Gun Nuts Play Soldier After Chattanooga, the headline at dailybeast.com sneers, referring to open carry Americans protecting unarmed military recruiters from terrorist attack. What could go wrong? the subhead snarks. The article underneath the anti-gun agitprop proclamations isn’t that bad. Like so many civilian disarmament posts of late, the authors do a pretty good job of presenting the pro-gun position. Such a good job, in fact, that they paint themselves into a rhetorical corner. How can you argue against arming stateside military personnel when the military can’t come up with a convincing argument? You invent one for them! Like this . . .
“We’ve got to debate this. We need to give this a rationale, measured look,” one senior defense official explained to The Daily Beast. “Would you let your son or daughter join the military if a recruiter showed up at your house with a gun?”
Those involved in recruiting said that arming troops would make it even harder for them to get into schools, malls and college campuses.
“Our presence on high school and college campuses is tenuous enough,” a second senior defense official explained. “How are we supposed to go to a high school and say ‘can we come to your fourth period history class with a gun’?”
As a journalist (off and on) for the last 25 years, I’d bet dollars to donuts that those quotes are entirely fabricated. They use the exact same “rationale” to suggest that the military thinks that arming military recruiters would be counter-productive: it would terrify/intimidate civilians interested in joining the military. As John McEnroe would say, you cannot be serious.
Once again, the antis demonstrate their belief that the ends justify the means, by making shit up. Regardless of what you think about gun control, it’s clear that those who promote it cannot be trusted. Not now. Not ever. Never.
Would you let your son or daughter join the military if you knew they were going to be carrying and using guns?! OMG! The horror!
Idiots.
+1
Do you think they actually read what they are writing BEFORE it gets published? I would be amazed…
The sad thing is that they probably do read their stuff, but don’t understand how crazy they sound. Like the widely ridiculed NYT reporter who was baffled by the fact that locking up criminals leads to lower crime rates.
Exactly. It’s the United States ARMED Forces
That sounds so harsh and violent. I think the PC way to call them is ‘Uniformed Services’.
A home visit from an armed recruiter != coming to conscript your children by force, unless the Selective Service has *really* changed recently.
OMG! A black man with a gun! Oh wait-that’s not it…what could “go wrong” is an attack by an aloha snackbar fellow being stopped-like the 2 in Texas stopped by a reserve cop…
Actually, it was later revealed – though hardly reported – that an entire SWAT team took down the terrorists.
Great RF-do I get a Henry?LOL
Wait: we’re expected to believe that “senior defense officials” – not one, but two – actually talk to a gossip rag like The Daily Beast?
In this admin? I don’t find it too crazy, when the commander in chief won’t talk to real reporters, but grants an interview to a web “comedian” who bathes in breakfast cereal.
“Would you let your son or daughter join the military if a recruiter showed up at your house with a gun?”
If s/he were old enough to join the military then there wouldn’t be much (if anything) I could do to stop her/him.
“How are we supposed to go to a high school and say ‘can we come to your fourth period history class with a gun’?”
Where in the discussion of arming the “Armed” Forces have anyone suggested that there is any intersection between arming them in violation of laws baring guns? Did someone suggest that:
– a judge could not bar armed soldiers from their court rooms?
– an ATF official could not bar armed soldiers from the secure areas of airports?
– a School Board with a GFZ policy could not apply that policy to a soldier?
– a citizen with a GFZ policy could not apply that policy to a soldier?
No? I didn’t think so.
Arn’t we concentrating on armoring-up our soldiers when they are either on:
– military bases; or,
– anywhere their civilian family members are at liberty to carry?
Yes? Oh; OK. So, then, explain to me why I should remain calm when I see Granny packing but clutch my pearls when I see a soldier packing. I’ll wait; go ahead . . . .
The thing is, the anti-gun jagoffs think you should panic when you see Granny carrying a gun, too. They don’t want anybody to carry (or even own a gun), so the distinction between Granny and Gunny means nothing to them. They’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent any increase in carrying, because more people who carry without the sky falling and “blood in the streets” erodes their whole bullshit narrative, whether the person with a gun is a Navy recruiter or the assistant manager at an Old Navy.
Yes, you are absolutely right. Now, what do we do about it?
With respect to the Antis, the short answer is: Nothing. The longer answer is that we play our cards in a politically astute manner. We do the very best we can NOT to feed THEIR narrative.
With respect to the uncommitted voter, the answer is to gently convert them to OUR viewpoint.
In solving a difficult problem I think of the range of options between polar opposites. Suppose, for example, I wanted to win hearts and minds for OC. What is the:
– worst idea I could think of;
– best idea I could think of.
Well, let’s see. The worst thing I could think of is to recruit a Hells Angles motorcycle gang to do an OC parade in a hoplophobic precinct. The best thing I could think of is to recruit a bunch of grandmothers escorting children to do an OC parade in a precinct that has a neutral-to-positive relationship to civilian gun-ownership.
I recognize that I probably couldn’t arrange either my worst or best prototype. But now, I have a range of polar opposites to which I can compare any realistic proposal. Maybe I could get an OC parade of veterans on motorcycles. Unfortunately, they look too much like the Hells Angles and nobody is likely to recognize the battle-fields embroidered on their denim jackets.
If I could get a bunch of OFWGs wearing suits and ties and the uniforms of ordinary tradesmen (a butcher’s apron, a baker’s hat, a candlestick-maker’s outfit) that could be made to look more like a political demonstration and less like a terrorist hoard. Carry hunting rifles and shotguns vs. modern sporting rifles. Carry replace 18th and 19th century long-guns and cowboy revolvers vs. modern guns. Ware revolutionary war, civil war, WW-II era uniforms vs. modern-day camo.
Try to arrange with sympathetic cops to observe bearing smile vs. frowns.
Pick a precinct close to where OC is accepted for the first demonstrations; e.g., develop OC in TX which is near AZ and NM. Once OC is established in TX, move to OK, then KS and MO.
We are going to have to start with whomever is intrepid enough to press the boundaries. Say that’s OFWG. Eventually, we can get a few of our wives to OC with us. Then, we can get some grand-kids to come along. Eventually, we will have a diverse group participating in parades and demonstrations. Thereupon, some of the OFWGs and their wives will OC as couples. Keep this up for just a few years and OC as an issue worth commenting about will die. Most people will be accustomed to seeing a couple of people OCing every time they go to the mall. When no one is conscious of OC we have won in that precinct.
Our objective should be to normalize the idea of guns in polite society while doing the least we can to frighten any more people than the minimum possible. If we accustom 2 voters for every voter we frighten we will be winning. If we frighten 2 voters for ever voter we accustom then we will be losing.
Don’t tell the Daily Beast, but…
1) Parents do not “let” their “kids” join the military. You know, that whole being 18 and an adult thing.
2) If these gun shy “kids” do join, they’ll be required to shoot guns to make it through Basic Training, at minimum.
Indeed. If someone is horrified by a holstered weapon, they probably should be looking at other careers besides military service, both for their own sake and the sake of this country.
“at minimum”?
You made me remember people who have been in the military for over a decade and say they haven’t fired a gun since basic (mostly Air Force). (One of them could at least say his weapon had flames coming out one end and ten megatons on the other.)
*Every* member of the military should know how to use a rifle and a handgun, effectively. They should be expected to requalify every year, if not more often. There’s no such thing, these days, as “well back from the front lines.”
The Air Force is a military organization but are they an Armed Service? 🙂
I’d say bombs make them pretty well armed.
Say that to a PJ. I dare ya’ 😉
To those immature, childish fvck nuts, their kids are probably still living at home by the age of 30 with their art degrees, unemployed.
Like Pajama Boy?
If you wouldnt let your kid join the military (let an 18 year old adult do something?) you are the type of parent that wouldnt even consider military service as an option so there’s no loss there.
Cops are armed in schools. Does that turn off kids from law enforcement as a career?
Some army guys showing up in my high school history class with rifles would have had me clamoring to the front of the line shouting “where do I sign!”
Instead we got shady salesmen types using superficial tactics of zeroing in on the angsty and jock types. Totally turned everyone in my grade off of military service.
“How are we supposed to go to a high school and say ‘can we come to your fourth period history class with a gun’?”
Uh…. same way police resource officers routinely go on campus. Or that police/border patrol/sheriff/FBI/etc etc. do on school career days…
You beat me to it. When I served everyone qualified twice a year, even cooks and clerks.
Lol. Would you let police come to your kids 4th period class if they were armed with a gun? That would be absolutely shocking.
Yeah, those definitely feel like fabricated quotes.
” one senior defense official explained to The Daily Beast. “Would you let your son or daughter join the military if a recruiter showed up at your house with a gun?””
I don’t buy that quote for a minute. Not even for a second. I call BS.
When they said “senior defense official”, they meant a fourth-year college student serving an internship.
If the sight of a gun scares you silly, you shouldn’t be in the military. Think of how scared they be when isis trys to shoot or behead them.
Okay I found your problem, you read The Daily Beast.
Don’t police carry guns into schools and classrooms in a regular basis?
Simple question here. Does anyone on the liberal side remember 9/11?
Does anyone who flew after 9/11 what was walking around in airports and other transportation terminals?
Come on this is an easy one. It was the ARMED military. Some were carrying side arms, some those awful big black guns, and of course they had those vicious canine soldiers also. Now cared then that our military/NG were going around armed and open carrying. I’ll take armed military/NG anytime over the nut jobs (foreign or domestic).
So Run Libturd Run
Doctors shouldn’t carry stethoscopes.
Mechanics shouldn’t carry pocket screwdrivers and flashlights.
Accountants shouldn’t carry pens.
Armed forces personnel shouldn’t have arms, makes sense.
FYI, at least here in PA
Armed forces and police are exempt from the no firearms laws.
Even the craphole of the world New Jersey was forced to recognize that the military personal were allowed to carry in their great state.
You want a dumb argument, wait until you’re talking to someone from Jersey and they get all bent out of shape about how the military shouldn’t be allowed to have guns in their state.
The world is full of stupid people, most migrate to the eastern and western poles of the U.S.
Deep background, I used to ship hard-to-find auto parts in from Germany and pick them up at the airport. I had to drive to the US Customs office (not on airport premises) many times to pay the duty on the crates of auto parts.
The scene is a typical office building full of cubicles – except the hundred + people are uniformed and armed. How is it that the US Customs (a federal, civilian agency) can have a sidearm for every person at their desk job, but active duty military cannot?
Excellent point.
Moreover, immigration officials at the airport are ALL armed. The lines of plane passengers are often filled with hundreds of men, women and children. It is presumed to be the case that ALL of these people were screened for arms before they boarded their flight. So, why are ALL immigration officers armed?
Does ICE imagine that an unhappy tourist is going to settle a dispute with an immigration officer by pulling out his Dirty Harry?
OK, granted, anything might happen. So, would it make more sense to have just a few very-well-trained guards with lots of marksmanship practice handle the response vs. the immigration official involved in the dispute pull his own gun and start shooting back?
With all the innocent bystanders patiently waiting in line, why aren’t the Feds worried about negligent discharges by immigration officers?
Or, are we supposed to believe that the majority of training given immigration officers is in gun-safety?
I had similar thoughts last time I visited the Federal museums along the mall in Washington DC. The guards checking purses and bags seemed mostly to be senior citizens; all armed. Granted, anything might happen at the Smithsonian; but, would a 66-year-old guard with a six-shooter be able to do much to improve the situation? Or, were these senior citizens all negligent-discharges waiting to happen in a crowd of tourists?
The whole thing strikes me as reminiscent of Dick Heller. So long as the Federal government touched this man with it’s magic wand he was good-to-carry on-duty as a contractor guard. The moment he went off-duty he was a threat to society, even in his own home. What happened when he removed his uniform? Did he convert from Federal Jekyll and turn into Subject Hyde?
For the uninitiated-
when it comes to reading the press-
Any “source” generally described as opposed to named e.g.-
“….senior defense official…”is more often than not total BS fabricated by an agenda driven predisposition. This perception is magnified when the the writer/publisher is known to have strong biases, often demonstrated in prior respective literature/editorials .
This same story about recruiters not wanting to have weapons in the presence of potential recruits was also run on NPR the day after the shootings. A WaPo reporter did a very credible job cataloguing the fairly large number of attacks on recruitment offices since Vietnam. Most of these were fire bombings. Then he goes into the same crazy story — that (according to those in the military hierarchy) if a potential recruit sees a gun, it will dissuade the recruit from joining up. Instead the recruiters are supposed to be “in open communication” with the candidates. I did not believe I was hearing this. And now it comes back again.
Do they think that people who are joining the military don’t know that guns are used in the military? Is NPR nuts?
That garbage doesn’t even deserve a logical response. Face it, there aren’t enough Pitbull, plane crash, or church bus crash stories to complete a news day. They don’t care what they write, they are getting paid to churn something out. If it pisses people off, well good, that means people are reading it, even if it is total idiocy.
The antis are losing, they know it and there’s little that’s going to reverse that trend, no matter how ridiculous their journalistic rants are.
So what I don’t get is that those open carriers that flatly state that when second count the cops are only minutes away. And then refuse to disarm when the cops arrive for their own safety. Seems they cannot have it both ways.
But before you all dogpile on me, I am angry that the aggressive open carriers will ultimately ruin my open carry privileges by playing some game other than the reason we open carry in the first place. The anti-gun public is looking for something to hang their hat on, and the last thing we want is to give them more ammo.
Frankly, even I get nervous watching some of these open carry zealots. If one cracks and goes postal, its game over for all of us. Just say’n.
And if a CC guy snaps and goes postal you will have even less warning. OMG, you should be paranoid everywhere! Do you have any idea how many people legally CCW? Not to mention those doing it without a permit!
I have no worry about CCW. Just the open carry folks who are deliberately trying to cause a confrontation with the public and the law.
I will not tolerate my gun rights being stomped upon by those foolish individuals who believe that waving a gun in the face of John Q. is somehow going to further our cause.
How absurd. Plenty of people CCW of questionable integrity. Even more if you count those non licensed carriers. You only fear the ones least likely to harm you. What a maroon.
Really? What are you going to do about it?
The only one trampling rights here is: you.
The military should be disarmed and issued politically correct walkie talkies.
The cop who to me say no to drugs packed a glock, taser, baton and knife. No body freaked.
Consequentialists. If they can’t even understand the morality of “just” conduct and the consequence of carrying oneself with honesty and integrity, how can they be qualified to determine the morality of a consequence achieved with lies.
Consequentialists are circular reasoned hypocrites.
They should show up at the high schools with rifles and teach a class in firearms safety and marksmanship!
“Senior Defense Official”. Hmm, so they interviewed the head of janitorial staff at the Pentagon, for he/she fits that title too. 🙂
Take note that it was written by two young women who probably grew up in gated communities who know nothing about guns.
Farago, you assert multiple times that the quotes are made up, but then you admit it’s sheer speculation on your part. Do YOU follow any code of journalistic ethics?