Glenn Beck Fearmongers About Border Chaos To Attack Obama's Gun Policy

[RamboLiberal]

On his radio show, Glenn Beck fearmongered about violence along the U.S.-Mexico border to suggest that the government will confiscate Americans' guns. In fact, the Justice Department has simply issued regulations putting in place a reporting requirement for multiple purchases of certain kinds of rifles, and, furthermore, violence in areas on the U.S. side of the border is dropping.

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BECK: Why would they be taking the guns away from the people on the border states? Why? That makes no sense. As things become more and more unruly, you want people to be able to protect themselves. The only one that's really having a problem smuggling, you know, guns across the border -- oh, I don't know -- is the ATF and the Justice Department. Our own people are doing it. Our government is doing it. You want to stop guns at the border? Here's an idea: put up a fence. You want to make sure it doesn't go through customs, it doesn't go through the border crossings, great. Support our border guards. That's the way you do it. Why would they disarm the American people? Why would they make it more difficult? If you want to put that in, you put that in for the entire country. Because they know the entire country would have a cow. This is where they begin.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201107200030

Stoking the paranoia of the RW nutjobs like the cop-killer in Pittsburgh that was sentenced recently to the death penalty. He believed Obama was going to take his guns so he killed 3 cops. And he was probably a Beck listener since he chatted on Stormfront about FEMA camps about same time as Beck.

[gejohnston]

1. leave it to the self described rodeo clown who is an insult to

real rodeo clowns who put themselves in danger.

Stoking the paranoia of the RW nutjobs like the cop-killer in Pittsburgh that was sentenced recently to the death penalty. He believed Obama was going to take his guns so he killed 3 cops.

Since Faux kicked him to the curb, could Beck be taking money from Joyce to be a false flag? Convince one or two weak minded guys to pull a Pittsburgh, Congress jumps through the proper hoops. Or is my imagination getting away from me?

[Euromutt]

2. It's a tempting thought, but I doubt it

Beck's enough of a dishonest, self-serving, demagogue without needing any external inducements to perform his schtick.

[Euromutt]

3. I don't like how the reporting requirements were shoved through, but Beck's just way past dishonest

I'll make it abundantly clear: I do not like the reporting requirements on rifle sales. I don't like how they were pushed through by executive fiat, and I think that the provisions are going to generate so many reports that the ATF is going to get itself snowed under that it's exceedingly unlikely that it'll gain any actionable intelligence from the reports in time to put it to use.

But the reporting requirements aren't depriving anyone of the freedom to purchase multiple semi-automatic long guns at a time, much less "taking the guns away from the people on the border states." The notion that they will "disarm the American people" is so fucking looney-tunes it doesn't even bear dignifying with any response (except "oh, shut the fuck up, you lying crybaby").

[BryanDavis]

4. .

You know what I don't like?

I don't like that Operation Gunrunner by the same ATF and DOJ that you cite, allowed thousands of semi-auto rifles to cross the border into Mexico, and then, in a coup de grâce the Obama administration talks about this new requirement After the scandal occurred.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gunrunner

[Euromutt]

5. I don't disagree; heads need to roll over "Fast & Furious"

But that doesn't make anything Beck said less of a lie.

[Katya Mullethov]

6. Indeed

But neither heads nor shit roll uphill .