On Thursday’s Hardball, the MSNBC panel showcased how the left will never be interested in compromise on gun control and will move the goal posts toward gun confiscation, all the while pushing fake news about Second Amendment advocates.
As usual, host Chris Matthews was at the center of it all, falsely smearing Republicans as “a fanatic party on guns” who believe “[i]t’s a God-given, sort of theological right” for anyone to own “any kind of gun they want, any — a bazooka, a tank.”
Machine guns and other military-grade weaponry are and have been banned in the United States and gun-rights advocates haven’t disputed that fact. But facts are such stubborn things for Matthews plus guests former Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Columbia Law Professor Alex Carter.
Matthews kicked things off by mocking to Rendell how the NRA and others are concerned about a “slippery slope” on guns. Turns out, such “slippery slope” is a real thing, seeing as how Rendell discarded any notion that Democrats would compromise on bump stocks but instead demand expansive gun control:
Bump stocks, solving that problem by making them illegal will solve maybe 1 percent of the problem. What I hope our Democrats do and some progressive Republicans do is amend that bill and make them vote on reinstating the assault weapons ban, which never should have been allowed to sunset….Secondly, we ought to put universal background checks, which, as you pointed out on your show last night, 90 percent of the country believes ought to be enforced. And we ought to limit magazines to 10 shots a magazine. Imagine if that guy had to reload after every 10 shots. Imagine the difference it would have made. And I don’t care if they say it won’t stop it from happening. Sure, it won’t stop it from happening. But it would get the death count down dramatically. It would get the wounded and injured down dramatically and one person is too many. Let’s get real in this country. You don’t hunt with semiautomatic or automatic weapons. You don’t need a magazine that has more than 10 shots to shoot a deer or an elk. Let’s get real. Let’s do something to protect our people.
Matthews agreed, turning to Carter by praising her mention in The New York Times in which she argued that it doesn’t so much matter about the shooter’s motives or psyche but his guns. He also seemed to assume that “automatic weapons” exist in large quantities in America, arguing that it’s all but guaranteed some percentage gun owners will snap and commit mass murder.
Carter agreed, declaring that the gunman’s cruel motives and what drove him to commit this atrocity are “a distraction and at worst a diversion from the real issue, which is, how are we going to prevent this and other tragedies like this from happening again.”
“And even if, you know, some of the sensible regulations that the governor proposed, right, universal background checks, or even an assault ban or a limit on the total number of guns that one can purchase, even if it wouldn’t have prevented all of the carnage in this prior incident, it might prevent the next one. Isn’t that reason enough,” Carter added.
After Rendell mocked the NRA as “a paper tiger” (so why attack them, but that’s another debate), Matthews denounced Republicans as defending “everything” concerning guns seeing as how they’re no more than a “a fanatic party on guns.”
Carter replied that “the Constitution, and not the platform of either party, was the supreme law of the land and we know that other constitutional rights, like the right to free speech, are subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.”
What’s amusing is that the Supreme Court and the Constitution have established gun ownership and most gun owners believe in restrictions, but it’s a matter of where that line is. Any notion that gun owners, as a whole, crusade for endless restrictions on any type of firearm and ammunition is a lazy strawman.
Matthews then drove the crazy train over the cliff, making the asinine assertion that Republicans believe “the right to bear arms precedes the Constitution,” which doesn’t make any sense since that’s already, you know, in the Constitution. He then continued, spreading lies that gun-owners have a deranged belief that owning firearms is “a God-given, sort of theological right.”
“They treat this like religion, Governor. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a religious, essential notion to them that everybody should have any kind of gun they want, any — a bazooka, a tank. They never put a limit on it, ever,” Matthews concluded.
Drunk on righteous indignation and Jimmy Kimmel’s ad hominem attacks on people who don’t support their gun control agenda, Rendell summed this segment up quite well:
And which is ridiculous and, look, Chris, I have a message to everyone out there who’s a commonsense person. Don’t get fooled by this willingness to do something about bump stocks. Bump stocks will take care of 1 percent of the problem. We need them to do something about assault weapons, semiautomatic assault weapons. We need them to do something about the capacity of magazines. And we need universal background checks. Come on, America. You know what’s right. This is a time to stand up and give them a loud and clear and deafening message.
(First reported by mrcNewsbusters) https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2017/10/06/pants-fire-matthews-gopers-are-fanatics-believe-any-gun-god (October 6, 2017)
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