1) "Our grief isn't enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again."
Note first Hillary's hypocrisy. She preaches that we must put politics aside, and then goes on to politicize the shooting. Or perhaps she has a curious notion of politics as that which 'deplorables' engage in while she is above that sort of thing. Besides, to stand up to the NRA is a political act inasmuch as the NRA is in part a political outfit that lobbies Congress in support of Second Amendment rights.
One understands Hillary's animus against the NRA since this organization played an important role in getting Trump elected.
Note second Hillary's thoughtless repetition of the vacuous boilerplate of career politicians: "to stop this from ever happening again." This is the emptiest of empty rhetoric. Everyone knows that these sorts of awful events will continue to occur and that they cannot be stopped. The most that can be done is to take certain steps to reduce their likelihood. For example, baggage checks at the Mandalay would probably have prevented this particular event. It took numerous trips for the shooter to stock his hotel room with guns and ammo.
2) "Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get."
Another reason why Hillary, Dianne Feinstein, and the rest of the liberal gun-grabbers enjoy no credibility with the sane is that they are know-nothings. A so-called 'silencer' does not make gun shots inaudible. It merely suppresses the report somewhat. This is why the correct term is 'suppressor.' But Hillary and her ilk cannot be bothered to learn basic gun terminology such as the distinction between semi-auto and full-auto long guns. On top of that, they always reach for emotive terminology. They don't use descriptive terms like 'semi-automatic long gun' but emotive terms like 'assault weapon.'
There is a technical, non-emotive use for 'assault rifle.' See here. Selective fire is part of the definition. "Selective fire means the capability of a weapon to be adjusted to fire in semi-automatic, multi-shot burst, and/or fully automatic firing mode.[1]" By this technical definition, however, semi-automatic long guns available for civilian purchase without special permits such as as the AR-15, which Hillary and Feinstein would count as 'assault rifles,' are not, technically, assault rifles.
So we have to distinguish between the emotive and the technical use of 'assault rifle.' It is plain that leftists such as Hillary and her ilk use the term emotively.
You would think that philosophers would avoid emotive language. You would be wrong. A reader sends me to Brian Leiter's academic gossip site where he opines that ". . . adult, civilized societies do not allow private citizens to own assault rifles." Leiter is clearly using the term in the emotive sense.
Question for 'liberals': If an AR-15 is used by a citizen to defend his home, his family, and/or his livelihood, is he assaulting or defending?
Are semi-automatic long guns intrinsically assaultive? Is any gun intrinsically assaultive? Or does it depend on how the weapon is used? Obviously, the latter. Are the police armed so that they can assault the citizenry? Think about it, 'liberals.'
Hillary's tweets here.
Recent Comments