MSNBC guests beclown themselves on gun discussion

AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane

No one expects reasoned, unbiased discourse from MSNBC. After all, they’re an openly leftist network, one that tarnishes the NBC brand’s attempt at impartiality.

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We know that the network is going to lean heavily on gun control and they’ll push that agenda as much as they can.

That’s precisely what they did recently when they had Brady President Kris Brown and former gun industry insider turned anti-gun grifter Ryan Busse on one of the network’s shows.

Now, both of these people are purported experts, yet both managed to embarrass themselves with their attempts at anti-gun talking points.

Referencing a recent incident in Atlanta. Busse lamented, “the tragedy isn’t what’s illegal, the tragedy here is what is legal. And as you note, this guy didn’t need six loaded guns, including an AR and a tactical shotgun to go grocery shopping, right?”

He then sought out an analogy:

But yet, Georgia is one of the states that [Brady President] Kris [Brown] mentioned that has recently rolled back concealed carry permitting. I mean, I think Americans really need to think about it this way. We have about 270 million registered vehicles in the United States, and you don’t have to travel on many of our roads to know it seems pretty crowded. We have a lot of traffic laws, right? We’ve got lines on the road, we’ve got bumpers, we’ve got speed limits, we’ve got police that are patrolling everything.

Now, Busse worked in the gun industry, so he must have been on the other side of the traffic/car talking point. How much did he suck to not understand the fundamental differences between traffic and gun rights?

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If nothing else, driving has been categorized by the courts as a privilege, not a right. The roads are public roads, but that means they’re essentially owned by the government. All of those laws and regulations he cites have to do with driving on those roads.

Where things go off the rails is that if you’re not on a public road, there are no such regulations. You don’t even need a driver’s license if you stay off public roads. If you’ve got land, you can hand your keys to a 10-year-old and let them drive all over the place. It might not be smart, but traffic laws don’t come into effect.

Speed limits? All you need to know about speed limits in this vein is in the fact that racetracks exist.

In other words, this talking point keeps coming up, but it’s predicated on hoping people are ignorant.

Further, let’s not pretend there aren’t a plethora of laws on the books about guns as it is. There are, and despite the fact that the Second Amendment says that our gun rights “shall not be infringed.”

That didn’t make it on MSNBC for some reason.

Much as I’d love to just kick Busse around here, he wasn’t the only one to make a fool of themselves on MSNBC by any stretch of the imagination.

Kris Brown did too.

Shortly after Busse concluded, Velshi turned to Brown and wondered, “But how do we get folks to understand this, that when people say it’s about the Second Amendment, and the right to self-defense, people in war don’t carry the weapons that the average American has?”

That’s simply not true and it will not become true simply because MSNBC has repeated it a thousand times. Nevertheless, Brown tried to imply that was:

Well, my partner is actually retired Navy. He was a fighter pilot and before I came on today, Ali, I talked to him about what his requirements were flying over Bosnia, for example. He was issued a gun every time he left the carrier, and had to check it back in every time he got back. That’s the standard on most military bases in this country. You’re not allowed to carry a gun unless you have a specific reason on that duty, on that day. And then it goes back in the armory.

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Newsbusters goes on to point out how that rule has left bases vulnerable to attacks. There have been several over the years, which actually point out how gun-free zones simply aren’t safe. Keep in mind that military bases have tons of security and they still can’t keep guns out. What hope does, say, Times Square have on a normal Tuesday?

None.

Further, something I think Brown is missing regards that weapon her partner carried while flying missions. Yes, he had to turn it back in when the mission was over, but let’s also remember that the weapon in question wasn’t his.

See, that’s something that gets missed in the discussion all too often, in my opinion. Yes, these weapons are tightly controlled, but part of that is because of the ownership of those weapons.

Troops get to keep their uniforms and all that, but they’ve actually paid for those. It’s their property.

The weapons, though, aren’t. Those belong to Uncle Sam, and that means the military has a vested interest in controlling that property. Making someone sign it in and out when they go out on a mission isn’t necessarily “guns are bad and we don’t trust you with it” versus “this is our property and we’re on the hook if it goes missing.”

For some reason, that never enters into the conversation, and we know MSNBC isn’t going to bring it up. Especially since it might undermine their anti-gun narrative.

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The truth is that Busse and Brown both bring up things completely out of context, all in hopes that it will somehow trick people into thinking it’s some big “gotcha” but Busse especially should know better.

Then again, when you sell out to the other side for what I’d imagine is a bigger paycheck, you have to leave valid arguments behind.

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