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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Erika Soto Lamb: If So, So What?

      This is the classic attempt at a gotcha moment that even if true you just have to ask: If so, so what? A Right wing screed called TruthRevolt gleefully tells us that Ms. Lamb who is the director of a gun control group actually uses security. Gotcha!

    " Erikaa Soto Lamb, Communication Director for Everytown for Gun Safety, admitted to conservative radio and television journalist Dana Loesch that the anti-gun group (which includes Mayors Against Illegal Guns) has armed security while in Indianapolis.
When asked by Loesch why her group is employing armed security, Lamb said, “We have armed security because other people on your side of the debate threaten our lives.  I wish it weren’t the case, but it is."
  http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/anti-gun-group-admits-they-use-armed-security
  Well, so what if she did? I mean the point no doubt is that she's a horrible hypocrite as all liberals according to Right wing fantasy are horrible hypocrites but where is the hypocrisy here? The author includes parenthetically that her gun control group includes Mayors Against Illegal Guns and this proves what? 
  They oppose illegal guns and the armed security she employs uses legal guns. Is this too subtle a distinction for libertarians? This shows the whole problem with the anti gun control lobby. They fail to understand that no one is talking about seizing everyone's guns-certainly I am not and nothing in the gotcha paragraph about Ms. Lamb shows that she or the organization she heads does. 
  This is what drives gun control advocates crazy. The Right apparently can't distinguish the difference between gun control and gun prohibition. 
  Ms. Lamb was on the Ed Show today and she made the point that while at the federal level gun control legislation didn't make it through in 2013, there has been a good amount of success in many states. 
  Again, I'm for gun control not gun prohibition. There may be some who are for prohibition but that is not a mainstream position in America while gun control clearly is. 
  Don't get me wrong, a case can be made that Scotland has been no worse for wear for banning guns all together after the kind of mass shootings we tolerate ever couple of months in our country. 
  But I don't see it has practical in the US-you have to consider things like historical precedent, legal precedent, social practice, erc. 
  In any case, I don't see why we can't solve a lot of our problems with some pretty commonsensical regulations. I mean for starters, maybe we shouldn't allow a minor like Dylann Root to purchase an assault rifle while awaiting sentencing on a felony. Yet, current federal law allows just this. 
  As usual, no matter how horrible the latest outbreak of gun violence is, the gun lobby is unmoved. It's all just about mental illness, bad luck, and the generic evil of human nature. 
  Nothing much we can do other than maybe: weaken gun regulations. After all, Charleston wouldn't have happened if all those dead parishioners were packing heat!
  Let's try this thought experiment on for size. Would you feel safer at Church-or in any public, family place-with:
  1. Everybody in the building packing heat including the pastors, ushers, deacons, and Bible school teachers?
  2. Or nobody in the building packing heat?
  In which scenario do you imagine you are most likely to end up getting shot in?
     
     

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