Monday, January 28, 2013

David Frum, CNN's Faux Conservative, Claims Americans 'Do Not Need Firearms to Protect Themselves, They Are Safer Than Ever Before...'

There's a lot going on at this Erin Burnett OutFront segment from earlier today, seen below.

Burnett starts off very skeptical, announcing to viewers, "Obama the skeet shooter. Yeah, I’m not making this up, and if someone is, it isn’t me" (check Mediaite on Twitter for full clip). She then asks contributor Roland Martin if the president need to provide "proof" that's he's really skeet shooting at Camp David. (Martin of course freaks out like this is the beginning of yet another allegedly racist attack on Obama, like when Obama had to "go through four years" trying to prove he was American, or whatever.)

And most sensational is when Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn challenges Obama to a skeet shooting contest, "TRENDING: Doubting congresswoman challenges Obama to skeet shooting match" (via Memeorandum).

But what frankly shocked me there was listening to so-called "conservative" pundit David Frum claiming that the gun debate is "not about hunting" but "fear of crime." And that allegedly crime has dropped so dramatically, perhaps to the lowest point in the history of the republic, "and what Americans need to know if they're going to think intelligently about the use of weapons, is how much crime has declined in the country over the past 20 years. People don't appreciate, I think, the magnitude of this drop, and how if you look at the statistics today Americans are safer from crime than ever before, since good records began, and probably ever before in the entire history of the republic. If people knew that, that would have an impact --- they do not need ... they do not need ...  they do not need firearms to protect themselves. They are safer than ever before. That's the point to drive home. And meanwhile they are risking accidents, they are risking suicide among their loved ones. That's what the gun debate is about..."

Listen at the last half of the clip:


It's been an amazing month and a half or so since the Newtown massacre, and I can't remember a more important teaching moment over the divide in this country between the Washington political establishment ---- a.k.a. the permanent political class --- and the regular rank and file "bitter clingers" among the rest of us. It's everyday Americans who send the party hacks to D.C. on election day and who underwrite the cable news sinecures of these stupid elitist snobs like David Frum trough the television viewing. The straw man argumentation is enormous here. Frum shifts the debate away from Barack Obama, by alleging that the president is "missing the target here." Well, no he's not. The president must be feeling enough political heat from the gun-toting electorate that he's reduced to making up stories of skeet shooting at presidential retreats. I think people indeed want to know if he's really shooting skeet on the weekend. So kudos to Marsha Blackburn. She's got his number. What is more, Frum's shift to the crime thing just dodges the issue even further. Who cares what the statistics are on crime? They're important? Okay, but that's not the issue. The issue is the right of Americans to keep and bear arms. The issue is the right of Americans to be free and independent people and not dependent of the appendages of the state for protection. As the News Junkie indicates at Maggie's Farm, "Police rarely prevent crime. They cannot be everywhere. Their main job is to find [criminals] after the crime. Your own job is to prevent crime against you and your family." And folks should read over at Protein Wisdom, as well, for more on why the right to bear arms is central to liberty, "“Feinstein Says She Wants to Go After More Than Just ‘Assault Weapons’”."

I've never seen such a brazen across-the-board assault on the basic liberties of the people in my entire life. When we see commentators writing about a growing grassroots insurrection, it's easy to see why --- I can feel a growing popular insurgency against the Washington political class in my bones. It's a feeling of anger and contempt for the idiots touting themselves as our bettors. When I walked around the gun show last weekend I saw everyday people, buyers and sellers, entering into free exchange and commerce as a free people. That's the way it should be. But the Democrats in Washington and their Beltway enablers haven't the slightest clue about how badly they're misjudging how deeply Americans cherish their freedoms. A storm is brewing, and it's going to be a frightening sight if the political class fail to back the f-k off.

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