riverrat10k
Regular Member
imported post
From the Jan. 20 Richmond Times Dispatch. This is actually pretty mild from Williams. More reporting and less opinion than usual. Selective reporting of course.The good news is the counter-lobbyists were outnumbered at least 200 to 3 according to his own report. Interesting that the MMM guy thinks a gun killed King, rather than the truth that he was killed by a criminal.
Protesters ridiculed at gun rally
By Michael Paul Williams
Published: January 20, 2009
Three people stood out at the pro-gun rights rally on the holiday celebration of a nonviolent American martyr.
Each bore signs with photos of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and John and Robert Kennedy beneath the message "Guns Didn't Save These Lives."
They were silently protesting a Virginia Citizens Defense League rally against gun regulation, which drew about 200 gun-rights supporters to the state Capitol Bell Tower at 11 a.m.
"Today is a day set aside to honor a peace-loving person who was killed by a gun," said Andrew L. Goddard of the Richmond chapter of the Million Mom March and the father of a survivor of the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech shootings.
"I don't think it honors Martin Luther King to be out here expounding on the virtues of guns," said Goddard, who was joined by Lori Haas, the mother of another surviving Tech victim, and Alice Mountjoy of the Virginia Center for Public Safety.
After Mountjoy left, the two remaining protesters were held up to ridicule by one of the rally's speakers, Mary Katharine Ham, a regular on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News. "Two of them, that's cute," she said.
Ham, 28, a blogger for The Weekly Standard magazine, asked why the protesters weren't lying down -- a reference to a "die-in" protest last week outside the state Capitol by families affected by the Tech massacre.
She criticized those who questioned the appropriateness of the rally on King's holiday -- ironic at an event focused on individual rights.
But her attitude was typical of the rally's half-dozen speakers. Anyone in favor of gun restrictions was dismissed as a self-promoting egotist, ignorant or simply freedom-hating. Sometimes, the swagger on display would have made Clint Eastwood blush. The cheering crowd ate it up.
"I have always found that a 9 millimeter is a hell of an equalizer," Ham said on the usefulness of firearms for women.
Ham also tried to turn King into an NRA poster person by quoting from a 1966 speech by the civil-rights leader.
"It goes without saying that people will protect their homes. This is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and respected even in the worst areas of the South," she quoted King as saying, as if such an assertion placed King in league with Charlton Heston.
The title of King's speech -- "Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom" -- gave the remarks a context Ham attempted to strip from them.
Her speech avoided other King quotes, such as:
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."
And: "By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim . . . we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes."
To suggest that King would march in lockstep with this pro-gun crowd is an assault on his legacy.
And, OT, but another tragic killing at Va. Tech. Sad that the woman was not allowed to carry a gun for protection on campus. Guy chopped off her head with a kitchen knife. Awful.
rat
From the Jan. 20 Richmond Times Dispatch. This is actually pretty mild from Williams. More reporting and less opinion than usual. Selective reporting of course.The good news is the counter-lobbyists were outnumbered at least 200 to 3 according to his own report. Interesting that the MMM guy thinks a gun killed King, rather than the truth that he was killed by a criminal.
Protesters ridiculed at gun rally
By Michael Paul Williams
Published: January 20, 2009
Three people stood out at the pro-gun rights rally on the holiday celebration of a nonviolent American martyr.
Each bore signs with photos of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and John and Robert Kennedy beneath the message "Guns Didn't Save These Lives."
They were silently protesting a Virginia Citizens Defense League rally against gun regulation, which drew about 200 gun-rights supporters to the state Capitol Bell Tower at 11 a.m.
"Today is a day set aside to honor a peace-loving person who was killed by a gun," said Andrew L. Goddard of the Richmond chapter of the Million Mom March and the father of a survivor of the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech shootings.
"I don't think it honors Martin Luther King to be out here expounding on the virtues of guns," said Goddard, who was joined by Lori Haas, the mother of another surviving Tech victim, and Alice Mountjoy of the Virginia Center for Public Safety.
After Mountjoy left, the two remaining protesters were held up to ridicule by one of the rally's speakers, Mary Katharine Ham, a regular on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News. "Two of them, that's cute," she said.
Ham, 28, a blogger for The Weekly Standard magazine, asked why the protesters weren't lying down -- a reference to a "die-in" protest last week outside the state Capitol by families affected by the Tech massacre.
She criticized those who questioned the appropriateness of the rally on King's holiday -- ironic at an event focused on individual rights.
But her attitude was typical of the rally's half-dozen speakers. Anyone in favor of gun restrictions was dismissed as a self-promoting egotist, ignorant or simply freedom-hating. Sometimes, the swagger on display would have made Clint Eastwood blush. The cheering crowd ate it up.
"I have always found that a 9 millimeter is a hell of an equalizer," Ham said on the usefulness of firearms for women.
Ham also tried to turn King into an NRA poster person by quoting from a 1966 speech by the civil-rights leader.
"It goes without saying that people will protect their homes. This is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and respected even in the worst areas of the South," she quoted King as saying, as if such an assertion placed King in league with Charlton Heston.
The title of King's speech -- "Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom" -- gave the remarks a context Ham attempted to strip from them.
Her speech avoided other King quotes, such as:
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."
And: "By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim . . . we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes."
To suggest that King would march in lockstep with this pro-gun crowd is an assault on his legacy.
And, OT, but another tragic killing at Va. Tech. Sad that the woman was not allowed to carry a gun for protection on campus. Guy chopped off her head with a kitchen knife. Awful.
rat
