USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- I’ve often pondered the liberal mind. It’s tough to do, and honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever figure it out. For example, how does a guy like Leonardo DiCaprio stand up in front of a crowd and lecture the attendees about their role in global warming (hoax) with a straight face? Here’s what he said to a large gathering in 2015 of the Global Citizen Festival:
“We are running out of time, and it is now incumbent upon all of us, all of you, activists, young and old, to please get involved. Because the environment and the fight for the world’s poor are inherently linked. The planet can no longer wait, the underprivileged can no longer be ignored. This is truly our moment for action. Please take action.”
While I could quickly go several different directions with this, such as the name of the festival itself, I won’t. I’ll stay focused on why I used this quote, in the first place. The “celebration” was held in Central Park in New York City on September 26, 2015, and presumably, DiCaprio took a huge jet airplane, or more likely a smaller and less environmentally friendly private jet to get to the said festival. I’m sure when he arrived at the local airport where those private jets land, he didn’t hop in an Uber ride with 10 other ride-sharers either.
I’ll also assume that DiCaprio didn’t take gobs of his Hollywood earned money and start giving it to the “world’s poor” and “the underprivileged” he spoke about during his lecture. Nope, like the rest of the left coast liberals, DiCaprio isn’t about to give up his humongous yachting experiences, private jets, and gas-guzzling SUV lifestyle any time soon and I don’t expect him to give away his (well-earned) riches.
He’s just a blowhard, deal with it.
While getting into the heads of any liberal is tough enough, add the gun-grabber to the mix, and you’re in uncharted territory. Recently, a study commissioned by Boston University’s School of Public Health’s Michael Siegel and published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine provided results that read like a gun banner wish list right out of the pocket of billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Not surprising except for one notable quote from Siegel himself during an interview about his results:
“Although I completely understand the desire to ban assault weapons, I just don’t see empirical evidence that such bans have any substantial impact on homicide rates. These bans are most often based on characteristics of guns that are not directly tied to their lethality.”
Of course, while his study praised so-called red flag laws and universal background checks as effective in reducing violence, I took note of his opening sentence. Siegel claims to “completely understand the desire to ban assault weapons” in the same statement in which he acknowledged such bans to be ineffective. WAT? So riddle me this: How can an educated man, (and he is an educated man), understand “the desire to ban” something that he has found will not provide the “desired” results?
It would seem to me that an intellectually honest educated man without an agenda would use this opportunity to educate those not as intelligent as he.
In other words, the next time someone screeches their “desire to ban assault weapons” in his presence, he would take the opportunity to fill that person in on his findings and explain to that person that Americans have a right to bear arms and that person’s “desires” come from being misinformed. He would continue that it is illogical to “desire to ban” something that is not a problem and advise that person to focus on the things that can actually reduce crime, such as working towards eliminating gang violence in Democrat-controlled urban environs.
If anyone were to ever accuse him (Siegel) of wanting to take away Americans guns, he would vehemently deny it and use his own study as proof. The problem is, he won’t, and he can’t, because you see, Siegel “completely understands the desire to ban assault weapons” even in the face of his own findings and his own words – that doing so has no impact on anything.
It seems to me Siegel’s slip of the tongue there just confirms his enlistment as a soldier of the army involved in the left’s war on our right to bear arms. I’ll use that fact to choose not to believe anything that comes from his studies as they pertain to my right to bear arms.
About Mark Walters
Mark Walters is the host of two nationally syndicated radio broadcasts, Armed American Radio and Armed American Radio’s Daily Defense with Mark Walters. He is the Second Amendment Foundations 2015 Gun Rights Defender of the Year award recipient and co-author of two books, Lessons from Armed America with Kathy Jackson (Whitefeather Press) and Lessons from UnArmed America with Rob Pincus (Whitefeather Press)