Ben Shapiro’s article, Ha Ha, Suckers: Trump Flips For Gun Control, is certainly a low point for the pundit.
From the puerile title to his completely backward characterization of the NRA’s position on terrorist watch lists, let’s just say this one isn’t going into his portfolio.
Let’s start with Trump’s tweet, the one that inspired his piece.
I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.
How does one extrapolate from this tweet that Trump “flips for gun control”?
There is nothing in the tweet that commits to any position. It’s merely a statement of what a meeting is going to be about. But Shapiro simply runs with it, choosing to believe what he wants it to mean.
More troubling, while Shapiro posts the NRA’s position on terror watchlists he seems to be oblivious to what he just copied and pasted moments before.
The NRA’s position is the following:
The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period. Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing. If an investigation uncovers evidence of terrorist activity or involvement, the government should be allowed to immediately go to court, block the sale, and arrest the terrorist. At the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watchlist to be removed. That has been the position of Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) and a majority of the U.S. Senate. Sadly, President Obama and his allies would prefer to play politics with this issue.
Tragically, Shapiro writes this within inches of the NRA statement.
It has long been the position of the National Rifle Association that banning people from buying weapons based on the terror watch list is a fool’s errand.
I think Shapiro needs to be on a watchlist. A dementia watchlist. He’s not a dumb guy, so something else is going on here.
The article is difficult to unravel, devolving into a conspiracy theory that the media is playing politics with the NRA meeting, all to assist Trump in dragging conservative organizations leftward.
This hot mess was created because of a benign tweet, made malignant by the overactive imagination of a guy who is facilitating the victory of a woman who’s made it clear that she is a gun grabber.
What a strange journey its been. If we end up in Clintonville people supporting Trump will be blamed by these fever dreamers. But what would you expect from someone that could pen an article with so much, let’s call it deception, in it?
Meerkat has officially admitted Trump. I will not only vote for Trump. I will also stump for Trump.
The reason is as simple as Hillary Clinton.
Why have I stood fast and not come by your way until now?
I wanted Trump to answer and give something to conservatives. It’s obvious now that is not going to happen. So once again I hold my nose, encourage others to hold their nose, and vote against the socialist.
I’m with Gavin McGinnes, and I’d rather kiss a gay guy than opt for the #NeverTrump suicidal pact.
*psst!
Shapiro is a midget illegal alien!
(Pass it on)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClA3EjKWQAAOfa5.jpg
I think it just comes down to “Smartest Guy In The Room” Syndrome (SMGR). Once he committed to the cliff’s edge, his only exit strategy is to step off.
Oh, crumbs! “(SGR)”
All that gibberish you’re reading is Ben trying to write on the way down. 🙂
Meek-kat, what’s with all the nose holding? Looks like you are falling for the standard, RINO, trust-me-I’m-a-conservative-and-Trump’s-not schtick. Wakey, wakey. From reaganbaby.com via https://iotwreport.com/trumpacolypse-hysteria-in-full-effect/
“For all those who say Donald J. Trump is not a ‘Conservative’ is …
Securing our borders is not conservative?
Tightening visa controls is not conservative?
Ending sanctuary cities is not conservative?
Keeping out refugees who may be infiltrated by jihadists willing to poison a major city’s water supply is not conservative?
Wanting to deport illegal immigrants who commit felonies is not conservative?
Wanting to eliminate the Department of Education and return control to the states and communities is not conservative?
Wanting to support law enforcement officers is not conservative?
Wanting Europe, Japan, and South Korea to pay more for the defense we provide them is not conservative?
Wanting Europe to pay their fair share for NATO is not conservative?
Wanting the United Nations to not be the Anti-Israel Nations is not conservative?
Wanting to reduce the U.S. share of funding for the United Nations is not conservative? Wanting to move the U.S embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, is not conservative?
Wanting to cut corporate taxes and regulations to keep businesses and jobs in the United States is not conservative?
Wanting to cut taxes on middle-class families is not conservative?
Wanting to slash or eliminate the estate tax to save family farms and businesses is not conservative?
Wanting to eliminate ObamaCare is not conservative?
Wanting to allow the sale of health insurance across state lines is not conservative?
Wanting to improve health care for returning veterans is not conservative?
Wanting a tougher stance on foreign trade to help American workers is not conservative?
Wanting to avoid “nation-building” and wars when the United States is not being threatened is not conservative?
Given the times we live in (i.e. waaay more virulently prog than the ’81-’89 Reagan yrs), he pulls off half of this and he’ll be the most conservative preezy evarr.
Abigail, how about a welcome? I have studied Ben and Matt and others and watched their ways of doing left-winged media tactics on Donald Trump. And became tired and sick of it.
Punk ass bitch. Another bought and paid for media whore. Give it a rest Ben, no one fucking cares.
Gojira, good post, I’ll sleep on that.
Sorry, Meerkat! Where the heck do all you guys live?! It’s 2:30 a. here and I was just letting the cats out.
(I shouldn’t comment half asleep.)
@Gojira — Trump committed the cardinal sin of not putting (enough) time in and not being a Fellow at (or at least a major contributor to) a conservative think tank. One has to be a gray beard in Conservative ‘stir’, like Paul in a Roman jail.
Abigail, I guess you don’t remember what you said about me?
(Your cats do!)
Sorry, it’s almost 11AM in London.
AA, an outfit like AEI? I used to pretty much like what were shoveling. Now, I wonder…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us_56ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d
I see his non-involvement as a plus, like certifiably untainted food.
If you mock us, those that opposed Trump in the past that will now vote for him and promote him, we will not continue to do so and we all will lose.
If you support us, he can win.
Little Bennie has come a long way since he endorsed Trump. Is he a liar now or was he a liar when he wrote this?
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2011/04/13/the_magic_of_donald_trump
Ben Shapiro looks like Sam Donaldson Jr.
He also looks 16.
I just watched part of a Bill Clinton State of the Union speech where he said he would impose fines on any employer hiring illegals. That we are a nation of immigrants but they must come in legally. That we are a nation of laws.
I am amazed that in the 20 or so years since he said that, those same words by Trump are labeled as racist and xenophobic.
Look at what has happened in the intervening years: we’ve had the most horrific attack on US soil in our history which prompted us to create the Homeland Security Bureaucracy and have been subjected to terror attacks by folks we took in out of compassion but yet have been over run by an invasion of foreigners that elites tell us we must not stop.
Something evil has penetrated our government and Ben Shapiro is another manifestation of it. Ben, the young man who so impressed Andrew Breitbart, within a few years after Andrew’s death, has been thoroughly co-opted by the forces that mislead and enslave us.
They must be promising a lot of money and power.
meercat…I certainly welcome you. and America thanks you.
He looks deranged. Don’t sell him any firearms! Ben has flipped, like scrambled brains.
jmb, Thank you. I think I represent a large group that is getting a lot of push-back. But we are all conservatives and I am an early Tea-Party guy.
I just wished that The Donald could have throne a bone or two our way.
Details, man, details!
“It has long been the position of the National Rifle Association that banning people from buying weapons based on the terror watch list is a fool’s errand.”
And Shapiro is right. The NRA agrees that delaying (for 3 days) the sale
to someone on a watch list, they whole hardheartedly oppose an outright ban.
How does one extrapolate from the NRA statement that the NRA supports bans?
The rest of the article may be crap, but the NRA is not calling for banning people on list from buying guns. Neither is Trump, but again, he worded things very poorly.
Let me finally just mention this: IT’S NOT TED CRUZ!!!
I have noticed that BFH keeps mentioning Ted Cruz in his posts. It’s not Ted Cruz, I was over him 30 minutes after he “suspended”. It’s about Donald Trump. He is not a very clean candidate. Yes I hate Hillary so much that I would vote anyone over Satan above her. That is the point. A lot of us do not like Donald Trump all that much either. Some may like him less than MCcain and Romney. So deal with us and stop pissing us off.
Terrorist should be excluded from buying guns.
However, should I end up on a list with the IRS for having an alternative political view than the white house.
There should be repercussions if I can’t buy a gun.
With you Meerkat. I have had a hard time stomaching Trump, starting way before this campaign cycle began. But I’ll vote for him, without hesitation, over Mrs. Clinton.
And Shapiro is right. The NRA agrees that delaying (for 3 days) the sale
to someone on a watch list, they whole hardheartedly oppose an outright ban.
>>>>>>>>
And where does Trump say he is banning guns?????
DETAILS…DETAILS…
Oh, that’s right, he didn’t.
That’s something merely provided to the dumbbells by a homunculus boy genius.
Trump merely says I’m going to the NRA to discuss (and then he lists the topic of discussion, does he not?)
Do morons require him to add the part about the wait period before they write breathless articles about everyone being “suckers”?
Even if Trump wrote the part about the delay period the tweet could still mean either “I support it,” or “I don’t support it.”
Let’s get Mockarena to weigh in.
I don’t know what to think until I hear from her.
Surely there has to be someone somewhere in the government who can help get your name off the no gun list if it was put there in error. Likely there will be a 1-800 hotline to deal with it and have the matter taken care of on government time. People are on the no-fly list mysteriously today and all the citizens do is contest to the right person and the problem is resolved overnight. Just kidding, you’re fucked for good if your name appears on any no-list, in error or not.
Is this post intentionally being obtuse?
The entire debate about banning people on the terror watchlist is that it gave sole discretion to Loretta Lynch. To say “we need to get this done” oversimplifies the previous debate and not providing that context implies gun rights for terrorists.
Since there was no link to the actual Shapiro piece, here’s a thorough one from The Federalist:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/23/sorry-democrats-but-there-is-no-loophole-that-allows-terrorists-to-buy-guns/
Give Lynch sole power and discretion and no tea party supporter will ever be allowed to own a gun again without paying thousands in legal fees. Not that they even have to tell you that you’re on the list.
I don’t like the idea of the federal government being able to put someone on a watch list and take away their constitutional rights. The NRA is saying that there “should be safeguards” to protect innocent people. Yea and we “should” enforce our borders and deport illegals but the current communist running our country has put a stop to that.
Let the record reflect that I haven’t commented or made an opinion about either the NRAs stance or Trump’s.
I’m merely pointing out the idiocy of Shapiro and Red State for breathlessly reporting half-truths, falsehoods, assumptions etc.
But still we have people defending it.
Did you miss the part of my comment that said the rest of the article may be crap? I have not read the whole Shapiro article, so I have no idea if it is or isn’t.
Also, did you miss the part of my post where I said Trump is not calling for a ban either?
Shapiro is not wrong about the NRA’s position.
Let the record reflect that I have commented on the NRA’s position. The NRA is absolutely wrong about having a “process” for people to restore their rights. The government has the burden to have a “process” to have a citizens God given Constitutionally protected rights denied. Allowing some bureaucrat in a cubicle to make those decisions in secret is wrong, wrong, wrong!
Meerkat, glad to have you.
I have never voted for a guy I liked since Reagan
I will admit I was a Rubio guy before the primaries
But it’s like the last scenes in the Professionals
The Republicans look to the horizon and ask: “Is that a whirling Dervish?”
“That, gentlemen, is the whirlingest dervish of them all”
If the Republican Party wanted ‘purity’ they should have told him to piss of and not let him run as a Republican.
I find it telling that the Romney’s and the Shapiro’s and Barat fooking Hoosein are all madder at Trump than they are at enemies of America
BFH, I apologize for hijacking half this thread to come out of the closet for Trump.
But on Topic, Trump has only given a vague statement regarding his future meeting with the NRA. To write 1000 words on that one vague statement is somewhat foolish. Especially since a president does not pass gun laws, much less a presidential candidate. If a presidential candidate was anti-abortion, and that candidate got elected, would abortion be illegal? C’mon folks, this is a nothing-burger.
And Donald J. Trump, who has been leading the field in most national and state polls for months, said that he also would be open to preventing terrorism suspects from buying firearms.
“I would certainly take a look at it,” Mr. Trump told CBS on Sunday. “I’m very strongly into the whole thing with Second Amendment. But if you can’t fly, and if you have got some really bad — I would certainly look at that very hard.”
I put a LOT more weight on what a person says in response to a direct question than any twitter or press feed that may or may not have even been penned by the man.
There is a lot of spin going on, but it is clear from Trump’s statements that his intent is to try to persuade the NRA to change it’s position, not learn more about it.
No amount of spin alters the facts.
Trump is in front of a microphone almost daily, he could, that is if he is being misrepresented, clear it up in a few words.
His silence is deafening.
He HAS to stop moving leftward or he is going to hand the election to Hillary.
Ben Shapiro is completely deranged. I stopped listening to his radio show because it has become nothing but a non-stop Trump bashing session. Every day this whiny beta male with his nasal little sissy boy voice goes on an Anti-Trump screed.
The allegedly conservative chick, Elisha Kraus, that is on his show piles on with her millennial speak, interspersing her every sentence with the word, “like”. They sound like a couple of fucktarded morons.
The stupid, fat liberal guy on the show, Brian Whitman, who does really crappy celebrity impressions and thinks he is funny, is now the best part of the show.
Trump needs to stop dabbling in gun control, especially gun control based on who is “crazy”, which is what the govt lists will ultimately reflect. It’s a political loser, anyway; Romney got no votes at all for implementing the prototype of Obamacare in Massachusetts. Dance with the one what brung ya, Trump.
Ben and people like him are doing their best to convince themselves they were right about Trump. If they can get enough people to believe the lie – it must be true, right?!?! It’s good to see some #NT come around and claim they will vote to stop Hillary, but they almost always manage to make it about them, not the country. The entire movement was and is an embarrassment.
How many time does Trump have to prove he is smarter than them?
The big problem: the FBI cannot be trusted. It’s a tool of the commies currently in charge. Authentic conservatives could be labeled terrorists. Need to clean out the vermin first.
This is not a comment on Trump or the NRA. I am simply talking about gun control and watch lists.
I do not want unelected government officials to have the ability to put people on watch lists and deny their right to bear arms. San Bernardino, Ft Hood, Orlando, Boston marathon bombers etc were all people who should have never been here in the first place. It’s the government’s damn fault for letting them here, and taking away my rights in order to mitigate your bad decisions is total BS.
Who’s Ben Shapiro?
Is everyone cool with allowing “boards” and “panels” and “committees” put you on a mental health watchlist?
Because that’s what Cruz and the entire GOP voted for.
No Menderman, Shapiro is completely wrong about everything he wrote.
He says Trump threw the NRA under the bus.
Well, then, the NRA is arguably on the wrong side of this issue, so if Trump throws them under the bus it’s a good thing, no?
Why is it when I point out that someone is completely stupid for foisting their interpretation of a Trump tweet in order to go “Haha Suckers” I get pushback from you?
It’s like your stuck on menstruation mode.
Tell me, definitively and with confidence-
What is Trump’s view on the Terror Watchlist?
How does it differ from the NRA’s position?
How does this position throw the NRA under the bus?
I think you’ll find I made my case that Shapiro has no fucking idea what he’s talking about.
Once again, JohnS shows he is marginally capable – but utterly unwilling – to veer the discussion to anything but sowing doubt over and dung on Trump. Go blow some gays for Hillary, jerkwad.
seems the never trumpers here do more than jump to conclusions. They leap tall buildings in a single bound.
You can go 20 different directions if you like and argue about stuff that wasn’t in your post nor my comment, but the fact remains that Shapiro did not mis-characterize the NRA. I never dissed Trump in my comment at all. I did however dis the NRA for their idiotic position. As far as the rest of the article being wrong and idiotic, I have no idea, I’ve never read it. As to Trumps position on the issue, again, I have no idea what it is, but by his tweet, he is forming an opinion as we speak. He should come out and announce his position in my opinion.
You need to quit assuming what I mean and read what I type.
“It has long been the position of the National Rifle Association that banning people from buying weapons based on the terror watch list is a fool’s errand.” – Ben Shapiro
The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period. Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing. – NRA
“the fact remains that Shapiro did not mis-characterize the NRA.” Menderman
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The NRA is not endorsing the use of a terror watchlist in order to determine if someone can buy a gun or not?
Really?
This is what you believe you just read?
Is the NRA not endorsing the use of a terror list… you know, the fool’s errand?
They have said they do not want terrorists to have guns.
A guy walks into gun shop. He wants to buy a gun.
Does the NRA want the gun shop owner to refer to a terror watchlist to determine if this guy gets a gun or not?
So the guy is on a list and he’s denied his right to have a defensive weapon for 3 days while he’s scoped by a judge.
So a terror watchlist is depended upon for this process, and people will not be able to get a gun because of this list, no?
BFH, please, help us.
I can’t find that statement by the NRA.
Could you post a link to it?
It’s been linked since this post was made. Do you not know how to identify a link and click it? -bfh
I really don’t have a clue as to how the internet has become so censored lately that the statements you attribute to people and organizations can’t be found.
They must really have it in for you.
Seriously, the solution is to push Trump away from his natural tendencies. The guy wants to win, and if he is certain we are in the bag he will give away the store to get over the top. He has proved this again and again.
Like tens of millions of others, I am going to vote for this guy because he might be on my side occasionally and even if he isn’t much better than the alternative, I am not ready to become a Democrat.
This is the third time I have done this drill, and between you and I, it is getting tiresome.
If open primaries are not ended, the Republican party will be.
Do you not understand the difference between the words “Ban” and “delay”?
Are you intentionally twisting this?
Bottom line, the NRA IS NOT calling for banning people on the no fly list from purchasing guns. They do call for a delay on a purchase for people on a terrorist watch list. ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE HAS THE NRA CALLED FOR BANNING THESE PEOPLE!!!
And I fully disagree with the NRA’s position on this. Let me say it again. If the government sees it necessary to deny a citizen his or her God given, constitutionally protected rights, they have the burden to do so through due process.
Do you not understand that the NRA approves of a terror watchlist and it will be used to ban people from purchasing guns??
Are you intentionally hitting yourself on the head with a hammer before you post?
I walk in to a store, I discover I am on a terror watchlist. I have to wait 3 days before getting the gun.
Three days go by and I’m told I can’t get the gun.
Did I just get banned from purchasing a gun because of a terror watchlist?
As I understand it, if the feds don’t get a court to revoke your God given rights, you get your gun. Do you know differently?
And what is that bar? How high? How low? And are you involved? Do you get to confront your judge?
When a warrant is issued against you you do not stand before the judge. You don’t get to question, you don’t get to answer.
It just happens in your absence.
And when you’re told that you cannot purchase a gun, what was used to prevent you from buying that gun??
THE TERROR WATCHLIST.
Let me borrow a line from Shapiro.
You think if you’re on a terror watchlist and are “delayed” from buying a gun that the entire matter is going to be cleared up in 3 days??
HA-HA SUCKERS!!