“Whether one supports gun control or opposes it, there can be no denying that the issue should be debated as a matter of public safety,” left-leaning Fox News commentator Juan William opines re: NBC sportscaster Bob Costa’s half-time anti-gun polemic. “But anti-free speech forces have prevented this debate from happening.” Straw man much? The Costas caused controversy is still in progress. And I don’t remember anyone saying gun control shouldn’t be debated. Nor banning Mr. Costas from, say, Fox News. “Conservatives have been locked into opposing gun control because of concern that the far-left wants to ban all guns.” Only because they do. Sorry. Carry on . . . “As Bernie Goldberg said recently, people on the right should agree with Costas that something is wrong when there are ‘more bad things happening with guns than good things.'” Never mind a conservatively estimated (so to speak) 1.5m defensive gun uses per year. Memo to Juan: the Talking Heads already warned you that “facts don’t do what you want them to.”
Eh. I obviously disagree with his position on guns, but I do see a lot of shouting down coming from both sides. I don’t like anyone that tries to win an argument by silencing the other side, and frankly, we’re right. We should have no problem publicly debating anti’s using facts, historical evidence and statistics against their fear mongering and rhetoric. It would convince more people that we’re right.
The left got all bent out of shape by people who said Costas had no business talking about gun control during an NFL game. I’m sure someone did say the equivalent of Archie Bunker’s stifle yourself, but I didn’t run across a single example. And definitely not here, through numerous posts.
A quick Google of “fire Bob Costas” turns up at least one Op/Ed piece calling for it and one petition, as well as the requisite responses from anti’s. I guess I should have included calls for dismissal in my definition of silencing (which I believe I’ve seen here), and because that negates open, public debate I think it qualifies.
I guess what I’m really saying is we should focus on what he said and why he’s wrong rather than the fact that he said it. People are attacking him for bringing it up at all; I’d prefer to remind him that the murder suicide would have happened in the absence of a gun, and that the so-called “gun culture” is generally separated from gun crime, as evidenced by CC holder’s ultra low crime rate compared from the general population.
“I guess what I’m really saying is we should focus on what he said and why he’s wrong rather than the fact that he said it. ”
We’ve already done this..ad nauseum. Where have you been?
I didn’t say no one’s done that; I said I disagree with people shouting other people down.
That’s the thing though; free speech isn’t always nice. We can shout, they can shout. That’s part of free speech and is not infringing.
Costas’ running his mouth is legal. Costas’ shouting down people that disagree with him is legal. Us drowning him out in public discourse? Also legal.
Also never said it was illegal. Something can be perfectly legal and still nonconstructive.
Years ago, someone observed that when the Left is not in control and getting things done their way on an issue all they do is whine and complain about how unfair they have it and that they are being discriminated against. Then, when the Left is in control and owns an issue they tolerate zero discussion about it from the Right and attack the Left’s critiques as bigots, haters, racists, and rednecks instead of addressing the subject itself.
I’m not that old to give a historical perspective on that statement but it sure seems true now.
How the Left does politics is dirty, predictable, selfish and successful.
I don’t believe Costas should not be censored or silenced. He simply needs a good old-fashioned ass-kicking in a debate were actual facts are not censored or silenced. After that, he is free to feel however be wants to.
Oops. I did not mean to post the double negative.
IMHO…The anti-gun folks have no skin in the game. When they lose they just shrug it off and start all over again. We need to take a little skin with us when they attach our rights but I don’t believe I’ve never seen that happen.
My initial though was he just screwed the pooch, most Football fans are pro 2A but I’m not holing by breath…. This guys is doing victory laps.
Apologies Accur81, didn’t mean to reply off of your post…between that and my typo’s it appears that I need to pay more attention…
Debates are not a problem. Using actual facts and not” altered to fit your desires “facts are different. Both sides have used altered facts to some extent although the Anti’s seem more prone to misleading info.
Earlier today I posted an email I got from MAIG, it was in the “Qoute of the day Aggressive young man” post under speedracer dec7 13:31.
They threw out some few numbers in the email that are somewhat misleading and no explanation of the validity of their figures.
Even on TTAG we find Anti’s wanting to throw out outrageous numbers on illegal guns, murders and how many legal gun owners have allowed guns to get into criminal hands yet 99.999% of the time they can’t or won’t back up the figures, they just resort to name calling and childish crying and boo hooing!!’
Personally, I do not want “a debate” about so-called gun control. Every time we have one of those, somebody tries to grab our guns — not criminals’ guns. Ours. It isn’t much of a debate when one side is talking and the other side is reaching into the cookie jar with both arms right up to their elbows.
Why is it that when some @$$h0le does something bad with a gun, the first thing these clowns do is come after mine? F^ck ’em and their debate.
Disagree. Most antigun people are simply people that don’t care for guns. That’s fine with me. Explaining why my rights should not be infringed, and why statistics and facts expose flaws in gun control arguments. Remember that debating rarely changes the mind of the person you’re debating, but will always change the minds of those watching.
Blinky, first of all the mental midget decided to make his screed during a football game. Not exactly the proper venue for a gun control debate. Especially when there was nobody representing the 2nd. Next up, you are incorrect about most anti – gun people. They are NOT content to let me own guns and go about their business not owning any. They WANT ALL GUNS BANNED. Just ask them. In my experience with the antis, 95%+ of them agree with Fine Swine, “Mr & Mrs America, turn them ALL in.
I don’t know who you’re talking about, but when presented with raw facts most of the anti’s I talk to tend to back off and actually think about it. With almost anything I think you’ll find that there are usually 10% at each end of the extreme (Mrs. Piggy would be one of them, but she’s from SoCal, so that’s to be expected) and 80% that feel one way or another but aren’t completely close minded. That is, if you’re looking, I guess.
Robert
Logic and sanity do not go with TV network reporters.
It’s been debated. It’s been talked about. What needs to really happen is for anti-gun supporters to realize that per the constitution, this issue isn’t up for debate. Never has been, and barring constitutional amendment, never will be. These people are terrorists working to undermine our fundamental values.
That’s what the debate needs to be about. How politicians have been allowed to disregard the founding documents of the country, not just on the 2nd amendment, but the 1st, 4th and other parts of what fundamentally makes us America.
My fear is that if it came down to it and there was a push to repeal the 2A, it would pass by a small margin, but still enough for repeal. Enough of us law abiding citizens would turn in our guns when the knock came on the door, rather than face almost certain death/imprisonment/life as a fugitive rebel. There would be some flair-ups of rebellion, but isolated and quickly extinguished. Which would then allow the government to infringe on more rights, “for our safety” of course.
Okay, off my soapbox and tinfoil hat placed in the microwave (Look at the pretty sparks!!).
If it makes you feel better, 2/3 of States have to pass any constitutional amendment as well. we might not win in the electoral college, but in the constitutional debate, California and Wyoming are both 1 vote.
Actually, it’s 3/4 of state legislatures. So if you can find 13 state legislatures who would reject a repeal, it won’t happen.
Our side needs to get into debates, but not on the grabber’s terms. They want to probe for weaknesses where they can chip away at freedom. We need to be on offense calling for common-sense liberty:
Repeal Brady ’94
Repeal GCA ’68
Repeal NFA ’34
and for the truly brave, call for repeal of the restrictive portions of FOPA ’86!
Violent criminal behavior stands alone and by itself. It has nothing to do with guns, although persons that want to eliminate legal gun ownership routinely try to make that connection. The usual citation is that a gun facilitates the behavior, it makes it easier.
On the other hand, they say nothing about how guns prevent the violent criminal behavior from being inflicted upon law abiding citizens who choose to protect themselves with these same firearms.
The other truth is that governments routinely become oppressive to their citizens and citizens need to take up arms against their own governments. There’s always at least one of those going on in the world at any point in time.
These truths are self evident, no statisticians need apply. Another truth is that the horse left the barn a long time ago. The world is flooded with arms and no one can control that anymore. Guns are out there to be had by every one, legally or not.
The question then becomes: Why, when these truths are so self evident, do these people insist on eliminating legal gun ownership?
At this point, it is all speculation. My take is that they either have been overcome with some strange emotional problem that blocks their rational thought, or they believe that government should be a socialist entity, and as such it must be safe from its own citizens. I prefer the second theory, which is of course contrary to the 2nd amendment and this is why they think it must be abolished.
I welcome other theories!
well said.
We should take a page from the Democrat playbook and get ourselves labeled as a protected class (like women and non-whites), then anytime someone like Costas starts talking about banning guns, we can have them arrested for a “hate crime”.
If we’re “gun fetishists” as they describe wouldn’t that make us a sexual minority? There’s our protected class.
For crying out loud! I’m so damned tired of my side being told to be polite while ill informed, spittle flecked gun grabbers scream obscenities at me and mine, try to marginalize me, and equate me to some damned criminal, all the while successfully passing constitutionally limiting, feel good legislation that does nothing to solve the problem.
Screw them! I’m tired of being held to a higher standard while the other side misses no opportunity to kick me in the balls. Are you willing to engage these people and FIGHT them and their plans? They’re control freaks. Nothing will satisfy them. They hate us and don’t care what we think. They think that barely winning an election gives them the right to shove their entire agenda down the the throat of the other half of the country. We’re quickly becoming a one party country, one with no checks and balances because liberals and democrats don’t give a crap about Constitutional limits. They’re above all that. They see themselves as imbued with some sort of higher morality that is so good, so right, that they shouldn’t be bothered by something as “flawed” as our Constitution. We’ve got a President who uses executive orders like Hugo Chavez, a Congress too stupid to hold him to account, a Judiciary that is now so thoroughly politicized that the law is seemingly applied according to ones race, sexual preference, party, or bank account, and an unelected bureaucracy who is wholly beholden to the democrat party, and who makes rules and takes our money with no recourse from the citizens they supposedly work for.
We’re living in a time where my side is being told to compromise with another side who’s idea of compromise is for me to just shut up and do exactly what they tell me to do.
This isn’t going to end well.
@Nick and RF….I was going to post something here but just don’t have the energy. I agree with Nick totally. I said on an earlier Costaian post that I in FACT DO WANT TO SILENCE BOBBY. I expect that we should bludgeon (not physically of course) guys like him. Like Nick I am tired of being the guy in the tweed jacket trying to be polite to the rabid radical dogs of the left. Enough. I WANT COSTAS FIRED. I want Juan Williams fired (boy am I so over Williams). I want Goldberg fired and I want that worm OReilly fired. Period. Make an example of them.
gotta agree. This isn’t a debate. It’s a fight for the survival of what little freedom we have left.
+1 >> Thank you Nick….
+1 more Nick, well said!
Are you high or something? What debate? Do you honestly believe that antis in states like NY, NJ, MA, CA, where they already took most of our gun rights away, want to engage in a debate that could lead to less-restrictive gun laws? Please, not while I’m eating. They’d only accept a “debate” or “compromise” if it meant introducing even more bans and restrictions. I mean, look what just happened. A guy with problems kills girlfriend, people on the left immediately blame the tool, while conveniently leaving out the fact that had she been armed, perhaps this would’t have happened in the first place (or at least she could defend herself against a guy twice her size). So what do the antis do? They use a tragedy like that to punish the rest of us. As long as they see potential for any person to commit a crime with a gun, they’ll try to ban guns. And, the way they perceive it, there’s always potential.
Many years ago, the writer John Rosemond suggested to parents that they should get back in touch with the power of “Because I said so.” His reasoning was that all arguments that kids make are based on desire instead of rationality, and that eventually it will come down to “because I said so.” So that attitude might as well be the starting point, rather than the fallback position.
The gun control “debate” exhibits the same sort of dynamic, it seems to me. The anti-gun arguments are based on desire instead of rationality, and no matter how many times it’s explained that gun ownership is a basic human right, the response is always: “That may be, but…” Followed by yet another bad idea.
There are no buts. We’ve been through this. The answer is “no.” Why? Because we said so.
There. Now there’s no longer any need to debate anything at all. No means no. You may not have our guns. And if you try to take them, you’ll be in big trouble.
Well, you could also go with “no”. Why? “Because we have the guns and we outnumber the police and military 20 to 1”.
Nice! I’ve used this tactic to end an argument or two with an anti. When they get down to admitting that we should all have our guns taken away I just ask them how they’re gonna do it since I’m the one with a gun. That pretty much ends the argument – they leave convinced that I’m a stubborn redneck and I leave convinced that they are a utopian idiot.
It also helps when they claim that the Second Amendment is outdated because the citizens couldn’t resist the government. Even with all their toys, it’s highly unlikely that they could take on a force 20 times their size (and that’s assuming non-gun owners wouldn’t join the rebellion as well).
IMHO…The anti-gun folks have no skin in the game. When they lose they just shrug it off and start all over again. We need to take a little skin with us when they attach our rights but I don’t believe I’ve never seen that happen.
My initial though was he just jumped the shark, most Football fans are pro 2A but I’m not holding by breath waiting for his exit…. This guys doing victory laps.
I have to add that I’m in GREAT company after reading most of these posts. Thank you for the prudence clarity and wisdom offered. We’ve got our work cut out for us but with the caliber of Americans I see here I believe we’re up for the fight.
IMO the problem here is that the anti-gun rights crowd does not have a valid position and knows that very well. So, they resort to hate-speech, projecting gun owners as crazed, obsessed “gun nuts”, non-existent or grossly twisted pseudo-facts, misdirected, misleading arguments and good old fashioned screaming and yelling, to which we pro gun rights folks attempt to respond in good faith. But the opposition has no real interest in discussions they know, if conducted seriously, they cannot win, so they merely persist in staving off any real discussion and they will continue to do so as long as they can.
Calling for a “rational discussion” on a National level is just playing a “bad Joke” on ourselves. It ain’t gonna happen because our opponents are doing everything they can to prevent it from happening and the Politicians and MSM are helping them.
I would very much like the anti-gun crowd to define “gun nut” because I bet they would offend so many people with whatever bigoted hyperbole comes out.
Curious, the Left equates disagreement with their views as attacking their right to free speech. Said another way, exercising your free speech is considered attacking theirs. And they’ve got no problem attacking your right to bear arms. It’s just more intellectual blackmail.
The debate happened 20 some years ago. The gun grabbers lied out their asses about how much it would reduce crime and got the brady bill and the AWB passed. 10 years later the AWB was allowed to sunset because it did NOTHING to reduce crime. Now they are pissing and moaning again and wanting to step on our rights some more. Mike is right we need to get into the debate and demand that all prior gun banning laws be repealed because they haven’t done a damn thing to reduce crime.
JW is a a knee jerk Progressive and fawning Obama Lover he’s so bad that I mute the TV when he’s yammering
another reason why i stopped taking mainstream media seriously a long time ago.
The roblem is that we pro-gun folks would expect a debate to be exactly that – an intelligent discussion of the topic, where both sides exchange informed views based on facts. What the grabbers want is a debate where they present supposition and emotion, backed up by anecdotal bullshit, completely unsupported by anything remotely resembling a fact. All the while ignoring repeated studies which completely disprove the BS and lies that they spout. Ending with complete capitulation of the pro-gun movement resulting in total disarmament of the average Joe and Jane citizen.
It’s disappointing that we are at a point in time where rights are an “issue” and not rights.