Right-wing pundits now lecturing the military about guns

[babylonsister]

:crazy:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200911110020

Right-wing pundits now lecturing the military about guns

November 11, 2009 1:58 pm ET by Eric Boehlert


Interesting to watch, to say the least. It's sort of like watching right-wing pundits lecture police chiefs about guns when they're not sufficiently radical in their pro-guns views. But watching the same commentators now target the U.S. military is really a bit much.

In the wake of the Ft. Hood handgun massacre, more and more conservative commentators, adopting an at-times openly hostile tone towards the military, are explaining exactly what went wrong on the Army base. Mostly, conservatives are calling out the U.S. military as a bastion of liberalism where political correctness runs amok, which I'm guessing comes as a surprise to those who actually serve in the military, especially Muslim American soldiers.

Now the latest emerging talking point is that U.S. Army bases need more guns and that, according to today's WashTimes editorial, basically everyone at Ft. Hood should be walking around with a loaded pistol, if they want.

The argument is to be expected, since following the gun massacre at Virginia Tech, conservatives immediately began lobbying in hopes of passing a law which would allow college students to carry loaded weapons and turn campuses into gun meccas. And now the rhetorical push is on to do the same at military bases, as conservative commentators lecture the military about how to deal with guns.

As General (Ret.) Barry McCaffrey noted on MSNBC, immediately following the Ft. Hood shooting, "There is ferocious gun control measures on soldiers and families on a military installation." Who do you think has a better handle on how to deal with firearms in the real world, military commanders or editorial writers for the Washington Times?

UPDATED: And just so you know, according to the WashTimes, the Ft. Hood shooting was all Bill Clinton's fault. That's how the Times couches its rhetoric, which allows the editorial to directly attack Clinton (instead of the Pentagon) for allegedly instituting gun control measure on military bases. But the larger premise is unmistakable: the WashTimes know better how guns should be handled on bases than do military commanders.

UPDATED: And no, of course the WashTimes doesn't spend one sentencing contemplating where and how the Ft. Hood shooter was able to purchase his guns and bags full of ammunition.

[cynatnite]

1. 5 soldiers dead at Camp Liberty where EVERYONE had guns...

all shot down by a lone gunman with mental health problems.

When will these people get it that arming the populace won't do a damn bit of good if someone's intent on killing as many as possible.

[villager]

2. That last "update" is key. Their NRA-sanctioned rhetoric is never about keeping potential shooters

from getting guns (or even engaging in an honest examination of how/where he might've got his arsenal), but rather, the fantasy that everyone, everywhere should walk around strapped, itchy trigger fingers at the ready, prepared to "return fire!" at a nanosecond's notice...

[CanonRay]

3. Times were, after a bad shooting

people used to call for more gun control. Now they call for more guns. The times they are a changin'