Important headlines for May 3rd - It's not about AR-15's
Bottom Line: These are stories you shouldn't miss and my takes on them...
NRA promotes Ideal Conceal gun that looks like a phone. Parkland survivor isn't buying it - Miami Herald
Excerpt: From the time its creator sketched it on a napkin, the Ideal Conceal handgun has had a complicated birth. It's small enough to tuck into a pocket and folds up to look like a cellphone.
Critics slammed the idea because police have shot people holding cellphones and toy gunsthey mistook for real guns.
With the gun almost ready to be shipped to retailers, the derringer-style pistol will be a "featured product" this week at the annual National Rifle Association meeting in Dallas.
"The Cellphone Pistol offers a great option for self-defense along with max concealment. The shape will not print as a pistol, yet can be drawn and fired quickly," says a description on the NRA's website.
The gun has drawn fresh criticism from Jaclyn Corin, one of the teenage survivors of the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Corin has been one of the student leaders calling for new gun control laws.
"Even more people will be targeted by law enforcement b/c they 'look' like they’re carrying a weapon," Corin tweeted on Tuesday.
Hot Take: Couple of questions. If you've flown on a plane does that make you an expert on aviation? If you've traveled to Egypt does that make you an expert on African culture? If you've been injured in a car accident are you suddenly an expert on transportation? Those are all absurd right? Here's one more that's just as absurd. If you're in school and a mass murder happens are you suddenly a firearms expert? That's what's playing out time and again in the media.
It's a simple recipe. Have a gun related story, find a Stoneman Douglas student to sound off on it with a loud anti-NRA, gun control related message, wash and repeat. It's also a pathetic and cowardly way to perpetuate politics rather than honestly advance news and honest discussion of it. What's worse is it's potentially dangerous. Here's another excerpt from the end of the story once again citing a message from Jaclyn on Twitter responding to an NRA tweet: What about the 17 lives that were cut short by an AR-15?" That's the mindset that's the most troubling. An AR-15 didn't kill anyone. It can't. It's an object. Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people. Continuing to blame an object and even banning an object wouldn't make Nikolas Cruz any less a threat to society, nor others bent on evil like him. Guns aren't new, the NRA isn't new, the proliferation of violence is. Until and unless we focus on the people and what's changed in our society that's activating this evil we're only playing a misguided game of politics. No one should have to experience what Jaclyn and the other survivors, let alone the victims, experienced and none of us can relate but she's no firearms expert, nor does she have moral authority because she was there.
What's evident is what the agenda has really been about from the beginning. Why wouldn't someone who's a legal concealed carry permit holder not potentially want a better way to conceal and more easily access the weapon in an emergency? This isn't about AR-15's and never was for many of the activists in the media using teens as political tools. It's about guns period. This story's the latest example of it.
How About a Few Questions for Robert Mueller? Mark Penn, The Hill
Excerpt: Robert Mueller has plenty of questions for President Trump, and maybe he will get to ask them. Most of them seemed like perjury traps rather than real questions for the president and, surprisingly, they contain very little that wasn’t in the public domain though prior leaks. In other words, the president is not a target because they have nothing implicating him, and so they want to use the interview to create such material.
Hot Take: If you were tasked with doing a job to answer one question with unlimited resources, at taxpayer expense no less, a year had gone by and you'd produced nothing substantive to the purpose of that question what would the appropriate action be for the interests of, in this case, the country? There are two sides to stories and one side to facts. The fact is that one year in Mueller has nothing even remotely substantive regarding the investigation of Trump, Russia collusion yet his very existence, these questions, these leaks are being used to deliberately undermine his ability to govern. That's literally anti-American interests. What's more is that there is plain evidence of a conspiracy coordinated by the DNC, Clinton campaign and top officials at the FBI and Justice Department to illegally obtain wiretaps and illegally leak information to the press and what's happening with those people? Oh, that's right they're living on taxpayer pensions, benefits, and/or going on book tours (except for Rosenstein who still theoretically works for us).
Are there actually any folks who oppose the President's agenda but who care more about the country than political outcomes?
Until tomorrow...