Political Irony

Who’s in charge of our gun laws? Right now we are seeing fights in both houses of Congress over common-sense changes to gun laws. We already require background checks when someone buys a gun from a gun dealer, but that is easy to get around by buying a gun online or from an individual seller (who is probably hanging out in the parking lot of a gun show or other gun-related event). And public support for closing these loopholes is phenomenally high. In a recent poll, 92% supported supported expanded background checks.

A related change is preventing people who are suspected of being terrorists from getting guns. In the same poll, 85% supported that. Ironically, Republicans are even more in favor — 90% of them want to prevent people on the terrorism watch list from buying a gun.

This is nothing new. The same results have been shown in poll after poll.

And yet, the Republicans continue to block any gun safety measures, no matter how sensible or popular they are. In fact, they will do almost anything to keep these bills from even coming up for a vote. They just adjourned the House two days early to keep from voting on any gun safety measures.

The GOP is also in denial about public support for sensible gun safety. They even claim that the widely reported 90% number has been “debunked”.

It almost seems like politicians are being paid off in order to vote against any gun safety measures. Samantha Bee has a theory about this:

Even Saint Ronnie supported gun control. Especially after he got shot.

Note that (as I have often said) I support the second amendment. People do have a right to own guns, but no right is absolute. The right to own guns is not more important than our nation’s fundamental rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, just like free speech doesn’t mean I can yell fire in a crowded theater or slander someone.

I think we should treat gun ownership like driving. If you want to own a gun, you should be able to demonstrate that you know how to use one (by passing a test, taking a class or other means), and that you know basic gun safety. I would think that gun owners would like that too. Rights imply responsibilities.

I do have one suggestion, however. We should stop calling it “gun control” and start calling it “gun safety”. Gun control sounds like taking people’s guns away, and I’m against that. But if people want to own guns, they should be responsible for using them safely.

© Jim Morin

The British pound has already lost more than 25 cents against the dollar, the worst drop in the history of the UK. Similar drops in various stock markets are expected. It is estimated that the British economy will shrink by 3.8 to 7.5 percent.

This is what happens when xenophobia and rampant nationalism win. Brexit won because of fear of immigrants, but the cure might be far worse than the disease.

Sound familiar?

The Republican establishment finally got Trump to read a speech from a teleprompter rather than winging it like he has been doing since he became the presumptive nominee. What I want to know is who wrote that speech?

I also wonder how long Trump will be able to avoid going off script again. It must be awfully annoying and painful for him.

Luckily, Seth Meyers has a deal for Donald Trump that might make everybody happy:

I have a new theory about Donald Trump. It is something I’ve been noticing about him for more than a few weeks now. We all know that Donald Trump likes to attack people, but what I’m observing is that the things that Trump accuses other people of are pretty much all things that he himself is guilty of.

For example, yesterday at a private meeting of evangelical leaders, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton over her religious faith, saying “we don’t know anything about Hillary in terms of religion. Now, she’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no — there’s nothing out there. There’s like nothing out there. It’s going to be an extension of Obama but it’s going to be worse, because with Obama you had your guard up. With Hillary you don’t, and it’s going to be worse.”

It didn’t take more than a few minutes for Gawker to point out that if you simply type “Hillary Clinton religion” into any search engine, there is plenty of there there. Clinton is a life-long Methodist who has taught Sunday school, attends church regularly, and belongs to a prayer group. And there is an abundance of documentation online.

But it gets even more interesting if you turn the tables and search for “Donald Trump religion“. The results tell you that Trump has a long history of attacking people over their religion. That he now claims to be a Presbyterian, but rarely attends church. He’s also been reported to have been a Catholic, and a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and he married his third wife in an Episcopalian church. That in his campaign speeches Trump mentions the late minister Norman Vincent Peale so frequently that Peale’s son has said that his father would not have been pleased (ironically, Peale grew up a Methodist). And all the other stuff we already know about Trump: that he has been married three times and has bragged about his cheating, is unapologetically crude, racist, and bigoted, and can’t even get the name of some of the chapters in the Bible correct.

See what I mean?

So the next time Trump attacks someone (he probably already has, before you even got around to reading this), see if the things he is saying about that other person don’t actually apply more to Trump himself. It’s kinda spooky!

After the Orlando massacre, Donald Trump repeatedly asserted that the people going to the nightclub should have been allowed to carry guns to defend themselves against the shooter. That’s right, Trump actually thought it was a good idea to let people carry weapons while drinking in a dimly lit, noisy nightclub.

You know that’s insane when even the National Rifle Association thinks it is a really bad idea. The NRA’s chief lobbyist retorted “No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms. That defies common sense. It also defies the law.” And the NRA VP said “I don’t think you should have firearms where people are drinking.”

So Trump backed down from his statement, but he did it in typical disingenuous Trump fashion. He tweeted on Monday that he was “obviously talking about additional guards or employees” at the nightclub. Yeah right. Here’s what he said on a radio show the day after the attack:

It’s too bad that some of the young people that were killed over the weekend didn’t have guns, you know, attached to their hips, frankly, and you know where bullets could have flown in the opposite direction, Howie. It would have been a much different deal. I mean, it sounded like there were no guns.

Not only that, but his excuse doesn’t even hold water. According to FactCheck.org, the nightclub did have armed security the night of the shooting. It was widely reported that an Orlando police officer traded gunshots with the shooter near the entrance to the club, before the shooter moved inside. A CNN news anchor even reminded Trump of this fact during an interview about the attack, but Trump ignored it. And two of the early responding officers who were nearby also shot at the attacker before he retreated into a club bathroom with hostages. There were plenty of guns, and they were used against the attacker, but they didn’t help.

UPDATE: Trump’s flip-flop on allowing nightclubbers to carry is just one of multiple occasions when Trump has changed his position on gun control:

In 2012, Trump tweeted that Obama had “spoken for me and every American” after the Newtown school massacre, talking about the need for gun control. But once he started running for president he routinely accused Obama and Clinton of wanting to destroy the Second Amendment. Just last month he said “The Second Amendment is on the ballot in November. The only way to save our Second Amendment is to vote for a person that you all know named Donald Trump.”

In 2000, Trump wrote in his book that he supported the ban on assault weapons (which expired in 2004). But he did a full flip-flop when he started running for president, claiming that bans on assault weapons were a “total failure”.

Last Wednesday, Trump said he would talk to the NRA about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list to buy guns. But by Sunday, he had modified his position and expressed concern about taking away Second Amendment rights, even for people who are on the list. He has also waffled on whether guns should be allowed in the classroom. I guess if you don’t like Trump’s position on something, you just have to wait a few days until he changes it.