(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Megyn Kelly says liberals are to blame for gun violence [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-07 On Saturday evening , in the aftermath of another American gun massacre, Megyn Kelly took to Twitter to tell liberals they had failed to prevent the carnage in Allen, TX — or anywhere. “Serious q for gun control advocates: you’ve failed to effect change. Pls face it. You can’t do it, thx to the 2A. We’re all well aware you don’t like that fact, but fact it is. What’s next? Must we just stay here sad, concerned, lamenting? Could we possibly talk OTHER SOLUTIONS?” Kelly, who was once reputed to be a serious journalist, makes a fact-free and absurd claim. She says that gun control is off the table because of 2A. Yet the very Justice that led the charge to guarantee the right of the individual to bear arms was full-throated in his support of gun control. In the Heller vs. DC decision, Antonin Scalia wrote : “(T)he majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.” Then, to emphasize he agreed that limits to gun ownership were constitutional, he added: “Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” He even conceded that the government could ban certain kinds of weapons “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Kelly is an arrogant thinker who believes her interpretation of the law must necessarily find support in a Supreme Court decision, even when a quick scan of that decision renders her smug opinion wrong and irrelevant. Kelly is not just clueless about what the Constitution allows. She is also incorrect that once the Supreme Court has rendered a decision that closes the books on the subject. Rights in America are subject to change as the times and the composition of the Supreme Court change. In 1973, the Court decided that the provisions of the 14th Amendment guaranteed the right to abortion . Forty-nine years later, the Court uprooted Roe and cast it onto the trash pile in the Dobbs vs. Jackson. In 1896, Plessy vs. Ferguson enabled the white supremacist wet dream of “separate but equal” — and ushered in Jim Crow. In 1954 Brown v the Board of Education called bullshit on that patently ridiculous interpretation of the Constitution. There is reason to think that a future SCOTUS could strike down Heller. Kelly is not new to nihilism in the face of gun massacres and dead kids. After the Church shooting in Sutherland Springs Texas (aka the Gun State?), she preached : “Something in our culture is off. Something is just wrong. From concerts in Las Vegas to movies in Colorado, to night clubs in Orlando, to a first-grade classroom in Sandy Hook, they used to be places of escape, of celebration, of community, of learning and now they are also potential battlegrounds, where gunshots suddenly and too often ring out. If, after this enumeration of a scant few of the multiple gun massacres in the US, a listener thought Kelly would offer a solution, they would have been disappointed. In her calm, well-modulated TV-professional voice, she threw her hands in the air and offered this message, ‘shit happens, what are you going to do?’ Those of us who watch are shell-shocked, stuck somewhere between scared and desensitized. We’re horrified but never quite resolved enough to actually do something meaningful about it. Is change even possible? Is it? How do we stop someone determined to unleash hell in a free society? Change the gun laws? The mental health system? Address the anger and isolation so prevalent in our country right now? All of the above? We feel powerless. Nothing ever seems to change in the wake of these tragedies. Liberals have offered plenty of suggestions to reduce gun violence. But thanks to the gun lobby, we have yet to know if any will work — besides the federal assault weapons ban (1994 - 2004), which corresponded with a decrease in gun massacres and preceded a massive increase in gun massacres after its expiration. Kelly has the gall to ignore the effect of gun absolutism in the US. She refuses to acknowledge that the Sutherland Springs (27 dead) and the Allen (8) massacres occurred in pro-gun Texas. And, in between, so did multi-dead shootings in Santa Fe (10), El Paso (23), Uvalde (22), Centerville (6), and Cleveland (5). In those six years, all Texas did was make it easier for more people to carry more guns in more places. If the gun lobby and its political poodles were right that guns are the answer, Texas would be the safest state in the Union — it is not. And yet, despite Texas being a Republican hegemony, Kelly is pointing the finger at Democrats and asking them to come up with different solutions — when they have not even been able to implement the solutions they already have. What is the GOP plan? All they have so far is “thoughts and prayers.” And when you consider that gun violence is worst in the Bible Belt, that is not so much a plan as it is an admission that Christian politicians do not care about life. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/7/2168027/-Megyn-Kelly-says-liberals-are-to-blame-for-gun-violence Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/