On Tuesday, after the shooting massacre in Highland Park (Illinois) over Fourth of July weekend and subsequent retaliation, CNN NewsroomAlisyn Camerota, cohost of the show proposed Orwellian laws to track and profile gun owners in order to prevent them exercising their Second Amendment rights. Surprisingly, though she was pushed back by a former police commissioner of left-leaning views and learned how gun offenders are being released in certain American cities as part of criminal justice reform.
Pulling away from an update on the White House’s response to the shooting, Camerota brought on former Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey and former FBI supervisory special agent Steve Moore. She seemed to be arguing for profiling those who looked similar to the shooter as she continued to discuss this topic. “these suspects … are starting to look alike.”
The shooter may look strange, but she is looking for people who have tattoos and long hair. It seems that her target audience includes many former military personnel based only on this description.
Camerota was unaware of the steps involved in buying a gun, and didn’t pay any attention to merchants. “is it too much to ask the gun seller to do a cursory check on social media?”
Moore was asked to elaborate on how this idea might violate privacy laws. “Well, the problem is that they’re not really asked to, and they’re not really allowed to, in some ways. They are retail merchants,” he said, seemingly hinting at how unreasonable asking them to troll through social media accounts would be.
He compared what she demanded to putting on the liquor store owners the responsibility of reviewing social media before selling. “The gatekeepers are the government, essentially. It is not the retail establishment,” he said.
Camerota was compelled to go on a tirade, wherein she likened gun shop transactions to her work as a waitress. Again, Moore had to tell her how she was grossly inaccurate (Click “expand”):
CAMEROTA: That analogy is great, Steve. Because I used to be a waitress, and for a while, we were told to run up the alcohol tab on people – on customers who came in because you got them to pay more that way. After the law was changed, you could not serve someone you knew who had been drinking because they were causing harm to others on the road. So, once you have recognized —
MOORE: It’s something a little bit different.
CAMEROTA: I understand. Steve, these analogies don’t work. I get it. All of them are imperfect. You can often see them from miles away.
Camerota moaned as she suggested an Orwellian tracking program for gun purchases. “Is there no such thing as a database where a gun seller can look to see if somebody’s recently, in the past day, purchased an AR-15? Would that help, commissioner?”She wanted to find out.
So, Camerota’s plan seems to be to bar people who make an arbitrary number of gun purchases in an arbitrary amount of time with no consideration for how shopping works. That’s not to mention how this list of gun owners could be used as a political weapon. Just look at California where the attorney general’s office mishandled and dumped the private information of thousands of registered gun owners.
“Well, it would help if there was some kind of database, but also, where’s the law that says you can’t buy, you know, guns in different places? It’s important to sit down and really think about the things we desire. What’s the balance?” Ramsey scoffed at Camerota’s idea.
Ramsey then went on to explain how she believes her ideas can be used to bring about drastic change against those who have not committed any crime.
Steve said, “How much intrusion can you allow the government to look at your Facebook pages or other information?” You know, the question is where is the balance? We have to balance it because there is a lot people who post crazy things on the internet but don’t actually act them out. How far can we go?
Although, he does say “the laws just need to be changed.”
Proving just how deep she lived in the liberal media echo chamber, Camerota’s mind was blown when Ramsey informed her that some American cities were releasing offenders charged with gun crimes (Click “expand”):
RAMSEY: [I]It’s not the guns that are the problem, but the people who use them to commit crimes. These guys don’t need to go to prison if they are found using guns to do a crime.
I mean, I know that’s not popular to say right now, we want to treat everybody with care—
CAMEROTA: Wait! Keep on. Commissioner, hold on. Please help us to understand this. Are you saying someone who has used a firearm to commit a crime will not go to prison?
RAMSEY, There are some people out there right now who have pending charges against them for gun offenses, assaults and other crimes. That’s not common. It’s not common. This is what’s happening right now, not in every city. That’s undisputed.
“And so we’ve got to look at the entire system. Guns are all we want to be blamed. We got to look at the people who are using these guns,” he said to her dismay.
These Orwellian proposals by CNN were made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Liberty Mutual and The Farmer’s Dog. You can find their contact information here.
Click here to view the transcript as a PDF.
About Post Author
