Sometimes, if you really don't know how you feel about a topic, reading how both sides argue it can help. There is a deluge of heated rhetoric regarding the Arizona shooting tragedy. Emotions are high. Yet seeing how people make their cases can give one valuable insight as to who stands where. It can help you decide where you want to stand, what kind of person you want to be.
My belief is that guns are too easy to get in America. My belief is that the NRA has bought much of our congress, to the point that guns are actually the only unregulated consumer product in America. Think about that. It's stunning. Rather than "exploiting a terrible situation", I say these things again now because when else are people on either side really listening? It's like those year-round Christmas stores, they don't do much business in July.
I also say these things not as a pundit, a liberal, a democrat, a "lefty", a comic, or anything but a citizen; a registered Independent who voted for Nader, and who tries to stay informed. We all have the right to post opinions. There, those were mine.
Because I have said this, I have been attacked on radio, twitter, and conservative blogs around the country. It would trouble me if the counter-arguments were presented as I have presented mine. Instead, it is meaningless to me. No one who walks upright could take any of it seriously. I can't believe anyone could even type these things while holding a banana. Or a gun. Or a "banana". They have learned the NRA playbook and are now applying it to individuals. The NRA annihilates every candidate running for office who mentions any kind of gun legislation; from getting automatic, or armor piercing, or airplane reaching, weapons off the street, to keeping guns away from schools, or promoting background checks at gun shows. Now their members are trying to do the same thing to people. "Consider the source" has never rung truer.
The following are verbatim. They are the sum total of my gun topic tweets:
"Don't Retreat, Reload." National Surveyor's Motto.
Doesn't matter "why". The "why" is always the same. It matters that it's so easy 2 buy weapons of mass destruction, even if ur insane.
Yes, you can kill with a knife. But I've never seen a 1 handled knife with 30 blades.
Yes, cars "kill people" 2. But if car mfgrs had the freedom from oversight the gun industry bought itself, cars would kill 10 mil a year.
Automatic weapons 2 hunt rabbit? Is there some kind of key chain/stew Olympics we're not aware of?
Outlawing automatic weapons might infringe on some hunting weapons? If u need 100 rounds 2 kill a deer, maybe hunting isn't ur sport.
NRA isn't abt "rights", it's abt money. At least drug dealers have the decency 2 not claim its the "pursuit of happiness."
The right 2 b an arms bearer guarantees the right 2 b a pallbearer.
The "right 2 bear arms" guarantees the right 2 unbearable sadness.
I wrote this hoping 4 change. We got it. Worse now.
Maybe Sarah Palin has finally shot herself in the foot?
"This is not what we meant!" ~ Thomas Jefferson.
"Stop letting corrupt mental midgets twist our words!" ~ John Adams.
We've lost r view of the Greater Good. Everything was written with the caveat of the Greater Good. Now it's narcissism.
Of course it's the victims' fault. If only they had been carrying automatic weapons 2, this wouldn't have happened.
The only industry the NRA benefits is itself, lobbyists, the teddy bear and flower industry. Enough!
Those were my tweets. Now, whether you think I'm funny or not, whether or not you've kept up with my career and philanthropy, none of that should have any bearing on the argument about guns in America, right? Here's just a sampling of tweets to me:
i hope you're beaten to death by wilding teens as they tell jokes funnier than yours, & CCW citizen chooses to not intervene
You're an idiot !! Go NRA they defeated #Al Gore Shut up cunt.
Bake a pie, broad
No ones heard of you for twenty years. Go away moron.
You look like the kind of lady that has a really smelly vagina. Most liberal, beasts in a pant suit do.
I will never forgive Andy Kaufman for encouraging you to become a comedian. It was the cruelest prank he ever played.
(Actually, that one made me laugh - EB)
if you keep retweeting @elayneboosler's tweets, she will mistakenly think she's relevant
Are you a good shot, cunt? I like to say, "I'll keep my guns, you keep the change!"
just another liberal asswipe using tragedy to push a political agenda. Disappear jackass...
this irrelevant cunt doesn't know what she's talking about
You unfunny piece of shit
Ok, how bout we take your 1st amendment away you slob
@ElayneBoosler would be a pretty easy trigger pull for me
if you look like you do. all leathery and caked on make up. why would you make your icon that big and close up? ccccunt.
That cooz @ElayneBoosler is beyond unfunny. She is the Anti-Funny. She is the fucking reason clowns cry.
shut up you fat slob, the 2nd amendment is about RIGHTS not $,How about we take away your 1st amendment to spew your garbage?
are you that fucking white? Think like a criminal bitch and you will know you are in danger always.
This lady @ElayneBoosler sounds like a cunt
god damn it, this @elayneboosler is pissing me the fuck off. I absolutely hate people like this. Choke on your tongue dickhead
haha slob.
Guns or no guns, it's "pussies".
it's so easy to be an unfunny empty-headed twit and pitch Fantastick spray cleaner. Go scrub a countertop, dummy.
My tweeps, I have read the counter-arguments above with great concentration and an open mind, and I am ashamed to admit, they just haven't changed my mind about the prevalence of too many guns, and too little oversight, in America. I know, I should be more flexible. I appreciate all you guys who took the time to tweet, and I know you tried your best to make a good case. Maybe it's me. Maybe I just can't get my silly little head around such lofty arguments. I do recommend you call in to as many talk shows as possible and repeat your arguments, so others can at least see where you are coming from, and really understand who is freely walking around with guns in our country.
Follow Elayne Boosler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ElayneBoosler
California has a set of safety standards for handguns. They must pass a drop test and then pay a fee to be put on a roster of 'safe' handguns for one year. Fee renewal is up every year. If you want to sell a gun of a different color, barrel length, or any cosmetic feature that gun requires a $50,000 fee and three test guns. Gov't agencies can buy guns that aren't on the list. A gun unsafe for me is 'safe' for the IRS Agent or the Beat Cop down town. Can you defend that?
It gets better. Single Action revolvers(Western fim sixguns) are exempt from the testing process because they cannot pass and are dangerous. So dangerous people that own these six-guns carry them with the hammer resting on an empty chamber.
So, your consumer protection fantasy makes it much more expensive to sell guns in my state, exempts gov't employees and allows the only guns certain to fail this testing to be exempt.
Even though it is a total sham, shakedown of firearms manufacturers(not to mention the public) it does NOTHING at all to promote or encourage safety. It actually does exactly what it was intended to do. Disarm the masses.
Anybody think the police will protect you?
Google 'Castle Rock Vs. Gonzales' A Supreme Court Ruling that I'm certain Boosler will try to spin somehow.
I challenge you Elayne be brave and funny and tell Mrs. Gonzales your opinions on protecting yourself.
The NRA would take the postion of the nation's ONLY viable protectorate.
Their would be no dialogueing... The dye of the optics would be cast, with indentity the driving force for gun amassing that would make the NRA swoon.
That was your first mistake.
So why do we need all these people with guns, again?
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/01/after-arizona-shooting-gun-control.html
this country great. But, Elayne Boosler is what makes this
country great." I have to ask what was wrong with this post?
Guns exist - and people like this shooter are not going to be greatly deterred by making it harder for legitimate owners to buy them. The push to ban the high capacity ammo is, as far as I'm concerned, an excuse for the legislators to pretend they actually did anything relevant.
I couldn't care less about the NRA, nor do I have any interest in owning a gun, but I absolutely support others' right to own one. The idea that somehow criminals won't be able to get guns when you make it harder for legitimate buyers simply doesn't hold up, and as such it's better for potential victims to be able to defend themselves.
Again, I say this as someone who is extremely socially liberal in every other sense.
Sincerely,
Dayne
Quite the contrary. Guns are the only consumer product that are so highly regulated that if you make one too small, too quiet, or one that doesn't work properly, you can be put in a federal prison for 10 years, pay a $100k, and lose your right to ever buy a gun ever again.