“The good thing about Newtown is, it was so horrific that I think it galvanized Americans to a point where the intensity on our side is going to match the intensity on their side.”
— former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, enthusiastically becoming the latest passenger of the Newtown Massacre Ethics Train Wreck
“Phooey! If only a few more kids had been shot, we’d really have the NRA on the run!”
The shocking thing about this is that unlike Piers Morgan, Alex Jones, Andrew Cuomo, and most of the other public figures who have boarded lately, Ed Rendell is usually a responsible individual in word and deed. His statement, however, is as indefensible as it is cynical.
- Needless to say (I thought), there can be nothing good about a gunman killing twenty small children.
- Following Ed’s logic, another school massacre, preferably of even more kids, is just what the anti-gun movement needs. Ha! Now we’ve got you, NRA!
- The fact that a gun control advocate could even think this, never mind say it and say it for public consumption, suggests how completely lacking in proportion and rationality the anti-gun forces have become.
- Passion does not equal persuasiveness, effectiveness or virtue. When passion manifests itself in satisfaction that a bloody slaughter of schoolchildren was “horrific,” it equals derangement and flirts with evil.
- A politician that welcomes the deplorable phenomenon in which emotional, knee-jerk reactions to single incidents drive public policy has exposed his lack of respect for the public and the policy process, and his endorsement of government by hysteria.
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Pointer: The Blaze
Facts: The Examiner
Ethics Alarms 
What also struck me about this was that after the Rendell statement, the rest of the panelists didn’t object to this thought process.
Because when it boils down to it, the Left doesn’t care about increasing safety, their stated purposes for gun control are all smokescreens for the reason they can’t publicize.
“Because when it boils down to it, the Left doesn’t care about increasing safety, their stated purposes for gun control are all smokescreens for the reason they can’t publicize.”
Note that when unarmed black men are shot to death by cops, there are eerily no calls from the media about disarming, let alone disbanding, cops.
Fix this please, Jack.
We need an Edit function for our comments.
I know, I know. I keep asking WordPress. Some day they’ll just add it and not even tell me.
You’re confusing leftist positions with statist positions.
I think that’s right, but virtually all the Right’s commentators use the words interchangeably. Rush likes Leftist; Mark Levin uses “Statist” almost exclusively.
Where’s the confusion? Most of the left’s goals presume the need for virtually unchecked state leverage. “A government big enough to give you everything you want….”
Nice, demonize your opponent. The left tends to believe that less guns = safer world. They may be right; they may be wrong, but that’s their position and they’re up front about it. There’s nothing nefarious here.
I believe this caricature would be the accurate counter position to the post you had about the unethical cartoon, where the assumed right-winger is hugging his gun with a tear and the supposed counter position is the mom huggin her kid.
Replace the mom hugging her kid with this guy smiling at the newspaper and the cartoon would have communicated more accurately.
I think the comment and subsequent lack of reproach from the other panelists reveals the inevitable bubble within which anyone resides when they make the dangerous slide to pure abstract thinking. Yes, there needs to be a compelling argument to promote discussion about gun reform. No, there does not need to be another “horrific tragedy.” These clumsy comments only give more fuel to the LaPierre’s to further their own vitriol against gun-control advocates.
Why just “the LaPierres?” Comments like Rendell’s justly earn vitriol all around, as does the strong indication that a large segment of his allies agree with him. What has LaPierre himself ever said that was remotely as grotesque as suggesting that there is a silver lining in a massacre of babies? Even Alex Jones, foaming at the mouth and making Piers Morgan look almost intelligent, said nothing that idiotic, because nothing is that idiotic.
It does show the moral character behind those who lead the gun control campaign.
Only the Holocaust denial campaign is viler- and not by much.
First, finding a silver lining in a horrible tragedy is not grotesque. What Rendell thinks is a silver lining here is pretty horrible (using the tragedy to trick people into bad law), but there’s no problem with finding an actual silver lining.
Agree—silver lining is misused. Theoretically, even the Holocaust has “silver linings”—Ann Frank’s diary is inspiring to millions, for example. I don’t see increased killings ever being a “silver lining,” though.
Just thinking it isn’t so bad. There’s some truth to the logic: The more school shootings we have, the more likely we are to pass stricter gun control laws. Rendell is not wrong about that. But he crosses the line when he calls it a “good thing.”
Thinking “Wow! This is a good thing!” as a reaction to the news of Sandy Hook would prompt me to undertake some serious self-evaluation.
“… no calls from the media about disarming, let alone disbanding, cops.” Michael– With all due respect, you have not kept up to date on the Negotiated Settlement Agreement and related events in Oakland, CA.
I know its off topic, but you might find it interesting.
I doubt there was any objection because this is what many of the gun control activists are actually thinking.
When I look at them, none of the proposals I have seen would have prevented the tragedy. This means the people proposing them aren’t actually concerned with trying to keep something like this happening again, they just want to push through their ban guns agenda.
I have no doubt that when gun control activists saw this tragedy on the news, at least part of them said “This is great! I can use this to push through gun control legislation”.
I don’t know about Rendell being that “responsible”, Jack, but I was surprised at his candor. It’s known well enough from the past that this kind of outlook by leftist politicians is endemic. What’s unusual is for them to come out and say it. Either Rendell was careless or (worse) he thinks his side is in such a strong position that he doesn’t have to worry about public reaction anymore.
The mistake you’re making is assuming that people like this really have our best interests at heart. Operating on the premise that they don’t makes their words and deeds infinitely more understandable and much less shocking.