Faux News: Guns on Federal Land

I just got home from work.  The wife and I are discussing our days (actually she’s discussing, I’m listening) when her cell phone rings.

Right now I don’t have the words to tell you how much I hate that cell phone.  Ever since we changed our landline service, most of my wife’s calls come in on her cell phone.  This isn’t a problem in any normal household, but this is my household.

It must be really interesting to be a silent observer at my house.  You’d see a cell phone that goes unused all day long, until I come home. All of the sudden my wife becomes really popular and the phone won’t stop ringing.  The apologetic look is nothing compared to The Phrase<tm>: “It was quiet all day until you came home.”

Good, you’re probably thinking… she has a cell phone so she can always be reached.

That would be correct, unless it’s me calling her.  This same phone that will not be quiet all night becomes mute when I try to call it.  If I’m at work or out somewhere and I want to call my wife, there is almost a three percent chance I will be able to get her.  We’re talking about a landline and a cell phone with good coverage.

I have no earthly idea why this is or what manner of physics prevents a connection from completing but the facts speak for themselves.  I will get voicemail or eternal ringing but what I will not get is my wife.

Some wags reading this will remark that perhaps my wife doesn’t want to talk to me.  If that were true, she would take an occasional breath when I’m home so I could get a word in.

I might get the landline voicemail.  When I remark later that I left a message, my wife will look at me quizzically and ask, “Did you?  When?  Oh, I must’ve been walking the dog.  Or talking to the neighbors.  Or in the bathroom.”

It doesn’t matter which line I call - I won’t be having a conversation with anything except voicemail.  But at least with voicemail, I get to speak.

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So the cell phone rings and she walks out back to take the call and have a ciggie.  The tv is muted and as a result, has closed captioning onscreen.  Since it’s around five, she has Faux News on.

It’s interesting to note how comprehension differs between watching tv with the sound on and watching with closed captioning.  For me, it’s a completely different experience.

Today’s experience involved Faux bringing in two `experts’ to discuss allowing concealed weapons to be carried on federal land.  The experts, whose names I didn’t get, should have been called Bugs and Daffy, for all the sense they made.  The statements were right out of Central Casting (even without sound).

One expert was from a Pennsylvania anti-gun group.  The other expert was an NRA lawyer.  You just knew that Fun was going erupt as soon as Bugs and Daffy got down to it.

Reading the closed captioning had the effect of slowing things down a bit for me so I could let my Inner Cynic loose on the proceedings.  And off he went…..

My idea of how law should be written and cases decided is based solely upon the law, not emotional pleas and diversionary statements.  Unfortunately this is not the way it happens, especially on Faux News.

These are the anti-gun expert’s points:

• we have a lot of bad stuff happening in this country, so why are we talking about a narrow NRA issue when we should be addressing something else?
• there are families with children at federal parks - you can’t have guns there (it’s for the children, of course)

These are the NRA lawyer’s points:

• we have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, which shouldn’t end on federal land
• this is not a narrow issue
• this is how Congress does business
• there is no constitutional guarantee to police protection

Going back to my love of purely legal points, there was only one made: the one about the Second Amendment.  It’s the only valid point, if you’re arguing the law.  It doesn’t matter what side you’re on: objectively speaking, that’s the law.

The rest of the points were distraction and emotional appeals.  This proved a good vantage point to observe this dance.

I understand the realities of television - even Faux.  You have to use short sound bytes to get your point across to the fourth graders who watch the news.  You only have a few minutes at best to cover a topic, no matter how complex.  I don’t know whether this explains Bugs and Daffy’s dance or perhaps that was their entire argument.  Regardless, it was sad to watch.

Leaving the legal argument behind for a moment (why not - they did), I’ll state that the anti-gun expert had a great point about Congress having better things to do.  But let’s face it: Congress defies logic on any given day, on any given topic.  This is the group that turned Congressional Ethics into an oxymoron.

To take this ball and run a bit further with it (my first and last sports reference this year), why is this even an issue?

• Was there a test case resulting from somebody getting their gun taken away while at a public park?
• Are there metal detectors at the borders of all federal land?
• Why is it illegal to carry on federal land in the first place?
• If you can’t carry, only criminals will be carrying.  Quite frankly, I’d prefer the odds to be slanted a bit more in my favor.
• The Second Amendment.  Period.
• Who is claiming that the OK Corral will break out at Yellowstone?

The alleged moderator of the Great Debate added exactly nothing to the proceedings.  Not only didn’t he have any intelligent input; he barely had any input at all.  Instead he read a comment he received in email that didn’t go any further toward making a point.  Faux News: now totally Fact Free! I’m not certain how much different it would be on local news either.  This is what passes for debate these days.

I’d like to suggest a compromise.  Perhaps they could limit gunplay to the times when Old Faithful erupts.  This way the gunfire won’t scare the children.  Everybody wins (unless I’m trying to reach my wife on her cell phone at that moment).

And we won’t have to watch Bugs and Daffy on Faux News ever again.