The NBA began an advertising campaign against gun violence today. Naturally, the “patriots” at Fox News acted as if there was a campaign against Mom and apple pie.
The New York Times explains:
The first ads, timed to reach millions of basketball fans during a series of marquee games on Christmas Day, focus on shooting victims and contain no policy recommendations. The words “gun control” are never mentioned.
But the organization that paid for the ads, Everytown for Gun Safety, has a robust and controversial agenda: It was founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, a former New York mayor, specifically as a counterweight to the National Rifle Association and battles at the local, state and federal level to expand background checks for gun buyers, strengthen penalties for gun trafficking and ban gun sales to people convicted of domestic abuse.
Harris Faulkner's attack on the ads had the outraged tone of an NRA spokeswoman whose gun was about to be pried out of her hands, even though she represented herself as an "objective" reporter and that's how Fox uses her when she’s not on Outnumbered.
FAULKNER: I have to speak up, as somebody who covers these stories on a regular basis, that the people behind those guns are the people who are killing people. And they’re doing it for reasons that don’t really have anything to do with the fact that they were able to get a gun. They want cash, they want gang retaliation, whatever it is.
And I would argue that they would do it no matter, they would kill no matter what they had in their hands. And so where is that in the ad? Where is that? I’m so sorry you’ve lost your loved one and where is the mother saying, “You know, I hope they get the suspect.” I’m curious about that side of it.
Father Jonathan Morris was the only one who defended the ads and the only one who offered any real solution for gun violence. He said that while he doesn’t often agree with President Obama, the president is right when he says that the type of violence that goes on on the streets is “out of control compared to other countries.” Morris continued, “And to a big extent, I believe, it’s because there’s easy access to weapons that make it very easy to kill and get away.”
Of course, Andrea Tantaros, who urged her radio show listeners to “do me a favor” and punch an Obama supporter “in the face” was more interested in smearing the NBA and maligning African Americans than in doing anything to stop violence.
“This is left-wing propaganda when you have LeBron James in a tee shirt, making a political statement,” she sneered, as if Fox News isn’t right-wing propaganda.
At the ready, an old photo of James in a shirt that stated, “I can’t breathe” was displayed on the screen. The quote comes from Eric Garner, an African American who died in a police chokehold.
Then came Tantaros’ Blacks Behaving Badly dog whistle.
TANTAROS: The NBA has weighed into political issues is my point. …If you really want to tackle the issue, then put in the ad the root of the issue and the root of the problem in Chicago is black-on-black violence, with illegal guns. Illegal guns! These aren’t legal guns that have passed federal background checks that are causing black-on-black street crime.
Morris argued that “easy access to guns” is a factor. “When there’s easy access, the bad guys are going to use those guns in a way that they wouldn’t if they didn’t have that access,” he said.
Sadly, nobody cared.
Meghan McCain chimed in to demonize the ad: “You’re vilifying Americans who are scared right now, who have the right to bear arms. …It doesn’t help though, when it is just the president, when it’s Spike Lee, when it’s just these basketball players who, I assume every single person on there is liberal,” she said.
Actually, it’s not just the president, Spike Lee and some liberal basketball players. Americans overwhelmingly support some kind of tightening of gun safety laws.
But nobody corrected McCain and there was not a single liberal on this “fair and balanced” show.
Watch it below, from the December 24 Outnumbered.
Andrea, you give humans a bad time.
If so, I can’t understand why Fox and their viewership are also so against Obamacare — since the former will, quite naturally, necessitate the latter . . .
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How very FNC of her.
That would be excellent advice for most of the so-called contributors on Fox. As Ellen, Priscilla, Aria, Brian and others have endlessly pointed out, most of the talking shirts/skirts on Fox have absolutely no knowledge or experience on the subject at hand.
I’ll take thoughtful basketball players over them anyday … and FNC uses anybody and everybody who is willing to deliver “their” message.
PS: Nice cut and paste job BTW. I particularly like “… don’t know the difference between a muzzle brake and a beaver tail.” Sounds like something Andrew Jackson might have written.
Harris’s comment wilfully overlooks the undisputable and objective fact that a crazy is less likely to use a gun if getting one’s hands on a gun were to leave a paper trail. No impunity? Think again.
Of course, it’s the people who do the killing you silly girl. However, those death and injury rates would be significantly lower in the USA (more like they actually are in every country not experiencing a war on its own land) if it were not so easy for the crazies to get their hands on guns.
Any situation where you are afraid to ask questions is a bad situation. We are not afraid of your logic nor giant posts.
This is the NBA which deals with BASKETBALL, not football.
Now, go back to hiding under your bridge, you obnoxious little troll.
Leftists know universal background checks generate records necessary to maintain a registry of personal activity. Leftists want to register you because they don’t trust you. To control you, they need to keep tabs on you. So they register you, again and again, for each time you loan or hand your firearm to another, for each time you borrow a firearm, for each time you sell one, buy one, bequeath one, lose one, gift one, load one with too many bullets or even if you do any of these things with one that seems “ugly” to them. And they already know about transfers between strangers. What they really want to keep tabs on are transfers between mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors. They’ve already begun with widows.
We can talk about increasing 72 to 96 hours or even a week. But what these leftists propose is unacceptable. The three-day rule was enacted for the express purpose of preventing oppressors from using government agencies to slow-walk, stone-wall, obfuscate and generally deny 2nd Amendment rights to peaceable, lawful citizens who happen to oppose the leftist agenda. The current administration has become famous for such tactics. Leftists don’t believe this will make anyone safer because they know criminals don’t acquire their firearms from private sales or even from shows. They know criminals steal them or buy them from other criminals, transactions that will never be found on registers. And because leftists already know criminals almost never use rifles, the magazine size argument adds to the nonsense.
Leftists also know universal background checking cannot work without a universal registry of who owns what. And leftists know registers are only for citizens and leftists don’t trust citizens. Fact is, nobody believes this is about public safety. That was debunked when last used in the run up to World War Two. It’s also debunked today by the fact that Vermont neither issues nor requires a permit to carry a firearm openly or concealed while FBI statistics show it’s the safest state in the nation. If leftists have their way, we’ll be less safe because we’ll have been disarmed in the dangerous world they constantly rail about. Restrictions like magazine size are just baby steps toward firearm confiscation and gun control generally is just a baby step toward the real objective. While weighing options, never think for a moment that armed citizens don’t protect us far more than armed nuts and felons threaten us.
The down side for leftists indulging this fetish also seems clear. A simple thought process reveals that universal background checking has an unintended consequence. Because an individual isn’t permitted to conduct a background check, it must be serviced for a fee by a licensed dealer. The additional cost, effort, inconvenience and time will cause most to forego the fuss, keep the used firearm and buy a new one anyway. Of course a buyer, usually a relative or close friend, also will be forced to procure a new firearm. Such a law not only will increase the numbers held in private arsenals, it will greatly reduce used firearms availability and increase the need for manufacturing new ones. It’s a politically inspired bonanza for manufacturers. Additionally, because only an infinitesimal fraction of privately sold firearms are used in crimes, such a law won’t make us any safer. It’s just another expensive violation of the 2nd Amendment that won’t accomplish much. Remember two things. First, most states don’t allow this kind of nonsense. And secondly, this nonsense is another program backed 100 percent by leftists and zero percent by conservatives. But that’s just one unintended consequence. There are many others.
America suffers with many freedoms other nations surrendered over the years due to the wisdom of its Constitution and their absence of one. This particular Constitution is different because it affirms the natural right to live as free individuals in a free society. Founders recognized that these rights were not conferred by princes, parliaments, governors or landowners and instead are natural and part of human existence. As such they cannot be conferred and they cannot be legally or morally denied. Many nations have been protected by the U.S. Constitution precisely because it was protected by the blood of its own people.
Now comes the leftist. America used to be labeled as “exceptional” but that was before leftists besmirched the term. Leftists never mention the fact that over the past 40 years, the number of fatal firearm accidents involving children aged 0-14 declined 90 percent while the supply of firearms tripled. Leftists also never mention that crime rates generally are falling. And accidental shooting deaths are relatively rare, about 500 a year. That sounds bad, but about 400 Americans are killed each year by overdosing on acetaminophen alone, most of them suicides. And almost as many Americans drown in swimming pools. Of course the big picture is the murder rate in 1991 was about 9.8 people per 100,000 while now it’s down to about 3.8, about in the middle of 218 nations measured. And if you subtract the 5,639 murders by illegal aliens, the U.S. murder rate drops to 2.1. That rate would place the U.S. in the safest one-third in the world. Blaming the firearm for every tragedy is no different from blaming the shovel for an unwanted hole.
Heritage aside, the simple fact is Americans are fed up with the leftist demand that they stand aside idly while nuts and felons waltz into their lives, harm their families, take what they want and stroll away unpursued. They’re sick of watching the public school system constantly hammer that when confronted by a nut or felon, the best action is to run and hide in a closet or throw food at their tormentors. On the other hand, conservatives wonder why public school pupils are forced to attend at the point of a gun but refused protection with equivalent force. Leftists hope to have their way with firearms, but most people know it’s time to take back their natural freedoms, particularly where it concerns their families and the right to life. Bloomberg wants us to listen to basketball players rather than our own good sense. Not gonna’ happen and it may backfire.