Issue: Assault Weapons; NOT 2nd Amendment
Sub “assault weapons” for NRA-speak (5)
* Combatting NRA deflection and obfuscation to stay focused *
Laura Ingraham: Why should Parkland students get “special consideration” on assault weapons¹ policy?
From the February 27 edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle as posted by the Media Matters Staff:
LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): And then there are the Parkland, Florida school students, they’ve been through a lot. And for anyone who has been conscious since Valentine’s Day, the media has featured these kids wall to wall, their passion, their words. And I would argue their pain and loss is at times, yeah, being exploited by anti-assault weapons¹ activists, sometimes using them as proxies, even.
[…]
Kids. They are still in high school. They are going through a lot, it’s (being shot at by someone with an AR-15)⁴ something called growing up.
And Sheriff (Scott) Israel made unwittingly (meaning without his wits about him)⁴ one of the salient points here — why on Earth should teenagers dictate policy on assault weapons¹ control, on assault weapons², or, frankly, anything else for that matter?
Now, without diminishing their pain, their sadness — some of them are really smart, I think — or the right to express their opinion about the slaughter, of course, of their fellow classmates, why should their political or policy views — I mean, we’re talking sometimes 14, 15, 16-year-old kids be given special consideration?
Well, when they’re not insulting do-nothing⁴ congressman or senators, they are advising them on assault weapons¹ policy.
[…]
Author’s answer to Laura’s and Sheriff (Scott) Israel’s question about listening to teenagers: If you (Laura and Scott) are implying their brief experience ducking bullets from a high-capacity magazine attached to an AR-15 hardly compares to the many years a congressman or senator has experienced NRA love in the form of donations and campaign assistance, you got me there. But instead, compare the many years of those same congressman or senators doing nothing on gun control to the motivation, commitment, and immediate action taken by these teenagers to affect change, and you might find your answer!
(1) substituted for “guns”
(2) substituted for “the Second Amendment”
(3) substituted for “firearms, ammunition and magazines”
(4) added for emphasis
Just sayin’: According to the NRA website, “The NRA is America’s preeminent gun rights organization, made up of nearly 5 million members.” According to the United States Census Bureau, the U.S. population is nearly 326 million people. How is it that any Congressman or Senator can claim they are representing the American people when their positions on gun control align with the NRA’s, i.e. only 1.5% of the population?
Note: At the time that the now-defunct Federal Assault Weapons Ban passed in 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice said, “In general, assault weapons are semiautomatic firearms with a large magazine of ammunition that were designed and configured for rapid fire and combat use.”
