Guns: Tyrant or Weakling

There are two simultaneous criticisms of Barrack Obama by GOP candidates.   He is a tyrant!   He is a "feckless weakling".   Both.   Simultaneously.

Is that possible?    Apparently yes.

Obama called for stronger background checks prior to people purchasing guns.   He teared up in grief and frustration at the deaths of schoolchildren and his inability to change American gun culture.   It was proof positive of his weakness, right??

Yes and no.

 He is a dictator and tyrant, so says Ted Cruz in this image on the Cruz website.  "Gun control is government control.  Fight back."

Marco Rubio agrees:   "Barrack Obama is obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment--an important protection our Constitution recognizes and defends for us, and he's looking for any way possible to undermine it.  He's been doing this forever."

Chris Christie:  "This president wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator."

And Donald Trump on Obama's executive actions "The Republicans did not stop him.  He's getting away with murder.  He got everything he wanted.  We got nothing."

But, simultaneously Obama is hopelessly weak, the same people say.

Trump:  "We have incompetent people--probably stupid--but incompetent people making deals."   America is weak:  "We don't have victories any more.  We don't win any more.   Bring back Patton!"

Chris Christie said that that "yes, we'd shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if they were stupid enough to think that this president [pointing to himself] was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now."

The very frequent Fox News commentator, Charles Krauthammer,  yesterday summarized the conservative media-candidate position regarding Obama's initiative on gun background checks, critical of his interest in guns in the face of "a meltdown in the Middle East, terrorism all over the world, shutdown of capitals in Europe, attacks here in the United States.   We have a president who's not asleep at the wheel, he's not at the wheel at all."

The gun control issue plays badly for Obama.   People who support gun control observe Obama in his weakness, his inability to get meaningful legislative change.   A few loopholes might get adjusted but nothing will change.  America is and will be full of guns.  Democrats and gun control advocates are disappointed.  Weak Obama.

Meanwhile gun supporters see presidential strength so they make their point by photoshopping a tyrant villain.

It is the worst of both worlds: both sides angry.   

Hillary Clinton is not taking advice from me, but I will offer it to her here.  She should drop gun control as an issue.   She should give up, and tell gun control supporters and friends the simple truth:  there is nothing whatever we can do about this.  Acknowledge a reality.  It is OK to acknowledge reality.   People like it when you tell them the obvious truth.  Guns are everywhere and lots of people like them, especially in rural areas.   And there are lots of rural areas.  Nothing is going to eliminate guns, not now.

Legal in Oregon.  Drug opponents decided to quit fighting a losing battle

She should say that guns are like alcohol.  Or pot.  No prohibition will work.   Americans who want alcohol or pot can find it.  American who want guns will get them.  There are everywhere, and cheap.   All we can do is attempt to prosecute people who use guns in a crime, similar to the way we punish people who drive drunk.  It is control after the fact, meaning, yes, senseless deaths.  We live with the consequences.   It is the price of liberty.   People use pot, people drink alcohol, people have guns.  Prohibition doesn't work.

Is this defeatist?  Some will say so.  Just as some people who want to ban drugs say that stopping the war on pot is "defeatist."   The other way to look at it is that the politician is accepting reality.  There is no shame in that.   Shame--and political hazard--is attempting to sell something people know is impossible.   Guns are here, like alcohol and pot.

So move on.   Quit frustrating your supporters and angering your opponents.   Move on.

Personal note:   I don't like guns and don't own one, I don't drink alcohol, I don't use pot.  What I like isn't the point.   I live in America and I see what my countrymen do and like.