Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns

153 Pages·2013·1.46 MB·English

by  Glenn Beck

CONTENTS
Author’s Note
PART ONE: The Truth about Guns
“It’s Time for America to Have a Conversation about Guns.”
“We Should Start Drafting a Bill to Ensure Newtown Never Happens Again.”
“Guns Are Lethal.”
“No One Wants to Take Your Guns Away.”
“Well, Can’t We at Least Clarify the Second Amendment?”
“That May Be, but Even Thomas Jefferson Wanted the Second Amendment to
Expire.”
“The United States Has the Highest Gun Murder Rate in the Developed World.”
“Okay, but the Overall U.S. Murder Rate Is Much Higher than Other Wealthy
Countries’.”
“But Other Countries Have Strict Gun Control and Very Few Murders.”
“The United States Is Unique in Suffering from Gun Massacres.”
“Then Why Are Gun Massacres Now Happening More than Ever Here in the
United States?”
“No Mass Killings Have Ever Been Stopped by Someone Else with a Gun.”
“Regardless, if We Really Want to Stop Gun Massacres We Need to Bring Back
the Assault Weapons Ban.”
“You Are So Out of Touch. Even the Most Conservative Member of the
Supreme Court Thinks We Should Ban Assault Weapons.”
“No Civilian Needs a Military-Style Weapon.”
“Yeah, but If You Modify One, It Becomes Fully Automatic.”
“I Still Don’t Understand Why Anyone Would Need a Semi-Automatic in Their
Home.”
“I’ve Heard that You Plan on Defeating the Entire United States Military with
Your Assault Rifle.”
“I’m Glad You Brought the Second Amendment Up Again. You Have to Admit
that It’s Pretty Outdated.”
“Even if That’s True, Everyone Agreed that the Second Amendment Was Only
About Militias.”
“Most Guns Kept in the Home Are Used for Something Other than Self-
Defense.”
“Keeping a Gun at Home Is Pointless Anyway.”
“Okay, but that Doesn’t Apply to Women. They’re Still More Likely to Be
Killed When There’s a Gun in the Home.”
“Forty Percent of All Guns Are Sold Without Background Checks.”
“Gun Shows Are Where Criminals Get All Their Weapons.”
“Even a Majority of National Rifle Association Members Support Universal
Background Checks.”
“The NRA Is the Poster Child for Bad Research.”
“The 2004 Report Said We Need More Data and Research on Guns—and
They’re Right, We Need to Know More.”
“More Guns Means More Crime. Any Data to the Contrary Is a Lie or NRA
Propaganda.”
“The Reason Nothing Changes Is that the NRA Buys Off Politicians.”
“The NRA Is So Crazy that They Actually Want to Arm Our Kids!”
“Columbine Proves that Putting Armed Guards in Schools Just Doesn’t Work.”
“College Students Are Too Irresponsible to Carry Guns.”
“The Police Support More Gun Control Laws—You Should, Too.”
“We Should Restrict Magazines to a Maximum of Ten Rounds.”
“Don’t Believe the Gun Nuts: Hitler Didn’t Take Anyone’s Firearms Away.”
PART TWO: Winning Hearts and Minds
Denying the Science
Stimulus/Response
The Truth about (No) Consequences
Trained to Kill
Scapegoating and Excuses
The Way Forward
About Glenn Beck
Notes
To Martin Luther King, Jr.
who preached nonviolence but knew that passive resistance could not be relied on for his
own family’s protection. King owned several guns but was subjected to the worst kind of gun
control—and deprived of his basic right to defend himself and his family—when police in
Alabama denied him a concealed carry permit in 1956. When will we learn? The right to
bear arms shall not be infringed.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
We can do better. We must do something.
—SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT), December 20, 2012
We must act, we must act, we must act.
—ARNE DUNCAN, U.S. secretary of education, January 26, 2013
Last December a man was pushed onto the subway tracks in midtown
Manhattan. He was hit by a train as he struggled to pull himself back up onto the
platform.
Fifty-five people were killed by New York City subway trains in 2012, but
this incident stood out for one major reason: a freelance photographer who’d
been standing on the platform snapped a photo of the man just seconds before he
was struck. The next morning the photo appeared on the front page of the New
York Post.
With the horrific image in hand, the media had a story. This was now an
epidemic. Every time someone got hit, the incident was treated as though it were
another example of just how lethal the New York City subway had become.
And, of course, politicians demanded action. “We cannot have incident after
incident take place like this without saying we are going to act,” said
Councilman James Vacca as he called for an emergency hearing. “We have to
have a plan.”
And so a plan was crafted: glass walls could be built from floor to ceiling
along the tracks of all 468 stations in the system. Accidents would be stopped
and suicidal people would have to find another way to kill themselves. It would
big, audacious, and expensive—and it would send a signal to everyone that this
epidemic of violence would not be tolerated.
There was only one small problem with all of this: there was no epidemic. In
fact, fewer people had been struck by trains that year than the year before, and
the number of fatalities was right around the five-year average. The front-page
photos and increased media attention had clouded public perception, but the
statistics did not lie.
It’s human nature to want to do something when confronted with a tragedy. It
makes us feel good. It makes us sleep better. It makes people vote for us.
But it often doesn’t make a real difference.
There have been several unthinkable tragedies involving guns recently. The
media and many politicians tell us that these massacres are happening more
frequently than ever before; that America is the most violent country on earth;
that our schools are unsafe; that semi-automatic assault rifles are to blame; and
that we must do something.
As you’ll discover in this book, the basic premise of every single one of those
claims is wrong. Worse, when we allow these myths to be accepted as fact, we
end up focusing so much on the how of these crimes—the weapon itself—that
we stop ourselves from asking the far more appropriate question: why?
Last year in New York City a nanny stabbed to death the two young children
she was caring for. It was a gruesome, traumatic incident that shocked the entire
city. In the aftermath of this tragedy, the media focused on the nanny’s
background, trying desperately to figure out her motive. Everyone wanted to
know if there was something that should have tipped people off or some way to
prevent this from ever happening again.
But no one talked about the knife. People intuitively understood that this
woman could have used a knife, a gun, or her bare hands—the weapon didn’t
really matter; it was just a tool. What mattered was not the how—horrific as it
was—but the why.
Unfortunately, when it comes to guns, this kind of sober analysis is usually
turned upside down. After someone is shot, the story starts with details about the
kind of gun used, the capacity of its magazine, and a rundown of how it was
acquired. The why comes later and, even then, we usually hear only what we
want to hear. It’s easy when the motive fits our preconceived notions—revenge,
greed, money, sex, or drugs—but what about when it doesn’t? What happens
when we uncover that some of the worst juvenile killers in our history were
influenced—and in some cases, trained, by entertainment violence, like video
games? Do we continue to ask questions and pursue the truth, or do we stop
listening because it hits so close to home?
On a Sunday night in December, two days after the Newtown, Connecticut,
school massacre (a massacre perpetrated by a boy who reportedly had an
obsession with violent video games), David Axelrod, the president’s former top
political adviser, was watching a football game and posted an observation on
Twitter: “In NFL post-game: an ad for shoot ’em up video game. All for curbing
weapons of war. But shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game?”
I’m sure that David Axelrod and I don’t agree on much, but the answer to his
question, as you’ll see in Part Two of this book, is an unequivocal yes. The
evidence is indisputable that what is different in society now isn’t the guns; it’s
the person, the culture, and the cavalier way we treat violence. Without morality
and virtue most things in a free society fall apart. But with them, anything is
possible.
Of course, that argument is not going to satisfy everyone—especially those
who are predisposed to blaming guns for everything. So, in Part One, I go
through all the myths and lies that have been told about guns and the Second
Amendment over the last few months and dismantle them, point by point. For
example, gun-related mass killings are, thankfully, still incredibly rare. As with
the New York City subway incidents, there has been no increase in the
frequency of these events, or the number of people who die in them. What has
increased, however, is the number of people making the case that Americans
should give back some of their liberty in an attempt to buy a little security.
I think I remember someone pretty smart once advising that those who do that
deserve neither liberty nor security.
The Founders wrote in the Second Amendment that our right to keep and bear
arms “shall not be infringed.” To infringe means “to limit or undermine”—so
you’ll have to forgive me for being a little skeptical about those who use a
tragedy to promote an agenda that culminates in limiting or undermining our
right to keep and bear arms. Besides, the people who talk most about the need to
regulate guns are also usually the same people who know the least about them.
Ask these gun prohibitionists about the Second Amendment and they’ll usually
mention hunting or sport shooting. I’ve searched and searched the Constitution
and can’t find any mention of how our ability to shoot deer or quail is pertinent
to securing the “blessings of liberty.”
In my view, the right to bear arms is in the Constitution for three main
reasons: self-protection, community protection, and protection from tyranny.
Because those are such large, overarching intentions, they’re virtually
impossible to destroy all at once. So progressives start small. They introduce
“commonsense” regulations and restrictions that will supposedly save lives.
Then, each time the public’s attention is captured, they push further. Given
enough time, guns and ammunition will eventually become so costly and time-
consuming to purchase, maintain, and insure that a ban will no longer be
necessary.
And that’s what this is really all about: control. Not of guns, but of us.
Controlling what we eat and drive, how we heat our homes, and how we educate
our kids—that’s all small potatoes compared to controlling our overall
relationship with government. If progressives can change the Second
Amendment from “shall not be infringed” to “no guns except what we allow,”
then they will have turned the entire Constitution on its head.
This is the path we are on. The only way to change our course is to expose
this agenda and wake as many people up as possible. That is one of the reasons I
published this book in this format: I wanted it to be inexpensive and easily
shareable. It’s my hope that you will read it and then pass it on to others,
especially those who may be susceptible to trading away their liberty in a time of
crisis.
I am a proud gun owner and lifetime member of the NRA. I believe firmly
that our Bill of Rights is not merely a list of suggestions, but a road map to
freedom. When we stray from that map even a little, and even for what seems to
be a very good reason, we are certain to face the consequences.
So go ahead and arm yourself with a gun—learn how to use it safely and
always respect what it represents—but I hope that you’ll also arm yourself and
your family with the one thing that’s even more powerful: information. Know
the facts. Live the truth. Information is power. Those without it have nothing.
Those with it will always have CONTROL.
Glenn Beck
Dallas, Texas
March 2013