Why Are So Many Conservative Politicians Brandishing Guns?

[SecularMotion]

Yes, we know it's all a show, that it's all about appealing to (appeasing) the NRA crowd, and demonstrating that a buttoned-down insider like Mitch McConnell is really one of the guys. Fine. But I have to say, there's something about it that just feels sinister.

OK, so John Kerry pandered too in 2004, with his whole hunter shtick, but McConnell did something very different at CPAC this past week. He brought a gun to an explicitly political gathering (he then handed it to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), as part of presenting Coburn with an NRA lifetime achievement award). Now, it's not like taking out your Colt .45 and laying it upon your desk on the Senate floor, but it's one more example of the mixing of politics and implicit violence that conservatives are deploying more and more often.

Among countless other examples, last month we saw Todd Staples, a candidate for lieutenant governor in Texas, run the following TV ad:

"You're not a king, and Texans bow to no one," Mr. Staples says, looking directly into the camera and addressing the president, before he is shown picking up a gun at a store, aiming it over a counter and vowing to "fight Obama's liberal agenda.&quot snip) [Staples] ends on an equally aggressive note: "So, Mr. President, if you still want to mess with Texas, we've got a saying for you: Come and take it."

In response, Kathleen Hall Jamison, the head of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, asked: "Why would [sic] need a gun to fight an agenda? You don't shoot a policy or shoot an agenda--you fight an agenda with words." Great question.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-reifowitz/why-are-so-many-conservat_b_4929978.html

[Token Republican]

1. The one percent

The one percent think they have a different set of rules.

Corpulent one percenter multi millionaire admits he owns a gun and has enough armed security to give it away.

[SecularMotion]

2. And you comment by attacking a Democrat?

Your true colors are showing.

[Eleanors38]

3. Uh, he Does have armed bodyguards. Perhaps for good reason.

Do you support Moore exercising his right right to self-defense? Do you think other Americans should exercise that right?

[oneshooter]

5. So the truth is an attack? n/t

[friendly_iconoclast]

7. It is when it offends a (self-appointed) zampolit/witchfinder/inquisitor. n/t

[CVN-68]

6. Specifying the truth is an attack?

Since when?

[arcane1]

10. "Corpulent" is true but generally considered an impolite thing to call someone.

Civility and Manners 101.

[CVN-68]

12. I guess you need to explain your comment to me.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, or, as has been told to me, I'm sometimes 1 sandwich short of a picnic.

[arcane1]

14. I think the jab at Moore's weight is what was interpreted as an "attack"

[CVN-68]

15. I get it now.

Thanks.

[SecularMotion]

16. Right wing gun nuts regularly attack Michael Moore as being a hypocrite

for being outspoken against the radical NRA while he has to hire armed security as protection against right wing death threats.

[Token Republican]

17. Because he is a hypocrite

But this

for being outspoken against the radical NRA while he has to hire armed security as protection against right wing death threats.

is classic.

Paranoid much?

[CVN-68]

18. Is Michael Moore a member of the NRA?

I do believe that he stated that he's a life time member, although for all the wrong reasons.

[sarisataka]

23. Anyone who goes around

With an armed security detail for protection against an assumed non-specfic threat while supporting policies that prevent a single woman with an abusive estranged ex living in the Bronx from having the option to choose armed self defense against a proven threat with a history of violence is a hypocrite.

I can think of several outspoken GC proponents who fit this description

[SecularMotion]

9. And more gunners pile on

Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

The OP is about Conservatives using guns as political props in a threatening manner as opposed to Democrats who pander to gun owners by showing themselves using guns safely and responsibly to hunt or target shoot. It's very telling that the only response our DU pro-gun members have is to attack a Democrat that needs armed security as protection against right wing death threats.

Do you really think you're fooling anyone here on DU posing as liberal Democrats who support the radical right wing position on guns?

[CVN-68]

13. Talking to yourself?

[Lasher]

19. I do that a lot myself.

I meet a better class of people that way.

[CVN-68]

20. Well played.

[Lasher]

24. Nimitz, eh?

My dad was on a diesel boat in WWII. SS-168. Earned the Submarine Combat Patrol badge six times.

[CVN-68]

26. Nimitz was my last duty station before retirement,

I also served on the U.S.S. Forestal, CV-59, U.S.S.Ticonderoga, CV-14, and the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk CV-63.

I was an Gunners Mate. Retired as an MCPO.

U.S.S Nautilus?

Your dad is a true hero, I can't even imagine serving aboard, what we called, iron coffins.
A true HERO indeed.

[gejohnston]

4. It isn't brandishing

brandish (ˈbrændɪʃ
vb (tr)
1. to wave or flourish (a weapon) in a triumphant, threatening, or ostentatious way
n
2. a threatening or defiant flourish

Legally, brandishing means doing so in a menacing or threatening manner. Granted, the dictionary also defines it as displaying ostentatiously. I doubt he is doing that either.
Political prop is a political prop. So the writer gave his opinion. Given the quality of much of HuffPo, which is about as worth the same as Sarah Palin's.

[Hangingon]

8. Thank you for this post!

I am tired of posters charging "brandishing" every time a gun is visible.

[sarisataka]

11. It is a hot button issue

Which has been co-opted, falsely IMO, into a right/left polarized stance. Waving a musket around causes a visceral reaction to those on the right as an appeal to common sensr does to those on the left. With their GC bona fides in place most never look farther to see if they agree with the speaker on any other issue.

9 times out of 10 those on the right will find themselves mostly in sync with the musket waver. Unfortunately those on the left don't see they are 90% in opposition to many common sense promoters.

[Lasher]

21. John Kerry in West Virginia on Labor Day 2004

He was at the annual UMWA rally at Racine. He was not pandering to rich people or Republicans. He was trying to get votes of the people in attendance, who were almost entirely West Virginia Democrats. I was there.

[CVN-68]

22. Nice shotgun!!!

[Lasher]

25. I believe it was UMWA Cecil Roberts who presented it to him there.

I always like to see Roberts speak. He is very good at it. Jay Rockefeller did Kerry's introduction. I got a chance to ask Kerry how his wife Teresa was doing (she had been taken ill, I think due to the stress of the campaign trail). He seemed surprised at that but genuinely appreciative for my concern.

I wish he'd have won.

[CVN-68]

27. I too, wish he would've won.

We wouldn't be in the mess we are now.