RUSH: Senator Elizabeth Warren wanted to get in on the big press conference in Boston this morning that happened about 10:30. The first words out of her mouth were praise for Obama and government. “The president of the United States has pledged his full support in all efforts, both to keep the city safe, and to find the person who did this. We did not have to reach out to the president; the president reached out to us,” Warren said. He called the governor. He called the mayor. He called the members of congressional delegation because the president is actively involved here and responding. Wow, that was newsworthy. She had to tell everybody that Obama was involved, because you know what he’s actually doing today? Obama’s working the phones.
Obama is working the phones trying to whip up votes for the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer gun bill in the Senate. This is made to order. Yeah, this was a bombing, but this shows that we’ve gotta get serious here about average citizens and their weapons. And we gotta make sure that they don’t have ’em. You know, folks, violence can’t be stopped. There are sick people who don’t care about laws. Sick people who don’t care about innocent people. I think it’s kind of curious that there’s this big push underway now to get people to actually give up their right to self-defense. Violence can’t be stopped. The police can’t stop it. Laws can’t stop it. Cameras can’t stop it. It’s going to happen.
So people want to feel free and able to take appropriate steps to protect themselves and have to constantly be on guard about not be seduced or tricked or bullied into giving away their constitutionally protected right to protect themselves and their family from dangers that we all know exist, and yet that’s exactly what’s underway here. The only people who are the targets of gun control legislation are people that do not break the law with them. The only people being asked to give up their guns are the people who do not commit crimes with them. By definition, the law-abiding. Because, by definition, criminals are gonna find a way to get guns, or knives, or what have you, no matter the law.
The law doesn’t stop people. The police don’t stop people. I mean, not just their existence; sometimes the police succeed in stopping things. But people with criminal intent are not deterred, in large part, by laws, or by the existence of police forces. And they’re not deterred by the presence of cameras. So what are we doing? We are hell-bent on advancing legislation that is gonna take guns out of the hands of people who are not using them in criminal ways. Gun-free zones, gun control laws are obeyed by people who won’t hurt you. Gun-free zones make people less safe. Gun-free zones make places less safe.
“Mr. Limbaugh, how could you say that? This is obviously not –” Yes, it is. A gun-free zone, why do you think Adam Lanza chose that school? It’s a gun-free zone. He knew that nobody was gonna have guns. He knew that he was gonna be able to fire his weapon for a certain amount of time until armed people showed up because there weren’t any there. If a young kid can figure this out, I dare say that an adult can, too. Gun-free zones, oh, they’re wonderfully well-intentioned. But you see, that’s what we’re supposed to examine. We’re supposed to examine the good intentions of the welfare state crowd. For example, even though it’s been an abysmal failure: War on Poverty, Great Society, you name it, dismal failure, however you wish to measure it. Except we’re not supposed to measure the results.
We’re not supposed to judge or calculate the effect of these programs by virtue of results, only by virtue of the good intentions of the designers. And so it goes with gun-free zones, gun control laws. The good people are only trying to help. The good people are only trying to make everybody safer. The problem is gun-free zones, gun control laws end up being obeyed by people who won’t hurt you anyway. They make people and places less safe. Criminals don’t follow rules, by definition. We can have all the new gun control laws in the world. All they’re gonna do is take guns away from people who are not criminals in the first place, and it’s gonna make everybody less able to defend themselves, less able to protect themselves. And that’s what Obama’s doing today. He’s working the phones, whipping up votes for the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer gun control bill. Taking advantage of the occasion.
Every day there’s new and overwhelming evidence we live in a dangerous world. Reality hit Monday, folks. Reality hit. Reality hits people every day. The reality is that we live in a dangerous world, and on any given day, parts of this country are dangerous. Gun control that reduces the rights of people to defend themselves, senseless. What’s the point of new gun laws that would not have prevented what happened at Sandy Hook? I mean, even the architects of these new gun laws admit none of what they’re proposing would have changed the outcome at Sandy Hook. So why do it? Because it’s a good thing to do. It’s like saving the planet. It’s like driving the right car. “Guns are bad. Guns have bullets, and bullets are bad, and guns have triggers, and triggers are bad, and then people pick up guns and triggers, and they just fire them, so people die. It’s bad. We gotta get rid of the guns.”
Oh, okay. So that’s the thought process. It’s just a good thing they hate guns. It’s just a compassionate, big-hearted thing to hate anything that’s an instrument of violence. Except for the people who engage in it, then we’re gonna find excuses for them. We’ll blame socioeconomic circumstances or a disability or some other thing. And then we’ll go out and blame everybody who had nothing to do with any of this simply because they have a gun and we’ll point to them and say they represent the problem in America, people who have guns, who do not use them illegally.
What’s the point of a new gun control bill that would not stop Sandy Hook? What’s the point of a new gun control bill that would not have prevented it? Simple question. What in this law, the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer gun control bill in the Senate, what in that law enhances your ability to defend yourself when confronted by a madman? Nothing! Nothing in this bill is designed to help you defend yourself.
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Of course that’s not the point of it. Snerdley is shouting, “That’s not the point of it.” Of course. That’s my point. The point of it is to make you less capable of defending yourself. The point of it is a guilt-by-association game that, because you have a gun, you are a potential criminal. Because you have a gun, you could wreak havoc on people. You could snap. You could go nuts. Something could happen and you could start just wantonly pulling the trigger. We’ve gotta remove that possibility because you could go nuts one day. And we are going to making sure that, if you go nuts, you can’t do anything to anybody. So we’re gonna sit here and we’re gonna assume the absolute worst about the people in our country.
We’re going to assume. We’re gonna look at the people of this country with contempt and we’re gonna assume that they’ve got all of these ill intents, that they harbor evil. They may not even know it! They may not be evil now, but something could happen. There could be a tax cut, and they could get really mad that their government’s getting smaller, and they could go nuts! That would be the Barney Frank school. After wanton gun violence, don’t you think the objective ought to be to help people better defend themselves in the presence of such criminals? Just the opposite?
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RUSH: Let’s go to the phones. Napa, California. Hi, Steve. You’re first. It’s great to have you on the program. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Thank you. Hey, whether the bombing in Boston came from a foreigner or domestic source, I think it should be pinned squarely onto Obama’s chest. So either his foreign policies have failed so the Department of Homeland Security can’t protect us, or his domestic programs have failed and his subjects are rioting in the streets. But then I thought, “Either way, based on what I’ve heard from him, he’s gonna twist it to advance his own agenda.” You know, he’s still gonna wrestle away our rights.
RUSH: Well, I think what you have to understand here, Steve, is that if you listen to Elizabeth Warren, and if you listen to Barney Frank, this incident in Boston is a success. Big Government succeeded! Barney Frank said it. He was asked for his reaction, and he praised Big Government. I mean, if you listen to Barney Frank… My point is that a sane person would look at what happened in Boston as a failure of government. Barney Frank’s out there talking about it as a success. But your point is that regardless what happens, Obama’s gonna configure it in such a way as to advance his agenda. You’re right, and the media is gonna be right in there helping them.
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RUSH: David in “Big City,” Pennsylvania, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I gotta tell you, it’s a great honor and pleasure to talk to my political mentor and the greatest mind in political analysis.
RUSH: (laughing) Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.
CALLER: I’ve been trying for years to get through, and it really makes me happy.
RUSH: Well, here you are.
CALLER: Rush, what I want to tell you is that I can’t tell you exactly where I work, but it’s a big city in Pennsylvania. The Democrats passed restrictions on our ability to communicate so I can only tell you that. I’m a fire chief, and what I can tell you is that the mayor of my big city, a Democrat in a long-term Democrat stronghold, has decimated the emergency services in our town. While we deal with hundreds and hundreds of murders a year, and injuries and death of all types —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. Hang on just a second, ’cause, you know, you say that your mayor has gutted emergency services. But I keep hearing these same people talk about the first responders and how much we have to support them and how much we have to make sure that they’re continually funded. That’s not true?
CALLER: That’s completely not true. Any time something happens, they love to lionize us. You know, we’re the salt of the earth. Like Elizabeth Warren’s disgusting photo-op, they jump front of a camera. But in the back room when no one’s looking, they’re closing fire stations. They’re cutting manpower. They’re reducing our ability to do things that the public needs us to do — and, really, Rush, emergency services are one of the really few government services that the government provides that do well.
RUSH: Wait, why are they doing this?
CALLER: Well, they do it so they can divert that money to their social agenda. You know, we’re building an ice rink next to our city hall here in our undisclosed big city, but we don’t have money to open seven fire companies that our mayor closed. Buying votes. That’s what they’re doing.
RUSH: Ice rink next to city hall in the big city while closing down fire stations?
CALLER: Firehouses, right. Stations. They cut companies out of stations. They’ll leave the doors open, but there’s fewer and fewer firefighters across the line.
RUSH: Interesting. All we hear from these people is, “First responders! First responders! They’re first on the list. We gotta make sure they’re not cut. Protect them; support them.” Well, everybody’s curiosity is up now. So we’re gonna be looking for an ice rink next to city hall in a big city in Pennsylvania.