For the past few weeks many right wing memes about gun control have past through facebook walls since the Sandy Hook massacre. And now this week it's heating up again.
Tonight I saw this one on a relative's wall.
Oh well, this isn't the first time I've learned she and other right wing members of my family think I'm stupid. But now I'm a "special kind of stupid!"
Does that come with a lollipop and a propeller beanie too?
But really it misses the entire point. I am not the first person who has pointed out that we don't make laws on the basis of the ones we know criminals will keep.
It did however start me thinking about Ronald Reagan and his brush with death. (Don't know how my mind jump there, but it did, just go with it.)
I found this op/ed letter written by the man the right has cannonized:
Why I'm for the Brady Bill
By Ronald Reagan;
Ronald Reagan, in announcing support for the Brady bill yesterday, reminded his audience he is a member of the National Rifle Association
Published: March 29, 1991
The "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act" or the "Brady Bill" was signed into law by Bill Clinton on November 30, 1993, and went into effect on February 28, 1994. It has given the gun fetishists their "
slippery slope" ever since.
But in the wake of all the massacres and gun tragedies we have had in the past 4 years, especially in 2012, and what we still endure including a school shooting today, what I found in the letter kind of eye opening, in that it takes on some rw talking points/memes.
So much so that those that beatify Ronald Reagan may have to set a figurative fire to this missive to maintain their mental view of him.
Writing about himself and the three others who were shot, and how lucky no one died:
Still, four lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special -- a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol -- purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance.
We hear the absurd claim that banning (very few Americans are for out right ban, Most however, including a majority of liberals are for stricter gun control laws) or passing stricter laws will mean nothing because criminals won't abide by it (like our little Sam Elliot meme up there).
Critics claim that "waiting period" legislation in the states that have it doesn't work, that criminals just go to nearby states that lack such laws to buy their weapons. True enough, and all the more reason to have a Federal law that fills the gaps.
He agreed, even knowing there has always been a black market for guns, but then said, pass the law anyway. Because a federal law would help take some off the streets.
But, you may argue, if doesn't say that exactly. You may think I am reaching, except here are the last 2 paragraphs of the letter:
Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns.
This level of violence must be stopped. Sarah and Jim Brady are working hard to do that, and I say more power to them. If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of those numbers (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land.
embolden my own
Read the whole thing. IMHO it's something to engage the gun fetishists over/with.
And for those of you expecting something else because of my title, (bwaha haha)
here you go:
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