A Tragic, Vicious Irony
Mark Kelly, retired Navy fighter pilot and former astronaut, husband of former Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords, is much in the news right now as he pushes for stricter gun control across the country. He’s popping up on the tube everywhere and Internet stories about his gun-purchasing activities abound. While he’s the ideal spokesman for liberals, a former warrior who espouses stricter gun control legislation, there’s a good deal of criticism building out there in the blogosphere.
Much of the negativism has to do with Kelly’s suspicious recent purchase of a .45 semi-automatic pistol and his truly suspicious attempted purchase of a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. The former was consummated under the eye of a camera concealed on Kelly’s person; the latter was thwarted when the gun shop proprietor reasoned that Kelly would have to lie on the federal firearms form in order to complete the purchase. That proprietor wisely returned Kelly’s purchase money and announced the gun would be auctioned off and the proceeds, about $1,500, donated to charity.
Once Kelly’s presence in the gun shop got into the news, he responded that he was simply trying to prove the weakness of our existing gun laws and that he never intended to keep the AR-15, as he did so obviously intend to do with the handgun as his own video revealed. However, there are many of us who smell a rat in there somewhere because Kelly did not surreptitiously video the rifle purchase nor did he mention it at all in his video. That issue likely will never be resolved.
However, another incident involving Kelly this past week, has many bloggers pointing out it makes Kelly a poor spokesman for the gun grabber crowd. While walking with his family on a California beach, a family dog, a pit bull, attacked and killed a baby seal. The video of the event is gruesome and tragic; when the dog is finally pulled away from its victim the sight of its bloody jaws is a bright, scarlet reminder of just what an out-of-control canine is capable of doing.
While reports vary as to who actually owns the dog, the Kelly-Giffords or one of their children, the dog is a member of their family and was on the beach with them with Kelly present as the presumed alpha male. It is also disputed as to whether the dog was allowed to roam freely or broke away from someone’s grasp. The breed of the dog is also disputed with the Kelly’s reportedly calling him an English bulldog, which he obviously isn’t and the media referring to him as a pit bull which is my own observation.
Whatever, bloggers are pointing out that the dog clearly demonstrated that in incapable hands it was assuredly capable of lethal violence. And therein lies the criticism of Kelly: A man whose family brings a potentially lethal canine to a public beach and then fails to maintain control with the result being the death of a helpless baby seal is hardly the man to be lecturing the rest of us on how to better control our own lethal weapons. And just as liberals always blame the weapon, meaning guns most usually, many of them are blaming the dog in this case.
Wiser folks are pointing to the truth that many things in life can bring tragic consequences but usually not when they are in the hands of those who know how to handle them responsibly. Just as dogs with a propensity to attack other animals or even humans, need to be managed by owners who realize and respect the harm they can do if not handled properly, gun grabbers should focus less on inanimate guns and more on the propensity for vicious and lethal use of guns by those like the mentally ill young man who shot Kelly’s wife.
Jared Loughner was a suspected threat, yet because of too-liberal watchdog laws restricting law enforcement, educational institutions and society as a whole from reporting suspected mental illness, as well as the failure of his parents to seek help for the obviously ill young man, he was allowed to roam free and lawfully obtain weapons until he carried out a brutal and deadly attack like an out-of-control pit bull.
What a tragic, vicious irony…
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
Truth be told I have a greater desire to see appropriate canine control than gun control. A gun when secured can in no way ever set itself free and set upon the neighbors. Irresponsible control of your livestock can have a devastating impact on a neighborhood, and everybody in America knows it.
There are close to 5 million dog attacks a year that result in 800,000 medical treatments that cost the insurance industry 1 billion dollars per year.
While not as deadly as firearm attacks, they are far more numerous and you are more likely to be bitten by the improperly contained canines next door than shot by the handgun next door. There are 10 dog bites every second of every day all year long. Every two seconds there are 3 bites that require a doctor visit.
If that was one of us peasant’s dog we would be prosecuted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
16 out of 20 dogs at a local shelter near me are pit bulls or pit mixes. If there are 16 in the shelter for adoption, there were 30 that were overly aggressive and unsuitable for adoptive homes. Pit bulls have had the brains bred out of them by people who make money from dog fighting. They all have this aggressive nature and it’s not the type of dog you can just let off the leash, especially around other animals of any kind.
Any reponsible dog owner takes his dog to obedience training and I don’t mean that clicker tricks stuff they teach at Petsmart, I mean REAL obedience training where the dog works with the owner as a partner and listens to him. I used to take my Shepherd to dog school and then to obedience matches. She just loved that, and when we were done, we went for chicken nuggets.
The analogy here is that it’s not the dog, it’s the owner. In this case, it’s an irresponsible owner named Mark Kelly. And yes, it’s a tan-and-white pit bull terrier, not an American Bulldog. Apparently, Kelly doesn’t know the difference between the American bulldog, which is the origin of the pit bull breed, and the English bulldog.
http://www.bulldogbreeds.com/
Here’s a link to the dog breed info center.
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/americanpitbull.htm
And Kelly wasn’f fined for this, either, I take it. Of course not. He’s so special he just walked away from this mess.
OK, well, pits are aggressive and very territorial, and will go after anything or anyone they see as invading their territory, including small children or people out jogging. There is a LONG history of that in Chicago, and the OWNERS are responsible for anything that happens.
More of a delicious irony, to me.
My question still stands as to “Where was the outrage of gun violence” BEFORE Giffords was shot and Aurora and Sandy Hook occurred? Why isn’t the media focusing on important issues such as child abuse, (which in my mind happens more frequently and every day) where we can read reports about some kid chained in the basement for months and fed only bread and water to correct a behavior problem? That, and vicious dog attacks happen more than mass shootings – but our culture won’t do shit about it. Instead, lets blame the dog and the gun owners instead of looking deeper at the problem.
I read that the dog pulled away from Kelly’s 18-year-old daughter. If that’s the case, then she had no business being (or not being) in control of the dog. If your dog is not trained enough for you to keep him in control, or you are not strong enough to control the dog physically on a leash, then you have no business taking your dog out in public. We have small dogs and nothing upsets me more than people who can’t control their animals. We walked by a couple of young teenage girls the other day who clearly didn’t have the strength to stop their dog from approaching mine. I had to physically put myself between them.
What if that baby seal had been a child?
The fact that Kelly and his family haven’t been drawn and quartered over the dog attack by now, tells me just how far over to the dark side he’s gone. He’s being protected now.
@7, well, PN, he is on the Progressive team, they have demonstrated a remarkable ability to protect their own, even to the extent of making themselves look foolish.
The sad thing is, in this country, there seem to be stricter and more punitive laws about animal abuse vs child abuse.
However, in this case “its okay” because he’s a liberal. If he were conservative, the MSM would be showing the video 24/7 and how he should be arrested for the attack and how it is his fault the animal broke loose, etc etc.
Hypocrisy knows no bounds in ‘Merica…
If Kelly has not been ticketed and fined for what his dog did, it’s because no one called the park police or animal control and reported it. Just making a video of it and letting him walk away, then posting the video online is not going to get him or anyone else in any kind of trouble. He is not immune to being fined for his dog killing the seal.
The dog has killed a smaller animal, without consequence. The next time it attacks, the smaller animal may be a small child. Kelly has a pitbull for a reason.
Mark Kelly, prior to his wife being shot, was a gun-toting, savage dog-owning ‘good ole boy” image-maintaining astronaut. Pitbulls are rough, tough fanatically fierce dogs that match the casually comfortable with guns macho astronaut image. Did you think they’d have a chihuahua?
Now using his wife’s attack as a springboard for his next career in politics, Kelly will have the dog disposed of by PETA, with a quiet passing of cash and promise to vote against PETA being put on the Terrorist Watch List.