"Gun-Banning Moonbat"

I’ve never understood the warped psychology of anti-gunnies. They play to emotion, not reason. I understand emotion because I’m a feeling human being, but I know that reason is a much better way to make decisions than emotions.

Today, a co-worker told me about an “Ask Beth” column in today’s Boston Globe on guns. Beth is an advice columnist who can’t stick to her last; dealing out questionable opinions to the lovelorn teens and their worried parents. She is syndicated, but her first home is the Boston Globe.

She’s written a few columns on guns recently and I haven’t read them all because I try to avoid the Globe and less so the Boston Herald. I know what kind of gun reporting I’ll find in virtually any of Massachusetts’s newspapers before I turn one page. Still the column intrigued me because one dealt with “children and guns” so I tried to track down related columns. I couldn’t find them all, particularly the one on children, without paying money to Boston Globe’s archival feature and I’m too cheap to do that.

The three I found confirmed my first impression. No matter how uniformed she may be she still has an opinion that, using gun-grabber logic, must be absolutely right because it is so “common sense.” Let’s take a closer look at them shall we.

One column (republished in South Coast Today on June 4) began with a letter from Jim B., an irate reader unhappy with her stance on children and guns. He said, “You miserable radical left-wing kook fringe gun-banning moonbat, I read your anti-gun screed in the paper the other day. You are so misinformed that it is just pitiful. You and your ilk just disgust me.” I gotta love Jim’s response. It’s not nice, but it’s honest. He goes on to tell her that he and his 16-year old son are going shooting and that his son always has access to a gun at home.

Of course, Beth is not about to lose her temper. She decries Jim’s harsh language and says it scares her. She says she welcomes discussion, but wants a respectful debate. She is concerned at the tone of discourse in America and then tells Jim to look into his anger and learn to deal with it before it harms his relationship with his family and employer.

God, I hate feel-good, don’t raise your voice crap. You Many gun-banners try this stunt in a way to control the debate and paint their opponents as out of control. They use these emotional tactics to avoid confronting gunnie arguments. Finally, a million-mommie type gives Beth kudos for her stance and asks Beth to be brave in the face of NRA types who will condemn her. I can almost feel my chin quiver as I read it.

On June 7, she again sticks her uninformed nose into gun issues. Anonymous (that person sure gets around) says his kids grew up with guns and none were so much as wounded. Beth has her pat, oh so feeling answer ready to go. You see if someone is angry or disturbed they’ll grab a weapon and hurt someone close by. Don’t you know we’re all just quivering bags of rage ready for a trigger to set us off? What a way to view your fellow humans.

Then, Norman Poynette of Wisconsin writes that he suffered a home invasion during which he was shot in the leg and he now keeps a loaded gun in his house. Beth feels for him, she really does, but states that violence only begets and escalates violence. Damn it, Beth, self-defense is a good use of violence. If you don’t think so let someone block off your nose and mouth. You’ll fight with everything you’ve got to take a breath—and you should! It’s human and animal nature to defend your life.

Today, a sycophantic reader gave her kudos and claimed her advice must have saved children’s lives. Then, she takes a pro-gun comment. Christopher Siano states he is a firearms instructor and takes her to task for using alarmist statistics that conflate 19 year old gang bangers with 10 year old innocents.

Beth has an answer for him. She’s just as concerned for the 19 year old as she is for the 10 year old (do I hear "Kumbaya" in the background). Then she says, “I'm concerned about accessibility. If you can easily get your hands on a lethal weapon -- whatever your age --and you are upset, suicidal, emotionally disturbed, or angry -- you're that much more likely to commit a lethal act.” First off a gun is not the only lethal weapon. Let’s rid our homes of knifes, baseball bats, and rolling pins. And, once again we have psychological projection, a feeling that all of us are mere seconds away from exploding into uncontrolled rage.

Beth, if you’re reading this, get help. Millions of gun owners live with guns every day and shoot billions of rounds each year. Few of us ever have an accident with a gun. Few of us ever have a child get one of our guns and shoot a friend; still fewer of us have ever snatched up a gun and hurt anyone. It happens albeit rarely, but Beth the world’s not perfect, you can’t remake it in your image, get over yourself and stick with lovelorn teens.