Article on Gabby Gifford's op-ed in today's NY Times

Never having been shot in the head, I'm going to give her a hall pass on both and her reasoning and her opinions on gun control. I don't have to agree with her to do that.
Click to expand...
And that's a perfectly good and respectful way of attacking her ethos. She has been so personally effected that her arguments lose credibility. But we don't have to make the point with a sledgehammer.

I have heard a former prosecutor (now a judge) often make a similar point very dramatically. If the mother of an accused criminal testifies for the defendant during trial, the former prosecutor would emphasize, "NEVER question Mama!" While that may be a bit of a stretch, the point is that most folks won't give Mama's testimony much weight but we will only evoke sympathy for her (and the defendant) if we are confrontational with her.
 
What I don't get is when she says about the Senators heard from their constituents (who she says supported the bill), but yet voted against it because of the power of the NRA?
Click to expand...
The NRA has been demonized ever since Sandy Hook. It happened in 1994. and to see it happen now is not unexpected.

It's not smart politics to insult gun owners directly (though that has happened). Portraying the NRA as an unscrupulous lobbying juggernaut with unlimited funds is a convenient scapegoating strategy.

Never mind that Michael Bloomberg alone outspent them this year.
 
Did you guys read any of the comments left on Giffords Op-ed? It absolutely amazes me that people can exist in a world driven completely by emotion and devoid of common sense and logic.
 
In the article, the term moral panic is used. It is when you must do something - even if it violates basic rights.

We are not immune from it. Look at one of our threads that asks for pre-emptive moves against people if a doc wants to report you based on their opinion alone.

Psychiatric gulags and denial of gun rights based on flimsey evidence appeals to some of the gun world.

Some want to ban video games as they are sure they are causal despite the data suggesting no strong link. But our posters know better. You have to do something!

Today, I heard at a match a discussion of the Boston Marathon and one 'gentleman' wanted Japanese WWII internment camps. Some much for the Constitution. BTW - he was met with stoney silence - well deserved IMHO.

So fallacies in reasoning based on emotion or other logical flaws are common, even to us.
 
Glenn E. Meyer said:
Today, I heard at a match a discussion of the Boston Marathon and one 'gentleman' wanted Japanese WWII internment camps. Some much for the Constitution. BTW - he was met with stoney silence - well deserved IMHO.
Click to expand...
Who does he want to intern? Bostonians?

Chechnyans?

Russians?

Kyrgistanis? (sp?)

Muslims?

Boxers?

Furriners?

People who wear baseball caps backwards?
 
what a country we live in! it is the only country i know that both republicans and democrats cry fowl cry fowl when they fall short of the amount of votes needed to pass their mearsures. why the hell don't we just STFU and let our govt work. if you don't like the new gun measures that have FAILED then go back and enforce the gun laws that are on the books! if you're ACTUALLY looking for new measures to make us safer you don't you adding new health laws and enforcing old ones, that is where the real problem is. or is your next measure to outlaw cooking pots?
 
Here's a novel thought, and one that if it even occurs to the anti-gunners, will never see the light of day....

Perhaps. just perhaps, those Senators didn't vote for the gun control bills because despite their high and noble sounding titles, the actual laws proposed were absolute crap.

For once, in recent history, it seems that our lawmakers not only listened to the majority of us (despite all kinds of bogus "polls"), and looked beyond what the bills were called, to what was actually in them. And what was in them not only would not have have had any effect on the recent shootings, but would have infringed on our rights, making criminals of citizens doing nothing more than what we have always done, and what it is our right to do.
 
Perhaps. just perhaps, those Senators didn't vote for the gun control bills because despite their high and noble sounding titles, the actual laws proposed were absolute crap.
Click to expand...

This is something I have emphasized in conversations. A false dichotomy has been created that if you don't support every bill that is proposed you are in favor of shooting up elementary schools. This was a really bad bill. I saw very little publicized about what was in the actual bill; I doubt that was an oversight.

I remember when Representative Giffords was shot, there were numerous testimonials of how she reached across the aisle, listened to, and respected other people's opinions. It seems to me that either those testimonies were false or she has abandoned her previous virtues in that regard.
 
I remember when Representative Giffords was shot, there were numerous testimonials of how she reached across the aisle, listened to, and respected other people's opinions. It seems to me that either those testimonies were false or she has abandoned her previous virtues in that regard.
Click to expand...

I would really love to be wrong on this, . . . but my guess is that both she and her husband (in greater or lesser degrees) are angry about what the shooting has stolen from them individually and as a couple.

Their reaction is simply to use the event as a stage from which to exact penance from those who failed in the first place to prevent these events.

In other words, . . . gun control has become a cash cow for them, . . . and they are going to run with it. No, . . . no one will ever admit or confess to that end, . . . but in the end, . . . money talks, . . . ________ walks.

May God bless,
Dwight
 
And I don't buy the argument that her cognitive functions are unimpaired,
Click to expand...

I don't either.


She was shot in the head, almost died. Her friends died as did supporters.

She was traumatized, she has also been turned into a puppet by her "friends" and from what I have seen, a husband who is more then willing to throw his hat into the same ring.

I would no more rely on this women's judgment then I would allow her to sit as an impartial witness in a shooting trial. I don't doubt she had a hand in the writing of that article and her ability to think logically is at least, on this subject, seriously impaired by her emotions regarding the same.

No one should be putting any thought into what Gabby Giffords has to say about guns.

And I too am very sorry about what happened to her and the others just 70 miles from my home.


Perhaps. just perhaps, those Senators didn't vote for the gun control bills because despite their high and noble sounding titles, the actual laws proposed were absolute crap.
Click to expand...

Further more, I think you'll find some of the Senators who opposed this bill also oppose it on a 10th Amendment level as well. But they'll take the favors of 2A supports just as well even if that isn't why they oppose the legislation.
 
Last edited:
A false dichotomy has been created that if you don't support every bill that is proposed you are in favor of shooting up elementary schools.
Click to expand...
That's a huge part of the anti-gun playbook. If I don't support their proposals, I'm a bad person and I want blood to run in the streets.

Sandy Hook was a bonanza for them, because it gave them plenty of sock puppets to bolster that allegation.
 
Quote:
A false dichotomy has been created that if you don't support every bill that is proposed you are in favor of shooting up elementary schools.

That's a huge part of the anti-gun playbook. If I don't support their proposals, I'm a bad person and I want blood to run in the streets.

Sandy Hook was a bonanza for them, because it gave them plenty of sock puppets to bolster that allegation.
Click to expand...

Politics 101. I had a guy running for state rep come to my door looking for votes back in the eighties. He wanted to talk so I invited him in and offered him a beverage and a seat. After some banter about some issues I really did not care about at the time, I asked him how he felt about repealing the 55 speed limit.
He went off on some tirade about how I wanted to go speeding through school zones running over kindergartners and he would ever support a bill like that. If he had said that he didn't support it for economical, ecological or even safety reasons on the interstate that my question referred to I would have voted for him. But his illogical response lost this vote.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
And I don't buy the argument that her cognitive functions are unimpaired
Click to expand...

I don't either. The bullet path, from above her left eyebrow to the back left of her skull, while not fatal or catastrophic in this case, clearly changed her personality.

WebMD has an article on her injury, which includes this:
Nina Zeldis, PhD, taught rehabilitation medicine at Israel's Tel Aviv University for more than 20 years. She notes that people who, like Giffords, have suffered damage to the left side of the brain tend to have:

difficulty speaking and understanding speech
difficulty reading
increased impulsivity
lack of emotional control
decreased problem-solving ability
diminished long-term planning
problems with hand/eye coordination
Click to expand...

Observing her January 2013 statement to Congress, compared to earlier videos, I can't help but think that they are showing different people.

The legal system may not recognize this as a murder, but I think that this was murder. The current Gabrielle Giffords has little interest in anything political other than gun control. Whether the anti-gun crusade is her own (a result of the executive function damage she sustained), or whether she is so mentally compromised that the gun control statement she read to Congress was fed to her by her husband or handlers, who can say.
 
Not to go off topic, but after the shooting, I recall the pundits babbling about her remarkable recovery. From school, I said to my wife that she will have serious decrements. I'm fairly sure that her stuff is being composed. Probably read to her and she approves. Terrible thing to happen to anyone.
 
amazing

Those on the gun control side keep saying how powerful the NRA is.
They keep saying that politicians are scared of the NRA.

Has anyone ever mentioned to them in public that maybe, just maybe, they actually voted their conscience?
 
Has anyone ever mentioned to them in public that maybe, just maybe, they actually voted their conscience?
Click to expand...
That, or fear of a backlash from their constituents. I'll take it either way.

The funny thing is, back in January we were hearing that the gun-control lobby was stomping the NRA. The NRA didn't have the juice to withstand this one, they said.

Then the gun-control lobby lost. Suddenly, the NRA is an unstoppable juggernaut again in their eyes. What they fail to realize is that when they're badmouthing the NRA, they're badmouthing an organization to which a very diverse bunch of America belongs.
 
you may be right.

Giffords views are shared by a good friend of mine. He thinks that we are limiting progress. I believe the B of Rights is timeless. He believes laws should be made by commitee. I believe more laws creates more problems.

This was a good read. I enjoy trying to understand the other side but how is it that we cannot simply believe that the Bill of Rights trumps emotional tidalwaves. Why must we be unenlightened or unsympathetic?

I am still waiting for a voice who can deliver our message and a vehicle that carries it to the masses.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top