WHAT DO GUNS HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

Who is the more demented – the witch doctor with his nonsense incantations or those who believe him?

The witch doctor’s acolytes are worshipfully eulogizing his eloquence – "pitch-perfect," declared Vanity Fair – in Newton, Connecticut last Sunday (12/16).

Yes, the speech – the official text is here – would have been pitch-perfect if it had been delivered by Ronald Reagan, George Bush, or Mitt Romney, for their words would have been deeply sincere.  For them to be spoken by a fanatical advocate of unrestricted abortion and infanticide, and of ruining every American child’s future with trillions of debt, is to take hypocrisy into The Twilight Zone:

"Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around.  With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves — our child — is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice.

This is our first task — caring for our children.  It’s our first job.  If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right.  That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.

And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations?  Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children — all of them — safe from harm?  Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know that they are loved, and teaching them to love in return?  Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?"

I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is no.  We’re not doing enough.  And we will have to change.

We can’t tolerate this anymore.  These tragedies must end.  And to end them, we must change.

We can’t accept events like this as routine.  Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?  Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

There’s only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have — for our children, for our families, for each other.  The warmth of a small child’s embrace — that is true.  The memories we have of them, the joy that they bring, the wonder we see through their eyes, that fierce and boundless love we feel for them, a love that takes us out of ourselves, and binds us to something larger — we know that’s what matters.  We know we’re always doing right when we’re taking care of them, when we’re teaching them well, when we’re showing acts of kindness.  We don’t go wrong when we do that.

‘Let the little children come to me,’ Jesus said, ‘and do not hinder them — for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’." 

The quote from Christ is the final straw.  This speech is disgustingly, sickeningly, unctuously deceitful. And it’s being hailed by Zero’s Amen chorus in the CommieMedia.  Of course.  What better way to advance your political agenda than by using children shot to death by a madman?

That agenda is made gin-clear by its advocates’ determined avoidance of any genuine solution to madmen mayhem at schools, theatres, and shopping malls – the three places most typically targeted.  What do these three places have in common?  Everybody except the CommieMedia admits:  they are all "gun-free zones."  Meaning people in them are legally unprotected from madmen.

You know the adage – "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."  From the time the Newtown Police got the 911 call from Sandy Hook Elementary at 9:30am saying "someone is shooting," it took the police 20 minutes to get there.  Twenty minutes?  It would have taken a few seconds for a teacher or a guard to unholster a firearm.

John Hinderaker has an intriguing suggestion.  Post an armed guard at every school in the country.  How to pay for it?  Simple:

"Impose a tax on Hollywood-so many million dollars for every movie in which more than one person dies violently. Same for video games. And we could tax media outlets: any media outlet that has publicized mass shootings in the past pays one percent of its gross revenue to contribute to the cost of armed guards at schools."

The best discussion of all the issues involved – guns, gun-controls, "assault weapons," gun violence, etc. – is David Kopel’s Guns, Mental Illness, and Newtown in Monday’s (12/17) Wall Street Journal.  What could explain that as gun controls get stricter, random mass killings increase?  Kopel’s answer: 1) the mass media giving instant celebrity to mass killers;  2) the deinstitutionalization of the violently mentally ill (thanks to the ACLU); and 3) "pretend gun-free zones" where only victims are disarmed.

So – what have guns got to do with mass slaughter? 

The most horrific mass slaughter of recent time is the Rwanda Genocide in 1994.  800,000 innocent men, women, and children were butchered – and less than 20% with guns.  Over 80% were hacked to death with machetes.  (The story of Rwanda is told in Gorillas, Savages, and Redemption, March 2011.)

Would Adam Lanza have hacked his mother to death in her sleep if all he had was a machete and no guns?  Would he have then driven to the school and hacked to death two classrooms of Kindergartners?  Machetes, as Rwanda shows, can be easily as lethal as guns.

The most likely answer is, yes, he would have – if he knew that he’d gain just as much media notoriety with machetes as with guns.

Now we can understand how "the glorification of gun violence" by the media, the instant celebrity it gives to mass killers, is not the real problem.   Chicago is the Murder Capital of America, close to 500 so far this year.  How much CommieMedia outrage has been expressed over this? 

There is a large black community in West Haven, Connecticut (a short drive from Newtown), that suffers from substantial gun violence.  People there are furious that neither the CommieMedia nor their black president pays any attention to them.

Here’s what’s really going on:  the CommieMedia only focuses on gun violence and expresses outrage over it when doing so can advance its Commie agenda.

We have here a true Teachable Moment regarding the Left and its visceral opposition – bottomless hatred – towards the Second Amendment. 

The Founders made the purpose of the 2^nd  crystal clear: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The purpose of the 2^nd is not to enable hunters to gun down Bambi, no matter how much fun that is or good a venison steak tastes.  The purpose of the 2^nd is not to enable someone with concealed carry to blow away a madman or rapist or mugger or other human garbage.  The purpose of the 2^nd is to enable an armed citizenry to oppose government tyranny.

And that and only that is why the entire Left, from our Commie President to our CommieMedia to our Commie Academia to our Commie Hollywood hates the 2^nd Amendment.  It stands in their way.  It’s the last bulwark of freedom.

The goal of the Left is fascism.  Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Zero, and the New York Times all agree:  gun control works.  It’s the historically tested and proven way to impose fascist tyranny upon disarmed citizens.

So of course, the Chicoms are demanding Americans be disarmed. So of course, leftie-limey limp-wristed girlie-men like Piers Morgan completely lose their little minds when someone like TTPer Larry Pratt has the cojones to call them "morally obtuse."

It’s thrilling, then, that gun ownership is booming in the US, and the NRA is now getting 8,000 new members as day.  This is thrilling because its evidence that millions of Americans understand today that the real purpose of owning guns is to protect them from their government.

Eileen Toplansky in yesterday’s (12/19) AT asks a very good question:  Why are some people prone to obey?  While I think part of the reason is genetic, she provides arresting quotes from Erich Fromm (1900-1980), the German psychologist who wrote extensively on "the fear of freedom."  Obedience to authority makes people feel safe and protected, Fromm wrote, and makes them feel part of the power they worship and therefore strong.

For Fromm, the key to being free is disobedience.  The courage to be free and the courage to disobey authority are inseparable.  It is "the capacity to doubt, to criticize, and to disobey," Fromm concludes, that "may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization."

And all that stands between us and the end of American civilization that is Zero’s and the Left’s most cherished goal may soon be the Second Amendment.  That’s what guns have to do with it.