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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: Now, a friend of mine sent me some interesting stuff here. It’s a good way to understand what happened in Aurora, Colorado, and the anti-gun reaction. It’s an interesting timeline of things. Let me run through it fairly quickly here.

The time since the introduction of relatively useful long-barreled weapons is approximately 600 years. Six hundred years the rifle has been around — 600 years, give or take. The time since the introduction of pistols using more than one bullet: At least 150 years. The time since the enactment of the Second Amendment: 221 years. And that’s an important number to remember, because since the effort to blame this on the Tea Party failed, now it’s time to go for the Second Amendment.


So it’s been 221 years since the enactment of the Second Amendment; 600 years since the introduction of the rifle, a long-barreled weapon; and 150 years of pistols able to use more than one bullet. The time since Tim Burton took a charming, funny, and wholesome 1960s kids’ show…? I was thinking about this over the weekend. I remember watching Batman on television, and it was a cartoon show with human characters. Adam West was the guy who played Batman.

And every time Batman punched somebody, the word “POW!” in a comic book bubble came up. Burgess Meredith played the Penguin. I forget who was the Joker. Cesar Romero was the Joker. It was a comedy show. It was a cartoon show. It was a charming, funny, wholesome 1960s kids’ show that was on at 7:30 ET. But how long has it been since Hollywood metastasized that show with sick, dystopian, and occasionally anti-American worldviews? Do you know what “dystopian” means?

For those of you in Rio Linda, it’s the opposite of utopia. “Utopia” is perfection on earth. “Dystopia” is utter, total failure and chaos. Dark, dank, colorless, finished. It’s over. So Batman in the sixties on TV metastasizes to a sick dystopian, hyper-violent Batman movie in 23 years. Twenty-three years since Batman on TV to the first Batman movie. And the birth of the modern Batman series of films with which the killer in Aurora explicitly identified, by his own admission…

(interruption)

What are you frowning at me about, Snerdley?

(interruption)

But on the television, I’m talking about the television show, popular media. It was a kids’ show. It was harmless, family oriented fun. You laughed at that show. Batman in the comics was not so much. It was still a comic book thing. Anyway, in 23 years since the Batman TV show, it’s become what this guy explicitly identified with. And then you can bring up Oliver Stone, if you want to. He made a movie called Natural Born Killers. It was a “love story.” Woody Harrelson was in it. It was a love story about mass murder.

Natural Born Killers.

That’s the movie the Columbine killers identified with.


That took 18 years. (They also kind of dug the Matrix movies.) The time in which the revalence of spectacular, multiple murders for no obvious point other than celebrity has accelerated is approximately the past 20 years. We’ve had long-barreled rifles for 600 years. We’ve had multi-bullet pistols over 150 years. We’ve had the Second Amendment for 221 years. We have had spectacular multiple murders for no obvious point other than celebrity accelerated like crazy in the past 20 years.

My point is, how do you blame the Second Amendment? How do you blame the guns for this? The guns to do this kind of thing have been around for all kinds of time, but you can peg other elements in our culture that have been around a lot less time and have much more influence (if you want to start arguing influence). I didn’t bring this up. I’m simply reacting to it like I always do. You want to start blaming the Second Amendment? You want to start blaming guns? Then let’s talk about it.

(interruption)

What are you shaking your head in there for?

(interruption)

I’m not blaming anybody. I’m reacting. I’m not blaming anybody. The guy who did this is who gets the blame. Look, I’m just not gonna sit here and listen to the Constitution of this country be blamed for this. I’m not gonna let that go. Pure and simple. They start the game; I’m gonna finish the game. I’m Mr. Moneybags in Monopoly, and I’m winning the cash in the middle of the board with the roll of snake eyes.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: If there’s any political lesson to be learned — and I, frankly, shy away from trying to politicize things like this in Aurora, Colorado — folks, it’s undeniable that our culture is sending messages, a lot of terrible messages to really weak, I don’t want to say dumb, but maybe mentally impaired people. Most people are able to handle it, compartmentalize it and deal with it as what it is. It’s entertainment. It’s over there and it’s self-contained and it’s not real. Other people aren’t able to make those distinctions. Jared Loughner, Gabby Giffords shooting, was one who wasn’t able to.

You note that nobody’s calling for the banning of violent Hollywood movies or rap music. They’re two heavily invested in the Democrat Party. Nobody’s gonna call for the banning of comic books. But they will call and use this crisis to call for more gun control even though Colorado, after the Columbine shootings a few years ago, Colorado already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. And the truth of the matter is that criminals and lunatics never have any problems breaking the law. They never have any problem findings guns or explosives. The laws only stop other people from being able to defend themselves. Law only stops the law-abiding, by definition.

I remember being in the fashionable salons of Fifth Avenue early on in my broadcast career in New York, when I was essentially being vetted for membership in these salons. These elite types would invite me over for dinner. I would be the circus act, and they’d start in with their traditional beliefs. For some of the smartest people around, by reputation, they’d start railing, for example, on an issue, and one night it was gun control. We’re right on Fifth Avenue, Central Park is across the street. I said, “Look, if you can guarantee me that after you take everybody else’s guns, people across the street in the park are not gonna have their guns, then maybe we can talk. If you can tell me that your plan will take guns out of the hands of criminals, then I’ll listen to you. But if you can’t guarantee –” and of course they shut up. There was no way that they could make that claim.

Blaming guns for murder is like blaming forks for obesity. Someone misused a gun; therefore no one’s allowed to have one. This is what passes for logic among the left. I think the mayor out there, or the governor, said this guy would have found ways to do what he did in that theater whether he coulda gotten guns or not. A Democrat, local political official, said as much, and he’s right.

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