Just don’t expect an answer with any detail…
The following two paragraphs from NBCNews.com –
Mitt Romney said Wednesday that more restrictive gun laws would likely not have prevented last week’s deadly mass shooting at a Colorado Cineplex, and argued that it would take Americans changing their hearts, not their legislation, to prevent similar future attacks.
“Political implications, legal implications are something which will be sorted out down the road,” Romney told NBC’s Brian Williams during an exclusive interview in London. “But I don’t happen to believe that America needs new gun laws. A lot of what this young man did was clearly against the law. But the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening.”
Once again, Mitt shows his acute grasp of the details (not), his uncanny ability to hone in on what the real issue is (not) all the while basically sticking to his high level talking points. Yes Mitt, it is illegal to murder so you are right there were actions this cretin did that were against the law. No brainer. However, the crux of the issue here is the means by which he accomplished the illegal acts were all done legally, He bought his guns legally, he purchased the ammunition legally, I expect he acquired most of the items in his apartment legally. Would stricter gun laws have stopped him from killing? Probably not, as you are right at some level that laws don’t stop people from taking actions that are clearly illegal. If it were only so easy. However, there are changes to current gun laws that could have reduced the magnitude of the massacre or at least alerted someone to something being out of sorts and possibly resulted in a bit more attention before the fact. Not sure why anyone needs an assault weapon – the cases of a herd of deer attacking a hunter are few if any. Purchasing four weapons in a relative short period of time might call into question motive. Acquiring 6000 round of ammunition might point to something beyond casual use of a gun. No matter what we do to laws in this country, we will not free ourselves from individuals who are bent on mayhem and murder but we shouldn’t make it so easy.
Let’s take two aspects of Mitt’s statements and look at them with a sharper eye –
First, taking a stance that we can work on the legal implications somewhere down the road is, to an extent, why we are where we are today with gun laws. If we are to interpret this part of his statement to include the possibility of tightening gun laws at some later time, we are now decades into the debate which really hasn’t changed to any great extent. Very effective strategy – kick it down the road so there are no political ramifications today. Mitt needs all the help he can get and alienating the gun lobby won’t help.
“It would take Americans changing their hearts” – sounds like a plan but in reality the hearts of Americans have actually been looking for stricter gun laws for years. Back in 1990, almost 4 out of 5 Americans wanted stricter gun laws. Sounds to me like the hearts were there a while ago. Unfortunately, this is one more case where the hearts and money of lobbyists trump what the American people really want. And that is unlikely to change in any time soon as money still buys influence – not the desires of the people in this country. The vast majority will continue to work under the illusion that people like Mitt actually are working in their best interest all the while the Republican Party is shitting all over their tables and telling then it is a feast.
So essentially, Mitt has said “fuck you” in so many words and continues his journey of talking without really saying anything that will stick.
Sounds like a leader to me.
Speaking of Lobbyists – interesting article posted by the Huffington Post today – seems Mitt understands that role much better than most of us realize –
notthebestoftimes... 