|
The Politics of Emotion
On April 27, 1999, President Clinton announced a package of legislation aimed at furthering his own personal agenda of total gun control by restricting the number of firearms that can be purchased to one a month,
restrictions on juveniles possessing certain types of firearms, background checks on purchasers of certain types of explosives and purchasers of firearms at gun shows, and restricting the sales of handguns to those
persons 21 and older.
Ostensibly, the aim of such a package of legislation is to "curb the trend of youth violence", but even the President's own advisors admit that none of the proposed legislation would have prevented the Littleton,
Colorado shootings, and over a dozen existing federal and state laws were broken during the course of the shootings, so what good would adding more laws do? Support for the legislation is very weak in both the
House and Senate, and it is shameful that the President has to resort to capitalizing on the deaths of teenagers in Colorado to try and push his own personal agenda. Even more shameful is the fact that the
announcement of the legislation was timed precisely to capitalize upon the emotionalism and sorrow generated across the nation by the shootings, and proudly announced to the nation as such! The President might
as well have stood up and said "This is a blatant attempt to emotionally manipulate the American people by pretending to do something about the problem and push my own personal agenda, while at the same time
attempting to demonize anyone else who doesn't support my 'For Our Children' legislation, even though it has nothing to do with protecting children." How much longer are we going to allow ourselves to be
emotionally manipulated by the "for our children" nonsense?
It's a sad time in America when not only does a politician attempt to push an agenda designed to take advantage of someone else's misfortune, but it's even sadder when politicians are proud of it.
|
