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Obama’s Partisan Memorial Speech in Dallas
This is a preview from Wednesday morning’s The Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe here free of charge.
Yesterday, a memorial was held in Dallas for Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa, the five police officers killed in last week’s shooting. President Obama spoke, as did former President George W. Bush.
Bush called for people to come together. “At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity…. Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.” It was a time for national unity. Obama even brought Ted Cruz along on Air Force One.
And then Obama went and ruined it by using the solemn occasion to mouth a particularly nonsensical piece of left-wing gibberish: “We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.” This quote was so insane that when the White House tweeted it, they left off the book part. (Of course, we’re assuming he’s talking about the United States and not, like, Mogadishu.)
Do we even need to explain this?
Okay, so first, you can’t buy a handgun if you’re under 18. So any “teenager” he’s talking about (were they to actually exist) is an adult. Second, Glocks are expensive. We checked prices, and even a used one will cost you several hundred dollars. You can get a laptop at Walmart for far cheaper and refurbished ones can be had for less than a hundred bucks. And that’s not counting smartphones or the computers that students have access to through school.
And then there’s the books. There are 119,000 libraries in the United States, including 81,000 public school libraries. But beyond that, because Amazon exists, in a lot of cases it’s easier to just buy a book and have it shipped to you than to bother trudging down to the library. And that’s to say nothing of the stacks of books lying around doctor’s offices and coffee shops free for the taking.
So, this probably goes without saying, but no, it’s not easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than to get a computer or a book. But thank you, Mr. President, for using tragedy as an excuse to spew hyperbolic rhetorical nonsense about gun control.
This is a preview from Wednesday morning’s The Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe here free of charge.
Published in Guns, Policing, Politics
We had a news channel on at the office coming from another room when the usual matter of fact tone suddenly turned to louder cadence and preaching, until someone said “what is that sound?” and went and turned it down to all around smiles and nods.
Truth is whatever advances the cause.
All day he tried to somehow equate the murder of police officers with the suspects killed by police. He can’t leave office soon enough.
The sad thing to me is that he started off so well in this speech. He tried to hit on the “more than unites us than divides us” aspect, and he even tried to personalize the vicitms, telling a little story about each of them that tugged the heart strings. But then, as in all things, he pivoted to make it political.
This statement really just shows how little Obama and his staff know about guns. They know they don’t like them, or the people that buy / sell them, and that’s the extent of their knowledge.
And how little Obama knows about leadership.
His address started out well but then the lecture began. First of all the memorial was to honor the five fallen officers. This service was for the families, and for the officers that worked with the fallen officers.
As far as his comments on how easy it is for a teen to buy a Glock President Obama has a very short memory. His Justice Department coerced a federally licensed gun dealer in Arizona to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels. This still angers residents in the Tucson area. Some of those guns have come back across the border. One of them was used in the murder of Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry. God only knows how many were used in murders in Mexico. His administration made cartel gun purchases very easy indeed. This operation violated Mexican sovereignty as well.
Over 1,000 firearms were involved. President Obama has no moral authority in any argument concerning the illegal possession or sales of firearms.
It is always an exciting time at school when I slip my kids a few extra bucks so they can go to the Scholastic Glock Fair.
The nonsense has many layers. We have to start with the first word and work our way through.
We. Who is the ‘we’ that does this?
flood communities
define ‘community’. Does this mean certain places and not others. Couldn’t every place people reside be called a community? This is code for ghettos.
The imagery of “flood”, is this a subtle Katrina reference? Or is it the economic concept of ‘flooding the market’ such that prices go down? Does Obama believe in the supply and demand theory of the market and if so, how does that explain his economic polices?
with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock
covered in the OP, except for the concept that most teenagers in ‘communities’ are unemployed and poor and aren’t supposed to be able to ‘buy’ much of anything. Guns are expensive and illegal for minors. Ironically only police are empowered to get illegal guns off the street.
Why would we expect a President who rose to power by exploiting the inner city black community to sympathize with cops over black activists? Why would we expect a President who said “I don’t have all the facts, but I’m sure the police acted stupidly” to set aside his partisanship and honor those shot by a group he, in truth, actually supports?
Dreams from my father is actually a good book. Yes, I read it.
than get his hands on a computer or even a book
Given that it’s obvious that books and computers are plentiful and easy to ‘get one’s hands on’ if not buy one (or several) outright for less than the cost (and risk) of purchasing an illicit firearm from an arms dealer’s trunk in cash, it also presupposes that a book or a computer would somehow take the place of, supplant or mitigate the need/desire for a gun. It presumes that a teenager with a gun does not already possess a computer and likely several books.
This is a classic left-wing style formulation that overloads the meme with many self-cancelling concepts and assumptions. As many as possible in order to confound minds, and assert more of the tropes.
This one says, in effect. We (some others) are foisting these nasty things onto innocents who would only need books and computers to thrive and prosper in peace.
To the extent that the teenagers BHO is talking about are buying guns illegally from neighborhood thieves who’ve stolen them, he might be right. But, of course, he doesn’t want to do anything to directly eliminate illegal possession of firearms in the ghetto. Don’t want more police disrupting life in the ‘Hood! His thinking (to the extent he even does that) is that if firearms are taken away from lawful purchasers, there will be fewer firearms available for thieves to steal. Brilliant!
It would be bad enough if this was just some silly political rally, but this was a memorial service. I’m surprised the families and other officers didn’t just get up and walk out. Being a bad politician is one thing, but this is a case of Obama being a bad human being.
I never care about watching many of his speeches when there are great tragedies taking place. He ends up politicizing it one way or another. People want to come and reflect on their loss, not receive a speech or lecture on gun control issues. Save that for after the service.
How can you mug someone with a book? Makes no sense.
You laugh, but such a thing actually exists, and it’s quite fun…
Great commentary, Fred. I cheered reading it in my inbox this morning.
And I love that you started with the officers’ names. Let them not be forgotten.
Haven’t read it myself. The book is over ten years old now. How does it hold up as compared to today’s works of fiction?
This is what I thought when I heard him say this in his shrill tone. It is a memorial service!! The point is to honor the dead and to soothe the mourners. What a clueless, self-centered person. He is so consistent in this, too.
Reminds me of a Memorial Day service I went to years ago, in Minnesota. The guest speakers were then-Senator Mark Dayton and the late Paul Wellstone. Dayton, for all his faults, gave a straight-up speech honoring the fallen. Wellstone, like Obama today, went political. I distinctly remember him telling us about how hard he “fought for veteran’s benefits,” and that such benefits were a “sacred right.”
This administration handed out placemats about how to talk about Obamacare during Thanksgiving, and their lackeys over at Bloomberg’s CSGV has tips on how to talk about gun control at Christmas.
Why would they let a little thing like decorum get in the way of getting the message out?
But inner city kids can’t get to a Walmart because union bosses and Democrat politicians won’t let them build in their cities.
Barack Obama, No Class.
Hah, it’s about his years before Harvard, being a community organizer in Chicago. The last few chapters are a visit to Kenya and a bit slow. He writes very well, or has a very good editor.
You mean Bill Ayers is a good writer, right?
Oh . . . that book . . . maybe he has a point. I would find it much easier [to stomach] paying $500 for the Glock than $0.01 for the book. Even with free shipping on Amazon.
Did you intend to price the book at one tenth of a cent?
Actually that is one hundredth of a cent . . . still too much.