What is it with the elitist political class and their insulting, arrogant, even vulgar comments about gun owners and others who live in Heartland America? It’s been going on a long time and continues to this day, even though it gets gun control supporters nowhere.
In 1985, then-New York governor Mario Cuomo said that people who oppose mandatory seat belt laws are “hunters who drink beer, don’t vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend.” A few years later, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy–of Chappaquiddick infamy–accused the NRA of being in an “unholy alliance” with drug pushers, because we opposed legislation to ban general-purpose semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15.
Then, in 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said that Americans who live in small towns “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Now, with the November elections approaching, the task of motivating anti-gun voters by telling them that they’re smarter and more cosmopolitan than we are is being taken up by Vice-President Joe Biden and America’s self-absorbed, self-appointed national nanny, Michael Bloomberg.
It was bad enough when Biden advocated that home dwellers who suspect that an intruder is outside should go onto the balcony and “fire two blasts” from a shotgun. After all, doing so could violate a local firearm discharge ordinance, it might constitute other criminal offenses, and falling projectiles could injure people nearby. And it was just as bad when Biden advised, “[if] you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” That’s another mistake that could injure an innocent person and run afoul of the law.
Deservedly, the vice-president took some heat for those comments. Apparently, however, whoever first said “there’s no further education to be had from the second kick of a mule” never met Joe Biden. Now, CNN’s new gun control advocate and TV host, John Walsh, is quoting Biden as saying that political candidates who oppose gun control are “tea baggers.”
Meanwhile, with apologies to the late, great Irene Ryan, it appears that Bloomberg, like Biden, has acquired all of his knowledge of firearms by watching episodes of the Beverley Hillbillies. According to an article published by Rolling Stone, Bloomberg (whose prior comments indicate his supporters travel primarily by taxi cabs) thinks that people who oppose gun control are so rural that their communities don’t even have roads.
Referring to last year’s recall of two state senators, from Colorado Springs and Pueblo, who had voted for Colorado’s new “universal” checks requirement and 15-round magazine limit, Bloomberg said, “The NRA went after two or three state Senators in a part of Colorado where I don’t think there’s (sic) roads. It’s as far rural as you can get.”
Now, there’s a good case to be made for living in places with few, if any roads. Many good Americans prefer wide-open spaces to the big cities in which Bloomberg is most comfortable. But the geographically-challenged Bloomberg ought to know that Colorado Springs and Pueblo are not exactly the backwoods.
As pointed out by Colorado Springs-area State Sen. Bernie Herpin in the Washington Times, Colorado Springs is the state’s second most populous city (population 430,000) and home to the United States Air Force Academy and the U.S. Olympic Training Center. Sen. Herpin dismissed Bloomberg, saying that he’s “out of touch with Coloradoans.” Similarly, State Sen. George Rivera from Pueblo (population over 100,000 for those who are counting) said Bloomberg is “out of touch with the values of Pueblo,” where “we value our Second Amendment rights.”
One thing is for sure. Anti-gunners’ comments about gun owners say more about them than they do about us. But the strongest statement of all is the one we can make by overwhelming our detractors on Election Day. And it would be only slightly more rewarding to read the excuses that people like Biden and Bloomberg would make if they got the political trouncing they deserve in November from those they consider the lower order.
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