Both sides in the gun control debate are working overtime to sway public opinion. But former rocker Ted Nugent is showing exactly how not to do it.
With Vice President Joe Biden saying today that his task force will deliver recommendations for reducing gun violence to President Obama by Tuesday, the rhetoric is flying. The 64-year-old Motor City Madman, as fans sometimes call Nugent, is way out there for the pro-gun forces.
Biden's recommendations are thought to include initiatives such as universal background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines. Nugent, though, worries that Obama would just confiscate all guns.
If that happens, Nugent told WorldNetDaily, "there are enough soulless sheep within our government who would act on such an illegal order..." Nugent added: "But there will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed."
Last week, liberal nonprofit Media Matters notes, former NRA president Marion Hammer claimed that a proposal to ban assault weapons was similar to racial discrimination. Hammer said that "banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago."
With recent polls showing a majority of the public supporting stricter gun control measures, this kind of rhetoric from Nugent and Hammer is likely to backfire. Meanwhile, pro gun control forces are raising millions in an effort to sway public opinion, the Washington Post reported this morning.
Biden was scheduled to meet today with the NRA and other gun-owner groups. Perhaps that private meeting will have more rational conversation about real answers for reducing gun violence, in which America leads the world. No one is pro-violence. Surely there are common-sense steps, like universal background checks, that everyone can support.
Taylor Batten
Bypassing Congress and the Constitution is okay with you?
ReplyDeleteThe Nuge is correct.
Gallup also just did a poll showing different data than what you post.
It depends on how the questions are asked and you well know that.
58% Do favor stricter laws covering the SALE of guns but:
...advocates for stricter gun laws continue to face opposition on other fronts, according to a few other findings from Gallup's poll.
Only 44 percent of respondents voiced support for a ban on semi-automatic weapons, one commonly-floated solution in the aftermath of Newtown.
Fifty-one percent were opposed to such a ban, and both numbers have scarcely changed in the last few years.
And a whopping 74 percent of respondents - a record high - opposed a ban on the possession of handguns, compared to only 24 percent who supported such a ban.
A handgun ban has not entered the post-Newtown dialogue on gun control, and given numbers like these, that does not seem likely to change any time soon.
In the 1930s, German citizens believed overwhelmingly that the Jewish people were the cause of all their economic and social woes. If they had conducted a poll, you would have seen a high percentage of people who believed the Jewish people were to blame.
ReplyDeleteMy point is, a poll against "X" something does not mean that "X" should be made illegal. We are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic. One of the tenets of that is that the Constitution is a natural law document. Every human being has an innate right to their life; to defend themselves against aggression, whether it be from a burglar or from a burglar wearing a government uniform.
Did Obama conduct "universal background checks" on the Mexican drug cartels to whom he gave guns?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the technique Batten is using here is particularly weak: he has picked a representative of the opposing side in order to paint that entire side as being of like mind.
Yeah, well, now a kid in California used a shotgun.
ReplyDeleteWhat will our gubmint do about that?
The Motor City Madman is just taking the gubmint "solution" to its logical conclusion.
...paranoid delusions of the gun culture.
ReplyDeleteNugent is an irrelevant, washed up, self promoting blowhard.
ReplyDeleteHe has to be compensating for something extremely tiny with all of his macho garbage.
Hey you last two folks, how about some facts instead of personal attacks?
ReplyDeleteHey, Ettolrahc!
ReplyDeleteYou challenge two posters for attacking Nugent, but you say NOTHING of Nugent's comments? Where were his facts?
Double standards or hypocrisy?
Bill,
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you attempt to counter what Larry Pratt told that Brit Twit Piers "Identity Theft" Morgan?
Garth - I bet you get easily distracted by bright lights. Since you're bringing up random interviews, let's start with Alex Jones? He seems like such a normal and sane representative for the NRA.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can explain Bloomberg hit squads.
Lets bring up Jones, and the only reason he was on CNN that no one watches was because they knew he would be used as a "normal and sane" representative of the NRA by the non thinkers of the world.
ReplyDeleteSince you libs love polls when they work in your favor only, we the people don't want Obamacare.
100,000 new people have joined the in a few short weeks and the NRA is more popular than the President Clueless.
And Fast and Furious guns are still being linked to innocent deaths in Mexico, 300 and counting. But who cares, they are just Mexicans.
Democrat hypocrites...
ReplyDeleteHere's Joe Biden in 2008 stating:
Flashback – Joe Biden in 2008: “I Guarantee You Barack Obama Ain’t Taking My Shotguns”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/01/flashback-joe-biden-in-2008-i-guarantee-you-barack-obama-aint-taking-my-shotguns-video/comment-page-1/
Batten is simply off base with this silly OpEd commentary. There are loons on the "let's control guns" side as well. Just look at the screaming lunatic in New York.
ReplyDeleteBill,
ReplyDeleteLarry Pratt is president of Gun Owners Of America.
To my knowledge Alex Jones doesn't hold a leadership position at the NRA.
If you'd like to continue to hurl insults in my direction, please name the time and place you would like to do so in person. I'm free all weekend, sista.
Garth:
ReplyDeleteI am a happily married man. You'll have to troll for partners elsewhere.