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.
PRATT: I think we need to ban gun control laws that keep people from being able to protect themselves. The problem is not going to go away if we ban this or that gun. We've tried that. That doesn't work. Doesn't even work in England. You have mass murders there all over Europe. There have been mass murderers.
MORGAN: You're talking complete and utter -- you are talking complete and utter nonsense.
PRATT: The solution is for people to be able to defend themselves at the point of the crime and not wait for 20 minutes for the police come after everybody is dead.
MORGAN: What you've just said, Mr. Pratt, was an absolute lie. The gun murder rate in countries like Britain or Germany or Australia, we've all suffered massacres many years ago, similar nature, have -- there are 35 people killed a year. Your country has 12,000.
PRATT: Your murder rate has -- your murder rate is lower than ours, that is true. Your violent --
MORGAN: Lower? It's 75 against 12,000 in Australia.
PRATT: Your violent crime rate --
MORGAN: They had a massacre. And they got rid of the assault weapons.
PRATT: Your violent crime rate is higher than ours as is the violent crime rate in Australia. America is not the Wild West that you are depicting. We only have the problems in our cities, and unhappily, in our schools where people like you have been able to get laws put on the books that keep people from being able to defend themselves.
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. You don't -- you don't actually give --
PRATT: You have no --
MORGAN: You don't give a damn, do you, about the gun murder rate in America? You don't actually care. All you care about --
PRATT: It seems to me that facts don't bother you, do they, Mr. Morgan?
MORGAN: -- is the right for any -- Americans -- you would like to see --
(CROSSTALK)
PRATT: Facts seem to -- they bounce right off of your head.
MORGAN: No, no, let's deal with some facts.
PRATT: You're speaking oblivious to -- what we do know is that when you go to an area in the United States where guns are freely available, readily able to be carried legally, there you find our lowest murder rates. Lower than the murder rates in Europe. You go to our cities where we have cracked down on guns and people can't defend themselves and that's where the criminals have a field day.
...
MORGAN: I'm sure you're not going to try and let it happen. You see my argument is not about the American's right to defend themselves in their home with a firearm. That's not the argument that I'm trying to put out there. My argument is the same as the argument that Senator Feinstein said, that the president endorses. That I believe many, many Americans now believe, following this tragedy which is that there is absolutely no use and no justification for these AR-15 type assault weapons --
PRATT: Oh, the contrary.
MORGAN: Let me finish.
PRATT: How can you say such a thing?
MORGAN: Let me finish my sentence.
PRATT: The Korean merchants in Los Angeles use these kinds of firearms to protect their lives and businesses.
MORGAN: Let me finish my sentence.
PRATT: And for you to say there's no useful purpose for these guns, that's just completely wrong.
MORGAN: OK. Let me finish my sentence. There are these assault weapons, which have been used now in movie theaters, in shopping malls, in elementary schools to murder many, many Americans. And now 20 5-year-old children. And they are armed with magazines, 30 at a time here, a hundred in Aurora, in a movie theater.
And your only answer, Mr. Pratt, to people that want to get rid of both the magazines and these assault weapons, if I'm not mistaken, is to let everybody else have similar weapons? Is that the solution to America's gun murder problems?
PRATT: I would challenge you to go and tell the Korean merchants who survived the riots in Los Angeles, sorry, you had those firearms that saved your lives.
MORGAN: Can you answer my question?
PRATT: I'm answering your question. I wish you could understand it. Because you're talking against self-defense.
MORGAN: Would you like to see -- would you like to see -- would you like to see --
PRATT: You're talking against people being able to protect themselves.
MORGAN: Would you like to see teachers armed --
PRATT: And you don't want to hear it, that's why you keep interrupting me.
MORGAN: No, no, I don't mind hearing it. I think it's complete nonsense. But I mind hearing it. You would like to see --
PRATT: Well, the press tend to do that, don't they?
MORGAN: Stop being so facetious. I just want you to answer this one question. Post what happened at Sandy Hook, your answer to this problem of repeated use of this weapon with these high-capacity magazines is to continue letting Americans buy them with impunity, and to not concern yourself with these mass shootings, is that right?
PRATT: The Second Amendment means what it says, and meanwhile, you want to continue laws against self-defense. Laws that prohibit self-defense. Laws that prohibit teachers and other faculty, other members of the administration in schools from being able to defend themselves if they have a concealed carry permit. The laws prohibit them right now. We have been lobbying against those laws since they were put on. We will continue to do so, pointing out that that is where the problem is.
And for you to support them means that you're really blind to the role that that plays in enabling murders to operate within impunity.
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.
