The Motor City Madman – how prescient that nickname was! – is at it again, this time in an interview with Guns.com at the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT, get it?) in Las Vegas last weekend. The folks at Guns.com were really, really happy to talk to the gun-loving rocker, noting that it was a “huge day” for them. Apparently the Nuge is very popular at the SHOT and the guns.com people were lucky to get some face time with him. Personally, I’d rather chew off my own foot but that might just be me.
And Ed Schultz is covering it on his show today. Ha, Ed - I scooped ya! ;)
Nugent was asked about gun violence, the gun control bill that passed in New York state and the NRA’s new “Stand and Fight” campaign and he had some choice words for them. Of course, what stands out for gun-crazies and what stands out to reasonable people are quite different. For example, the guns.com crew was tickled pink over Ted’s rendition of the British National Anthem. How droll.
Between nonsensical screeds about President Obama being “an evil and dangerous man,” Nugent noted that:
“I’m part of a very great experiment in self-government where we the people determine our own pursuit of happiness and our own individual freedom and liberty not to be confused with the Barack Obama gang who believes in we the sheeple and actually is attempting to re-implement the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776. And if you want another Concord Bridge, I got some buddies.”
Cute. So if his “individual liberties” are threatened – even though they really aren’t – then he’s ready to start a revolution? What Nuge fails to understand… well, besides the actual Constitution, is that the rest of us have liberties and rights, too. And our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not any less sacred than his. But his over-stepping of his rights does a lot more than just inconvenience you and me – it actually threatens the first part of that phrase: our lives.
But apparently anyone who wants some reasonable controls put on guns is completely out-of-line:
“If you attempt to counter and question the motives of the NRA [as it relates to the fundamental right of self-defense], that’s just not the devil’s advocate, that would be the devil.”
So you and I, and anyone who questions the NRA’s motives, are devils? Or
the devil? Either way, the sheer arrogance and selfishness of Nugent’s attitude is completely insufferable. He can have his opinion and his guns but he cannot have the sole interpretation of this issue. But for pure self-centeredness, nothing beats the answer to Piers Morgan’s question to gun advocates, “Why does anyone need an AR-15?” Nugent’s answer?
“I need an AR-15 for the same reason that CNN’s security guards need an AR-15… It’s not the Declaration of Needs, it’s not the Bill of Needs, I don’t need a corvette to go to the store for milk and bread, but I want to.”
So that’s what the argument boils down to: selfish people with no thought of others, no respect for the Constitution and no grasp of what is actually going on with this issue. No, Ted Nugent just
wants it. And if you disagree, he’s “got some buddies.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the level of discourse we are dealing with.
You can see the discussion with the guns.com people here:
Crossposted at Addicting Info