Scott Tibbs
Published at Enter Stage Right, 03-20-2000

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He doesn't miss a beat

Our President doesn't miss a beat. Listening to the radio at work, I heard the news about a six-year-old shooting a classmate and killing her in Michigan. President Bill Clinton was already on the news issuing a statement about the need for more gun control.

I had put off writing this column until now, but when I saw an Associated Press article in my Sunday paper that Clinton was still exploiting this tragedy to push his agenda, I had to weigh in on the matter.

The first thing I heard about the shooting was Bill Clinton on the air pushing for gun control. He doesn't miss a beat, does he? Rush Limbaugh made the point on March 13 that Bill Clinton gets to the scene of school shootings faster than the ambulance does. He's not that far off.

Does the moral bankruptcy of our President know no bounds? Is there no crime to tragic, no shooting too gruesome for Clinton to exploit for political purposes? Almost a year later, he's still milking Columbine to get political points. Of course, this is the same President who ordered the bombing of a "chemical weapons plant" in Sudan on extremely poor data, pushing the bombing up because he needed to get Monica Lewinsky off the front page.

It appears Clinton has embarrassed himself this time. The six-year-old shooter lived in a crack house where he found his uncle's loaded gun under some blankets. His mother abandoned him and his father was in jail. If anyone thinks the residents of a crack house are going to care about new gun control laws, I've got some ocean front property in Arizona I would love to sell you.

National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre opined on March 12 that Clinton is willing to accept a certain level of violence because it fits his political agenda. Sadly, LaPierre is right. This President has gotten more mileage out of tragedies than out of anything else during his shameful time in office.

The existing gun laws did not prevent Columbine, and they would not have prevented this tragedy. Clinton knows this. The National Rifle Association is doing exactly what it should in responding to Clinton. In recent TV commercials, they point out what Clinton is saying is false, and he knows he's lying.

If the NRA or the Republicans won't say it outright, I will. President William Jefferson Clinton is a liar. He knows gun control doesn't work. He just wants to milk the issue to score political points, hovering like a vulture over the victims of these tragedies.

But the NRA is playing a dangerous game by challenging Clinton to enforce existing gun laws. As Gun Owners of America pointed out, the gun laws on the books are already too much of an infringement of our Constitutional rights. We do not need to enforce unconstitutional laws. Clinton responded to the NRA and Republican critics by hiring hundreds of new ATF agents, shoring up the agency responsible for Waco.

In an election year, the GOP needs to be aggressive in fighting the gun-grabbers. It's time to roll back the unconstitutional infringements on the Second Amendment that are already on the books. And it's also time to stop playing nice and call a spade a spade. If Clinton or Gore is lying, call them on it, and don't back down. And if telling the truth is derided as "negative campaigning", so be it. We've been too nice for too long as we watch our freedom disappear.