St Louis Gun Rights Examiner
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Author William Rivers Pitt, who sometimes dispenses his wisdom through the "progressive" medium of "
truthout.org," has decided to expound on what he considers to be the utter irrelevance
of the Tea Party activists, and on the need to ignore them. He goes
about this, however, in a rather curious manner--by writing a nearly
1800 word rant
about the need to stop talking about them. This rant is liberally (no
pun intended) laden with with sneering, pompous invective--some of
which would not really be appropriate to repeat here.
Every picture I see of these Tea Party gatherings looks like the monthly
meeting of the There But By The Grace Of God Go I Society, and laying
off them has proven exceedingly difficult.
Basically, in other words, Mr. Pitt has decided that Tea Party attendees--the "stupid people with guns"--are so irrelevant, and so undeserving of attention, that he must "ignore" them loudly, and at some length.
His first foray into what his anti-Tea Party rage has to do with guns comes
in a mention of the arrest and indictment of the "Hutaree" cult, as if
the alleged criminal plans of
nine people--plans that are nearly
universally condemned--are in some way representative of any large group of Americans (like
this
group, perhaps). Never mind that--he has found some stupid people
(nine of them), and he is by golly going to apply that stupidity to
millions of Americans, with evidence or without.
What we have here is nothing more or less than stupid people with guns, and
you know what? I'm fine with guns. I believe Americans should have them
if they want them. I believe in reasonable limitations on being able to
purchase assault weapons and bazookas because, well, the words
"well-regulated" are right there in the Amendment next to "militia."
Wow--he went, over the course of a couple short sentences, from being "fine
with guns," to comparing so-called "assault weaons" (semi-automatic
rifles, in other words) to bazookas (which have never been
legally available to civilians without severe restrictions, and for
which there is no serious effort to increase their availability). Then,
he makes a reference to the "well regulated militia," as if it is not a
settled point of Constitutional law that the right to firearm ownership
is not conditional on membership in any militia.
But I've come to believe that being able to buy and own a gun should also
involve passing a fairly difficult civics exam. Before someone goes out
to buy a gun in defense of their country and their liberty, we should
have some kind of metric to determine if that person actually knows
anything about the country, and knows anything about the roots and
truths of the liberty they claim to cherish.
If we can't or won't cure the stupid, at least we can disarm it.
Ah--now we get to the crux of his "point." What we need is another restriction on gun ownership. This restriction, though, will be in the form of a kind of "political
intelligence" test--with someone like him judging just who is "smart
enough" to be armed.
There is indeed stupidity in this discussion, Mr. Pitt, but it is, perhaps, in the last place you would expect it..
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