CNN Pits Gun Ban Oppponent Against Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor
Good article by Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters today:
Perhaps it was his attempt at balance, but CNN’s Bill Mears cast a cloud over the constitutional right to keep and bear arms by stacking his March 18 article about today’s Heller v. District of Columbia case in “personal” terms that focused heavily on the victim of a tragic school shooting. What’s more, Mears put the constitutional language about the right to keep and bear arms within the dreaded dismissive quote marks:
Shelly Parker wants to know why she cannot keep a handgun in her house. As a single woman she has been threatened by neighborhood drug dealers in a city where violent crime rates are on the rise.
“In the event that someone does get in my home, I would have no defense, except maybe throw my paper towels at them,” she said. But Parker lives in the nation’s capital, which does not allow its residents to possess handguns.
Elilta “Lily” Habtu thinks that is how it should be. She knows about gun violence firsthand, surviving bullets to the head and arm fired by the Virginia Tech University shooter nearly a year ago.
“There has to be tighter gun control; we can’t let another Virginia Tech to happen,” she said. “And we’re just not doing it, we’re sitting around, we’re doing nothing. We let the opportunity arise for more massacres.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether Washington’s sweeping ban on handgun ownership violates an individual’s constitutional right to “keep and bear arms,” setting the stage for a potentially monumental legal and social battle, just in time for the 2008 elections.
Could you imagine a journalist writing about a disputed constitutional right “peaceably to assemble” or to “freedom of speech”?
Mears pitted Parker, who lives in fear of violence by armed criminals against Habtu who “knows about gun violence firsthand.”
The term “gun violence,” of course, is favored by gun control groups to depersonalize the actions of criminals and vilify the inanimate weapon, the gun. Yet it’s constitutional language about the right to keep and bear arms, not a politically-loaded catchphrase, that earned dismissive quote marks in Mears’ article.
Yes, Habtu is a victim of a crime committed with a firearm and as a journalist Mears should present her point of view, but Ms. Parker, though not a victim/survivor of an armed attack, lives in fear of retribution from armed thugs due to her work to clean up her neighborhood:
She said her community activism earned her the anger of local drug dealers, who vandalized her property and made repeated verbal threats and taunts. After her car window was broken, she called police, who offered some friendly advice.
“I said to the police, ‘I have an alarm, I have bars, I have a dog, what more am I supposed to do?” recalled Parker. “The police turned to me and said, ‘Get a gun.’ ”
It’s safe to say Ms. Parker lives in fear of “gun violence” at the hands of criminals but that she believes in an additional option to protect herself against it, an option that her local government is striving to withhold from her. Of course, that’s a fine point that removes the powerful sway of emotion from the gun control debate.
Mears opted to close his story with one final shot at gun rights, giving Habtu the final word in this “personal” Court case:
“No one here is trying to fight against your right to have a gun,” she said in a soft voice. “What we want is for dangerous people not to get access to one, and today it is just too easy. We cannot keep sacrificing innocent people because you have a fear that you’re not going to have your right to own a gun.”
(Newsbusters)
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Idiots. Gun control and the criminal actions of one individual was the problem at Virginia Tech. The actions of the criminal were at hand - not the the guns he was carrying. One cannot legislate a problem away. Criminals will obtain the means to kill if so motivated. The problem needs to be dealt with. The problem being the person commiting a crime.
No firearms were allowed on campus. If that were not the case, 1 person could have made a difference. 1 person could have shot the perp. A person that believed in the 2nd amendment.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:30 amSome pertinent quotes…
Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.
– “M.T. Cicero”, in a newspaper letter of 1788 touching the “militia” referred to in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms.”
–Aristotle
The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.
– Adolph Hitler, April 11 1942.
That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms…
– Samuel Adams
“To disarm the people… was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
– George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788
“The great object is, that every man be armed. […] Every one who is able may have a gun.”
– Patrick Henry,
. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.
– “Political Disquisitions”, a British republican tract of 1774-1775
Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
– Patrick Henry, speech of June 9 1788
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
– Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court
Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. […] To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.
– Senator Richard Henry Lee, 1788, on “militia” in the 2nd Amendment
“…quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.” […a sword never kills anybody; it’s a tool in the killer’s hand.]
– (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca “the Younger” (ca. 4 BC-65 AD),
Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:36 am– From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775.
I’m sure our founders thought they were being clear on their intent that all citizens should be armed and proficient with their weapons. The fact that it was the second in the Bill of Rights should itself be a clue about how important they thought this was. The willful dhimmis will be the death of our republic.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:04 amThis is all so much BS… No criminal who wants a gun is ever deterred by a “law” that prohibits them - criminals, by definition, BREAK THE LAW!!!!
There are numerous instances of gun prohibition being enforced on the population, only to have an instant increase in gun crime against the now unarmed citizenry - Australia a few years ago is a good case in point.
Up here in Canadaistan, we have very restrictive gun laws, but they have not made a dent in gun crime. In fact, Toronto politicians frequently bitch about criminals “getting guns from the US” and committing crimes with them - again making the point that restrictive laws mean nothing to the criminal element - they just get the guns from other criminal friends and continue their reign of terror against the unarmed.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:51 am“There has to be tighter gun control; we can’t let another Virginia Tech to happen,” she said. “And we’re just not doing it, we’re sitting around, we’re doing nothing. We let the opportunity arise for more massacres.”
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might i note that there was “tighter” gun control laws on the virginia tech campus. THEY WERE TOTALY BANNED FROM CAMPUS, but all the criminal had to do was purchase a gun OUTSIDE OF THE CONTROL ZONE (in this case it was off campus, if its a national ban then a foreign wepon), and then show TOTAL DISREGARD FOR THE LAW
see what your “tighter gun control” does… that’s what got you shot!!
look at the shooting at the Israeli yashida a few weeks ago - IT WAS AN ARMED STUDENT WHO KILLED THE TERRORIST
all you will do is limit your ability to kill people like the VA tech shooter… and sadly, that’s why so many got shot!!
March 18th, 2008 at 10:59 amI think the most disturbing aspect of this is the attempt to abridge gun ownership as the first of many of our idividual rights that set us apart from the rest of the world.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pmIf they succeed in this, we the people will be largely helpless in any kind of last ditch defence of our freedoms. They will have legislative carte blanche and will pass our America into third world oblivion.
I think the front has moved a little closer to home…
Point A: Criminals break laws
Point B: Laws do not stop, slow down, or deter criminals.
Point C: Empty slogans, ignorance, delusion, or distant police will not protect you from criminals.
The above logic is shown in the following statement:
It is illegal to carry a gun on Virginia tech campus AND it is a greater crime to kill someone at the campus. Neither fact stopped this killer; the people who enact gun control laws know this is true (or they are greater fools than they appear.)
Gun control 1s a law that is and was completely enforced at Virginia Tech. See point A.
The students at Virginia Tech were systematically unarmed. See point B
The students at Virginia Tech thought they were protected by a largely unarmed society and/or the civil police. See point C
Repeat A, B, and C as necessary to avoid the nasty surprise those poor kids suffered when the lies about criminals and gun control killed them.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:00 pm