Gun Control Activist Confronts Bernie Sanders for Sounding Like the NRA

[Surya Gayatri]

Gun Control Activist Confronts Bernie Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders is viewed by many liberals as a progressive champion on almost every single issue. But on the question of gun control, Sanders isn’t exactly on the side of many liberal advocates. Following Sandy Hook, Sanders said that, “If you passed the strongest gun control legislation tomorrow, I don’t think it will have a profound effect on the tragedies we have seen.”

So when Sanders was in Arlington yesterday, Honora Laszlo from the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America confronted him about his views on guns and, specifically, why he voted in favor of legislation to protect gun manufacturers from being sued.

Bernie Sanders defends gun control record

Sanders touted how his home state of Vermont has “virtually no gun control” but also turns out to be “one of the safest states.” He spoke of bridging the cultural divide to fix this issue, while still touting his votes for a ban on assault weapons and background checks.

That all being said, Sanders stood by the aforementioned vote on manufacturers, saying, “If somebody has a gun, if somebody steals that gun, and they shoot somebody, do you really think it makes sense to blame the manufacturer of that weapon?… If somebody sells you a baseball bat and hits you over the head, you’re not gonna sue the baseball bat manufacturer.”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/gun-control-activist-confronts-bernie-sanders-for-sounding-like-the-nra/

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Interesting confrontation of two divergent 'gun control' views.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Vermont is not the United States, this puts him anear the bottom of my list for for the primary.

I have a number of issues that are important, so I keep a score card that I will use to inform my vote in June of 2016.

[Man of Distinction]

5. So you're an one issue voter?

Nice to know.

One issue voters are completely worthless to me.

Purity contests even worse.

[Agnosticsherbet]

9. You did not read my post, for your benefit, I keep a score card with a number of issues.

However, if I refuse to vote for a Republican because of his or her votes against gun control, and to immunize gun manufacturers from lawsuits, then that affects my vote in a large way.

Due to his choice to immunize gun manufacturers, Sanders is near the bottom of my scorecard. He did vote to limit the size of magazines. One tiny thing to the good. Gun control is important to me because after seeing many children and adults blown away, I have noticed nobody in power on either side gives a fuck, and that includes Sanders. If they gave a fuck about dead kids and dead adults, they would have enacted rules and regulations.

Clinton, by the way, is a bit better than Saunders, and O'Malley is better than Clinton. (On this issue, O'Malley wins)

And just in case you are wondering, Sanders wins the Economic argument, hands down.

Clinton wins on Women's rights.

Now, if congress and presidents had enacted commonsense and realistic measures, that issue would be of little importance. Sanders, by his vote, made sure that nothing was done.

I happen to agree with you on single issue voters. The argument often made that Sunders economic polices will fix everything is a useless and false argument.

I will continue to keep my scorecard until June of 2016 when California holds its primary. I expect that we will already know who our nominee will be by that time. It sucks to live in California. Until the California Primary, I will not exclusively support any of the candidates. I considering supporting a single candidate in exclusion of all other equivalent to putting on blinders an surrendering to confirmation bias.

[TeddyR]

10. I'm not compltely opposed to magazine limits

But I also don't believe that they are anything more than a prophylactic measure. A gentleman was arrested today for killing seven people over the last week with a .38 caliber six shot revolver. Although he didn't kill these people all at once, the limited capacity of his weapon did not prevent him from killing multiple individuals. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/us/new-jersey-pennsylvania-multiple-homicides/index.html. And there have been numerous mass shootings with a revolver.

[Agnosticsherbet]

11. His vote to immunize gun manufacturers was the worst.

He has consistantly voted against reasonable gun cotrol, and that means, for me, he loses on that issue.

I can understand his stance for a small state like Vermont. But his stand is absolutely wrong for the nation.

[Scootaloo]

2. What the NRA actually sounds like

Since it seems some people are very confused...

Wayne LaPierre:

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

“We have blood-soaked films out there, like ‘American Psycho,’ ‘Natural Born Killers’ that are aired like propaganda loops on splatter days.”

“And throughout it all, too many in the national media, their corporate owners and their stockholders act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators.”

“But since when did the gun automatically become a bad word? A gun in the hands of a secret service agent protecting our president isn’t a bad word.”

“With all the foreign aid the United State does…can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?”

“Politicians pass laws for gun-free school zones. They issue press release bragging about them. They post signs advertising them, and in doing so, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”

“How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame from a national media machine that rewards them with wall-to-wall attention and a sense of identity they crave?”

“There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people through vicious and violent video games.”

“We can’t lose precious time debating legislation that won’t work.”

“I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed officers in every single school in this nation.”

Ted Nugent:

"Where you have the most armed citizens in America, you have the lowest violent crime rate. Where you have the worst gun control, you have the highest crime rate. "

"Every study on crime and or firearms proves time and time again, that 99.99999% of American gun owners do not commit crimes or use our firearms in any dangerous or improper way."

"There are hundreds of millions of gun owners in this country, and not one of them will have an accident today. The only misuse of guns comes in environments where there are drugs, alcohol, bad parents, and undisciplined children. Period. "

"The war is coming to the streets of America and if you are not keeping and bearing and practicing with your arms then you will be helpless and you will be the victim of evil. "

"Americans have the right to choose to be unarmed and helpless. Be my guest. "

Decked out in full-on camouflage hunting gear, Nugent wielded two machine guns while raging, "Obama, he's a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary," he continued. "You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch." Nugent summed up his eloquent speech by screaming "freedom!"

Charlton Heston:

"Let me make a short, opening, blanket comment. There are no "good guns". There are no "bad guns". Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people"

"You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the "assault weapons" of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment — just as "assault weapons" are protected by the Second Amendment."

"You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every tim"

"I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom."

"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence, that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment."

"I remember a decade ago at my first annual meeting in St. Louis. After my banquet remarks to a packed house, they presented me with a very special gift. It was a splendid hand-crafted musket.
I admit I was overcome by the power of its simple symbolism. I looked at that musket and I thought of all of the lives given for that freedom. I thought of all of the lives saved with that freedom. It dawned on me that the doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets.
So I lifted that musket over my head for all to see. And as flashbulbs popped around the room, my heart and a few tears swelled up, and I uttered five unscripted words. When I did, that room exploded in sustained applause and hoots and shouts that seemed to last forever. ... So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold dead hands!"

[valerief]

3. You get rid of the War For Drugs and Hate Propaganda on the airwaves and you

get rid of the gun problem. As Moore pointed out in Bowling for Columbine, why does Canada have as many guns per household as the U.S. but a minute percent of guns used on other people? They have a better standard of living than most Americans and don't have the hate culture we do.

[Surya Gayatri]

7. ...

[Trajan]

4. Sounds like the NRA? ... Really?

Yeah, and his ears look just like Adolph Hitler's ears!

Today is the day I start to clean house of the haters ...

Forever insulting posters who, apparently, have no redeeming qualities beyond their ability to insult and deceive ...

This OP is gone ... Why would I be your friend after the election is over? ... After THIS? ...no fucking way ...

Ignore ...

[Surya Gayatri]

6. FYI, the choice of headline is Mediaite's. And, the § below may make that choice more clear:

'Later on, Laszlo told Al Jazeera America, “He’s using phrases that the gun extremists and the NRA use, saying things like it’s about people not liking guns… A lot of us are super Bernie Sanders supporters and we were all really disappointed that he could talk about in this way.”'

[markpkessinger]

8. As someone who grew up in another state with a large hunting culture (PA) . . .

. . . and who has lived his entire adult, post-college life in NYC (some 33 years), and who has family members who hunt, I am intimately acquainted with the cultural divide of which Sanders speaks, and I think Sanders is 100% correct. Indeed, there must be some give on both sides if we are to succeed in doing anything at all constructive concerning gun regulation.