North Carolina polling place vote
A steady line of voters wait outside of Cameron Village Library in Raleigh, N.C. (Juli Leonard/The News & Observer via AP)
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Quote of the Day brought to you by Pat Brothwell, Opinion Columnist at the Citizen Times:

North Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley sent three tweets about the Raleigh shooting, two offering support for victims and law enforcement, and one saying it’s our responsibility to “prevent avoidable tragedies.” Republican Senate candidate Ted Budd continued to “gather all the facts.” When questioned about the shooting four days later, he acknowledged both the tragedy and importance of protecting the Second Amendment. Budd is the owner of a gun store and range. 

I complain pretty often in these pages about how Republicans care more about gun money than lost lives, and some common feedback is to propose solutions instead of constant objections. So, here’s a solution. If you care about people’s lives, actually care, and you don’t want mass shootings to become even more mundane than they have, use your votes to bring about change in this upcoming election. 

I can’t stress enough how alarming it is that both our Republican House and Senate options here in NC-11 are licensed firearm dealers who benefit financially from no gun restrictions. This isn’t about freedom for them. It’s about money. It’s a disturbing, profoundly unsafe conflict of interest. It’s genuinely scary. 

— Pat Brothwell in Opinion: Of Course Your Gun Dealer of a Candidate Would Be Against Gun Control

 

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81 COMMENTS

  1. Waaaah!
    Freedom is scary and uncaring. Think of the lives…unless they’re unborn and actually innocent.

      • brothwell is the typical slanderous, libelous democRat pos. He is attempting to sell his Gun Control rot to fools who do not have a clue about what they are buying. After all who in their right mind would ever buy into Gun Control when History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is rooted in racism and genocide?

        All that’s missing with brothwell’s backdoor Gun Control are slave shacks, burning crosses, swastikas and concentration camps. Such horrors follow Gun Control wherever it goes or wherever it has been…History Confirms It.

      • Attempting to stoke the outage machine as usual. The one thing no one ever mentions but it’s surprisingly true is that both gun owners and non gun owners, conservatives, Dems, whoever… likely agree that we don’t want innocent people, kids, etc to be murdered or killed by guns (or other violence but certain people conveniently forget about the other types).

        Of course the propaganda masters redefine “caring about lost lives” to “reactionary mad rush to pass tyrannical gun control laws while emotions are high and facts are loose.” Reactionary laws, even stuff like the anti-terrorist Patriot act, usually sell our freedom out because “we need to do something to be safe!” But embracing tyranny in any form shouldn’t feel safe or comforting.

  2. According to the FBI, five people were murdered in Raleigh (a city of 500K) in 2019.

    So here’s an apt description for anyone who cares more about freedom than controlling the near-infinitesimal risk of being murdered there: “Competent at Math”

    That’s not even taking into account the fact that most murders are criminal-on-criminal; many are domestic, etc., so the actual risk of Joe / Jane Citizen being killed in the street is even more decimal-dust than that.

    • Let’s be honest. People ignore and don’t care about violent crime in certain parts of certain cities because they don’t exist there. Random mass shooters hit closer to home because they could be a victim. It isn’t very likely, but the possibility at least exists. That’s why dems ignore inner city crime and promote the possibility of mass shooters. In other news, people buy l o t t e r y tickets. (spaced out to avoid moderation)

      • “Random mass shooters hit closer to home because they could be a victim.”

        Maybe using made-up Dem “statistics”. Death in a real (i.e. FBI criteria) mass shooting is vastly less likely (for anyone) than being victimized during a wrong turn through “certain parts of certain cities”.

        For example, my family lives in a great suburb of Las Vegas; before that we were stationed in San Diego (a beautiful, prosperous city, and one of the Navy’s most desirable homeports). In both locations, getting to work, the interstate, and all sorts of “nice” places almost invariably involves driving through “certain” places.

        • I’d say sometimes reality doesn’t matter as much as perception of reality. Emotion often overrules logic. This is why people are so easily manipulated.

        • People worry about one more than the other due to coverage making it seem more common than it is yet keeping it mysterious enough to be exotic. (“What can be done about [problem X], Bob?”)

          Once again, the psychology of intentional misrepresentation rears its head. Repetitive stories create an illusion that something is more common than it is. This provokes information-seeking behavior in people, which is good if you just so happen to be an information source they turn to. So, the “mystery” angle is kept and hard numbers eschewed. Both tactics promote eyes/clicks, which is what media makes money from.

          Whence “If it bleeds, it leads”.

        • I agree completely with both of you, although I’d caveat Dude’s closing statement as “That’s why [lazy, irrational] people are easily manipulated”. Thank you, Founders, for trying to enshrine our rights in a non-dumbocratic Republic.

  3. Of course it’s about freedom. There isn’t anything more important in the heart of Americans. Not about freedom for them? How much money is made by the left as they engage in anti-American activities? Pro-sports?

    It is interesting though that while this sentiment seems to show care for the lives of others, there is a certain kind of thinking that also exists to completely ignore all the death at the feet of Democrats. Things like abortion and the 2020 riots just don’t factor into the equation.

    It’s just election campaigning. That’s all this is. There is nothing new here.

    • “a certain kind of thinking that also exists to completely ignore all the death at the feet of Democrats. Things like abortion

      Yeah, but he’s talking about money being a factor. Hey wait a second…

      • The Democrats really hate it when someone “profits” in a situation. It really aches the craw of the left-wing faction, and especially “the squad”.

        • Aches the craw,,, ours is ” sticks in the craw”
          I shot a turkey once that had a whole walnut in its craw, I thought how the fck does his gizzard grind that up?

  4. ” both our Republican House and Senate options here in NC-11 are licensed firearm dealers who benefit financially from no gun restrictions.” Probably the dumbest statement to come out of any Democrat except Biden. If there were “no restrictions” on gun sales, why would anyone need a ” licensed firearm dealers”, when you could then order guns right from the manufacturer just like you could before 1968.

    • Yup, I have old magazines with advertisements for any surplus gun you could ever want, mailed directly to your home. The best one’s were the “DEWATs” or deactivated machine guns, usually with just a plugged barrel. Guys used to “Un-Wat” them, go shooting and maybe put the plug back in later. Good fun until ATF forced them all to be registered in 1968

      A German FG42 for $200 (250,000 today), plus you could also order live artillery and anti-tank guns, Just send us your postal money order with your return address and it’s yours.

      • and can ANYONE remember ONE incident where a firearm, obtained in this way, was used t shoot up a school or public event, killing more than four innocents?

        Yeah, the silence is what I espected. That’s what I remembe,r too. And I was around when I, a fifteen year old kid, could ride my bike downtown, walk into the friendly nenghbournhood Western Auto and buy a rifle, shotgun, AND the modder to feed it, plop cash on the counter, strap the thing onto my bike ad ride back home.

        No one I ever knew every shot anyone else with one of those. Yes, there were occsioinal and ramdom killings, usually in or involving people from “certain parts” of town. We who went about our daily business never took thought for our safety in public. I was at higher risk getting clipped by a car whist out on my bike, which I did a LOT at 15, 16, and older. Still do. But these days I always carry my friendly small sidearm, as attacks on “wealthy” cyclists on expensive bikes haa become “a thing”.
        What changed is NOT how I now have to go about acquiring nother firearn, Same me, same gun, same money (though an hundred times what it used to cost)

        • I still have my Remington788 in 44 mag that came home from the Penney’s Auto Center strapped to the back of my Schwinn. It and 2 boxes of Federal softpoints set me back $106.42 with tax in 1969… I still have the sales reciept and handwritten note from “mom” that I forged to buy it – at a tender age of almost thirteen.

  5. “Republicans Care More About Gun Money Than Lost Lives”

    Well, Democrats Care More About Anti-Gun Money Than Lost Lives, and they take a lotttt of it overall much more than republicans get from “gun money”

    If the, overall, democrats really cared about lives lost they would not be releasing violent criminals back into the wild to roam among their prey. All violent criminals suffer some level of mental health issues either at the time of their crime or continually that drives them to their violent crime. They do not commit a violent crime because they could get their hands on a gun, and indeed only ~12% of violent criminals actually use a gun in their crimes whereas the rest (~88%) use hands-feet/knives/blunt objects/poisons-drugs/vehicles/rope. Additionally, the democrat controlled areas in the country also exhibit the highest violent gang and crime rates vs having the most strict anti-gun laws. So the math is simple here yet its constantly clouded by the democrats to keep anti-gun money rolling in – the math is that its not the existence of guns driving violent crime, but rather the common denominator is the violent criminal and among those are the same violent criminals the, overall, democrats keep releasing to roam free in society among their prey.

    On the other hand, overall, republicans seem to be putting more violent criminals in jail and keeping them there thus not letting them back into the wild to roam among their prey. Campaigns need money to put people in office that can actually help, the democrats in office now and their current democrat runners have demonstrated their being in office does nothing but lat lives be taken by the criminals they release. In terms of lives saved vs letting criminals roam free to take those lives I’d rather a republican get gun money than a democrat get anti-gun money. Fact: Guns save lives – over 6,000 times daily, saving those lives, many times in today’s world, from the very violent criminals the democrats let roam free by their policies/legislation.

    • Yep. And my gats haven’t killed anyone unlike dim baby butcher’s. Kinda make you think🙁🙄

    • “If the, overall, democrats really cared about lives lost they would not be releasing violent criminals back into the wild to roam among their prey.”

      no, they really truly do care about “lives”. all you need to realize is what they mean by “lives” – and then it all comes clear. hint – “lives” doesn’t include YOUR life.

  6. Most of the people who are born and raised in North Carolina own firearms. Seems fitting that they would want ffl representing them.

  7. Yes, because no one can possibly stand for people’s rights on principal. Nor could someone actually want to start a business doing what they love and actually enjoy financial success as well. All must suffer and toil for little to no money, except the elites who are burdened with leadership and deserve big houses, private jets and the lavish life style, because we ignorant serfs need them to light the way to true meaning and enlightenment in our lives.

    Best to ignore all Liberals/Socialists/Communists who make money in areas that they advocate for, especially authors, bankers, doctors, politicians and university types.

    Thanks for the advice.

    FYI, People Kill and People Die, wanna stop it, get rid of all people, problem solved. Using tragedy or grief to advance a political agenda, so you take power away from people and hand it to yourself is immoral at best and leads to genocide at its worst.

  8. The Far Right always think “It will never happen to me or my family so fk everyone else who gets gunned down everyday”. When you permit criminals and lunatics to buy second hand guns because we do not do background checks on private weapon sales this is what you get, a country that has become a lunatic asylum to try and survive in. No other industrialized country in the world puts up with such utter chaos and complete madness. Of course trying to reason with the far right paranoid lunatics is like trying to talk sense into a monkey made of brass or a bunch of naked apes riding with assault rifles in a pick up truck.

    • “When you permit criminals and lunatics to” …

      … roam free because it’s their “right”, you get a country that has become a lunatic asylum to try and survive in.

    • So says Supreme Commissar Dacian, the shining example of “The New Soviet Man”.

      Shame the Soviet Union collapsed from within 30 years ago instead of going out in a bang of nuclear glory.

      At its height, the former Soviet Union had the economy of Canada. Now Russia has the economy of New Jersey (with the criminal economy).

    • even if we had universal background checks how do you get the criminals to comply ??
      especially when the Supreme Court has ruled they don’t have to.

      • His ideology considers criminals ideologically closer than citizens. Citizens are the real criminals oppressing the criminal classes, who are considered the real victims, with their stifling rules.

    • dacian, the Dunderhead. There you go again. More drivel about guns killing people? Those “studies” of yours have been debunked by a guy by the name of Christopher A. “Kip” Crofts, who wrote A Few Common Sense Gun Laws. I refer you to pages 282 through 292. I think you will find it some very interesting reading. But of course you won’t read the book. It has too much common sense.

      • Walter you ignorant paranoid Hill Jack. When a criminal or lunatic can walk out of prison, and cross the street in front of the prison and buy a second hand gun at a bar or flea market or gun show or internet chat room that is pure insanity which you cannot lie your way out of. Your rantings are right out of a lunatic asylum.

    • Pretty sure the “far right” think that if they are around a mass shooter, they’d rather have the ability to defend themselves than be disarmed sheep. But you’ve never been worried about accurately portraying anything, so this is probably a wasted reply.

    • Greater than 80% of the Firearms used by Criminals weren’t purchased at Private Sales, they were bought on the Black Market or stolen directly. Commierado has had Universal Background Checks Statewide since 2018. Crime with guns, continues to rise across the State. The Statewide UBC’s hasn’t changed anything.
      You can beat that dead horse all you want, but there isn’t a single gun law on the books, Local, State or Federal that has reduced Crimes committed with Firearms to any measurable standard.
      You Lefties always spout the same nonsense about UBC’s and Red Flag Laws, and whatever the Flavor de Jour of Gun Control you want this month, while ignoring that none of it has worked where its been tried.

  9. So then how about this: Democrats care more about drug money than they do lives lost.

  10. “I can’t stress enough how alarming it is that both our Republican House and Senate options here in NC-11 are licensed firearm dealers who benefit financially from no gun restrictions.”

    That’s not true. Even though licensed firearm dealers they are not benefiting financially from no gun restrictions. No licensed firearm dealer benefits financially from no gun restrictions. They are businesses, and businesses operate to make money working within the law and there are plenty of gun restrictions already – so what these licensed firearm dealers are benefiting from is called the free enterprise system and conducting business for money the same as literally a million more business are conducting business for money for what they sell and collectively all those other things sold account for over 65% of injury or death where as firearms account for less than 0.0002% of all injury and death from all things sold.

    • Heck, just defective non-firearms products alone, for example:

      An average of 168,000 children are treated in the emergency department each year for toy-related injuries (SafeKids.org).

      Each year, an average of 29.5 million injuries can be attributed to defective products ( Consumer Product Safety Commission ).

      Defective products kill more than 22,000 people every year in the United States ( Consumer Product Safety Commission ).

      And for other non-firearm products not defective, for example,

      Over 2,000,000 (collectively) seriously injured or killed annually in car accidents and over 90,000 of them are kids under the age of 12. (CDC)

      Stairs, Ramps, Landings, Floors result (collectively) in serious injury or death to over 2,700,000 million annually. (NSC)

      Beds, Pillows, Mattresses result in (collectively) serious injury or death to over 824,000 annually. (NSC)

      Chairs, Sofas, Sofa Beds result in (collectively) serious injury or death to over 558,000 annually. (NSC)

      Just injury alone, normal household non-firearm consumer product injuries totaled ~12,000,000 in 2021.

      Drug overdoses result in over 100,000 suicide deaths annually (CDC)

      Heck, the list goes on and on for literally multi-millions of products/things annually. Even without a complete list and all the numbers, just using these few examples, its easy to see, even with some third grade math for your liberals and democrats, that (collectively) injury and death from everything sold or thing that is not firearm greatly outnumbers any injury and death as a result of firearm use.

      It is, overall, literally 1,500 times safer around a firearm in the hands of a law abiding person than around any other non-firearm thing found in the home or out in public or that can sold or bought.

      So you democrats, stop gaslighting and lying to the American public, preying on emotion to keep the issues clouded with your lies and appeals to emotion about guns.

      • Can’t cite the reference but I read not long ago that more kids die from broken glass table tops than die of firearms related injuries. Yet how many homes do YOU know who “insist” on retaining these “daynjrus” items?

        • Oh yeah, faulty glass table tops result in millions of injuries annually – about 2.5 million. Mostly kids under age 7 and young adults in their early 20’s. Injuries range from minor abrasions and damage to major organs and vessels, to death. 50% of the injured suffer injuries to their deep organs, upper torso, abdomen or joint cavities and required surgery; 8% of the injured die within a month of injury (about 100,000, deaths from complications of injury). Yes, more people, not just kids, die annually due to faulty glass table tops than firearms.

          That was a Rutgers study published in ‘The American Journal of Surgery’ in September 2020.

          About 1.2 million people die annually as a result of complications from injuries from a car accident, a lot more than die as a result of firearms usage (e.g. accident, suicide, accident, murder)

          There are many things that injure or kill people either directly or indirectly annually in numbers very greatly more than firearms.

        • “About 1.2 million people die annually as a result of complications from injuries from a car accident…”

          Is it really that high? That’s like 36% of the US annual deaths in an average year.

        • @strych9

          Yes, it really is that high. It has to do with the way causes of death are listed. In the stats you see various causes, those only represent what directly caused the death for example heart failure. But when you begin digging in the records you find the exact cause listed was a result of complications from past car accident injury.

          Unless the person died proximate or within a short period of time from the car accident they do not make it into the stats as a car accident death. Those who may die later as a result of complications from injury in a car accident are not shown in stats as car accident deaths but none the less they still died as a result of the car accident.

  11. you can tell she really has no idea. Gun shops make so much more money when she and her ilk propose gun control laws. Its not even close.

  12. So happy Beasley will soon be GONE!!! We need to prosecute the criminals and reward the fine heroes who use their God Given Right to protect themselves and others by eliminating the criminal element when attacked or threatened! Support the NRA and gun rights groups. Protect yourself and your family/neighbors. And especially in our Schools – arm the teachers and the staff, train them well, so they can make sure our kids are safe. Teach our children well! No restrictions on law abiding citizens owning whatever weapons they deem appropriate for their constitutional needs!

  13. I don’t think this clown really wants to take a trip down “who financially benefits from legislation” road.

    If she does, great. I’ll help wheel in the guillotines. The pile of dem heads might upset her but the total number of heads would please me.

  14. I complain pretty often … about how Republicans care more about gun money than lost lives …“— Pat Brothwell

    Standard Progressive True Believer tactic: he/she has no viable policy solution so he/she immediately regresses to labeling “Others” as “stupid, crazy, and/or corrupt” as Ben Shapiro so aptly described it.

    (“Others” means people who are not Progressive True Believers.)

    • “(‘Others’ means people who are not Progressive True Believers.)”

      it also means those who are not human, not worthy of life, who need to be eliminated. standard communist ideology.

      once you comprehend that, you understand them and what they do and say.

      • rant7,

        At best Progressive True Believers label “Others” as stupid, crazy, and/or corrupt in order to coerce them into compliance and to drive away support for them. At worst Progressives do this to to dehumanize “Others” and pave the road to their forceful elimination.

    • It’s a standard tactic of the politically inclined regardless of their preferred philosophy.

      Sophistry works. (See The Clouds by Aristophanes for an ancient and humorous look at this.)

      One day, perhaps, POTG (and the freedom minded more generally) will recognize this and begin to combat it effectively. But I doubt it, because for all their complaints about lazy, easily misled people being common, the last place they see that weakness is in themselves.

        • Not everyone.

          The “I’m working my therapy” people run in the opposite direction to the point of learned helplessness and a self depreciating form of hedonism.

          Stoics embrace their faults in a similar manner but manifest an entirely flat affect about it. Almost a self-enforced form of depression.

          Striking the balance is a hard thing to do. Made harder by the fact that 90% of people don’t even realize such a thing is a thing.

    • Outside of the crime referred to as “murder” only one of those things (abortion) directly takes lives.

      The rest are, at best, only tangentially related.

  15. Going tit for tat with what Gun Control nitwits like brothwell say gives Gun Control standing. It’s along the lines of standing around discussong child molestation with a pedophile instead of cutting the crap and flushing pedophilia·down the toilet.

    • Your analogy would make sense only if there were existing laws to punish gun grabbers as severely as child molesters. Until and unless that happens (it won’t), debating them with facts will have to do.

  16. Democrats care more about trying to “reform” repeat offender criminal thugs than they do protecting innocent civilians. Because they view blaming and punishing criminals as racist, it’s easier for them to blame and punish innocent gun owners.

    Modern day “progressives” are psychotic malignancies who are wreaking unchecked carnage on our Country.

    FJB

    • “Modern day ‘progressives’ are psychotic malignancies”

      not at all. rather they are hostiles, enemies, who will say and do anything to make progress towards their dream world.

      • You’ve basically wrapped up postmodernism in a sentence.

        Your last sentence describes the function (rather than the form) of rational ideologies of all stripes quite well.

        • The bones of those categorized as enemies of the state, potential enemies of the state, or perceived potential enemies of the state. Actual guilt was irrelevant.

          Read “The Gulag Archipelago” by Solzhenitsyn.

        • have. solzhenitsyn never touches on WHO did all that. at least not in that book.

          but once you know who, it all just falls into place. “the party is The People.”

  17. Democrats ought to spend more time focusing on their policies that have caused all the violence in America. Whenever they disagree with something there is violence, and it goes unpunished. Open borders, defunding the police, lack law enforcement, few if any penalties for those who commit crimes, illegal immigration which allows drug dealers and human trafficker criminals to enter the country at will, and a host of other Democrat sponsored initiatives are what is causing the increase in violence and crimes not firearms. There is no firearm ever built that killed someone without being handled by a human.

    • “Democrats ought to spend more time focusing on their policies that have caused all the violence in America.”

      they do spend time focusing on such policies. they work to advance those policies every day.

  18. She raises an interesting point –

    At the founding of this nation, there was no such thing as regulations as to what a gun dealer was, or how they bought or sold their wares.

    I hope someone is working on a lawsuit eliminating all laws dealing with private sale of guns between citizens. Pistols and rifles, and all barrel lengths in between, were all perfectly legal.

    At the very least, SBRs should be off the NFA, and the BATF sharply cut down or eliminated, as there are no parallels with laws of the late 1700s…

    • “here are no parallels with laws of the late 1700s”

      well there is little parallel between then and modern society, or modern arms. for example the modern right rejects any notion of a well-regulated militia, which the people of the 1700’s would find anti-civic and unpatriotic, perhaps even cowardly.

      • Assuming your post is not a troll, you misunderstand the 18th century concept of”well-regulated”. Hence you promote contemptuous confusion.

        A “well-regulated double rifle” does not come with a voluminous rulebook – rather both barrels shoot to point of aim, ie, the gun functions properly.

        Ditto pianos, steam engines and militias.

        • a well-regulated militia was well-trained, well-practiced, well-drilled, and well-led – all as a unit. the purpose of the 2nd is to support that well-regulated militia – but such militia is what the modern right rejects in favor of mere individuality. thus there is no connection between the modern right’s advertised view of the 2nd and what the 2nd actually is.

        • @rant7

          Membership in a militia was not, and is not, a prerequisite for gun ownership.

          Nor is the “purpose of the 2nd” to provide training.

          The historical, practical and legal purpose of the 2nd was, and is, too ensure that the citizens responding to a call to arms could show up with guns, THEIR guns.

          Heck, if you had a cannon, they would let you be an officer.

          So what the eff are you talking about?

  19. I care more about the lives of my loved ones (including my own) than anyone else’s, lost or otherwise. If that triggers anyone may they die mad and roast in torment and stew over it for all eternity. I’ll never apologize for prioritizing my vital personal interests over those of some political hack who stirs up wordy cowpiles for a living.

  20. AS AMERICANS REALLY NEED PULL TOGETHER ON SO MANY THINGS ,
    CLIMATE CRISIS MOTHER NATURE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT RED OR BLUE
    EARTH DOES NOT NEED HUMANS , WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN

  21. Another anti-gun radical who has no clue. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people and the Leftists refuse to do anything about the bad guys. After all they are part of their voting block.

    • Neo-maoists, aka commies, assume they will kill 30-40% of the general population after they take power. Preferably by famine.

      Those are the lives they “care” about ultimately…

      Of course, the Biden Big Tent includes eco-commies, and they want to kill EVRRYBODY. To “save the environment”, no less.

  22. O l guess if l didn’t want to ban books, brothwell would accuse me of being a merciless mercenary.

    If l owned a bookstore…

  23. I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT , KISSIE KISSIE FOOT , LICKIE LICKIE BUNGHOLE OF tRUMP
    LAKE IE AN GREENE IE , ALL ABOUT , KISSIE N LICKIE … SH.TIE JUST PORES OUT OF THEIR MOUTH , YEP ALL TALK N SHIT , PASS THA TOLET PAPER WIPIE THIER MOUTHES LIES ..
    MAGA ,~ ME A GREAT ASSIEHOLEee ~ …DJT ~ Da Jerk ~TRATIOR ~tRUMP …

    TRATIORS TO OUR CONSTITUTION …

  24. Democrats care more about criminals than the law-abiding.

    Simply dualities in comparison are the sign of the intellectually dishonest or the ignorant.

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