Using Crying Mothers as Human Shields

The Left, with the cooperation of some on the right such as Senator Toomey, and Alan Gottlieb, Chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, is trying desperately to convince us that the current gun control bill will be good for gun owners. One of the latest ploys is the tried and time tested tactic of hauling crying mothers before the camera. Adam Shaw exposes this particular strategy of the Left in an American Thinker piece today entitled Hiding Behind Grieving Mothers. He points out that the Left uses grieving mothers as human shields to avoid having to argue their desired goal on its own merits. Shaw:

In any normal situation, the President's decision to push Francine Wheeler -- a sobbing, grieving mother of a six-year-old boy killed at Sandy Hook -- in front of the cameras to argue for the latest Senate gun control bill would be breathtaking for its exploitation and its cynicism. Yet now it is a regular part and parcel of a typical left-wing tactic -- to suppress rational discussion with a tidal wave of emotion.

Shaw goes on to point out that emotion and rational thought need not be divorced from each other. Rather, emotion compels us to act, but rational thought informs us how to act. In the case of Francine Wheeler, I grieve right along with her. I think about how it would devastate the lives of my daughter and her husband, the grandparents on his side of the family, and my wife and I if my own grand children were murdered in their school. But then I put on my thinking cap (remember those) and I note: 1) The United States has banned so called "assault weapons" before, and it had no effect on crime. 2) The United States has done background checks on those who obtain weapons through licensed dealers, but most criminals don't get their guns through licensed dealers. Most criminals also don't get their guns at gun shows. Oh, and people who buy over the Internet must get a background check before they can pick up their guns. Same deal at auctions and pawn stores.

I also note that the existing regulations have had a devastating effect on not only the 2nd Amendment, but the other Amendments as well. For example, under the background check system, you must prove your innocence of any of the situations listed to the satisfaction of the bureaucrats at the National Crime Information Center before you may exercise your fundamental human right to be armed. Yet our law says that you can not be deprived of these rights without due process. Therefore any background check seems to violate the very letter of the Constitution. Having more of it hardly seems to help matters, indeed sets yet more bad precedent. And if you are a Leftists who is claiming that the sacred right to vote should not be burdened even by requiring you to prove who you are before voting, how do you square that circle?

Finally, I note that while this is one weeping mother who supposedly stands for all, not all of them agree that the Senate's gun bill is the way to go. 

Even Newtown's school board has voted for armed security, voting unanimously to request an armed guard for each of the district’s four elementary schools. In Newtown, the argument isn't over whether it's a good idea to have armed guards, but rather if schools should have more than one armed guard. Board member Richard Gaines asked "Is that enough?"

Shaw again:

Mrs. Wheeler spends the majority of the video talking about her son, before immediately arguing that we should pass the Senate bill -- a bill that would not have prevented the shooting. What she implies (that this bill would have saved her son's life) is false, and if she was to explicitly say what she implies, she would be lying. Yet who wants to be the one to call a grieving mother out on that?

This is Obama's tactic -- he knows that Republicans do not want to be seen as uncaring, or as attacking a weeping mother. The Democrats are using the families of those killed as riot shields with which to back Republicans into a corner, instead of having the guts to stand up and argue rationally for what they believe in.

As Adam Shaw said, prove it. Show us the facts that prove your proposal will do anything to prevent another Newtown.  It has been noted that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity. I would change that from insanity to inanity. In any case, there is no evidence that any of the gun control laws on the books have eliminated crimes, even the background checks being currently debated. So why expand them. Why not try something else instead?