Most people here will have noticed that the BBC has gone overboard this week with the hand-wringing over US gun laws. The same agenda – US gun laws are too permissive, gun ownership laws lead to a high homicide rate, etc. – has spread across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting, from the website to radio to television. All of it from the same angle: too much gun ownership, ordinary citizens probably shouldn’t be allowed to own guns, and all that. Not a single report or interview – as far as I’ve been able to find, and defenders of the indefensible are welcome to correct me and point out the exception – coming from the opposite viewpoint. Anyone seen a Beeboid challenge someone who says US gun laws need to be much, much stricter, or similar?
The BBC also made a big deal out of the President turning up in Colorado to pose as the caring leader, uniting us all under the banner of Hope, that the Beeboids know He really is. Not a single raised Beeboid eyebrow or sarcastic aside at how this might be a nice bit of political opportunism in a tough election cycle. He’d never do that, would He?
With all the whining about US gun laws and gun crime, there’s really something else you need to know. The BBC, of course, is censoring this news, refusing to tell you about it. Mark Mardell seems to have been on vacation for the last couple of weeks, so there isn’t even a word of wisdom from the BBC’s top man in the US, whom you are supposed to trust on these things.
Here’s a perfect example of what the BBC doesn’t want you to know about US gun laws and gun crime. It even concerns the President’s adopted home town, so one would think the Beeboids in the US would be aware of it:
Chicago Homicide Rate Worse Than Kabul, Up To 200 Police Assigned To High-Profile Wedding
As Chicago residents face a murder rate that, thus far this year, is worse than U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Chicago Police Department has assigned at least 100 officers to secure the wedding of White House advisor Valerie Jarrett’s daughter.
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha arrived in Chicago Friday evening ahead of the Saturday wedding of Laura Jarrett, which will be held in a backyard in the city’s Kenwood neighborhood. And that wedding is, expectedly, set to be a high-security affair.
This is the HuffingtonPost, folks. So the Beeboids know all about it. And this can’t be dismissed simply as extra security for the President, happens all the time.
The directive for police to cover the Jarrett wedding arrives at a time where Chicago is facing a surge in its homicide rate. The Daily pointed out in a Friday column that more Chicago residents — 228 — have been killed so far this year in the city than the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan – 144 — over the same period.
The war zone-like statistics are not new. As WBEZ reports, while some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data.
More than 5000 people. How many of them in random acts of mass murder by lunatics like the guy in Colorado or Loughner in Tucson? Pretty much zero. (Gang activity and drive=bys aren’t really the same thing at all, even when innocents are killed in the process.) That’s a body count high enough to make any Beeboid’s head spin, so Chicago and Illinois must have pretty lax gun laws, right? Must be sub-machine guns and RPGs for sale on every corner, a free shotgun with every Slurpee at the local 7-11, right?
Er…no. Illinois and Chicago have just about the toughest, strictest gun laws in the country. In fact, the local county currently has a law banning the very kind of assault weapon the Colorado lunatic used. And yet, Chicago has a much, much higher rate of gun murders than the whole State of Colorado: 120. That includes murder by other means, like stabbing, which means that the number of murders with actual guns is even lower. But that doesn’t help the BBC’s anti-gun agenda, so they don’t bother to check it out and instead push partisan propaganda at you. Hell, even Washington, DC – the President’s current place of residence (when He’s not golfing or on vacation with rich white folks, that is) = with something like 12% of the population, has more murders per annum than Colorado. And DC also has very strict gun control laws. They’ve even tried to ban people from keeping a loaded handgun in the house for self defense, never mind buying a semi-automatic weapon and a high-capacity magazine.
Of course, there’s one very important difference between the victims in Aurora and those in Chicago and DC. The vast majority of the people shot and killed in Chicago and DC were black. The President isn’t going to be giving a Hopey speech to their families any time soon, I can assure. And it won’t even occur to single sycophantic Beeboid to ask why not. It also puts all the BBC long faces and rending of garments over the troop deaths in Afghanistan in perspective, no? Not such a high body count when taking reality into consideration. But I digress.
Furthermore, while the BBC spent all that effort discussing gun laws and gun crime, did anybody bother to ask how many guns Timothy McVeigh or the9/11 mass murderers or the 7/7 mass murderers needed? No? Funny, that.
Just a couple months ago, some lunatic went on a rampage with a knife in a grocery store in Salt Lake City. Utah, of course, has slightly more “lax” gun laws than Chicago or DC, but that isn’t going to prevent some idiot from grabbing a kitchen knife and running around with it. Even the BBC knows that. So a legally armed private citizen shot the f@#$er before he killed too many people. Again, the BBC won’t be bringing this kind of thing up because it doesn’t fit in with the Agenda.To balance out the constant stream of people advocating stricter gun laws, where are the guests saying that the massacre could have been stopped if somebody in the theater had been carrying?
There’s plenty of evidence – even begrudgingly admitted by the liberal New York Times – that European countries with more guns per capita have lower murder rates. But then, those countries are probably more homogenous, eh, BBC? Oh, my, better tone down the racism inherent in those facts.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. That’s good enough for the BBC, and they don’t want you to think any different.
No suprise that the BBC should fall in line with the tougher gun laws agenda.
This was exactly the knee-jerk reaction of Owen past-my-bedtime Jones as the news of the shootings first broke on the Stephen how-does-that-make-you-feel Nolan show.
The BBC: Nothing if not predictable.
Owen Jones? Not him again FFS! The socialist who does not know the difference between capital and income. I wouldn’t take his advice on how to tie my shoes.
But like him, the BBC is a leftist organisation which cannot and will not ever see that individual people might wish to have the means to defend themselves. During the riots last year, white people who defended their area were classed by the Beeboids as EDL thugs, only Muslim shopkeepers got a pass from the BBC. They view all armed Americans as KKK supporting redneck buffons, and they will never change their views, it’s visceral.
The BBC has been loyal to the the anti gun lobby who have been quiet about an earlier shooting in Aurora, where the possession of a gun prevented greater tragedy.
‘The killer in the April shooting was 29-year-old Kiarron Parker, who had just been released from prison. He had been convicted for assaulting two police officers, drug abuse, and breaking and entering. The details are here and here. But the point is clear: Because the perpetrator was able to claim only one life before being killed himself by someone carrying a gun and acting in self-defense, it garnered relatively little publicity’.
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/12175-two-aurora-shootings-one-widely-known-the-other-ignored#.UAzsdGa5vc8.facebook
I was going to mention that one, but it turns out the guy who stopped it was an off-duty cop. Not really the legally-arrmed-ordinary-citizen angle I was talking about.
Apologies. I was not following your angle and I see the relevance of the armed civilian issue. I was interested, however, in the fact that the liberal media never picked up on the story of an earlier shooting. Thanks.
I listened to Stephen Nolan on r5 last night with his two regular guests. Bishop Stephen Lowe and Charlie Wolf.
For those who are not familiar with the show – Bishop Steven Lowe is an assertifve lefty who is very compassionate until he meets someone who does not hold his own political views. Charlie Wolf is from the right politically, mild mannered. Last night he attempted to defend gun ownership and received a good hair drying from Nolan and Lowe. Despite what the BBC tells us, there are two sides to the argument, there are some positive aspects to gun ownership in the USA. What the lefties don’t like is people being able to defend themselves, they prefer people to be protected by and dependant on the state.
What I don’t understand is , what has it got to do with the BBC, American politics should be none of their business , it seems that the BBC has no shame and through sheer arrogance wishes to influence American public opinion and policy through BBC America and the BBC world service.
And the Agenda spreads further and further across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting. No memo needs passing around, no directive needed from on high. They just all think the same way. It’s an institutional bias by default.
Are the people at the BBC mentally ill? They want to destroy the civilisation that keeps them alive.
They are socialists. By definition, they are deranged.
Whether we agree with the BBC perspective on this issue is not relevant. The point is that they’ve been covering this, approaching the issue, from one perspective. The BBC’s coverage has been very biased, not at all balanced over time. It’s the same perspective on every channel, every show, every report.
It is called masochism. These people can only attain satisfaction by abusing their own kind. One shudders to think what their mothers did to them as children. Verbal self-flagellation relieves their Oedipal guilt. Hope Dez is online.
David, the bbc anti gun stance is viceral, because they are an entirely urban outfit.
They simply cannot grasp the concept that there are big empty bits , where many people ( like me), choose to safely and quietly get on with being hunter gatherers, as man has always been.
After all, its only a few thousand years of evolution they are air-brushing out , nothing for a beeboid with a different viewpoint !
Good point about what is essentially parochialism, Backwoodsman. Reminds me of my own reaction when, while drunkenly sneaking across a farmer’s field in Sussex in the wee hours, pitch black, my friend told me to keep quiet and hurry up because we might get shot.
It took me a minute or so to remember that some people in Britain could have guns. I honestly had forgotten that with and didn’t believe my friend at first that a farmer would even be allowed to have a shotgun. I had obviously spent too much time around New York and London liberals.
The extent to which the World Service has been consumed by the biased pc monster that is the mainstream BBC in the last couple of years is frightening. The coalition government’s
decision to give the World Service over to the BBC has proved a disaster.
How much editorial control did the Foreign Office have over the World Service, though? Besides a general anti-Israel agenda, I mean.
BBC World Service sees itself the Tweedle Dee to Al Jazeerah’s Tweedle Dum. – broadcasting to Arab World Opinion what the Arab World wants to hear: Death to America, wipe Israel off the map, Religion of Peace (except see two previous exceptions) and How the West Was Lost (losing in Iraq, losing in Afghanistan, tomorrow Europe The Caliphate)
There seems to me a good case for the right to bear arms, taking into account the bad guys have all already got guns. That’s more a level playing field argument. I am less convinced on the right to bear tear gas grenades, which the Batman shooter presumably acquired legally.
But you can rely on the BBC to jump in on the predictable one side, rigging the debate to make sure it looks like a fair fight but guaranteeing they win 2:1 thanks to the casting vote of the non-independent BBC presenter. The BBC are laughable. I would have The BBC Charter tattooed on every Beeb Presenters willy, so they are reminded of it at least once a day.
Since Aurora I have taken to watching Fox News online, and it is an altogether more satisfactory experience, except when among the “experts” they wheel out an Evangelical Minister, who for some inexplicable reason brings God into everything. Still, that’s a small quibble for 95% quality broadcasting, with no bBC-bollox. Quite refreshing.
There are more reasons to have the right to bear arms than just protection against the usual bad guys. Our regional and/or national power grid is not as robust as it could be. As the recent storms in the southeast show, when power was out for days, we’re all far too complacent, too reliant on Nanny Government to look after us at all times. The Government can’t always be there. An EMP attack or an unfortunately-aimed coronal mass ejection could wipe out the infrastructure for months, if not years. Remember Katrina? Who knows how many more lives would have been lost, how much more property looted, if ordinary citizens hadn’t been allowed to arm themselves and there hadn’t been a gun-respecting culture in place for generations?
Whenever I see footage of mass looting during a riot or protest, I can easily guess the gun control laws and general level of legal citizen gun ownership of the area.
My problem is that I have yet to find a legal means of defending the value of my savings and pension from being looted by the Government. (Yes I mean you, David Cameron) Instead of occupying the Stock Exchange, a better target would be the Bank of England and its silver-haired Joker, Mervyn King, along with his QE-supporting Monetary Policy Committee thugs.
Also agreed about Fox News Online. Far superior to anything on the TV network. And the presenters are far more diverse than you’ll ever see on any BBC News broadcast, or on any other BBC daily news or talk programme, except, of course, for kids shows.
Reliable security is necessary at points of admission to e.g. places of public entertainment to prevent weapons of mass destruction being brought in, whether such places are cinemas or Olympic venues.
It is unusual for me to find myself defending the BBC, but in this case I would suggest that they are accurately reflecting majority opinion in the UK, and indeed throughout the English speaking world (outside the USA). This view can be summarised as: How on earth/why can someone buy a military assault rifle, capable of a high rate of fire, with a burst capability, together with thousands of rounds of ammunition, without even the most cursorary of checks – and what can that possibly have to do with the “right to bear arms” ? Such weapons have only one purpose, to kill as many people as possible in as short a space of time as possible, and they are on open sale?
That’s all very well, but no amount of checks would have prevented this lunatic from buying those weapons. He had no criminal record, no history of anything other than being a model student with top grades.
Having said that, defending the BBC by stating that they are merely reflecting majority opinion is a dangerous road to travel. This particular issue may be an easy one for you to decide, but which others. And who decides what is majority opinion? Does that opinion change over time? I think you know what I mean.
If the weapon was not available for sale, anywhere in the country, then he couldn’t have bought it!
Dream on, Do they have unicorns in your fantasy world.
Do you know how many hundreds and hundreds of millions of firearms there are circulating in the world? Even in the tightest regulated gun control areas, there a loads of illegal guns, often provided by intelligence services, servicing the narcotics industry which creates profits for covert activities, which has been extensively documented. Even the discovery channel has shown documentaries about the CIA’s narcotics dealings and this is old news.
We are not going to be in a situation where guns are unavailable. Even Obama’s government was illegally shipping huge amounts of guns into Mexico which found their way back into the United states and were used against law enforcement officers.
So you can stop with your pie-in-the-sky insanity about a delusional world without guns. It ain’t ever gonna happen!
Given this fact, how do we protect the innocent civilians? The least worst option is to allow responsible gun ownership, with high quality training in respect for and use of a fire arm, backed up with annual psychological checks.
It is not a perfect system, but if anyone in that movie theatre had been armed and trained properly, then they could have saved a lot of lives and prevented a lot of injuries.
As it was, the shooter had the time to patiently shoot victim after victim with nobody lifting a finger to resist. So in a world of “gun control” the shooter has no fear of being shot back.
I live in Cumbria where a nutter went on a shooting rampage killing people in village after village. If we did not have such strict gun control laws here, someone could have stopped him sooner.
I am not in favour of legalised Gun ownership in the U.K. but if it was allowed what would U.K. society be like ? It would change the feel of society. I suspect there would be less road rage and anti social behavior, the potential offender has to think “does this person that I am messing with have a gun, can they fight back?”. House break-ins and other crime would be reduced. People would have more respect for each other and take more care in their dealings with others. Strange, not heard any of this on the BBC.
You seem unaware that gun ownership is legal in Britain. Handguns are “banned” in the mainland UK, so only criminals have them. In Northern Ireland, however, they were never banned, and around 10,000 people out of a population of 1.8 million have legal carry permits for self defence weapons. Level of misuse? Zero. Bear in mind that in mainland Britain, only about 50,000 people out of 60 million legally owned handguns before the ban, and you can see that handgun ownership in NI is much more common than it ever was on the mainland.
Yes I was talking about carrying handguns for personal protection. I know that farmers hold shotguns legally and so do those interested in clay pigeon shooting. I did not know that you can legally carry a handgun for personal protection in NI. If sectarian violence can be extracted from the equation how does NI compare to the USA ?
I don’t have figures to hand, but I believe NI is a generally low crime area, apart from sectarian troubles. Certainly the 10,000 concealed weapon permit holders cause no trouble, which ought to give the lie to the people who claim that British people cannot be trusted with armed self defence.
1. I made no mention of illegal weapons, whether supplied by the CIA or President Obama via Mexico. I asked why is it that a military assault rifle could be purchased openly. This is the point which I believe the BBC is making.
2. i would suggest that thinking that being allowed to swan around Cumbria(or anywhere else) armed to the teeth on the off chance that you may meet an armed psychopath is a good plan is “pie in the sky delusional thinking”!
A military assault rifle is a full auto weapon. The rifles sold in the USA to civilians are semi-auto only. You are trying to debate something you do not have a clue about I’m afraid.
One phrase, one minor factual mistake, does not derail the thrust of my argument. Having been an Infantry Soldier for over 20 years I think I am quite well qualified to debate the matter thank you.
An infantry soldier who does not know what an assault rifle is? All right, if you say so…
I was unaware that the rifles sold in the USA were not capable of automatic fire. Thank you for correcting me. It doesn’t alter the argument.
As for the less than subtle suggestion that i am a liar – well you crack on mate, people can believe what they want.
I agree, JAG. The notion that more guns leads to a safer society just doesn’t add up. Some might be able to find stats that show slightly less gun crime in some US states where there are less restrictions on ownership, but at a national level it’s simply not true. A nation with more guns in private ownership is much more likely to have gun related violence.
An interesting proposition. Is Switzerland more violent than Mexico? Switzerland issues assault rifles to all adult males, whereas Mexico has only one legal gun dealer. Of course Mexico is awash with guns, it’s just than they are not legal, but owned by the narcotrafficantes.
There will always be exceptions, and supporters will always quote them. The general rule still stands up, though.
It’s a general rule in your head perhaps. The fact is that stable societies have less crime than unstable ones, whatever their gun laws. Scandanavian societies, where many own guns, have lower crime than multculti Britain. Mexico has very strict gun control indeed, on paper, but is in fact awash with illegal guns and is in the middle of a narco war. Laws only impact on those who are law abiding, something liberals never seem to understand. They think they can pass a law and that piece of paper will make everything all right. They are like children who believe in fairies, it’s cute when they are six, a bit worrying when they are of voting age.
How many guns did Timothy McVeigh need again? How many guns did the 9/11 or 7/7 Mohammedans need? How many guns was that failed Times Square bomber going to use?
If we lived in a fantasy land of no guns – not even available to criminals – this lunatic would have become a serial killer or something instead. The BTK mass murderer didn’t need guns. The only reason this current mass murder is in the headlines so much is because he killed all his victims at the same time, rather than over a period of weeks or months or years. Somehow, human life in these cases are valued differently according to the sexiness of their deaths.
Magically removing all guns from the continent would only have made this lunatic – and others like him – kill in different ways. It would also significantly increase the loss of innocent life which has until now been protected by gun ownership. Perhaps you and the BBC value those lives less than the lives of those murdered in Aurora.
It is also the case that this man was quite able to make viable bombs. He was going to kill people whatever the law said.
Jag can I turn this around and ask this question of you; How can the State (yes the UK) allow so many firearms, including automatic weapons, to be carried by the criminal element?
I lived in an unstable part of the World for 30 years and carried a personal weapon every one of those days. I never wanted to use it and fortunately never had to. But the State had the sense to understand that they could not protect me every minute.
When a State is able to ensure that the bad guys cannot get their hands on a firearm I am happy for them to stop ordinary citizens from having them.
In many countries firearms regulations are there to control ordinary citizens and ensure they are unable to rise up against the State but seldom have the ability to control the illegal sale and use of the same weapons.
JAG, it has everything to do with the right to bear arms according to the constitution which not only allows, but demands that the people should retain an armed militia and when the Government usurps its power and falls into tyranny, that the armed populace have a duty to armed insurrection to overthrow any tyrannical government.
Assault rifles would be useful in that situation. In fact tanks and heavily armed fighter aircraft would be useful in that situation.
That worldview doesn’t seem to put much faith in democracy – or ‘we the people’ – to hold the powerful to account through the more conventional means. It seems a rather paraniod reason for gun ownership. Of all the nations in the world, I think the American population has the least to worry about in relation to tyrannical government. It’s a nation with much stronger foundations of liberty and freedom than most, which are derived much more from the construction of it’s democratic institutions than the right to bear arms. I can fully understand that, in a society where guns are an accepted part of life, a person might wish to own one to protect their family and home, but those who wish to own them in preparedness for an armed insurrection sound quite dangerous to me.
I rather agree with JAG’s earlier comment. The issue of gun ownership is one area that separates us culturally from the USA. We just have a very different attitude to firearms in the UK in general. While I agree that the BBC should present all sides of the US debate fairly, I think the fact that most of our news broadcasts on all channels have covered this terrible story from a similar angle does demonstrate that we as a nation have a different centre point for our take on this discussion. As someone who lives in a country where a culture of gun ownership simply doesn’t exist, I find it hard to understand the reaction among many in the USA to this tragedy of insisting that the problem is not too many guns with too few restrictions, but the complete opposite – too few guns and too many restrictions. This may make sense to some in a nation where gun ownership is commonplace, but in the UK where most people don’t own guns and don’t want to, it seems perverse. It also serves as a reminder that this particular genie should never be allowed out of the bottle. I wouldn’t want to ever be in the position of being a reluctant gun owner.
Also the “reflect public opinion” is a lie. the BBC shapes that opinion through years and years of subtle black propaganda and then tell you that it is public opinion. They do not reflect public opinion, they give the public their own “acceptable” opinion and manipulate your perception to make you think that is what public opinion really is.
” Such weapons have only one purpose, to kill as many people as possible in as short a space of time as possible”
Or otherwise to stop someone killing you?
The shooter was not using a “military assault rifle” nor did it have a “burst capability.” Pull the trigger once and one piece of lead flies out the end — just like any other rifle.
The typically gun-adverse press uses a combination of ignorance and malicious intent when they try to convince viewers that such rifles are “assault” weapons and are capable of “spraying” rounds like military machine guns.
PERSPECTIVE
The city of Chicago enforces the most draconian (and unconstitutional) gun-control laws in the United States. Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy said the murder rate is on pace to reach 450 this year. In other words, an Aurora massacre occurs every 10 days in Chicago, the gun-control capital of the U.S.
Like Washington DC, New York City, Mexico City and London — to name but a few — “gun-free” cities are truly areas where the innocent are targeted by predators who have no intention of abiding by any law.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/07/an-aurora-massacre-takes-place-every-10.html
Here is a list of the top ten worst firearms murders.
10. Thomas Hamilton killed 17 Dunblane March 1996
9. James Huberty killed 22 San Ysidro, California July 1984
8. George Hennard killed 22 Killeen Texas, Oct 1991
7. Campo Delgado killed 28 Bogota, Colombia, Dec 1986
6. Mtsuo Toi killed 29 Suyama Japan, May 1938
5. Bruch Goldstein killed 29 Hebron Israel Feb 1994
4. Seung Hui Cho killed 32 Virginia Tech April 2007
3. Martin Bryant killed 35 Port Arthur Tasmania April 1996
2. Woo Bum Kong killed 57 Sangnamdo South Korea April 1982
1. Anders Breivik killed 69 Utoya Island, Norway in July 2011
Breivik’s killing spree happened in a very liberal country with tight gun laws, as did #2 on the list Woo Bum Long in South Korea where the gun laws are so draconian that even criminals find it hard to acquire them.
A large part of the answer to this bloodshed must lie n the depiction of common-place extreme violence in movies. I’m sure it turns unhealthy young men into monsters by numbing them to the consequences of death. That said, how do we explain the 1938 Japanese killing?
I’ll leave the smug panel members on “Any Questions?” to give us the answer to the sound of thunderous applause. They’ll say, “Ban guns” – the easy cop-out answer.
If its just guns, how does one explain the series of uncoordinated mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in China beginning in 2010? This spate of attacks left at least 21 dead and some 90 injured. The Chinese authorities blamed “mental health problems caused by rapid social change”. In other words, it was all so much better under Mao!
Agendas – we all have them.
Switzerland has a higher per capita legal gun ownership than the USA but I hear not a word about that from the BBC. Perhaps they should be pumping out propaganda about the horrific number of legally held guns in that country which, after all, is far nearer to Britain than the USA. But then again, that small fact doesn’t fit into the BBC leftist propaganda manifest.
Switzerland was brought up on Newsnight last week. Somebody mentioned it here, but – my apologies to them – I can’t remember who it was. IIRC, Gavin Esler brought it up, and his guest suggested that the reason Switzerland has ubiquitous gun ownership but far less gun crime than the US is that Switzerland is more homogenous. Apparently that didn’t go over too well with Esler, and the discussion ended.
‘the BBC has gone overboard this week with the hand-wringing over US gun laws.’
To be fair… as one currently subject to the bizarre ‘news’ options that are BBC World, Fox & Al Jazeerah… a huge chunk of this is ratings-driven, and they are all at it.
Without driving the whole gun-law thing, a gaping opportunity to fill the already creaking void of ‘we don’t know much yet beyond what we can make up’ is too good to ignore, with endless helicopter shots and ‘expert’ interviews (almost lost a mouthful of Phad Thai as a Fox peroxide sink whose bouffant and botox would stop a .357 round referred to herself as a ‘journalist’ straight-faced (Botox really helping with that, mind) to camera) with ex-cops and deranged shrinks. And frankly it IS an issue, and worth discussing… if done honestly and without such blatant agenda driving a pre-determined narrative.
So to agree with David on one key aspect… the other two at least presented a spread of opinion.
The BBC, in storyline, guest selection and ‘expert’ ‘analysis’, only had one line to run. Hence inconvenient facts that run counter to this… simply get ignored.
And that… lays bare its utterly compromised role in squandering £4Bpa under false pretences.
It is no longer a source of news, but only broadcasts views.
That would be fine… if I had the option to reject having to pay for those of folk I feel are neither honest, professional or too often accurate in what they choose to share.
“It is no longer a source of news, but only broadcasts views.”
In a nutshell. Well said.
Pandering to The One – tick
Ignore Chicago – tick
All guns are eevil – tick
Ignore UK urban domestic gun crime – tick
Load debate to reinforce house prejudice -tick
Characterize all gun owners as right wing NRA nut jobs – absolooly…
c’mon…. what do you expect?
“Not a single raised Beeboid eyebrow or sarcastic aside at how this might be a nice bit of political opportunism in a tough election cycle”
So the President paying his respects to the families who lost their lives in a tragedy is political opportunism? The same President who cancelled election events, and who has cancelled political advertising in Colorado?
There’s an opportunist here, alright. But it’s someone who would whine if the President hadn’t gone to Colorado. Who whines about anything, and everything, that right wing blogs and TV channels tell him to whine about. And who knows that in the UK there are a group of peopleat Biased BBC who mistakenly think he’s an authority on US affairs, and capitalises on their ignorance to fuel his own ego. Step forward, David Preiser (WTF).
“of course it is”, he has not been to see any of the other relatives of victims of gun crime, especially the black on black variety has he? And is there an election coming up? Why, yes there is! Are you seriously suggesting that Obama is NOT thinking of the election at this time?
If so you are an idiot!
No Scott, you are making things up, putting thoughts into my head and words in my mouth. I would not “whine” if the President didn’t visit Aurora. I don’t think it’s the President’s job to selectively comfort crime victims like this. A speech is one thing, but I wouldn’t have approved and would say the same thing if George Bush had done this a few months before an election in which he was taking heat for exposing his extreme political views.
In case you’ve forgotten – or, if you rely on the BBC for your US news, you didn’t know – the President didn’t visit the Gulf region for nearly two weeks after that devastating oil rig fire and spill. But then, there was no election on. No advertising or rallies needed to be cancelled.
The President didn’t didn’t visit the families of the eight victims of a mass shooting in Hartford, CT, in 2010. Why not? Body count not high enough? Location not sexy enough to make the headlines, so they aren’t worthy of Presidential comfort?
Earlier that year, a lunatic in Virginia killed his sister, her husband, their two children, and four family friends in and around the family home. He then shot at the police helicopter circling overhead and brought it down. He was using a similar assault weapon to the lunatic in Aurora. Yet, no Presidential appearance. Why not? Not sexy enough? Are those lives valued less somehow, families not so deserving of an audience with Him?
Facts of the above incidents (you’ll have to research for yourself elsewhere, though, to discover that the President didn’t visit any of them) can be found on the Brady Campaign website, a top anti-gun lobbying organization.
I could go on, but I know you wouldn’t get the point anyway. Those incidents weren’t headline news the way this one is, and so the victims’ lives are valued less by the press, and so by the President as well. He’s visiting Aurora because it’s such a big sexy news story, full stop. He’s visiting Aurora and speechifying like this because He’s just had a very rough week in the election cycle because of His stupid “you didn’t build that” remark. Oh, that’s right: you wouldn’t know about that because the BBC has refused to report it.
I don’t watch any right-wing TV channels, Scott. Your derogatory remark is unwarranted. But then again, you are unable to debate any actual facts or issues with me and always revert to personal insults instead. You make things up, assume behavior and thoughts that don’t exist, simply out of anger. I laugh at your sputtering falsehoods. If you don’t apologize for the insults, you are not worthy of respect here.
When you outlaw guns, you are creating a law which then ensures that only criminals have guns. Does that sound sensible to you? Does it make any sense whatsoever to create a society where the only people who carry guns are criminals?
Of course homicides will increase when that happens. The criminals know ahead of time, that they will not be shot back at!
Scotty, ask yourself this question, if it had been Bush not Barry O do you think auntie would have been unquestioning?
Barry may have been truelly honest with his concern ,but what concerns me is the left, here in the person of the BBC would never allow someone of the right the same assumption of innocence. The sneering cynical JCR knee jerk leftists that haunt the corridors of the Beeb could never accept any positive emotion from the right
” if it had been Bush not Barry O do you think auntie would have been unquestioning?”
Hmm. Let’s see:
Bush’s visit to California fires
Bush’s visit to the Minnesota bridge collapse
They’re just dripping with criticism, aren’t they?
Scott, I am (as regular readers will know) second only behind David Preiser in my opposition to President Obama. However, I am on your side on this one. I feared the Blessed O would use his visit to Aurora to ride his mighty ego with political statements about gun control etc. He resisted. I’ve linked to a full transcript of his remarks.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/07/22/transcript-of-obamas-remarks-in-aurora-colo/
But before I let you off the hook completely, I wonder if you know what George W Bush was doing a couple of weeks ago?
For the answer, click this link:
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/george-w-bush-visits-africa-to-support.html
As a quick follow-up, we don’t know how lucky we are as Brits that our head of state is not an elected politician. It helps on tragic occasions like this.
The content of the speech is irrelevant. He didn’t make His speech about the Giffords shooting about Himself, either. His speechwriters aren’t that stupid. Why didn’t the President visit the victims of other mass shootings? Why no speech? Giffords got a speech only because she was a politician. I won’t even speculate how things would have been different had she been a Republican.
He’s responding to a news cycle in a touch election fight. Both He and Romney cancelled their ads and campaign events in response to it, fair enough. The press would vilify them if they didn’t. But the selective comforting of victims doesn’t sit well with me.
I’m with you to some extent, David. But I think we’d both agree that the most shameful silence comes from O’s response to the Chicago killings – silence. I guess there’s no political capital to be gained from exploiting black-on-black violence. The president is the master of selective outrage.
Here at home in the US, Louis, I’m very concerned about the President’s behavior over all of this. But that’s only one tiny element in my post. The main point, unfortunately, seems to have been lost in Scott’s smoke screen: the BBC’s utter silence on the fact that Chicago has just about the toughest gun control laws in the country, yet has far more shooting deaths. All the hand-wringing over lax gun laws, yet they refuse to acknowledge this result. That’s what we should really be discussing on this blog, not the President’s actions here.
Here’s another conundrum for you.
One of the BBC’s and the left’s poster boys, St Nelson Mandela, celebrated his 94th birthday this week. Happy birthday Nelson.
Nelson Mandela has been succeeded by 2 Presidents each more radical. Lets focus on the latest incarnation, Mr Jacob Zuma.
Mr Zuma has a signature tune which translated from Zulu is a revolutionary song whose chorus line is; “Bring me my machine gun (AK47)”. Whilst singing this line Mr Zuma physically imitates the firing of an AK47. Recently one of his even more radical proteges has started singing another revolutionary song whose chorus line goes; “Kill the Boer” which translated has a greater meaning of kill the white farmer. The later song has been banned by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that incites racial hatred. Not withstanding this the ANC and Zuma have snubbed their noses at the Court and continue to sing this song at ANC political rallies.
Since coming to power 3200 white farmers have been murdered. This is figure approaching 10% of the white farming community.
Considering that the ANC has been in power for 20 years and has total political control of South Africa why would these leaders need to follow this kind of rhetoric.
Nelson Mandela has never once come out and said this unacceptable behaviour. The BBC has never come out and condemned Zuma for inciting the killing of his own people. This is incitement to genocide but the BBC. zzzzzzzzzzzzz Where is the outrage about the President of a country glorifying and inciting the killing of his own people. Because the people that are the targets of this hatred are the hated White people.
I knew this was coming (BBC and gun control) the minute I heard about the killings on the news. I am ashamed to admit that my first thought was Obamas administration was probably behind it (like the guns to Mexico) to further their gun control cause and to boost the likely hood of re election. My first though should have actually been for the families of the victims.
I read yesterday that the US states with the most lax gun laws and the most guns have the least gun-crime. And those with the strictest control, and least guns, have the highest gun-crime rate. I think it was on PJ Media.
The statistics can be played both ways. The facts about Chicago and DC speak for themselves, of course. But the comparatively high rate for Texas can be partially explained by the cross-border Mexican violence, which we now know has been fueled more by illegal guns and guns deliberately distributed by the US Government to cause violence than by the kind of easy gun culture the anti-gun crowd claims.
The other statistics about higher gun crime states – Michigan and Louisiana, for example, which have different levels of gun laws – can’t be discussed honestly until we get to know exactly who is committing those crimes and against whom. I suspect it’s a lot like Chicago and New York: gang and other criminal element shootings, using mostly illegal guns, and not ordinary people going on shooting sprees simply because they could walk into Walmart and buy a rifle.
The BBC will not be having an honest discussion about this.
‘I don’t watch any right-wing TV channels, Scott.’
Really? Just Fox News Online?
‘cross border’
I wonder if Illinois’s porous Borders might explain the apparent anomaly in Chicago?
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