RUSH: Are you familiar with the great actor Liam Neeson? Schindler’s List, the Taken movies, Taken 1, Taken 2, Taken 3. (interruption) Star Wars? Liam Neeson was in Star Wars? He was? Which one? That would be Episode 1. The Phantom Menace? Well, you could have fooled me. I think I even saw it. Well, anyway, doesn’t matter.
Liam Neeson has joined the chorus of people who say that the attacks in Paris show the need for more gun control in America. “Standing in front of a poster of himself holding a handgun in Taken 3, the latest installment in a film series that relies on gunplay to heighten action sequences, Liam Neeson spoke to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo by offering condolences, then saying: ‘There are too many [bleeping] guns out there, especially in America.'”
The attack happened in France where the cops are unarmed, where the magazine people are unarmed. The cops are unarmed. The cops show up on bicycles, and here’s Liam Neeson, “Yeah, too many guns out there, especially in America.”
“He said the level of private gun ownership in the US is ‘a [bleeping] disgrace.’ According to Gulfnews.com, Neeson stuck with the American rant, saying: ‘I think the population is like, 320 million? ThereÂ’s over 300 million guns, privately owned, in America. I think itÂ’s a [bleeping] disgrace. Every week now we are picking up a newspaper and seeing, “Yet another few kids have been killed in schools,”‘ where the authorities are unarmed.
You know, I’m convinced, I don’t think Liam Neeson knows what he’s saying. It’s like I told you the story last week, when I was invited to this fashionable Upper East Side dinner party, fashionable apartment on Fifth Avenue, and the host, a well-known former Republican cabinet officer who you’d probably know his name, the Nixon days, comes up to me and says, “What are you gonna do about the guns?” It was like the guy at the Hamptons who asked, “What are you gonna do about the Christians?” He said, “What are you gonna do about it guns?”
I said, “What do you mean what am I gonna do about the guns?”
“There are too many guns! We’ve got to get our hands on guns.”
Right out his window was Central Park, right across Fifth Avenue. I looked out and said, “Okay, look, if you can convince me that your gun control is gonna take guns out of the hands of the people lurking in the shadows over there in Central Park then I’m all for it, but you can’t guarantee that,” and he didn’t have anything to say. And I’m convinced this gun control business is just the way you gain and maintain admittance into a particular group of elites that you want to be a member of.
They don’t even know what they’re talking about. You hit them with irrefutable logic on this and all they do is stare at you like you are brain-dead when they don’t have a retort to it. And I said, “Look, you’re talking about taking guns out of the hands of the law-abiding, the ones who are not using them to commit crimes, by definition. You can disarm all those people. Do you think you’re gonna eliminate a single school shooting doing that? Do you think you’re gonna eliminate violence? Do you think you’re gonna eliminate all these things that you abhor if you take guns away from people who are not using them for that purpose?”
“Well, there’s just too many guns.” That’s always the retort. “Well, there’s just too many guns.” And I’ll tell you something else, folks. Something else I’m convinced about. I think it’s a class thing. Just like to these people abortion is a class thing. Hayseeds, hicks, people that drive pickups, military types, they’re the ones that love those guns. Yeah, daddy. The elites would never be seen in their company. They’d be the first to call for ’em if they were ever in danger, but just like this guy in his fashionable upper east sides apartment, he didn’t even know what he was talking about, but that was his price. He was a Republican. That was his price for admission into New York society, I’m telling you, is to have that attitude on guns. (interruption) Did who? (interruption) Liam Neeson, about the terrorists? No, no.
Here’s Liam Neeson commenting on a terror attack, not a crime, a terror attack, in Paris, and then immediately complaining about too many guns in America. Of course he didn’t talk about, other than to say he felt so bad about it. And because he felt so bad about it, that’s why he observed there are just too many guns everywhere. We’ve just gotta get rid of the guns. Just too many guns. I’m telling you, this argument hasn’t changed. I’ve been doing this long enough now, and I’m blessed with a really half decent memory. And all of this stuff, the cycle is starting to repeat.
What it tells me is people are reciting rather than opining. They’re reciting what they should say, what they think they should believe. And everybody’s got a reason for believing this. It’s admittance into society. It’s admittance into a certain club of elites. It’s a way to gain favor with certain other people if you say it in the media. It’s hip versus unhip, cool versus uncool, who knows. But I don’t think there’s a single bit of intellectual thought behind it. They think there is.
Folks, this is exactly, when I say liberalism is the most gutless choice you can make, liberalism’s the easiest thing, look at all you have to do to be a good liberal. What Liam Neeson said. You have to decry the incident in Paris, and then you say there are just too many guns. What a great guy. Oh, my God. What a caring, what a really compassionate guy. See how easy that is? In the meantime, Liam Neeson hasn’t done one thing to solve gun crime. He hasn’t done one thing to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys.
All he’s done is made a heartfelt statement, and it’s been greeted with approval and applause and he is automatically granted the compassion and the understanding and so forth. That’s how easy it is. The tough stuff in the world is refuting the easy stuff and telling people the truth about complex, difficult things. That’s what’s hard, such as gun control.
Liberal positions on gun control are easiest damn thing anybody could do or say, but actually tackling the problem, that’s another thing, and to that you have to be interested in solving crime. I never hear gun control people talk about solving crime. The people that think we got too many guns are the ones thinking the cops are the problem in Ferguson and in New York City. The people that think we got too many guns.
Meanwhile, the people who think we have a problem with crime are not blaming the cops for it, and look who’s catching the excrement sandwich in all this. The people taking the hard route to actually solving a problem. Homelessness is another example. You walk down the street and there’s Bubbles and he’s pushing his shopping cart, and he’s selling used stuff or whatever, and you look at him.
“Oh, that poor man! My God, in the richest country in the world? My God! Oh, Jeez. Oh, it’s so sad.” The conservative says, “Yeah, we need to find a way get that guy out of that shopping cart, find a way to give him a sense of purpose and maybe get a job,” and they come at you like you are heartless and cold and cruel, because you’ve destroyed their effort to be good people. ‘Cause, see, all you have to do when you spot the homeless is just point it out and act like it’s so bad.
“It’s so sad! (sobbing) Oh, my God, how can we have homeless? What kind of country would allow that?”
“What a great guy you are! Oh, my God, the compassion you have. We need you in our political movement!”
The minute you move in and properly identify the reasons for it as a means of getting to the solution, that’s when you become a cold, mean-spirited, extremist conservative. So if you want to be a good liberal when anything comes up, just ask, “What’s easiest thing I could do here to get credited for something?” and do it, and you’ll immediately become a liberal and realize that you don’t have to do anything to solve a problem. In fact, you even have it better than that.
You can make efforts to solve problems and make the problems worse and still be credited as a great guy! LBJ? War on Poverty? Great Society? It’s worse. But, man, does he get credit for caring. You know, the fastest way to really be a good liberal is demand other people pay higher taxes as a way of solving a problem. Tax guns, tax income, tax this, tax that to get rid of this pain and suffering and misery. Blame the rich for it!
It’s easy to be a good liberal in good standing. That’s how easy it is. They never solve excrement, folks. They never solve anything, and they’re the ones that have all the compassion. They’re the ones get all the credit for all the compassion. If I were to say here to Liam Neeson, “Hey, Liam, you know, by the way, I love Ray Donovan. Oh, wait that’s not you. That’s Liev Schreiber. Sorry to confuse you. You’re in Taken. Right. I love those Taken movies.
“I love the way you fire those guns. I love the way you kill those bad guys. You know, what, Liam? I’ve learned a lesson from you watching those Taken movies. Yeah, you’re not killing people. Your gun is! And these Islamoterrorists? Yeah, the guns are not killing people, the Islamoterrorists are.” You say that to them, and you’ve totally confused them. Because, you see, to them, the gun almost has its own brain. The gun is self-actuating. The gun is self-acting.
If you really want to confuse them, say, “Hey, you guys don’t need gun control. You need bullet control.”
That’ll send ’em into a tizzy.
“Now you’re obfuscating. Now you’re just trying to confuse the issue. What do you mean, ‘bullet control?'”
“Well, what good’s a gun without bullets? What you guys need is ammo control.”
“No, no, no. Gun control! We need to get rid of guns.”
That shows they’re just… We’re dealing with robots here, folks, who have a desire for a certain degree of standing in certain communities, and it’s all liberalism. It’s the most gutless, easy decision you can make or choice you can make in a controversial situation. Take the simple route, and you’re good liberal.