Ann Coulter

Ending gun violence requires commitment, not all of it voluntary

Ann Coulter Political Commentator
Font Size:

The good news is: Obama and the Senate Democrats have no intention of passing more idiotic gun legislation in response to the Newtown massacre. The bad news is that they also have no intention of passing any legislation about the mentally ill, which would actually do something to reduce these mass shootings.

Instead, the Democrats will jawbone about “assault weapons” and other meaningless gun laws for the sole purpose of scaring soccer moms into hating the National Rifle Association. Expect to hear a lot about Republicans preferring “the gun lobby” to “children.” (Which is evidently not at all like preferring the teachers lobby to children.)

Democrats are hoping to pick up another dozen congressional seats in 2014, so they need terrified women.

Just don’t expect a vote. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid cannot afford a vote on any of these nonsense gun laws because he needs to protect the seats of Democrats who have to get re-elected in districts where voters know something about guns.

Even the stupidest politician has to know how utterly meaningless “assault weapon” bans are. (In fairness, New York’s Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and Gov. Andrew Cuomo may not know.) But Democrats need to gin up the most easily fooled voters.

“Assault weapons” are defined as “whatever politicians say they are.” The guns that are banned and the ones that aren’t are functionally identical. They’re all semi-automatics.

Semi-automatics shoot one bullet per trigger pull — that’s the definition. Any handgun manufactured since the Civil War is a “semi-automatic.” The most basic self-defense revolver for women is a “semi-automatic.”

An example of a gun that is not a semi-automatic is a musket. Also those guns where a “BANG!” flag pops out when the clown pulls the trigger.

An automatic firearm — what militaries and drug cartels have — continuously fires when the trigger is pulled. They have been subject to a near-total federal ban in this country since the 1930s, so they’re irrelevant to the discussion.

The only differences between the semi-automatics the Democrats want to ban and the ones they don’t are purely cosmetic details, such as bayonet mounts or pistol grips.

When is the last time anyone was killed with a bayonet in this country? Bayonets were rarely used even during the Civil War. Obama mocked the idea of bayonets during one of his debates with Romney. Now he’s terrified of them!

Semi-automatics with bayonets are some of the guns Democrats call “assault weapons.” It would be like defining 12-inch hunting knives with camouflage-colored handles — but not those with black handles — as “assault knives.” Assault weapons are the semi-automatics that look scary to soccer moms.

An example of the intentional obfuscation about semi-automatics (or “guns”) is the “Violence Policy Center” webpage, which states: “Semiautomatic assault weapons are civilian versions of automatic military assault rifles (like the AK-47 and the M-16) and automatic military assault pistols (like the UZI).”

This would be like saying: “Little girls’ pink bedrooms are civilian versions of military prisons (like Guantanamo) and terrorist rendition prisons (like CIA Black Sites).”

Yes, exactly alike, except the “prison” part.

Since not all Democrats get to run for office in New York, congressional Democrats can’t risk taking votes on such silly laws. Your guns will be safe, but your children won’t, because we’ll still have the mentally ill showing up at movie theaters, subway stations, shopping malls and schools.

If soccer moms want to worry about something, they should worry more about schizophrenics than guns.

In the late 1980s, New York City Mayor Ed Koch tried to institutionalize Joyce Brown, a mentally ill heroin addict living on the street who went by the name “Billie Boggs” (after local television host Bill Boggs). Brown was defecating on herself, removing all her clothes, burning money, running into traffic and shouting obscenities at passers-by. In other words, she was a prototype for Occupy Wall Street.

Brown’s family desperately wanted to have Brown committed to Bellevue Hospital. A Columbia psychiatrist argued for her institutionalization. The neighbors supported her commitment.

But the New York Civil Liberties Union wanted Brown back on the street. Her NYCLU attorney, Robert Levy, boasted that “Billie Boggs” was as sane as “a member of the board of the Civil Liberties Union.”

A New York judge, Robert Lippman, agreed — but not the way I do. Instead of ordering the entire NYCLU board institutionalized, he ordered the release of this poor, mentally disturbed woman. She promptly spoke at Harvard. (Princeton already had Peter Singer.) Then she was back on the street, taking heroin and getting into fights with other homeless people.

Schizophrenics are generally incapable of knowing they need help. Without involuntary commitment, they are abandoned to the streets, getting beaten up, sexually abused, stolen from and set on fire. They also sometimes push people onto subway tracks, murder grandmothers, slaughter firemen and enter “gun-free zones” to commit mass murder.

But the Democrats won’t do anything about it. Even if you do not hear voices that tell you to kill strangers, liberals say: “Either we are all mad or none of us is mad.” Then they get mouthy about banning guns with bayonets. On which they will not vote. Montana’s Sen. Max Baucus has to get re-elected.

Ann Coulter is an author and political commentator.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel