Posted on 01/19/2011 5:53:05 AM PST by markomalley
Remember all the talk about turning down the volume in our political discourse? How about the idea that in the wake of the Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, there were going to be efforts to hold a more civil dialogue going forth? Perhaps those rules only apply if you hold a particular point of view.
On Tuesday’s airing of MSNBC’s The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell badgered Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks over answering a hypothetical question about gun laws and whether, if tougher ones were in place, less blood might have been shed earlier this month in Arizona.
“I’m asking you to entertain another hypothetical, and that hypothetical is, imagine this event occurred in 2003 when Jared Loughner, by federal law enacted by the Democrats 10 years earlier, would not have been allowed to get his hands on a magazine that held 30 bullets,” O’Donnell said dramatically. “He only would have been able to fire 10. Then he would have had to reload, and those heroes who stopped him when he tried to reload would have stopped him after firing 10, and more citizens of Arizona would be alive today in your state if that magazine held only 10 bullets. I’ll ask you again, do you wish Jared Loughner’s magazine only held 10 bullets instead of the 31 that he fired?”
That led to the start of the tense exchange between the MSNBC host and the Arizona Republican, showing that the so-called “volume” hasn’t found its way down yet.
FRANKS: And I will tell you again, sir, that I wish he had not had a gun at all.
O’DONNELL: So, you’re not going to answer that question about the magazine? Will you answer the question about the magazine?
FRANKS: I will on one basis, on one basis. Will you answer the question — you said that the police officers miss all the time — will you say that you’re glad there were no police officers there that day?
O’DONNELL: No, I will not say that.
FRANKS: All right. And I will not say, I will not say that –
Franks didn’t answer the question to O’Donnell’s satisfaction, so he made another run at it.
“I will not entertain your hypothetical,” O’Donnell shouted. “Your hypothetical might have been helpful, might not have been not helpful. But now, consider my hypothetical – it’s 2003. He can only fire 10 bullets. Arizona would have been better off, right? Your constituents in Arizona would have been better off if Jared Loughner, by law, could only fire 10 bullets?”
He hates America
He reminds me of a sleeper Russian agent from the cold war.
Republicans need to go into these interviews with full expectation that they will, at some point, have to say, “Your incivility is poisoning this discussion. It’s people in the media like you that make rational discussion impossible.”
That’s okay. Nobody saw it............
I’m wondering if COMCAST will jerk these peoples’ collectivist chains when they take over..............
I heard somewhere that O’Donnell’s show has already been cancelled.
He’s just another tv star who tries to make news, not report anything worthwhile. The older they get the worse they get, trying to keep their face before the public.
By law Larry, you blithering idiot, Loughner should never have had a gun, much less a magazine. The premise stinks from the get go.
Yes, it would have been better if Loughner’s magazine only held 10 rpunds. And it would have been even better if Loughner’s magazine only held 4 rounds. Or as the Congressman pointed out, if Loughner did not have a firearm at all. Where do these hypotheticals contrary to actual facts take us?
The 94 Assault Weapons Ban banned the new manufature and import of magazines over 10 rounds. It did not ban possession of hi-cap mags already in the marketplace or any that were made prior to 94.
The 94 AWB would have done nothing to stop Loughner from getting a hi-cap mag.
I can think of no laws that would stop a criminal or lunatic. Gun control laws are primarily directed at law abaiding citizens.
Representative Franks had the right answer. What a stupid dumb ass question. I’ll tell you I am so freakin sick of these people.
His hypothetical is ridiculous on its face. So it is more acceptable if only 10 people were shot? 6 out of 10 dead. What an ass.
What is the matter with these people?
Just ask O’Donnell if he would be calling for an end to “large capacity aircraft” if Loughner had flown a jet aircraft into a high rise and killed thousands.
Maybe word is they'll start to compete for the middle against Fox and that explains Fox News' current rush to RINO land.
So... it's OK if he fires 10 bullets into a crowd, but not 31?
If these kooks would follow the law, then maybe we should have a law against shooting people?
Oh, wait...
Did you see that MSNBC show just before the election in 2004 where O’Donnell kept calling the swift boat veteran a liar. For 30 minutes, O’Donnell kept at it.
In 2003 I had several magazines with more than 10 round capacity - you could always see "pre-ban" weapons and magazines for sale.
Demanding that one answer a hypothetical is not logical, in the classical sense of the word. If you go into “what if” land in this case, then you must allow that more people could be packing, Loughner would have known that, and wouldn’t have been inclined to do the crime in the first place. That’s a very simple example for a rebuttal — but I say again that the whole exchange would be just two guys pretending his guess is the better one.
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