J. D. Prose – 4/13/09

This page was last updated on April 18, 2009.

Beware conspiracy of dunces with assault rifles; J. D. Prose; Beaver County Times; April 13, 2009.

As you read this opinion column, keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the Times. Mr. Prose is also a reporter covering political stories. Ask yourself this. When a pundit gives his political opinions in one part of the paper, can he be trusted to report politics objectively elsewhere in the paper? After all, would a person whose opinion is 1+1 equals 3 report 1+1 really equals 2?

“In light of the murder of three Pittsburgh police officers last weekend, we’re going to veer off the usual political course today. If you’re a nutty, right-wing conspiracy theorist or an assault rifle fan, just save your time and skip to the Sports section.”

[RWC] The fact the name-calling begins with the column title should tell you what to expect. I don’t know why Mr. Prose believes this column “veer[s] off the usual political course” for a Prose column.

“Everyone else still with us? Good. Two things occurred to us after the coward Richard Poplawski gunned down officers with an AK-47: Why’d this nut have a high-powered assault rifle, and why’d he think the federal government was stripping him of his Second Amendment rights?”

[RWC] At least Mr. Prose got the name of the alleged gunman correct, something a Times editorial couldn’t pull off.

Note Mr. Prose refers to himself as “us” and “we” throughout the column. That’s about as creepy as referring to yourself in the third person.

“On the AK-47, we’d like to tell all those right-to-bear-arms absolutists, ‘Thanks.’ Your efforts to allow mass-killing weapons to flood our country has paid off. Congratulations. You must be so proud.”

[RWC] I don’t know the configuration of Mr. Poplawski’s AK-47, so I don’t know if it could be accurately described as a “mass-killing weapon.” Unless it was a fully automatic version, the AK-47 fired one shot per trigger pull (semi-automatic) just like the “Saturday Night Special” Mr. Prose mentions below. No, I’m not claiming an AK-47 and a “Saturday Night Special” are equivalent. If it was a fully automatic AK-47, the odds are it was illegal.

You’ll note Mr. Prose failed to note fully automatic weapons are mostly illegal for civilians. The civilian purchase of new fully automatic weapons has been illegal since 1986. Fully automatic weapons registered by civilians before 1986 are legal, however, and can be transferred to other civilians. Further, it’s illegal to convert a semi-automatic weapon to automatic.

Mr. Prose also failed to note Mr. Poplawski ambushed the officers inside his house and killed the first two at very close range (a few feet). Mr. Poplawski could have done exactly the same thing with a “Saturday Night Special.” The remainder of the carnage could have been accomplished with a hunting rifle.

Finally, Mr. Poplawski was wearing a bulletproof vest, illegal in Pennsylvania during the commission of a crime. Funny how Mr. Prose failed to note that law didn’t stop Mr. Poplawski from wearing the vest. News reports indicated that without the vest, shots fired by Officer Mayhle that hit Poplawski likely would have killed him and saved the lives of Officers Mayhle and Kelly.

“Understand something. We’re no namby-pamby, ban-all-the-guns liberal. Our dad kept a loaded Saturday Night Special in his nightstand drawer, and we did plenty of target shooting while growing up. (We were pretty darn good, too.)”

[RWC] Mr. Prose sounds a little defensive. It also sounds like Mr. Prose is conceding a “Saturday Night Special” is lethal at short range.

“Heck, if the (truly liberal) wife wouldn’t take the kids and leave, we’d have a gun next to our bed, too.”

[RWC] By referring to his wife as “truly liberal,” is Mr. Prose trying to tell us he really isn’t a leftist? It’s funny. Folks on the left spend their time name-calling the right, yet try to convince us they aren’t really on the left.

“But, why is it so important that Americans have the right to own assault weapons whose sole purpose is to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time?

“Now, before you amateur historians start screaming, ‘Our founding fathers … ,’ just shut up.”

[RWC] Mr. Prose apparently doesn’t like “amateur historians,” but doesn’t that include 99.9% of us, including Mr. Prose himself? Are only “professional historians” qualified to understand the words and intent of our Founding Fathers?

“[J]ust shut up?” Below Mr. Prose asserts, “We’ve spent our life defending freedom of speech, and we’d die to keep it.” Sounds a tad inconsistent.

“Do you really think that the powdered wig-wearing founders of this country imagined a world with AK-47s? Those guys kept women from voting, and some owned slaves. Were those OK, too?”

[RWC] Cannons of the founding era clearly qualify as “assault” and “mass-killing” weapons, yet the Second Amendment didn’t ban them from civilian ownership.

Of course, Mr. Prose doesn’t tell us why we have the Second Amendment. Hint, it isn’t for personal self-defense or hunting. The reason for the Second Amendment is for the citizens to protect themselves from the government. Read the Constitution and most of our founding documents and you find our Founding Fathers were very distrustful of what government could become. That’s why the powers granted to the federal government are explicitly enumerated and all other powers are “reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people” (10^th Amendment). Our Founding Fathers also knew the American Revolution would have been impossible had the British prohibited civilian gun ownership.

“It’s 2009, for God’s sake. We have orbiting space stations and every 9-year-old has an iPod and cell phone. Times change, whether you like it or not.”

[RWC] OK, Mr. Prose, tell us what you believe should be legal.

“And don’t even think about making the ridiculous anything-can-be-a-deadly-weapon-so-why-don’t-we-ban-baseball-bats argument. We’ve never heard of a deranged guy killing three cops in a matter of seconds with a baseball bat. Have you?”

[RWC] Nuts have used cars and trucks (not including as car or truck bombs) to kill a lot of people. Should we make private vehicle ownership illegal?

“Next on our Rant List today are all those who fan the conspiracy flames and feed the psychoses of the Tin Foil Hat Crowd that obsesses over whacked-out right-wing talk-shows.”

[RWC] When lefties claimed President Bush was eavesdropping on our conversations, I don’t recall Mr. Prose referring to them as “the Tin Foil Hat Crowd.” Mr. Prose is one of those who can’t see the same faults in himself he claims to see in others.

“From the creepy and weepy Glenn Beck, Faux News’ own Doomsday Nostradamus, to the frightfully kooky extremist Michael Savage to second-tier wannabes like Pittsburgh’s Jim Quinn, those who sow the seeds of perpetual paranoia should, but never will, accept their share of blame for the Poplawskis of this world.”

[RWC] Other than they have opposite political views, how does the quality and tone of Mr. Prose’s columns differ from that of Mr. Quinn’s shows?

I listen to Messrs. Beck and Quinn on a semi-regular basis, and not once have I heard anything even close to something that would lead a sane person to conclude either man supports violence against opponents.

I don’t recall Mr. Prose complaining about all the left wing nuts who wished for President Bush’s assassination or about the books and plays written on the subject.

“Right-wing radio and TV screeches daily about the socialist/Marxist/communist/fascist Obama government storm troopers coming to squelch their right to spew nonsense when there’s no threat of that happening. (Google ‘the Fairness Doctrine’).”

[RWC] Kudos to Mr. Prose for recognizing fascism is a leftist ideology along with socialism, Marxism, and communism. I’m sure some lefties will admonish Mr. Prose for this breach of lefty dogma.

Mr. Prose is being a tad disingenuous. Mr. Obama has claimed to oppose a new Fairness Doctrine, but Presidents don’t impose it. Short of Congress making a law one way or the other, the FCC determines whether or not the FD is imposed. This year Mr. Obama gets to appoint an FCC commissioner. That would make three of the five commissioners Democrats, and lefties tend to favor the FD. I’m not claiming the FCC will re-impose the FD, only that it’s more likely with three Democrat commissioners.

Mr. Prose also failed to note Congressional Democrats [including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)] are in favor of the FD. (FYI, Ms. Stabenow’s husband has had a string of failed leftist talk radio ventures.) There are also proposals to accomplish the goals of the FD without actually implementing it. These proposals include local content and ownership regulations.

“They create fantasy scenarios (Obama’s coming to take your guns!) to whip their moronic minions into a frenzy for their own commercial success and then play the constitutionally protected victim when their bile results in actual violence.”

[RWC] Mr. Prose fails to note Mr. Obama is trying to have it both ways regarding the Second Amendment. Though he claims to believe in the Second Amendment, Mr. Obama has also claimed local governments have the right to impose strict gun laws. For example, Mr. Obama supports the Washington, DC, handgun ban the Supreme Court found unconstitutional. Other examples are here.

“Let’s say we howled about the county commissioners increasing taxes by 100 percent, even though it isn’t remotely true.

“Every day we would seethe about those so-and-so commissioners and their socialist/Marxist/communist/fascist intentions. And then one day, a guy walks up to the courthouse and sprays the commissioners’ offices with bullets while screaming about his taxes.

“You don’t think we’d bear any responsibility for that?”

[RWC] The Times already does this. Note Mr. Prose didn’t ask if the Times would take responsibility.

“We’ve spent our life defending freedom of speech, and we’d die to keep it. But that freedom is being abused and mocked by despicable clowns whose only true beliefs seem to be higher ratings and revenue generated by followers filled with hate and fear.”

[RWC] “We’ve spent our life defending freedom of speech, and we’d die to keep it?” I don’t know anything about Mr. Prose’s work in this area and he provides nothing in this column to support this assertion. Is telling “amateur historians” to “just shut up” an example of “defending freedom of speech?”

Sounds like Mr. Prose may be a tad jealous of “despicable clowns.”

“And, that, our friends, is a damn shame.

“THE MIDDLE GROUND

“National Journal ranked state delegations in the House as most conservative/most liberal for 2008, and Pennsylvania’s was in the middle, just like U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire in the individual rankings.

“With a score of 52.7 on the liberal scale, the Pennsylvania delegation earned a spot on the centrist list.

“The most liberal was Massachusetts with an 87.3, and Wyoming clocked in as the most conservative with an 11.3. We thought ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was going to change all that.”

[RWC] As he did a month ago (“Down in D.C., Altmire making lots of news”) when he tried to convince us Mr. Altmire is “in the middle,” Mr. Prose chose not to include the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU) and Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). Could it be because the ratings from these two groups don’t support Mr. Prose’s position in either column?

The ACU gave the PA House delegation a conservative rating of 33% and the ADA gave a Liberal Quotient (ADA terminology) of 69%. Not exactly “in the middle.”