I only wish he had given this powerful testimony before Congress, too -- while staring straight into the eyes of Wayne LaPierre.

Via The Last Word:

Today, another Sandy Hook parent advocated for stricter gun laws on behalf of his murdered child. David Wheeler, father of victim Ben Wheeler, spoke Wednesday at the last of four public hearings by the Connecticut legislature’s Bipartisan Task Force on Violence and Public Safety. In his testimony, Wheeler called for a “comprehensive system of identifying and monitoring individuals in mental distress.”

[...] Speaking in front of a 52-member task force, Wheeler decried the inability of agencies to share relevant information about at-risk individuals’ personal histories, mental states, and proximity to firearms. He also advocated a ban on military-style assault weapons, saying they “belong in an armory under lock and key,” and for annual registration of personal firearms.

Finally, Wheeler invoked Thomas Jefferson’s inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from the Declaration of Independence. “I do not think the composition of that foundational phrase was an accident,” he said. “I do not think the order of those important words was haphazard or casual. The liberty of any person to own a military-style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine and keep them in their home is second to the right of my son to his life.”

Amen, David Wheeler. And please, send a written copy of that to the NRA.

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Piers Morgan encountered the gun nuts' gun nut, Larry Pratt of the Gun Owners of America, on his CNN show last night, and blew apart when he realized his guest was certifiable. (If only he had asked Pratt his views about public schools to boot.)

The result, anyway, was highly amusing, producing entertaining exchanges such as this:

PRATT: I honestly don't understand why you would rather have people be victims of a crime than be able to defend themselves. It's incomprehensible.

MORGAN: You're an unbelievably stupid man, aren't you?

PRATT: It seems to me that you're morally obtuse. You seem to prefer being a victim to being able to prevail over the criminal element. And I don't know why you want to be the criminal's friend.

MORGAN: What a ridiculous argument. You have absolutely no coherent argument whatsoever.

And then there was the way it all wrapped up:

MORGAN: Yes, I know -- I know why sales of these weapons have been soaring in the last few days. It's down to idiots like you.

Mr. Pratt, thank you for joining me.

When we come back --

PRATT: Thank you for your high-level argument, Mr. Morgan. It's really good.

MORGAN: You know what, you wouldn't understand the meaning of the phrase high-level argument. You are a dangerous man espousing dangerous nonsense. You shame your country.

PRATT: Disarmament is dangerous. (INAUDIBLE) into role model.

MORGAN: Yes. Sure. I know all about role models and you're not one of them.

Over at the wingnut media-watch outfit Newsbusters, the piteous wailing was tremendous:

It's one thing for an anchor or host to disagree with his guest, but to attack them for a differing view is not what journalism is supposed to be about. Or is that no longer important to CNN as it struggles to get viewers as well as its relevancy back?

The reality is that there are many in this nation that believe that the current gun laws promote violence rather than reduce it, and that if there had been someone armed at Sandy Hook Elementary School as well as the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the shootings either wouldn't have taken place at all or would have resulted in less loss of life.

Irrespective of what the anti-gun left represented by folks such as Morgan think, this is a position that has its place in this debate even after this most recent event.

Yes, that's a position, all right. We would call that the "incredibly stupid and morally disgusting" position. And Morgan has every right to be disgusted. Something would be wrong with him if he weren't.

And something is wrong with Pratt and his defenders.

Transcript below the fold.

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From March 2012, Michelle Rhee discusses how education impact national security on Soledad O'Brien.

Ah yes...Michelle Rhee and her group, Students First, really really care about the national security risk due to our educaitonal standards. Too bad she can't be bothered to talk about the security risks to our children at the schools she pretends to champion:

In light of the massacre, the Michigan measure, which was backed by GOP representatives and awaits a signature from Gov. Rick Snyder (R), has provoked strong feelings. Sunday's episode of "Meet the Press" included a passionate debate on whether teachers or school administrators should have guns. Also on Sunday, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and David Hecker, president of ATF Michigan, wrote a letter to Snyder urging him to veto the legislation, arguing that "firearms have absolutely no place in our schools."

One group that has taken no position on the legislation is StudentsFirst, the education reform group that was started by former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and that happens to be active in Michigan politics.

Asked about its stance, StudentsFirst spokeswoman Ileana Wachtel said, "StudentsFirst believes that schools have to be a safe haven for kids. It is incumbent upon our elected officials to ensure that every single child is protected, particularly those under the care and direction of our public schools."

Asked whether that means the group supports or opposes the concealed-carry expansion, Wachtel said, "We're focused on education reform policies. That's what we do."

Although the group takes no public position on the measure, StudentsFirst's allies in Michigan politics have no problem with concealed carry in schools. Indeed, the vast majority of the Michigan legislators whom StudentsFirst recently endorsed voted in favor of the legislation. Of 22 legislators who received election endorsements from StudentsFirst, 14 supported the bill (all of them Republican), one voted against it (a Democrat), and seven others aren't in office.

Of course, when you're cozying up to Republican lawmakers and ALEC to bust teachers' unions (which really hasn't been shown to improve education, the school or anyone's experience of modern schools, but I digress), it's probably not politic to oppose them on their gun demands, amirite?

But it does once again expose the lie of the organization's name. Because at no time does Michelle Rhee put students first.

There--in living color--is the embodiment of the banality of evil. Larry Pratt, the public-school-bashing president of the Gun Owners of America, gets a segment on Hardball to advocate for having educators be allowed concealed carry permits so that we can have more guns in school.

Evil. Horrifying.

Most of these poor, innocent children are not yet laid to rest in their graves and this boil on the butt of humanity wants more guns. Let me just run down a statistic for you: GUN OWNERS ARE 4.5 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE SHOT AND KILLED THAN A NON-OWNER. You want more innocent children killed, you pustulent, soulless Pratt? Then let's put them between two guns.

But the calling for more guns is what you expect from some immoral monster like Pratt. What stopped me in my tracks was the small, evil grin when confronted by Chris Matthews as to why he felt that any regulation on assault weapons was unacceptable.

The reptilian executive director of Gun Owners of America, last seen telling gun control advocates “they have the blood of little children on their hands,” argued that we are “less free without automatic rifles,” and need to stay prepared.

Matthews, who loves nothing more than hurling himself through cracked-open doors like this, was all too happy to oblige with a “prepared for what?”

Pratt: “To take on our government. [And this] government has gone overboard.” He continued that it’s time to take action “when elections are stolen.”

Holy mother of god, this man is insane. This man is advocating insurrection and will be on television tomorrow and the day after continuing to be given a platform for this bastardization of the Second Amendment.

Dave Neiwert, who is far more calm about traitors like Larry Pratt than I am, points out that this is a typical "insurrectionist interpretation" of the Second Amendment, familiar to militia groups and Doomsday preppers.

I just call it evil.

There's been some commentary in the media about the extra sadness and irony of this latest horrific school shooting coming during the Christmas season, but according to the book of Matthew in the Christian Bible, the first Christmas was one of intense sadness and pain due to unthinkable violence as well. According to this account, King Herod heard about the birth of a baby prophesied to be "a leader who will shepherd my people Israel", and he immediately saw this as a potential threat to his family's, and Rome's, power. Herod ordered the killing of all male children under the age of two years old. Matthew then refers back to a verse from the prophet Jeremiah:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loudly lamenting:
it was Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted
because they were no more.

All Americans with a living heart today are weeping for our children, sobbing and lamenting those beautiful children and their teachers slaughtered in Sandy Hook on Friday. Our little ones are being killed in front of our eyes: why aren't we doing something to stop it? My weeping is turning into anger, but not only at the NRA and the gun industry (which are as inextricably locked together as the machinery of one of their automatic gun killing machines) and the politicians who worship at their altar, but at Democrats too gutless to lift a finger to try and end the madness.

The ironic thing is that the politics of the gun issue is actually a plus for Democrats willing to take this on. When Bill Clinton pushed through the Brady Bill and the ban on assault rifles in his first term, his vote among rural and small town voters in 1996 actually went up in comparison to 1992. In fact, with the NRA in all-out attack mode and running against a rural state, small town icon Bob Dole, Bill Clinton did better among rural and small town voters than any Democratic candidate since LBJ in the '64 landslide, and far better than all the Democratic Presidential candidates who haven't mentioned a peep about gun control since.And with the 52%+ majority Obama has gotten twice being overwhelmingly urban/suburban, women, and people of color, the gun control issue just doesn't have the capacity to shave much from a Democratic majority at the national level.

There are a couple of reasons Democrats are so terrified of this issue, and both of them are based far more on fear than fact. One is that the 1994 tide that swept the Democrats out of power after being in control of the House for 40 years did include a lot of Democrats from the South, where the gun issue mattered a lot. But those seats are mostly not coming back anyway, and it is clear that based on the 2006/8 House majorities that we can win a majority in the House, as we can in Presidential elections, by winning big in the parts of the country where guns are not only not a negative, but can help us win votes.

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