.Yesterday in this space, we watched Betty McCollum at a town hall in Oakdale repeatedly declaim that she wanted to see a “dialog” between Real Americans and the gun-grabbers.
I had all sorts of suggestions – but I wondered; what does “dialog” mean to Representative McCollum?
I got a copy of the letter she’s been sending her supporters:
Sadly over the past several years, far too many innocent American children, women and men have been the victims of gun violence. The sobering statistics about gun violence speak volumes. According to the U.S. Census, of the 129,741 murders that were reported between 2000 and 2008, nearly two-thirds of the victims were killed by a firearm. Every year nearly 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun according to the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. Every day, 270 people in America – 47 of them children and teens – are injured or slain due to gun violence.
If this is what she’s bringing to the “dialog”, I’m afraid she’s not trying all that hard to “communicate”:
- Why show eight years of murder stats in one place? To avoid showing that the gun murder rate is sharply down .
- Where did most of those shootings come from? A criminal was involved – as the shooter, the target or both – in the vast majority of them.
- The Brady Factory uses stats that cuts off “Children and Teens” at age 19. Plenty of 18-19 year olds are not only not “children”, they are criminals and gang-bangers, and doing plenty of shooting and getting shot at.
I may not be an elected representative, but where I come from “dialog” is best when it isn’t “one side spewing BS and the other side constantly correcting them”.
Oh, yeah – here’s more “dialog”:
Nonetheless voices like the NRA will do everything to protect guns rather than the lives of our children and law enforcement officers. I have consistently opposed the NRA and their extremist agenda and will continue to do so. As a result of this work I have received an ‘F’ rating from the NRA.
Keep up the “dialog”, Rep. McCollum. Your seat is safe – for now – so you can do it
But let’s extend the “dialog” to some outstate DFLers.
Tim Walz and Collin Peterson: do you agree with Rep. McCollum?
How about you, Patti Fritz and David Bly and Zac Dorholt and David Bly and all you other outstate DFLers? How’s Rep. McCollum’s idea of “dialog” sound to you? Kinda…extreme? Is this what you plan on taking to your constituents next year?
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