We Need Gun Control... Says Bill Clinton and Al Sharpton

Raw story has the story on Clinton, but we should be sympathetic.  I mean, if I pissed off as many husbands as he has over the years as he has, I wouldn’t want regular citizens to be armed, either.

Seriously, here’s a pro-tip for the anti-gun crowd.  Do not pick a man credibly accused of raping a woman as your spokesman for undermining individual self-defense as your advocate.  This is Dateline’s original item on Juanita Broadderick (Via MRC):

Indeed if you find her credible—and I do—this is the perfect argument for the Second Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.  What do you have here?  You have Bill Clinton who was at the time the Attorney General of Arkansas.  They often refer to the attorney general as the top law enforcement official in a given state.  And this top law enforcement official was committing, allegedly, a crime.  And liberals want us to depend exclusively on law enforcement to protect our lives, our families and property?

The most absurd example of this is Al Sharpton (who is the most absurd examples of most things), who apparently wishes to ban all guns and maybe even knives (via Gatewaypundit):

I am not sure of the latter part.  I found more ambiguity in the statement than others did regarding knife control, although he might mean that, and he wouldn’t be the first to make such a suggestion.  What seems less in doubt is that he is hoping to get rid of all guns for private citizens.  Of course even in this Huffington Post essay he does a little dance.  On one hand he writes things like this:

[The Second Amendment] doesn't mean guns should be so readily accessible to the least stable among us. And it doesn't mean that we don't need stricter gun laws to keep them out of the hands of criminals and those with a complete disregard for human life.

Which sounds like he just wants some restrictions on gun ownership, not to ban all guns.  But then he also writes this at the very end:

Get guns out of the community and stop them from ever finding their way back in. Together, we can save ourselves -- and the next generation.

That would be no guns at all, even for law abiding citizens.  And indeed the premise of the man’s question in the youtube clip above was an end to all gun possession (legal or illegal), which Al Sharpton went along with.  Here’s the text of the exchange, if you couldn’t watch it:

REV AL SHARPTON (28 Dec 2012): In any civilized society you do not see massacres continue to happen, from Tucson to Aurora to Columbine to Virginia Tech to where we are now in Newtown to Chicago and you keep the same laws when clearly they’re not working.

ROSCOE IN MARYLAND: What happens when the criminal goes to knives Al?

REV AL SHARPTON: Then you deal with knives.

ROSCOE IN MARYLAND: Oh I see.

REV AL SHARPTON: The same thing as if you have a head cold and the same thing you do if you have a head cold and the cold is gone and you have a headache. Then you take headache medicine. The job of society is to deal with whatever problem confronts it.

So effectively Al Sharpton believes that we should rely on the police, and only the police, to protect our lives, our families and our property.

Let me repeat that for emphasis: Al Sharpton thinks we should rely on the police.

This is a man who first made a name for himself when he accused cops of misconduct.  From a summary in the NY Daily News:

Back in 1987, 15-year-old [Tawana] Brawley claimed she had been abducted and raped for four days by a group of white men, at least one a cop. She was found in a garbage bag, covered in feces and charcoal-scrawled racial epithets.

Sharpton, a brash young activist and minister, took over publicity for Brawley and made inflammatory accusations of a massive cover up, naming an assistant district attorney as one of the rapists.

The case fell apart when the grand jury refused to indict, citing no physical evidence of rape and witnesses who saw Brawley when she was supposed to have been held captive.

And in the same article they note that Sharpton maintains that this woman might still be telling the truth!  And here is the same Reverend Al debating with Ann Coulter over whether a cop is racist:

The money quote: “and we are supposed to trust a man with these feelings to protect the public?”  Oh and as if that isn’t enough, here’s Al in the same editorial in the Huffington Post accusing cops of running guns:

This week in NY, eight NYPD officers were charged with helping to run a gun-smuggling ring in a city already grappling with unresolved shootings.

So the cops break the laws, are racist, and so on, according to Reverend Al, but we should trust them—and only them—with the protection of what we value most?  Does that make any sense?

And while I won’t endorse all of what he said (or even much of it), we can find a milder point of agreement.  Some cops are racist.  Not necessarily the ones Sharpton points his finger at, but some are.  And some cops break the law.  Not necessarily those eight accused of gun running (and certainly none of the cops accused of raping Brawley), but some do.  Hell some attorneys general might rape citizens.  And some cops are negligent.  And sometimes they can do their absolute competent best, and they still can’t protect you.  As they say, when seconds count the police are minutes away.

Which is one of the major reasons why we need the right to bear arms.

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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.