"Using Children To Pass Gun Laws Is Grotesque And Childish" Forbes

"Using children’s pleas to end violence is about the most grotesque rhetorical tool available to politicians. Our natural instincts are to want to shield children from life’s pain. Yet fixating on our desperate desire to protect children from harm distracts from the truly important, adult business of assessing what solutions are actually available. So it is with the gun debate. As if the massacre of children in Newtown, Connecticut wasn’t emotional enough, the President is now posing with children and publicizing kids’ pleas for the government to take action to prevent gun crimes. The Administration’s messaging strategy is clear: If you care about children, then you’ll do what we say and support new regulations and restrictions .  Carrie Lukas

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The two sides in the "gun war" are just about equally childish and inept.  The propaganda use of children by "Abe" Obama is matched by the foolishness of the TV ad that featured the Obama girls' Secret Service protection.

Grow up folks!  pl  

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carrielukas/2013/01/18/using-children-to-pass-gun-laws-is-grotesque-and-childish/

Comments

[Charles I]

Not as grotesque as the pile of dead children in that classroom.

[turcopolier]

Charles I

Charles, Charles, the death of children is a tragedy at any time but this is sentimentality run riot. pl

[JohnH]

Ah yes, the old government trope: "we must save the (fill in the blank) from the evil doers." Possible answers include Iraqi people, Libyans, Syrians, Afghans, Malis, etc, etc.

Whenever the government proposes to save somebody, it's time to get suspicious, very suspicious.

[Hawk]

Emotions are high on both sides of this discussion, which is expected. Many Americans were so sickened by what happened at Sandy Hook that knee-jerk is natural. There is no way to wrap ones' mind around the slaughter of 20 small children, and it opened the door for the anti-gun lobby to seize the moment.

I would prefer our leaders take more time for healing and rational thinking to return before passing legislation, but the public wants it now. The "dug-in" position of NRA now only fans the anger and fear.

[r whitman]

The use of children is aimed at soccer moms in Republican house districts. Its probably a winning strategy, especially if you put the NRA on the same side as the child-killers. Things are going to be very nasty over the next year.

[Arun]

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
US Constitution; Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15:

Second Amendment insurrections will be met with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 suppression.

[Fred]

Perhaps Obama should deploy the 101st to disarm all those folks in Connecticut? Surely everyone in Connecticut is collectively guilty. Eisenhower sure got the kids into school safely in Little Rock that way. Can't wait for the evidence to be ... well that line worked for Condi Rice, but it was only about Iraq.

It's not like we could talk about using the funding from the High School football team to hire security guards instead, we have to have priorities. Besides, that would be 'local control' and not something Obama would get to vote on, just the local school board. I wonder how many school boards in Connecticut have done just that?

[Tyler]

...the majority of which are insurrecting due to violations of the Second.

So yeah, I don't think its going to work like that.

[Mark Logan]

100% agreement. The more out of hand, the more fun it may be for the pundits, but I would beg the talking heads from both sides to deeply and seriously contemplate the potential of this dragon they are tickling.

[Alba Etie]

Amen Tyler

[NancyK]

I think it would be a good idea for the NRA to finance putting an armed guard in every school. They think it is a good idea, let them finance it.
Or perhaps an added tax on weapons and ammunitions to finance it.

[turcopolier]

NancyK

While I thnk both the NRA and gun owners in general would not object to making a contribution to such a project, i do not accept the assumption in your proposals that the two groups are responsible for suicides, domestic violence, accidents, attacks by madmen, etc. The NRA does not make people kill each other with guns. pl

[Jose]

Enjoy the BSHO show:

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/01/17/White-House-releases-videos-of-young-kids-asking-Obama-for-more-gun-control

[optimax]

Where are Bert and Ernie?

[Grimgrin]

I have to wonder how many people would be killed by accident given three hundred thousand police officers patrolling school grounds. Because honestly, given the numbers of cops and students involved, it doesn't take a very high accident rate before the cure becomes worse than the disease.

[Charles I]

No, its revulsion, another human weakness. I never see an anti gun nut on the news saying like some Yeager wingnut I saw on the tv saying: If They don't start giving up their guns I'm gonna have to start killing.

I defy you to find a U.S. retail politician wouldn't be using live children after those dead ones in the face of the NRA. Wtf is it - the NRA for? No one is coming to take your guns. Your politics are insane.

American exceptionalism - that's sentimentality.

Dead children like that are far more grotesque than any bathetic ad.

[Charles I]

what violations?

[Charles I]

No, but they sure swing into action at the first simple sign of human desire to ameliorate your lot, no matter how well or ill conceived

[turcopolier]

Charles I

"No one is coming to take your guns." Is that what people said in Canada and the UK? pl

[Tyler]

I was talking about in whichever frame of reference Arun was going on about, not anything that's going on right now as far as the Second goes.

I don't expect people to insurrect en masse over violations of separation of powers or the Tenth, but c'est la vie.

[Tyler]

Much like Piers Morgan and Bloomberg didn't take the time to lick the blood off of each other's hands before climbing over a mountain of dead children to push their nanny state agenda.

[Edward Amame]

At least you are talking about putting cops in schools. I would not support the idea of putting armed security guards in a school. The loser factor and all.

[Edward Amame]

DC vs Heller settled it once and for all. And liberal constitutional scholars like Sandy Levinson also agree that the second amendment prohibits the gov't from disarming its citizenry... See: http://constitution.org/mil/embar2nd.htm

Something for both sides to consider, via Levinson :

"Perhaps 'we' might be led to stop referring casually to 'gun nuts' just as, maybe, members of the NRA could be brought to understand the real fear that the currently almost uncontrolled system of gun ownership sparks in the minds of many whom they casually dismiss as 'bleeding-heart liberals.'"

[Victoria White]

As Edward Amame reminds, the question is very settled about the US consititutional right to own guns. No one is taking our guns.

Canada, UK, Australia, etc. do not have a 2nd Amendment. Nor have their countries turned tyrannical since gun contol was enacted. Unless one defines gun control as tyranny.

[turcopolier]

VW

"the question is very settled about the US consititutional right to own guns" That is somewhat disengenuous since Heller allows modification of that right. pl