A defense of Giuliani

[Bucky]

Big Rudy explains to the NRA his flip flopping away from his former support for a lawsuit against the NRA

"I also think there have been subsequent intervening events, September 11th, which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment and Second Amendment rights. Doesn't change the fundamental rights, but maybe it highlights the necessity for them more."

A lot of people are guffawing at this. Most reasonable people have understood the young chestnut "9-11 changed everything" to rationalize foreign policy hypocricies, or to bastardize our nation's long standing belief in human rights, or maybe to explain why some dude named Butch is waving an electic wand around your crotch at the airport. You may agree or disagree about the wisdom of these changes in what used to be America's core values, but everyone pretty much understood that the phrase "9-11 changed everything (or shortened to the mathmatical formula: -2 = ΔΣ) was talking about how far government ought to go to protect us all from dangerous loonies like al-Qaeda or KOBRA.

But Giuliani is a visionary man; he sees the truth far far beyond the obvious. The fact that crazed nihilists may be lurking about our streets ready to reap mischief and doom only underscores the need to restrict state and local governments from making it harder to walk around well armed. A well armed society is not just a polite society; it's a society poised at any moment to spring into action, drilling down any of the gazillions of lurking terrorists who haunt our streets, our alleyways, our church picnics, and our schools.

As he implies, had 9/11 happened in a society in which everyone was free to walk around packing gats, there would have been no 9/11. Our calendars probably wouldn't even have had a 9/11 on them. September would only have 29 days! Let's say you're a Muslim terrorist (from Saudi Arabia, but obviously taking orders from with high level important ties contacts with Iraq Iran) and it's September the 11th and your're pissed about how free Americans are and you want to destroy stuff. Then you and your 19 18 fellow conspirators folks get onto planes with box cutters and attempt to fly them into America's great landmarks of political, military, and economic power.

If this scenario happens in Obvious World, the terrorists strike a terrible blow against freedom and thousands of innocent people die. But if we live in RudyWorld™ then it's a far far different reality. Instead of the slaughter of civilians and the desecration of landmarks, America is safer. In RudyWorld™ the second those boxcutters come out, every man, woman, and child is in a position to bring the heat. All Americans, united--men and women, black, white and brown, Jew and Gentile, old and young, tall and short, blue collar and white collar, the crippled, the deaf and the blind--all Americans from the obese to the merely pudgy--whip out the cold blue steel and gun down those vicious low life terrorists, the ones with the box cutters and the big letter Ts on their shirts, gun them down right there aboard the airplane in a glorious hail of lead which, if you squint just right, seems to almost flutter in the wind like Old Glory!

A-men!!

This is truly a world unsafe for terrorists, nay, for all extremists. And what's holding us back from the beauty of this visionary RudyWorld™ ? Activist judges and activist cities and activist police forces who, in their fanatical worldviews, seem to think it's better to let terrorists kill YOUR CHILDREN WHILE THEY PRAY than to simply live by the Bill of Rights Second Amendment our forefathers left to us.

So Rudy's right. He's not flip flopping. He's being flexible. If the advent of the War on Terror proves anything, it proves that we need to have more people roaming our streets well armed. If the cops on the street could be spared from seaching Grandma's purse for the Beretta that the Constitution says she has a right to carry, then the police would be freed up to pursue much more important goals, like calling her an ambulance or investigating why we have this annoying increase in murder rates.

[Taverner]

1. Let Ghouliani be a lesson to the NRA

If you support fascists who want to stifle your 1st amendment rights, they won't stop there and will get rid of the 2nd amendment as well.

[zbdent]

4. They never understand that connection ...

I've pointed out that a lot more attention would be paid if the attacks were on the second amendment rights than the first ...

[Bucky]

5. You mean like THIS first amendment defense Rudy offered?

"Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or you don't; whether you agree with the surge or you don't; Democrats even came back from Iraq and said that he's having more success than anybody had thought.

"So to attack the man's integrity, and honesty, and decency, is in my view indecent. It passed a line that we should not allow American political organizations to pass."

His mouth isn't just his own worst enemy. It's everybody's worst enemy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. 9-11 Changed Everything...

Maybe we should give everybody that boards the plane a gun...Then every passenger can engage in "mutually assured destruction"...

[Bucky]

3. What? A little too dry?

I thought this was cleverer than everyone else did.