Tongue-tied; and "Gun Industry Blood Money"

Gun Owners of America | Facebook:
Gun Owners of America GOA's Larry Pratt leaves MSNBC host tongue-tied

(H/T David Codrea and Gun Owners of America)

There are SO many quotable quotes here, I'm not even going to try to cite them here.  You must go watch-the-whole-thing.  This is perhaps the most productive interview that Larry Pratt has ever given.  He was entirely on-point during the too-short episode.  Including that:

• ... George Washington understood that citizens must have access to firearms available
• ... matching firearms currently available to the military
• ... and citizens have the right to use firearms to protect themselves from both personal assault
• ... and to protect themselves against their own government
• ... and that the Second Amendment Rights are equivalent to the First Amendment rights!

Any argument about the first two amendments to the Constitution must be taken hand-in-hand.

The First Amendment has been ruled by the Supreme Court to include speech which was not available to Americans in the 18th Century, including email and the Internet in general.

These speech platforms were not available in the 18th Century, but the Supreme Court has held that freedom of speech extends to all currently extent speech platforms.

Since the First and the Second Amendments specifically speak to individual rights, many rulings on the 1st Amendment apply equally to the 2nd Amendment.  (The third to the tenth amendments generally apply to impositions of the government upon its citizens.)

When Pratt changed the direction of the dialogue, and began speaking of the First Amendment Rights, the moderator interrupted him:  "You mean the Second Amendment."

Pratt replied forcefully:  "No, I mean the First Amendment!"

That simple statement, equating the two Amendments, completely changed the dialogue.  Neither the Moderator nor the Opponent knew how to respond to the realization that individual rights were equivalent.  And so the discussion was terminated before anyone had a chance to respond to the canard about "Gun Industry Blood Money".

I'm loving it, when the mild-mannered Pratt brings opponents to their knees.

In the background, if you listen closely, you can hear "the lamentations of their women".

Crazy Carry

Open Carry, Concealed Carry and Crazy Carry - Bloomberg View:
(April 22, 2014)

I often focus on the dangers of reckless people with guns, rather than criminals with guns, for two reasons. First, reckless people seem very plentiful. Second, they are invariably ignored in gun-rights rhetoric. The gun-rights movement advances a Manichean vision of criminals and "law-abiding citizens," with the latter always and everywhere in need of heavy firepower to defeat the former.

National Rifle Association Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre's rhetoric about criminals -- "so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons" -- is basically pornographic at its peaks. But LaPierre is silent about the legion of gun-toting clods, bumblers, stoners, wife-beaters, fools and drunks who kill, or injure, Americans every day. (Once in possession of a gun, you don't need to be actively stupid to produce tragedy; you can be passively stupid.)

A dialogue between a bloombergview.com commentator (By Francis Wilkinson   and John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org)

A surprisingly 'balanced' discussion.  Since Wilkerson, the author (and an apparent Bloomberg supporter) seems to have presented both sides of the conversation, I'm pleasantly surprised that he has resisted the temptation to bowdlerize the exchange.

It's not that long.  Go, read the whole thing.