By WAYNE LUSVARDI
California Assemblyman Anthony Portantino needs to create a media controversy to get his name out in the public to run for Congress next year in a newly gerrymandered district formerly held by Republican David Dreier.
His vehicle for doing so has been Assembly Bill 144 that would purportedly ban the open carrying of handguns by private citizens. Portantino’s campaign follows an oft-used liberal strategy: self-righteously demonize some conservative individual or group as extremists, such as gun owners, and forget what consequences such legislation may have on society.
However, Portantino’s worst nightmare has appeared in Oslo, Norway, in the form of Anders Breivik, a 32-year old nationalist and Freemason – not a fundamentalist Christian -- who recently was able to gun down about 69 children and a policeman at a Labor Party Summer Youth Camp because the Norwegian police officer present at the camp was forbidden from carrying a gun. Even if the policeman had a gun he would first have needed permission to load it or shoot it from his superiors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70Z60XEp0Q&feature=youtu.be
What started out as mainly an election campaign strategy may backfire on Portantino now that the public can see the consequences such a law might inflict harm on innocent bystanders, especially children.
AB 144 is Sociologically Naive
Especially in a remote youth camp setting where adult leaders are highly visible and known to the campers, the open carry of guns would have prevented such a massacre. Similar deterrence might result in churches or synagogues, schools, and other places in urban settings where the members would know the gun carriers. Such an open carry ban as proposed by Portantino lacks awareness of the differences of the sociological setting of a church or youth camp for example and an anonymous public airport.
Which Hypotheticals are Most Likely in California?
As reported by reporter Yih-Chau Chang of the San Francisco Examiner, there is no record of an open carry gun advocate ever committing a violent crime in the 160-year history of California. Nonetheless, Portantino needs to create a bogeyman to get elected, consequences be damned.
Which of the two following hypothetical gun crimes do you believe is most probable? The shooting of innocent victims by a licensed open gun toting citizen or the mass murder or mass kidnapping of innocent children or gunning down those in a Jewish synagogue or social service center?
Remember the kidnapping of 26 children and a school bus driver in Chowchilla, California in 1976?
Remember Buford O. Furrow, who in August 1999, walked into the L.A. Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, California and shot three children, a teenage counselor, and an office worker with a semi-automatic weapon? Later, he murdered a letter carrier, but was eventually caught in another state?
Or do you remember the July 4th, 2002, shooting rampage resulting in two deaths at the El Al Airline ticket counter at LAX airport that was contained by airport police quickly shooting the perpetrator? Like the Breivik case, the FBI concluded that this incident was a terrorist act unconnected to any organized terrorist group or organization.http://articles.cnn.com/2002-07-04/us/la.airport.shooting_1_el-al-gunman-yakov-aminov?_s=PM:US
Portantino is a Demogogue
Assemblyman Anthony Portantino practices demagoguery, a strategy to appeal to the prejudices, emotions, and fears of the public for political advantage.
H. L. Mencken, once defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
Portantino certainly is not unconcerned about the potential victims of murderers. He just has ignored the unintended but foreseeable consequences of his legislation for his own political gain. Anthony Portantino apparently has no distinctive platform to run for Congress on other than demagoguery.
The only thing that stops mass murders is the arrival of a second gun. Legislation such as AB 144 is intended to create a safe area for potential victims but the unintended consequence is to create a safe area for murderers.
Let's Kill AB 144 Not Innocent Children
Assembly Bill 144 has been approved by the State Assembly and is presently under review in the State Senate.
Let’s not commit the same negligence and naivete as the Norwegian government. Let’s not vote for AB 144 and Anthony Portantino only to find out much later than our prejudices against gun owners was misplaced and resulted in mass murder.
Let’s kill AB 144 not innocent children and let’s not support Anthony Portantino for election to Congress based on his putting political opportunism over the welfare of the most vulnerable.
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