From Jason “Baldr” Kilgore:
Source: Uploaded by user via Baldr on Pinterest
This is one of those dichotomies they WISH was true. Like more than ANYTHING else!
Of course can you name a single mass-shooter who was a right-wing media fanatic? Hell there’s been a pretty good debate that most of these psychopaths have been left-wing in their ideology…still the truth is they’re just simply crazy and are neither of the left, or the Right, and were outcasts of both.
Jason added this tagline:
Right-wing hate radio has real-life effects on the irrational
Who’s the rational one here? Brings to mind the Anti-Rights push on “Outing” and harassing bloggers (Myself included in this push). I have little doubt due to the constant repetition of this lie that lawful gun owners and 2nd Amendment activists are violent reactionaries, that this was the attempt at kicking a hornet’s nest to spur a violent outburst.
Of course it got nothing, because they were WRONG.
Oh well, they can still hope until they are blue in the face!
As you are wont to say: Not just anti-freedom but anti-gun.
If gun mfgs are responsible for the actions of others, if millions of law abiding gun owners are responsibile for the actions fo others, then certianly “right-wing” media is also responsible.
Hence the “New Civility” push and the desperation to connect a nutball shooter with “right-wing-hate-news”. See the Gabby Gifords shooting and the attempt to blame it on Palin.
They hate the First amendment as much as they hate the Second: Speech (and guns) are fine for the right people, but cannot be trusted with us proles.
Of course, left wing hate television has no real life effect?
Well, remember, the people who push this tripe are either true believers, so to them MSNBC’s lineup is the raw truth…or maybe a little skewed to the Right for ratings.
Or they’re hired guns, so left-wing media just helps break the eggs to make that giant omelette.
Amazing how selective ‘hate speech’ is on the actions of others.
Conservative = Immediate & illegal violence.
Muslim = Nothing.
Sitting in a church for 20 years listening to Rev. Wright preach hate = Elected to the Presidency.
If even 1% of legal gun owners killed someone every year, then there would about 800,000 homicides from guns every year. But what is the real number? about 30,000. and about half of those are suicides.
So yeah, reality just doesn’t reflect the fear that they are trying to spread.
And about 90% of the remaining 13,000 is gang related, with stolen or otherwise unlawfully procured and possessed guns.
Which really puts a bow on the whole thing, as if the cops discover a gun on any of these thugs they can lawfully take away the gun and charge the criminal before he does anything violent at all.
…Hence why we tell them to enforce the laws already on the books.
For the record, I abhor the act of using the courts to silence political adversaries.
That said, I’ve often wondered if the antis’ constant public media portrayal of all lawful gun owners as potential violent criminals/extremists/terrorists/lunatics could be seen as either fighting words or incitement. The Supreme Court has held that “fighting words” – speech uttered for the specific purpose of eliciting a verbal or physical altercation – are NOT protected by the First Amendment, and incitement is a crime in many areas, although it usually involves getting your own followers to do something illegal that you won’t do yourself.
I hate to say it, but eventually there’s likely going to be a … not-so-nice response from one side or the other – especially with as fired up as BOTH sides seem to be getting. Most of us wouldn’t ever dignify the trash talk (publicizing the idiocy/hypocrisy far and wide is another matter entirely 😉 ), but there’s always someone that will. If “fighting words” are not protected, then the recipient of said response may not be able to claim it was completely unprovoked.
The “fighting words” argument might be a bit of a stretch, and the whole thing is kind of a morbid subject, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.