conwict said:
Tommygunn, that's a total butchering of an interview Clinton gave. I don't support the sentiments he expressed, but please don't add fuel to the fire and such by misquoting.
Quote:
Clinton: You know, you can't have – be so fixated on a desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles. It's something that I strongly support. You can't be so fixated on that that when you're unable to think about the reality of life that millions of Americans face on streets that are unsafe, under conditions that no other nation – no other nation – has permitted to exist. And at some point, you know, I still hope that the leadership of the National Rifle Association will go back to doing what it did when I was a boy and which made me want to be a lifetime member of it – (laughs) – because they put out valuable information about hunting and marksmanship and safe use of guns. But just to ignore the conditions we face today in a lot of our cities and other places in this country and the enormous threat to public safety is amazing. ....
Conwict, look at the first sentence and the second sentence in that statement. If he
"can't be so fixated on a desire to preserve the the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimatly own handguns and rifles," then why would he then say it's
"something that I strongly support"??? You don't see any logical disconnect in those two sentences????
While I did not intentionally take anything "out of context," the "context" you have put the sentence into hardly clarifies anything; it merely confirms his rather dispeptic, meandering, and rather meaningless ways of getting his ideas across --
at best.
What he's saying is that it's perfectly OK to ban some guns, the 'I'm not against bolt action hunting rifles' crumb being thrown to hunters, et al, but we gotta ban the evil "assault weapons."
He also is OK with the NRA promotuing hunting and safety, since he thinks it should
"go back to doing what it did when I was a boy and which made me want to be a lifetime member of it." IE., don't fight gun control laws or assault weapon bans, just be for sportsmen ... blah blah blah.
I used the portion of Clinton's statement to which I had access. While the context may not have been perfect, the full(er) quote you provide does not (A.) convince me that I was substantially wrong, or (B.) convince me Clinton had any more regard for the rights of Americans than I believed prior to your correction. I have a really hard time putting the quote I used
into any context which would convey the meaning he
respects Americans rights. If you can show me how the full quote you used accomplishes that end ... then fine. As it is, he's got two adjacent sentences there that logically clash ... atleast in my book.
I do appreciate that you provided a fuller quote for me to use, though; I will insert that into my notebook of
"pithy quotes from the Founders, philosophers, and fools."