House of Eratosthenes

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), a victim of a mass shooting in 2011, and her husband, Mark Kelly, testified before a Congressional panel on gun control in January. Kelly told the assembled members of Congress that modern weapons “Have turned every single corner of our society into places of carnage and gross human loss.”

Then he went out and bought an AR-15.

From Breitbart:

Mark E. Kelly, gun-control proponent and husband to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, recently purchased an AR-15 (an “assault weapon,” he called it)—which he now says he intended as an illustration of the need for more stringent gun laws.

Kelly reportedly bought the AR-15 and a 1911-style semi-automatic pistol at a gun store in Tucson, Arizona.

Breitbart News received a tip on this when Neil McCabe, editor of Guns & Patriots newsletter, contacted us on March 7 and said:

Mark E. Kelly, made purchases which included an AR-15–sometimes described as an “assault rifle”–at 3:30 pm on the afternoon of March 5 at Diamondback Police Supply, 170 S. Kolb Street, Tucson, AZ.

According to McCabe, witnesses to the purchases claimed Kelly purchased “high capacity” magazines as well.
:
Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 30, Kelly had urged senators to restrict sales firearms based on their lethality–a common refrain with other witnesses that day, who argued that semi-automatic weapons, which chamber subsequent rounds as bullets are fired, and other guns with military-style features level the playing field against law enforcement.

Kelly and Giffords founded their own advocacy group to restrict gun rights, Americans for Responsible Solutions, in January. On its website, ARS wrote: “High capacity magazines are a deadly factor in gun violence.” A 30-round magazine is considered a high-capacity magazine.

The ARS website says: “Congress should act to limit the sale of high capacity magazines, which are not needed for hunting or self-defense, but have proven very lethal.”

Similarly, the ARS website says: “Congress should act to limit the sale of assault weapons.

Now, I think everyone who understands the concept of the rule of law, would agree we’re doing a poor job coming up with the rules if certain things are happening: 1) The people coming up with the rules don’t understand what in the hell they’re doing; 2) the people who support the rules, themselves, are not following them. I’m sure we can come up with some other red flags as well, and I’m sure the applicability of these red flags would be agreeable to everybody who’s asked about it, regardless of their position on gun control…

Therefore, we see the world is divided into two groups of people. I recall what my Uncle Wally was telling me, “Morgan, the world is divided into two groups of people, those who go around dividing the whole world into groups, and everybody else.” Pro- and anti-gun-control is not the important divide here. The divide is: What if a rule is handed down, depriving you of some of the options you had before, and it’s supposed to make the world a better place but it fails some of these tests? So, before the rule is even codified, you see the people supporting it refusing to live by it. And, the people who oppose the rule are found to really, really know what they’re talking about, and their arguments make complete sense, and the people who support the rule are just dishing out a bunch of noise and demagoguery?

We see this with the high-capacity-magazine debate, which by now is defined past the point of new rebuttal. Pro-gun-control: “These rifles are made and bought for one reason and one reason only: To kill lots and lots of people!” Anti-gun-control: “Limiting magazine capacity doesn’t do anything, look here’s how fast I can swap out a magazine.” Click, click. Now, those are the arguments. The issue doesn’t include much outside of those. This is not a discussion that goes in circles. One refutes the other. It would be nonsense to come back and say “Who cares how fast you can swap out the magazine, the high capacity of each one makes this a human-killing weapon” or something. It wouldn’t even be addressing the point. That’s why people don’t do it.

But, to the other thing, the people supporting the new rule refusing to live under it. This is not the same hypocrisy as a Republican congressman giving speech after speech about “family values” and then getting caught cheating on his wife. A society in which we’re all faithful in our marriages, is stronger jointly and severally. Society itself is stronger and, independent of that, your household is stronger, and my household is stronger. Contrasted with that, a society that is supposed to be safer because it is gun-free, is “stronger” — I’m assuming this would work, which I don’t believe, but I’m just gonna go with it — jointly only. You, as an individual, are not stronger and more capable because you don’t own guns. That makes you individually weaker. The plan is to elevate all of society above the individuals. It’s like a soap bubble: The rule only works if there is a complete envelopment, if there is a breach anywhere then the entire framework collapses, in theory if not in practice.

In short: Mark Kelly wants a new societal pact in which we are all defrocked of our guns, our protection. He wants us to live under this pact, but it isn’t good enough for Mark Kelly.

I find hypocrisy itself to be understandable. Babysit a toddler sometime: Somewhere in our third year, onward, we have to learn not to be hypocrites. Our tendency is to be born hypocritical. Now, tolerance for hypocrisy, I’m afraid, is something entirely outside my comprehension. I just don’t get this. I see these damn democrats whining away about “a society of haves and have-nots” and then, as a solution to this kind of thing, they propose rules that make it happen. And then, as those rules are debated and discussed, and we ponder the implications of making these new terraced existences in which some of us are entitled to things and others of us are not, we see the rules supported by people who know full well they would fall into the lower, plebeian, not-entitled terrace.

They embrace this. They welcome it.

Mark Kelly wants new rules that say they can’t have guns. Mark Kelly is buying a gun. You bring this to their attention, they’ll sneer at the news, minimize it, trivialize it…eventually call you some kind of an idiot for paying any attention to it at all.

Let the chains rest lightly upon them, and let posterity forget they were our countrymen.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

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“Then He Went Out and Bought an AR-15”Sunday, March 10th, 2013

“Then He Went Out and Bought an AR-15”
Sunday, March 10th, 2013