if they let the ATF determine what is and is not armor-piercing?)
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I dunno, Factcheck never seemed anything but anti-gun to me. For those of you actually interested in looking at the text of the ad, rather than looking at the titles and then gleefully sticking your fingers in your ears with a CCW permit stapled to your chest, let’s look at the actual text.
Obama’s didn’t vote to ban the use of firearms or handguns for self-defense twice. No, he just voted twice against a law that provided an affirmative defense to those who used firearms for lawful-self-defense and didn’t follow Illinois’s frustrating licensing scheme. Entirely different things.
Obama didn’t vote to ban “hunting ammo”. No, he just voted for an amendment that would expand the definition of “armor-piercing ammunition”. Nevermind that the text of the amendment allows the attorney general to determine what “armor-piercing” is, allowing the attorney general to ban any cartridge which can be loaded into a handgun and which “may penetrate body armor”. Nevermind that there are pistols chambered in .30-06 and .223. Oh, and would start by banning the Five-SeveN. No one hunts with that thing. Well, not in Illinois, anyway.
He doesn’t want to ban the manufacture, sale, or possession of handguns. That survey question — on a piece of paper with his handwriting on it elsewhere — was filled out by a horribly inept office-worker. Let’s carefully ignore that he voted to ban the manufacture, sale, or transfer of various ‘Saturday Night Special’ guns that would include the uber-deadly Walther P22 California Assault Weapon.
He doesn’t want to require licensing for all firearms. He just wants to mandate licensing for handguns as a party plank. We’ll carefully ignore his vote in 2002 to maintain ban the possession of a firearm by someone without an FOID card while being supervised by someone with an FOID card. We’ll skip over that the statements FactCheck bring up only say that licensing for all firearms wouldn’t be political practical.
He doesn’t want to expand the AWB to ‘millions more’ guns, even though we’ll admit he wants the AWB back. FactCheck apparently thinks that SKS-clones haven’t been selling over the last few years, and damn the evidence otherwise.
He won’t put forward Justices for the Supreme Court who think the Second Amendment is as valuable as toilet paper. After all, even though he voted against every pro-gun Justice to come in front of him, that was just because Roberts and Alito aren’t “empathetic” enough. And Obama said that there was an individual right… while saying that the right apparently didn’t prevent a complete ban on functional firearms, so it’s not like appointing sympathetic justices should be worrying… right?
Obama wouldn’t shut down 90% of gun shops or raise taxes on firearms and ammo by 500%. Sure, he’s said he would a whole ten years ago, and has never taken back that statement, but FactCheck just couldn’t manage to contact an Obama rep (that wouldn’t mysteriously be found to have answered without permission in a week), so it’s uncertain.
Try the other one. It’s got bells on.
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Factcheck.org is full of shit. The best they can do is say that Obama is “disputing” what the NRA is saying. Because it’s entirely possible that an intern bothered to forge Obama’s handwriting on the survey saying he wanted to ban all handguns.
Obama’s denials mostly amount to “we don’t have the votes” or “it’s not politically feasible.” He has all but outright admitted that he would ban everything in a second if he had the votes. As was said in the 90s, “Mister and Misses America, turn them in.”
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I wonder if tgrisch understands junk like this does nothing to dispel the fact that Obama will restrict the 2nd amendment and the people that live by it.
The best thing for Obama to do on this matter is shutup and let the liberal media do the whitewashing for him, like they are with pretty much every other issue he is connected to.
And another thing. I do not think the founding fathers would have a problem with armor-piercing ammunition. As far as I know, the stuff they had back then could slice through a suit of medieval armor. Even dinky harqubuses were armor piercing.
These guys or girls or its at factcheck obviously know little about the 2nd amendment or firearms in general.
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Factcheck.org said it, liberals believe it, that settles it.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Amen and pass the Hope!
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Ok I didn’t wait until tomorrow.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Medieval archers could penetrate armor with arrows. The whole armorpiercing isn’t hunting canard only works if you’re cynically stupid.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
And I used to think that factcheck was reasonable and unbiased. So much for that. Stupid punks.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Heh…modern carbon arrows can pass through a car door.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 am
Sebastian-PGP:
Oh, give me a break. Like any other special interest group, the gun lobby alternates between hyper-literalism and the most broad of generalizations depending on what suits them, and it’s good to see someone take them to task on it, while also acknowledging several instances where the criticism was, in fact, legitimate.
But hey, if non-partisan fact-checking “disgusts” you, then that’s your problem, not mine. (Because heaven knows that the NRA would never engage in disingenuous spin…)
What disgusts me is the idea that anything that fails to toe the pro-gun party line is somehow automatically partisan, liberal B.S.
Dan:
I wonder if tgrisch understands junk like this does nothing to dispel the fact that Obama will restrict the 2nd amendment and the people that live by it.
I’m fully aware that the overwhelming majority of gun nuts are completely in the tank for “anyone but a Democrat,” at least in national politics. I posted this here only because of all the holier-than-thou lecturing the anti-gun lobby (of which I am decidedly NOT a part) often gets here.
The implicit conclusion of Uncle’s “they have to lie to win” statement is that “we” don’t have to lie to win. So why do it?
Frankly, the responses here are confirming what I’ve long held — that neither side of the gun debate can be reasoned with. Anyone who dares deviate one millimeter from the party line is derided, and anyone engaging in any sort of real criticism gets the Zumbo treatment in short order.
Xrlq:
Well, we know that conservatives in general (and the McCain campaign in particular) have little regard for facts, but that aside, it’s not as if factcheck.org is exactly in the tank for Obama. As of right now, four of their top five articles are critical of the Obama campaign.
They’re far from perfect, but unless and until you can show me somebody who’s doing a better job of vetting, they’re the best source we have for separating truth from bullshit.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 am
I’ve responded in more detail over at Sebastian-PGP‘s place, not that it matters. Since I haven’t
purchased enough tech gradients to achieve a sufficient operating Thetan levelbought into the entire pro-gun party line, I may as well be a gun-grabbing commie.September 23rd, 2008 at 12:57 am
Yes, you may as well be.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:59 am
?anyone but a Democrat?
No, anyone but a Democrat with a 20 year history of trying to ban anything related to owning or using firearms. There are pro-gun democrats, it’s just they never seem to survive the presidential primaries.
Ever hear of Bill Richardson?
Also, gun owners were unified in their opposition to Rudy Giuliani on the gun issue and Rudy Giuliani has a less anti-gun record than Obama.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:44 am
tgrisch
The problem as I see it is that FactCheck had to work awful hard to find problems with the NRA flier. Of the points they list, most are either listed as true, or uncofirmed/unsupported, and the three that are false are listed such based on the idea that Obama says he won’t because he doesn’t have the political clout to do it. If I look at his prior statements and voting record, I feel that if he had the political clout, he would enact any and all regulations and bans he could get away with.
So the three false items are false because Obama (or Kennedy) says they are? So exactly how is the NRA lying? And the FactCheck article seems kind of biased (not so much for Obama, rather than against the NRA).
I expect the NRA to sell their position, but I agree with you that they REALLY should work to bulletproof their bullet points. The NRA is making some claims that it would be hard pressed to prove, and some are kind of ridiculous. But FactCheck is selling it as though the NRA is completely wrong, which isn’t exactly the case.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:44 am
I’ve got a full debunking of the FactCheck mess in comment moderation hell right now, but to clarify this :
The amendment Obama voted for added to the current and pre-existing armor-piercing ammo bans the :
The definition of body armor, for the purpose of the Attorney General’s tests, are :
So it’s not about the BATFE, it’s about an attorney general making up random selections.
For those of you at home, the current minimum standard for the protection of law enforcement officers ranges from an under-shirt to Type I ballistics vests, depending on local area. Let’s give Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume that this would focus on Type I ballistics vests, and we’re still taking any round more powerful than a weak .380 ACP. That includes any round typically used in rifles “that may be used in a handgun”. There are handguns chambered in .223. There are handguns chambered in .30-06. There are handguns chambered in .45-70. There are handguns built in to fire *shotgun shells*, and those are covered by the letter of the law, too, and they’d go through type I or even IIa vests nine times out of ten.
So, again, pull the other one, tgirsch. It’s got bells on.
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
TGirsch, if “FactCheck” isn’t in the tank, there is no such thing as a tank. How else can you accept their naive view that Obama has always opposed handgun bans, notwithstanding the 1996 survey he lamely blamed on a staffer even though his own friggin’ handwriting was on it? Or that he always supported the Second Amendment as an individual right, despite having viciously opposed 2 of the 5 Justices who made the decision what it was (and he didn’t get a vote on the other 3), and despite having openly supported DC’s ban (which he disingenuously called a “gun-safety law”) until the day the Heller decision was handed down?
Or how do you explain “Fact” Check flat-out lying about the home defense law:
Well, duh. If the law made it a crime to use firearms in self-defense, the NRA would be praising Obama for having opposed it. That’s just teh st00pid, though, the lie comes later.
“Loophole,” eh? So much for “FactCheck,” say hello to OpinionCheck.
There is the lie. Wilmette has/had no registration law. AFAIK neither does any other city in Illinois except Chicago, whose handgun “registration” law has never been anything short of a ban under another name.
If that were all the law said, it wouldn’t have helped DeMar, since Wilmette’s ordinance prohibited handguns outright, as opposed to simply requiring them to be registered (and DeMar supposedly having failed to do so). This leaves only two possibilities: either FactCheck was too lazy to research the basic facts of the DeMar case, or they are lying outright.
So much for the first possibility.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:37 am
Who the heck is this TGirsch and why is he posting on Uncle’s board? Could someone explain this for a relative newby to the blog world?
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
Uncle invited him a while back to guest post. While I disagree with him most of the time, I do like the change of pace from time to time and he stays as civil as one can when standing in a lion’s den wearing meat scented boxers.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Factcheck is a program run by the Annenburg Foundation. That pretty much tells you want you need to know.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:24 am
Lyle:
What, exactly, is your point here?
Well, it was supposed to be nothing more than that nobody’s hands are exactly clean when it comes to playing hard-and-fast with the facts. But it turns out that I apparently want to take everybody’s guns away, or something.
Jim:
Sorry to disturb your comfy echo chamber. I try not to do it often. Don’t worry, for the next few days, you can return to the comfort of never having to hear someone who doesn’t 100% agree with you all the time. 😉
Robb:
Thanks for the, err, vote of confidence. 🙂
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:43 am
I’m very glad the Factcheck relies on the words of the Anti-Gunners as to what their gun grabbing proposals mean. Why would they not ask someone besides the NRA-ILA what these proposed laws mean?
The armor peircing bill did NOT exclude hunting ammo. It included handgun ammo that can penetrate body armor.
Due to many calibers being used in both rifles and handguns, that means a ban on rifle ammo.
This is where folks with knowledge of firearms point out that the Thompson Contender and the like are chambered for most “hunting” rounds. Even the piss-ant (in centerfire rifle terms) .30-30 hollow point will cut right through a level II vest from an 11″ handgun barrel.
All someone who supports factcheck’s position on armor piercing ammo has to do is explain to me how the anti-gunners will ban .30-30 (and other centerfire rifle)ammo for handguns without banning .30-30 (and other centerfire rifle) ammo for rifles.
It’s got to be easy, Ted Kennedy say’s so.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
“I?m fully aware that the overwhelming majority of gun nuts are completely in the tank for ?anyone but a Democrat,? at least in national politics.”
– Not our fault the big names in national Democrat politics hate my freedoms and want to take them away. Then again, they are just a projection of the standard leftwing liberal; full of malice and hatred toward anyone that opposes any of their sick agenda.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
tgirsch;
“Well, it was supposed to be nothing more than that nobody?s hands are exactly clean when it comes to playing hard-and-fast with the facts. But it turns out that I apparently want to take everybody?s guns away, or something.”
So… that means I don’t deserve my liberty?
And as far as the pro-gun nuts being “unwilling” or unmoveable; That’s right out of the standard lefty playbook from the 1960s. If I dissagree, if I base my position on principle and on the letter of the Constitution and am unwilling to entertain the idea of erroding my principles, I am “closed-minded”. Yet I can make the same accusation to anyone who disagrees with me, and I have the founding principles of this country and its Constitution on my side. So there. You’re being extremist and closed minded.
You don’t want to be raped, do you? How about just fondled and kissed by a strange man? What– you’re not willing to “compromise”? You’re not interested in moving from your extremist position?
Yes, in that sense I am a closed-minded extremist. I don’t believe my rights are yours, or anyone else’s, to vote away. Likewise, I don’t believe your rights, which are exactly the same as mine, are anyone’s but yours. They are not subject to the whims of the vote (no matter how dishonest some polititian or lobbyist might be).
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Lyle:
So… that means I don’t deserve my liberty?
Where did I say or imply anything of the kind?
And as far as the pro-gun nuts being ?unwilling? or unmoveable
Look, I don’t have a problem with people defending their views, even passionately when called for. But the sheer nastiness with which a lot of commenters on this blog respond to dissent is striking, and does not make gun rights advocates look very good. If you want to protect your right, being a dickhead to everybody who disagrees with you probably isn’t a very good idea. I wouldn’t expect that sentiment to be controversial.
Further, as I’ve stated before, you’ve got more than enough evidence to show that Obama is essentially an anti-gun candidate without having to resort to rile-the-base bullshit. Part of the reason bullshit is so pervasive in politics is because we accept it, and often even cheer for it, when it advances our pet agendas. That has to stop.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Exsqueeze me? I don’t see any nastiness here, just a thorough trouncing of your misconceptions and proof that FactCheck.Org blew this one.
Adverts, are by and large, designed to be effective by condensing information. Any level of compression is bound to not be 100% accurate in details. The NRA is well known for blowing things out of proportion, and trust me as a member I’ve jumped their case plenty on it. But this is one thing where you’re simply holding nothing but a pair of twos and are going all in because you don’t know to cut your losses.
Barack Obama is a gun grabber. He has a history, extensive as it can be for such a short timer, of voting against or ignoring pro-gun bills and signing his name to anything that’s anti-gun. This is indisputable as far as I can see because you cannot point to one instance where O’dub supported gun rights.
When someone points that out, proves it with facts, that’s not “nastiness”, that’s us simply correcting you, multiple times if need be.