Piers Morgan: Unbelievably Wrong and Dishonest

Stop Wasting Money ^ | 01/07/2013 | WARREN REDLICH

Piers Morgan has continued with his gun-bashing. Here's his latest, Deport Me?

Morgan makes a number of huge mistakes and misrepresentations in his assault, not unlike Jason Alexander's rant against the AR-15.
Here are key points where Morgan (and other gun control nuts) go unbelievably wrong:

[M]y anger turned to blind rage when I saw the reaction to this hideous massacre in America. … Sales of the specific weapon used, an AR-15 military-style assault rifle, rocketed …. And … Brownells said it sold more high-capacity bullet magazines in three days than it normally did in three-and-a-half years.
What is behind this apparently insane behaviour? The answer is, mainly, fear.

The increase in gun buying is not out of fear of violence, but rather fear of new gun restrictions. People planning to buy guns moved up their purchases to get them before any ban takes place. Past gun bans, like the Clinton ban, grandfathered in guns that were purchased before the ban went into effect. This increased the market value of the pre-ban guns, so buying before a grandfathered ban is also a good financial investment. I was out with a friend tonight who was looking at buying a large lot of high-capacity magazines, not to use them but because he thinks they will increase in value.

The well-organised, richly funded, vociferous pro-gun lobby were … declaring that the only way those schoolchildren would have survived is if their teachers had been armed. It’s been their answer to every mass shooting.

No, that’s not what gun rights supporters say. Some advocate allowing teachers and other school staff to carry concealed weapons if they are otherwise allowed to do so (i.e. they have a permit where required, don’t have a felony record, etc.) and if they get some training.
Other suggestions include focusing on keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and people with dangerous mental health problems. Many of us also take the position that there may not be a good solution to this problem, but prohibitions make things worse, not better. Prohibitions, like alcohol prohibition, do not prevent anything and create more violence.
It is also interesting to note Morgan’s use of language, referring to gun rights supporters with all kinds of pejorative terms, as if gun control supporters are not an organized, well-funded, vociferous lobby. That’s a classic sign of bias, but no one is surprised by that.

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.

No, not everyone. What we are saying is that those who want to carry, and are not otherwise disqualified from doing so, should be allowed to do so. And as mentioned above, the focus should be on keeping guns from criminals, not from law-abiding citizens.

Finally, I erupted at one of them, a man with the unfortunate name of Larry Pratt, who runs the Gun Owners of America lobbying group.
‘You,’ I eventually declared, ‘are an unbelievably stupid man.’
And that was the catalyst for the full wrath of the gun lobby to crash down on my British head.

Hello? Mr. Morgan, that was a completely inappropriate thing to say. It’s what’s commonly known as an ad hominem argument, attacking the person rather than discussing his argument.

The concerted effort to get me thrown out of the country – which has so far gathered more than 90,000 signatures – struck me as rather ironic, given that by expressing my opinion I was merely exercising my rights, as a legal US resident, under the 1st Amendment, which protects free speech.

The NRA has 4.3 million members. If it was a concerted effort there’d be more signatures. Most of us realize that petition was dumb. But if we apply your logic on the Second Amendment to the First Amendment, your speech wouldn’t be protected because there was no television in the late 1700s. If the gun control lobby claims the Second doesn’t cover modern rifles, why would the First cover modern communication technology?

I’m just the latest target, the advantage to the gun lobbyists being that I’m British, a breed of human being who burned down the White House in 1814 and had to be forcefully deported en masse, as no American will ever be allowed to forget – Special Relationship notwithstanding.

Now you’re being unbelievably stupid, not to mention a first-class whiner. It’s the French we hate. Americans love the Brits – the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. Even Simon Cowell. Princess Diana was wildly popular here, until she was hounded to death my European media types like, yes, Piers Morgan.

The US firearm murder rate is 19.5 times higher than the 22 next most populous, high-income countries in the world.

This is a classic abuse of statistics by the gun control lobby. Morgan cites the firearm murder rate. That is a deliberately chosen statistic because if he used just the murder rate then the numbers would be quite different.
The US murder rate is higher than Europe, but only a bit. The European murder rate, as a whole, is 3.5 per 100,000 residents. The US rate is 4.3. But the homicide rate for the Americas, where we live, is 15.4, more than triple the US murder rate. Our nearest neighbor to the south, Mexico, has an even higher rate of 22.7, despite having strict gun laws. Eastern Europe has more killings with 6.4.
In the US we have wide variation in our homicide rates. Some states and areas, like Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have strict gun laws and a lot of violent crime. New Hampshire and Vermont have low murder rates, like Western Europe, with little or no gun laws.
One could use the same phony statistical approach to say that Japan has a low gun suicide rate, even though their overall suicide rate is triple ours. But that wouldn’t advance the gun control cause.

I’ve watched in despair as the volume of gun-related massacres has escalated. … And I’ve been shocked at how America’s politicians have been cowed into a woeful, shameful virtual silence by the gun lobbyists and the all-powerful National Rifle Association in particular.

America’s politicians have been cowed by the voters, not the lobbyists or the NRA. Gun rights are popular in most of the country, especially in Republican areas. That’s why strict gun laws only happen in places controlled by Democrats.
Morgan’s focus on “gun-related massacres” is typical of the anti-gun media mindset. Violent crime is a much bigger problem in certain non-white communities, but they don’t make the news in the same way. The Piers Morgans of our mainstream media don’t care about blacks getting killed because that’s not newsworthy. Far more children have been killed in Chicago and Washington DC this year than in Newtown. But they’re mostly killed with handguns, not AR-15s, so they don’t fit with the story the media wants to tell.

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.

All interest groups do that. It only works because the voters agree with the NRA on this issue. Morgan might do better to complain about lobbying by big corporate interests but that’s who signs his paycheck.

Nor do I have a problem with those who use guns for hunting or for sport. I also understand, and respect, how there is an inherent national belief in America, based on their understanding of the 2nd Amendment, that everyone should be allowed to have a gun at home for the purposes of self-defence.

Hunting, sport and self-defense are not the purpose of the Second Amendment – the security of a free state. It is for American citizens to be ready to defend our country, from enemies both foreign and domestic.

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.

If anyone talked like that about the First Amendment, the media would be screaming at maximum volume.
The unfortunately ambiguous wording of the 1st Amendment is twisted to mean that anyone in America can say whatever they want, however powerful, and in whatever quantity and medium they want.
That doesn’t sound too good, does it?

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

Has Morgan shopped for guns at Walmart? Here in South Florida, there is only one Walmart in each county that sells guns. The others only sell ammunition (and are often out of stock for certain calibers). I went to the Walmart that sells guns. While they have several rifles and shotguns, there is only one AR-15 model. The AR-15 is generally a very expensive item, and Walmart is known for cheap products.
I tried to buy a shotgun but they said there would be a 5-day wait because I didn’t have a Florida concealed-carry license at that time. There are no “magazines” that carry 100 rounds or more. Most mags carry 30 or fewer. There are drums that carry such large quantities but Walmart doesn’t sell those either.
The weight of such a large drum also matters. Empty it weighs over 2 pounds, and with the ammo it’s over 5 lbs, nearly doubling the weight of the rifle and making it harder to handle, especially if you’re moving with it.

[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.

Morgan is playing with language again. First, the Oregon mall incident and the Webster firemen incident were not “mass shootings”. In Oregon three people were shot. In Webster it was four. Second, while an AR-15 was used in Aurora, it was not the only weapon. 70 people were hit, and the AR jammed after 30 rounds. This means the AR shot less than half of the rounds fired. The shooter also used a shotgun and two handguns. At Sandy Hook there is some question as to whether the AR-15 was used at all, as early reports indicate the shooter used 4 handguns and the rifle was found in the trunk of a car. We don’t trust the government or the media on this.

The AR-15 looks and behaves like a military weapon and should be confined to the military and police force. No member of the public has any need for a death machine that can fire up to six rounds a second when modified and can clear a 100-bullet magazine (as used in Aurora) within a minute.

The AR-15 does not behave like a military weapon. It is the civilian version of the M-16 which is used by the military. The AR is semi-automatic. It fires once for each pull of the trigger. The M-16 is selective fire. In addition to semi-auto, it can fire in “burst mode” which fires three rounds with one pull, and in full-auto keeps firing as long as the trigger is pressed.
In theory an AR could fire 6 rounds per second, that would be difficult (requiring 6 pulls of the trigger a second) and highly inaccurate. As I noted in a previous post, the AR-15 sustains a rate of fire of 12 to 15 rounds a minute. Higher rates of fire can be achieved for short bursts, but overly rapid shooting can cause problems due to overheating and fouling of the mechanism. That’s probably why the Aurora shooter’s rifle jammed at 30 rounds instead of clearing the drum.

The only apparent reason anyone seems to offer up is that using such weapons is ‘fun’.

No, that is not the reason we buy them. The AR-15 is a precise instrument. The best ones are able to hit their target with great precision which is why they’re so highly prized in shooting matches, such as the Service Rifle competitions conducted by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. AR-15s and other rifles are useful for many purposes, because they are effective weapons.

President Obama … said he’s keen to pursue a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And he wants a closure of the absurd loopholes that mean 40 per cent of all gun sales in America currently have no background checks whatsoever – meaning any crackpot or criminal can get their hands on whatever they want.

I previously responded to Gov. Cuomo, Obama and the NRA on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Here Morgan also brings up the issue of so-called loopholes. He does this in the context of the Sandy Hook shooting, where the guns were not obtained through sale at all. Lanza illegally stole the guns from his mother, who obtained them lawfully. How would a background check have mattered? It appears that the Webster shooter also obtained his rifle illegally. And this hits on what gun rights supporters have been saying quite a bit. Restricting law-abiding citizens doesn’t stop criminals from getting guns.
Morgan exposes his true agenda next:

These measures, which will be resisted every step of the way, won’t stop all gun crime. Nor all mass shootings. There are too many guns out there, and too many criminals and mentally deranged people keen to use them. But the measures will at least make a start.

This is why we don’t trust liberals on gun control. “A start” – meaning that Morgan, like most liberals, wants to ban all guns. They know if they were honest about this they’d never persuade anywhere near half the voters.
And Morgan shows the full extent of this next:

Obama should follow up by launching a Government buy-back for all existing assault weapons in circulation …. I would go further, confiscating the rest and enforcing tough prison sentences on those who still insist on keeping one.

Right. So not only does Morgan want to throw out the Second Amendment, but now he’s ready to toss property rights and the Fourth Amendment too. People, this is the government searching your homes. This is how the next civil war will start, and liberals like Morgan should think twice about what side the police and the soldiers will take.
Morgan closes with more dishonesty:

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. … 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.

Raise your hand if you think Piers Morgan will send his child to a public school. … Hmm … I don’t see any hands up. That’s because the wealthy and powerful send their kids to private schools with armed guards.
It would be nice if the liberal gun control nuts would be honest about what they really want. But would violate their standard operating procedures.