JAMES TARANTO: The Left Loses Control: The Antigun Crusade Becomes Ugly And Unhinged.
You may ask: Why spend the first paragraph stating the obvious when the point of the editorial—signaled by that “But . . .”—is its antithesis? Because the Times is walking back this embarrassingly wrong assertion, from an editorial two days earlier: “There will be post-mortems and an official search for a ‘motive’ for this latest gun atrocity, as if something explicable had happened.”
The Times, of course, rushed to fit last week’s terrorist attacks into its “gun violence” template, and the Saturday editorial was a desperate attempt to keep it there against all evidence. In the print edition, the editorial ran in the left column, just below a banner headline reading “F.B.I. IS TREATING RAMPAGE AS AN ACT OF TERRORISM” (online: “F.B.I. Treating San Bernardino Attack as Terrorism Case”). It seems the Times execs admire our “Two Papers in One!” trope.
The editorial dealt with the contradiction by equivocating on the definition of terrorism: Politicians who favor gun rights “distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.” And the editorial went beyond earlier calls for “modest,” “common-sense” “gun-safety” laws to urge confiscation of legally owned firearms. . . .
The Times’s front-page editorializing may be an attempt to keep up with the Daily News, a New York tabloid that could be described as the Times for infants. The News’s reaction to the San Bernardino attack has been utterly unhinged.
The News’s first reaction was to denounce prayer. “GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS,” screamed the front-page headline: “As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.” The cover featured tweets from Republican Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Lindsey Graham and Speaker Paul Ryan saying they were praying for the San Bernardino victims, survivors and emergency personnel.
And it wasn’t just the News. It appeared as if the left had collectively decided that they could finally get gun control through the simple expedient of enacting prayer control. Connecticut’s Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted: “Your ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing—again.”
The Hill reported that Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, said: “We’ve had far too many moments of silence on the floor of the House. And while it is right to respectfully acknowledge the losses, we can no longer remain silent. What gives us the right to hold moments of silence when we do nothing to act upon the cause of the grief?” The Los Angeles Times reports that Rep. Jackie Speier, a Bay Area Democrat, plans to boycott any moment of silence for mass-shooting victims.
The Times’s Saturday editorial also scoffed at “elected leaders” who “offer prayers for gun victims.” And the paper’s columnist Timothy Egan demanded “No More Thoughts and Prayers.” Gun control, prayer control, thought control.
In the war on thought, no one is more militant than the editorial staff at the Daily News. . . .
The Times, the News, Murphy, Stasi and others have certainly succeeded in drawing attention to themselves, in part by paying attention to one another. “Nice of @nytimes to credit @NYDailyNews cover for showing impact a front page can have,” log-rolled the News’s Harry Siegel Saturday on Twitter.
Of course a child’s tantrum has that kind of “impact” too. In terms of adult impact, however—changing minds and policies—we suspect this will end up being as effective as the Times’s 1920 denunciation of Warren Harding. He went on to win the general election, 404-127, with what remains the largest popular-vote margin (60% to 34%) in modern electoral history. He took office in 1921 and was arguably the 20th century’s most underrated one-term president.
Indeed.