By Roger Katz
“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” – Philip K. Dick
In a recent article titled Texas Shooting Brings new Urgency to Gun Debate in Congress, the New York Times presses Congress to cave to the frenetic urging of the Leftist antigun crowd, hell-bent on further weakening the Second Amendment. They believe they have an opening in the recent spate of random shootings that occurred in El Paso, Dayton, and now, Odessa.
Exploiting these tragedies, they appeal to emotion, rather than to reason, employing the informal logical fallacy of ad misericordiam, the fallacy of appealing to pity, and misery, and sympathy, playing on the public’s emotions, rather than appealing to reason, to obtain their goal.
That goal is an unarmed citizenry that, should it come to pass, won’t secure public safety, but would further endanger the lives of the citizenry and be an open invitation to tyranny. Where will appeals to pity and sympathy for Americans rest, then?
Extremist elements are hammering Congress, first and foremost to enact more expand background checks, even as the Times acknowledges in its own story that . . .
In fact, whether a background check would have prevented the West Texas gunman from acquiring his weapon is not known. Chief Michael Gerke of the Odessa Police Department said the gunman, who had been fired from a trucking job, had used an AR-15-style rifle, but had a criminal record. It was not clear on Sunday whether the gun had been acquired legally, and the authorities stressed that they had not established a motive.
It was subsequently determined that the Odessa shooter obtained his gun through an illegal sale.
What is deeply disturbing is that President Trump seems to be allowing himself to be caught up in the frenzied emotion of the moment as well, seeming to give in to moronic emotional, irrational rhetoric spawned by another convenient shooting incident.
We say this because President Trump has himself resorted to using the same language of the anti-gun zealots; “common-sense” gun laws; “really common-sense sensible, important background checks.” This as he appears to be actively considering the proposals coming from Presidential Democratic Party candidates.
The New York Times details this in their typical fashion. The article, appearing in the national news section of the paper, reads more like an op-ed than a news story. But, then, from the content of New York “news” reporting today it’s clear that no distinction between the reporting and opining exists any longer.
The deadly shooting spree in West Texas this weekend — the latest in an especially gruesome summer of massacres — has intensified pressure on congressional Republicans to take up gun safety legislation, giving fresh urgency to a debate that was already expected to be at the top of lawmakers’ agenda when they return to the Capitol next week.
The attack in Midland and Odessa, Tex., which left seven dead and 22 wounded, comes weeks after a 24-year-old gunman with an assault weapon killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, in early August. That massacre, hours after one that killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, thrust gun violence into the Washington debate just as Congress left town for its annual August recess.
President Trump expressed new openness to gun safety laws — including, he said then, “really common-sense sensible, important background checks” for gun buyers — and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, promised a Senate debate. But in the weeks since, with lawmakers scattered across the country in their home districts, the issue seemed to drift from public view.
Now it has come roaring back, with Congress set to return on Sept. 9. At a briefing about Hurricane Dorian at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters on Sunday, Mr. Trump, who has a record of flip-flopping on gun safety, pledged to find a way to “substantially reduce” mass shootings. But he earlier appeared to dismiss background checks, telling reporters that “they would not have stopped any of it.
Behind the scenes, in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings, White House officials have been quietly engaged in talks with senators who support expanding background checks and enacting so-called red flag laws. The laws make it easier for law enforcement to confiscate guns from people deemed dangerous by a judge without benefit of due process.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in Sunday morning talk show interview that the two sides still seemed far apart. Blumenthal said much would depend on whether the president, who has been consulting with the National Rifle Association, was willing to stand up to the powerful gun rights lobbying group.
‘I think there is a sense that the American people just desperately want something to be done, and they have to respond to that imperative,’ he said, ‘but are so far nowhere near crossing the Rubicon to stand up to the gun lobby and the N.R.A. as far as I can tell.’”
Thank you, New York Times, for spinning elaborate fairy tales about the horrors of guns and “gun violence,” and about the evil, “powerful gun rights lobbying group.”
We suspect the Founders — people who knew a thing or two about tyranny and the importance of a free populace — would be less than thrilled by the headlong rush toward disarming a free sovereign people, living in a free land.
This article was originally published at arbalestquarrel.com and is reprinted here with permission.
