So... Piers Morgan is Offering a Two-Fer?

That was my immediate thought, when I read the headline to this editorial by Piers Morgan:

Deport me? If America won't change its crazy gun laws... I may deport myself says Piers Morgan

You got that America?  If you don’t change your laws, Piers Morgan will deprive us of the privilege of his presence.  And then you will be sorry!

And of course my thought is: “Really?  So if we don’t pass the laws you want us to, we get to keep our Constitutional freedom and you will leave the country, too?  So what is the down side?”

Of course he has been pimping his “victimhood” ever since the petition to deport him appeared on the White House website.  Mind you, it would be wrong to throw him out of the country just because he offended us.  The First Amendment does apply to aliens, too.  But honestly, I take it more as a joke than a serious effort to get him deported, of no more legal consequence than flipping him the bird.  I doubt most of them really would want him forcibly deported if it came down to it.  And more relevant to my point, does he have any fear of this really happening?  Even a little bit?  One can only guess what is in another person’s heart, but I am guessing…  no.

By the way, this man who stands in judgment of our laws shares some of his deep insights in this editorial, such as this revelation when he fired guns for the first and only time, at a firing range:

It was controlled, legal, safe and undeniably exciting. But it also showed me, quite demonstrably, that guns are killing machines.

Wow, guns are designed to kill?  Really?  And it took you that long to figure that out?  Now I see why Piers felt that he was so plainly superior to Larry Pratt, of Gun Owners of America.  You see, here is the whole exchange with Pratt:

PRATT: Your violent crime rate is higher than ours as is the violent crime rate in Australia. America is not the Wild West that you are depicting. We only have the problem in our cities, and unhappily, in our schools where people like you have been able to get laws put on the books that keep people from being able to defend themselves.

I honestly don't understand why you would rather have people be victims of a crime than be able to defend themselves. It's incomprehensible.

MORGAN: You're an unbelievably stupid man, aren't you?

And you can indeed watch it on video here:

So Pratt pointed out that if you don’t have weapons it gets harder to defend yourself and plainly that was a really stupid thing to say.  Good one, Piers!

Let no one say that the British are incapable of being rude.

More seriously, what emerges here is that Morgan has an intense hostility to the right of self-defense.  When you denounce guns as killing machines... well so what?  Since when is all killing bad?  If OJ Simpson came at Nicole Brown Simpson with a knife and murder in his heart, and Ron Goldman pulled out a gun and killed him, would that have been a bad thing?  Would that have been worse than what really did happen?  Sometimes killing is a downright positive act.

And the genius revelations keep coming in his editorial:

The gun-lobby logic dictates that the only way to defend against gun criminals is for everyone else to have a  gun, too. Teachers, nurses, clergymen, shop assistants, cinema usherettes – everyone must be armed.

To me, this is a warped, twisted logic that bears no statistical analysis and makes no sense. Do you fight drug addiction with more cocaine? Alcoholism with more Jack Daniel’s? Of course not.

Well, first that is a dumb metaphor.  Good alcohol does not check bad alcohol; ditto with cocaine.  But a good man with a gun, can checkmate a bad man with a gun.  Everyone knows this.  This is why even the craziest anti-gun loons don’t propose disarming the police.  We recognize that the police will occasionally need to shoot people, to prevent violence to innocents.  The only question is which good guys should have guns: the police only, or law-abiding citizens, too?

I would wonder if he takes the same attitude toward freedom of speech.  After all, the common rejoinder in America is that that answer to bad speech is more speech.  Would he say that is as crazy as saying the answer to cocaine addiction is more cocaine?  And then I remembered he is British, where they are disturbingly comfortable with hate speech laws.  So, maybe he would say exactly that.

But the other thing is that so far not a single word that has been said in this editorial has been even particularly original or insightful.  Every single point is standard fare he could have picked up by reviewing the anti-gun tweets under the usual hashtags: #NoWayNRA, #GunControl and #GunControlNow.  For someone so smugly convinced of his own superiority, his thoughts are remarkably banal.

And then he launches into his Jesus Christ pose, setting himself up as a crusader against the evil gun lobby:

The NRA targets pro-gun-control politicians on every rung of the political system and spends a fortune ensuring they either don’t get elected or get unelected. It’s been a concerted, ruthless and highly successful campaign. And to those, like me, who stand up to them, they sneer: ‘You don’t know anything about guns. Keep quiet.’

That is right, the same man who called Pratt “an unbelievably stupid man” attacks gun rights advocates for “sneering” at their opponents.  But he has a parry to that thrust:

Well, I do know a bit about guns, actually. My brother’s a lieutenant colonel in the British Army and has served tours of duty in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. My sister married a colonel who trained Princes William and Harry at Sandhurst. My uncle was a major in the Green Howards.

Oh really?  Well my family can say they are related to a lawyer, but that doesn’t mean they are ready to try a case.  Sheesh.

He goes on, a British man, to tell us what the Second Amendment actually means.

But where I have a big problem is when the unfortunately ambiguous wording of the 2nd Amendment is twisted to mean that anyone in America can have any firearm they want, however powerful, and in whatever quantity they want.

Yes, well imagine that!  After spending years fighting for our freedom against the most powerful military on Earth at the time, we think we should have the weapons needed to take on the military in case tyranny arises here.  What a silly notion!

This has led to the absurd scenario where I can’t legally buy six packets of Sudafed in an American supermarket, or a chocolate Kinder egg, or various French cheeses, because they are all deemed a health risk.

Yet I can saunter into Walmart – America’s version of Tesco – and help myself to an armful of AR-15 assault rifles and magazines that can carry up to 100 bullets at a time.

Well, that is because a gun protects your life and your freedom.  A chocolate Kinder egg does neither, though I suppose it probably does taste good.  I wouldn’t honestly know.

But if he is upset at the incongruity, he should push for less regulation, not for more.  Personally I am sick and tired of being inconvenienced when buying medicine because of the meth-heads.

That weapon [the AR-15] has now been used in the last four mass shootings in America – at the Aurora cinema, a shopping mall in Oregon, Sandy Hook school, and the most recent, a dreadful attack on firemen in New York.

And in Oregon, a concealed carry holder put an end to this massacre before it began.  In other words, thing are very likely to have been much worse but for a law-abiding gun owner.  At Aurora, it was a gun free zone—as is the case in all mass shootings but one since the 1950’s.  And the attack on those firemen?  That was by a man who previously killed his own grandmother and thus wasn’t supposed to have any gun, let alone an assault rifle.  How did that work out?

And then his superior knowledge of weaponry obtained by familial osmosis comes out:

The AR-15 looks and behaves like a military weapon...

Well, sure except for the fact that the military version is a full automatic and this is a semi-automatic.  The difference is that a full automatic will keep firing as long as you hold down the trigger.  Meanwhile, a semi-automatic requires a separate pull of the trigger for each shot.  And if you think it is easy to approximate the firing rate of a full automatic with a semi-automatic, I suggest you go down to a gun range and give it a try.  It is not as easy as you might think and it really isn’t as easy as doing it on a toy gun or in a video game.

Alas that sentence isn’t done yet:

...and should be confined to the military and police force.

And again, he demonstrates an inherent hostility to one of the key functions of the Second Amendment.  The militia clause may not have legal operation, but it gives us a window into what the framers were thinking and what they were thinking is that we the people needed to be able to challenge the military if necessary.

But instead of taking that argument seriously, he sets up a straw man:

The only apparent reason anyone seems to offer up is that using such weapons is ‘fun’. One gun-rights guy I interviewed last week even said admiringly that the AR-15 was ‘the Ferrari of guns’.

Well, I’m sorry, but ‘fun’ is just not a good enough excuse any more. Not when children are being killed by gunfire all over America.

Well, bring me on your show and I will over you some different reasons.

He goes on to suggest national confiscation.  Of course such an act, besides being a violation of the Second Amendment would be enormously expensive.  After all, a gun is not just a gun, but it is property and under the Fifth Amendment, the government cannot take your property without just compensation.  With AR-15’s alone costing a minimum of $900 a pop, that could strain an already beyond depleted budget.  Is he proposing we go even deeper into debt with China on this?  Well, to be fair, with China’s hatred of American freedom, they might be happy to make the loan on this one.  Or is Piers suggesting an abrogation of the Fifth Amendment as well?

And along with all that Second Amendment crushing, he takes a swipe at the First:

Nor do I think Hollywood or makers of violent video games should avoid any responsibility – their graphic images can surely only twist an already twisted mind.

Sure, maybe he doesn’t mean that these things should be banned, but you want to bet on that?

And then finally the money quote:

In conclusion, I can spare those Americans who want me deported a lot of effort by saying this: If you don’t change your gun laws to at least try to stop this relentless tidal wave of murderous carnage, then you don’t have to worry about deporting me.

Although I love the country as a second home and one that has treated me incredibly well, I would, as a concerned parent first – and latterly, of a one-year-old daughter who may attend an American elementary school like Sandy Hook in three years’ time – seriously consider deporting myself.

Is that a promise?  Can we get it in writing?

Joking aside, Piers, no you don’t love America.  Not in a deep way.  You might think you love America the way a man might convince himself he loves a pretty face, and a good body, while utterly neglecting the soul underneath.  You don’t love our freedom, you don’t love our spirit of independence and self-reliance.  You advocate that we destroy the very thing that makes this country great.  And it is your right to not love this country and even remain here.  But on balance, I think both America and you would be happier if you voluntarily left and found a country more agreeable to your philosophy, and let America be America.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.