Obama brought to tears talking about gun violence in America

In his comments last Tuesday prior to signing an Executive Order expanding background checks for gun purchases, President Barack Obama became uncharacteristically emotional and shed tears as he discussed children killed in mass shootings. His emotional reaction gave weight to his message, but some doubted the sincerity of his tears, seeing them as a device to increase support for his proposal. The Executive Order issued days later expands background checks for firearms purchasers, but is an action that would not have prevented the shooting that brought the tears, or other recent horrific shooting events.

This rare show of emotion calls attention to Obama’s lack of tears for other tragedies – such as the death of an innocent young woman at the hands of an illegal alien in California, or the San Bernardino murders by radical Muslims – as further evidence of his selective use of emotion for political purposes.

Emotion is the driver of liberal initiatives, which are highlighted by the generous use of false information and/or exaggeration, and the twisting of truth. Demagoguery and shaming are always close at hand, as well. If someone opposes abortion, they don’t really want to protect life, they just want to deny women control of their bodies. If someone opposes stronger gun control measures, it isn’t because they value and want to defend Constitutional liberties, it is because they don’t care that children and other innocents are being murdered daily. Although this tactic sounds like it was developed on an elementary school playground, a lot of people rely on it and fall for it.

Obama quotes the statistic that there are more than 30,000 gun deaths each year, and Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton breaks that down to an average of 90 gun deaths a day. Those large numbers surely catch one’s attention, but throwing out large numbers cheats the public of both perspective and true understanding of gun deaths. For example, roughly 19,000 gun deaths are suicides. How many of those severely troubled individuals would decide to go on living because they could not lay their hands on a gun?

About 1,800 are gang related, and 900 others are accidents. A majority – 80 percent – of the remaining gun-related deaths is attributed to urban problems. And, of course, some gun deaths are justified, as in cases of self-defense. The CDC reports that there are 3.5 gun deaths in the U.S. per 100,000 people while the number of all deaths is 821.5 per 100,000 people.

The self-defense aspect receives far too little discussion. In 2013, Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to assess the existing research on gun violence, and a report prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council stated, in part: “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”
Commentary by James Shott

Some suggest that three million is likely an unrealistically high number, but if guns are used defensively a half-million or more times a year, that is compelling. Given the record of people using guns to defend themselves from criminal activity and even death, wouldn’t it be appropriate for tears to be shed because so many have died in “gun-free zones,” where they were denied the ability for self-defense or protection from other people who were in the line of fire who were armed? There is a better than average chance that mass shooters would make a point to avoid places where they knew guns were being carried by their potential victims.

Americans are a rebellious lot; they don’t like to be controlled. Thus, in order to persuade them to go along with ideas like gun control, they have to be made to believe that existing laws are being enforced but that existing laws just aren’t enough, and we need more regulation. This is accomplished through various techniques, including heavy propaganda based upon myths.

Some examples: Background checks are not required for purchases on the Internet. Law enforcement is not present at gun shows, which are a free-for-all for prohibited individuals to obtain firearms. Obama has made firearms enforcement a priority, and his executive action on gun control will thwart criminals’ ability to obtain firearms. There is a general consensus in America that greater gun control is needed to prevent mass shootings in the United States.

Those statements are all false, and have been shown to be so by Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who wrote a commentary published on The Daily Caller online, listing and disproving 10 myths about guns, including those above.

Neither gun violence nor climate change is a critical problem for the United States. The threat of Islamic terrorism, a government too weak on the world stage, but grown too large and too controlling here at home, and a president who thinks he is an emperor, however, are critical problems. And that is why restoring conservative government is so important in the next election.

Cross-posted from Observations

Rush To Judgment Over Florida Teen Slaying

Rush To Judgment Over Florida Teen Slaying

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

I want to head something off – right now.  Florida is NOT the DEEP South!  Southerners in the true Deep South joke of Florida as a “Yankee” colony, not so much a southern state, as the result of the influx of people from the northern states over the past five or six decades.  It is a bit of uncomfortable humor that hews too close to truth -- especially for those in the coastal municipalities of that beautiful state.

Another thing, the shooting of the Florida black teen by a Hispanic man is not representative of black and white relations in the south anymore than it is in the northern states, the eastern states, the Midwest, or the West.

I don’t know what happened there when those two people met on that Florida street.  Only two people know what happened -- and one of them is dead. There are now reports that police have an eyewitness to the incident.  A TV station in Orlando, Florida located and interviewed the witness. You can read that story HERE.

Other than the death of another human being there are two more things that trouble me.

One -- is the rush to judgment by both the black and white communities and the trial of the shooter in the media.  It is reminiscent of those lynch mobs of days gone by.  In my opinion, there is no place in America for this sort of emotional outburst.  

I have actually SEEN a lynch mob. As a young reporter, I was reporting on a rape when the lynch mob formed and marched to the county jail to drag the accused out and hang him. 

I was there and I saw it, experienced it, and reported on it. 

I even managed to get inside the jail where deputies were holed-up. State troopers were finally called in to quell the mob before someone was hurt.  It was a tense and extremely dangerous incident. 

You cannot imagine the rage in a mob of that kind.  You can read about it, you can see it depicted on TV and in the movies, but until you have experienced it -- believe me  --- you do not understand the power of unbridled rage.  It is palpable and it is mindless, in and of itself, easily led by a single person willing to take on the responsibility of directing the rage of the mob. 

Mob mentality is a sort of madness – insanity.  At the core, a mob forces its will on others. That never ends well.

Since that event, I have distrusted mobs, demonstrations, displays of so-called “civil disobedience, or whatever the term in vogue at the time. 

The action of a mob, or a demonstration (take your pick), never changes the hearts, minds, and attitudes of the people toward whom the mob’s rage is directed.  The mob may force them into some sort of compliant behavior, but it only creates or intensifies the “target’s” distrust, distaste, disgust, and, perhaps, at a later time – defiance.

In the Florida situation, calm is called for.  However, I doubt that will happen when the Mainstream Media is whipping up such a wave of emotion. 

And Two – Florida’s gun laws.  It is my understanding that the “Castle Doctrine” and the “Stand Your Ground Law” are two different things, although, it is possible that circumstances could bring both to bear on a single incident.

Seems to me that Stand Your Ground covers a defensive situation.   The citizen under attack has the right, under law, not to retreat from his attacker -- and he may use the force necessary to protect himself.  The Castle Doctrine is pretty much the same except that it applies if your home (your castle) is being attacked/invaded.

North Carolina has some derivation of that law in place now.

In my opinion, both laws are good laws.  Most southern states have those laws in place.  Giving up those laws only moves us closer to a “police state.”  To give up the God-given right to protect yourself, your family, and your possessions only hands (even) more power to the government and, unfortunately, leaves the citizen at the mercy of criminals.

I am very afraid the end result of all the demonstrations and such, in Florida will end with the citizens of that state -- while in a state of high emotion – giving up more of their freedom and liberty, by repealing the Castle Doctrine or the Stand Your Ground Law – or both.  That would be a mistake, in my estimation, one that will be paid for in the blood of Florida citizens for years to come.

Florida needs calm and clear thinking -- not overruled by emotion -- to investigate the incident completely and try to ascertain the truth the best they are able.

Today’s Mainstream Media’s instant communications has turned a local incident into a national incident and fanned the flames of raw emotion until reason is being drowned in a tidal wave of anger.  Soon it will become political, in fact, I dare say, it already has. 

The drum majors of “victimhood” are already taking advantage of that community’s grief. They have pointed a national spotlight on it, and they are fast making it an integral part of the political campaign of the candidate most reliant upon support from America’s black community in November.

If the charges are brought against the shooter – can he possibly get a “fair” trial?   If I were his attorney, I would argue there is no way an impartial jury can be found.  I would argue, as well, that the case has already been tried in the media and the so-called “court of public opinion” and his/her client has been found guilty of – well, SOMETHING.

Finally:  I suspect this incident will add fuel to the gungrabbers/gun control advocates coming campaign to disarm Americans.  As I mentioned above, as much as we may find it distasteful and disgusting, this incident has already become political. 

The whole incident has now become a part of our national politics and I believe it will be used -- and abused -- to the extent possible to propel political endeavors toward their respective goals.

I am afraid we will soon forget a young man’s life was cut short and another man’s life destroyed that night on a Florida street.  We will be too caught up in the tsunami of emotion and politics whipped up by those who excel at the manipulation of their fellowman to remember our own humanity. 

J. D. Longstreet