The Ridiculous Right’s Demented Ostrich Display — the Attack on President Obama’s Innocuous Gun Related Executive Orders

© 2013 Peter Free

 

18 January 2013

 

 

Theme — from an exasperated perspective, some people really are so malevolently stupid that they shouldn’t be allowed to procreate

 

There are a number of things arguably mistaken with the Obama Administration’s gun control proposal.  But his executive orders on the same are not one of them.

 

 

Even in the absence of a glimmer of reasonable legal justification — the Ridiculous Right went crazily off on the President’s innocuous gun-related executive orders

 

This overly large group of Mind Challenged Folk characterized the President’s orders as “tyranny” and called for the President’s impeachment.

 

 

A sample of the Demented Ostrich Clan in action — humorously presented by Jon Stewart

 

The Daily Show’s research staff often does a capable job of cobbling together snippets of video that synopsize opinion that takes me hours to survey:

 

Jon Stewart, January 17, 2013 — President Obama addresses gun control, the White House rebuffs a petition to build a Death Star, and Lena Dunham is a Golden Globes newbie, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (17 January 2013) (21:47 minute video)

 

Pertinent segments:

 

03:05 – 03:50 (Demented Right’s opinion regarding Obama’s orders)

03:50 – 05:30 (Stewart points to innocuousness of the orders)

05:30 – 05:55 (Right’s criticism of Obama’s use of kids)

05:55 – 06:15 (Gun advocate equates use of kids to Saddam Hussein)

06:38 – 06:49 (Gun advocate says Federal Government should turn in its assault rifles)

07:47 – 08:47 (Gun advocate says armed Jews would not have been Holocausted, while Stewart points out that it took 5 to 6 years of total war to topple Hitler)

08:47 – 10:00 (Gun advocate says Martin Luther King would agree with the armed Jews comment and that there would have been no slavery, if slaves had been armed)

10:00 – 10:54 (Stewart shreds Demented Right’s definition of “tyranny”)

 

 

“So, Pete, what are the President’s executive orders regarding guns?”

 

From CBS affiliate, WTVR (Richmond, Virginia), as received from the White House:

 

 

Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions:

 

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

 

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

 

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

 

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

 

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

 

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

 

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

 

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

 

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

 

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

 

11. Nominate an ATF director.

 

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

 

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

 

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

 

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

 

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

 

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

 

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

 

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

 

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

 

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

 

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

 

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

 

© 2013 Alix Bryan and White House, These are Obama’s 23 executive orders on gun safety, CBS — WTVR (17 January 2013)

 

 

Assesssed

 

Not a whole lot of Molotov Cocktail in these.

 

Clearly not anything (from a constitutional attorney’s perspective) that can be considered unconstitutionally outside the President’s authoritative purview.

 

 

Looking deeper — what is the Demented Right really objecting to in the President’s orders?

 

Most probably these elements:

 

Trying to make the background check system actually work as intended

 

Encouraging the reporting of gun crime

 

Tracing guns used in federal crimes

 

Keeping and sharing statistics on lost and stolen guns

 

Hinting at trying to make ATF capable of doing the job the public thought it was

 

Encouraging accurate gun violence reporting

 

Researching causes and prevention of gun violence

 

Generally acting as if gun violence is a national public health problem

 

 

The moral? — When there are legitimate points to vociferously object to, contained within the President’s overall gun control proposal (PDF) — why does the Demented Ostrich Clan insist on attacking its most reasonable and lawful content?

 

What is the gist of the Rabidly Rollicking Right’s objection?

 

 

“It is evil to examine Reality, when it is so soothing to ignore it.”

 

In view of its fundamental public health implications, gun violence regulation is a spiritual question:

 

 

The Bullet Worshipping Right recognizes this — at some psychologically repressed level.  And it spends a good deal of time trying to remove the implications of gun violence from its appropriate public health context.

 

By denying

(a) the gun violence problem

and

(b) a rational person’s insight that it might just have something to do with too many easily available firearms in too many unregulated hands, 

the Deranged Right evades confronting the deeper moral question about annually sustaining thousands of gun deaths.

 

The Right’s irrationally frequent response to global warming (and Science, generally) falls into the same category:

 

“If we ignore it, it ain’t there — and we won’t have to change any of our habits, comforts, and erroneous beliefs.”

 

The irony in all this is that our Continually Caviling Conservative Crazies invent political tyrannies that are not there — in order to ignore or support the trend toward rights suppression that actually is.

 

This is more than political “trolling.”  It is the Malevolence of All Consuming Stupidity.