There’s only one thing is worse for gun-loving Republicans gnashing their teeth at Aurora Democratic Congressperson Jason Crow over his credibility and his honored bronze star tenure as an Army Ranger.
His validity and military creds are wrapped up in his congeniality, popularity — even from across the aisle — staunch support of immigrants, minorities, LGTBQ people, active duty and military veterans, his star time as a Trump Impeachment manager, hero to the horrified during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurgent attach in House gallery, and one of the few people who seemingly never takes public flack for calling out GOP Colorado Congressperson Lauren Boebert for her excruciating vacancy.
“We’ve known for a very long time that Lauren Boebert doesn’t know what she’s doing and is not interested in legislating or even knowing the issues and knowing the facts, but it becomes increasingly clear the level of her depravity, which is deep,” Crow told reporters after Boebert’s infamous March 1 tantrum during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
It came as an edict from a position of authority here in Colorado and inside the U.S. Capitol. It’s so damn awkward for a party that worships all things vets and cops to try and find a way to demurely hate on them when they carpet bomb stuff like absolute gun rights.
But worse than having someone like Crow confidently evaporate so much Republican extremist bilge with a cool head and a bronze star, is for Crow to take aim and get a bullseye in the most sacred of GOP daemon: the Second Amendment.
As newspapers like The Sentinel struggle to keep track of number of victims of mass shootings now racking up like the fleeting totals on a premium gasoline pump, Crow took the time last week to insert himself in the cacophony of GOP extremists trying to justify how their right to build home and hip armories supersedes everyone’s right not not have their children shot to death at school or fall victim to another mass shooter at the grocery store.
Far beyond inane and annoying, the NRA and GOP tripping over their own anointed “good guy with a gun,” and passionate pleas to virtually expand TSA security lines to all of the nation’s 135,000 public schools, was Colorado’s own Congressperson Ken Buck. On Twitter, he preened with his over-the-top insistence that assault rifles are just plain ol’ normal guns and that, “In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens.”
As the authorities still try to clarify the details, it’s irresponsible for us to be considering these bills today.
If we don’t yet understand what happened than we don’t know that this legislation would make a difference in preventing such tragedies in the future. pic.twitter.com/pZCtZjnUrU
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) June 2, 2022
Set aside, just briefly, that this guy, born of New York lawyers, himself a product of Princeton law school, and who lived in Greeley — home of the University of Northern Colorado and the mega-meat-corporation that owns the Colorado Rockies — thinks that city is “rural.” Buck thinks all that is genuine basis for his creds to speak for people in Colorado who really do live in far-flung rural places.
I’m from Manzanola, Colorado, a town I considered an urban Mecca over nearby bergs like Swink and Olney Springs, which actually had rural route mail boxes plugged on dirt roads.
But even along the wilds of the Rocky Ford Ditch and endless plains surrounding Lake Henry, I can’t recall anyone around there who wouldn’t be insulted by some guy in Greeley trying to persuade the world that rural Coloradans are the creepy, stupid hillbillies he makes them out to be.
Dude. You can actually build a chicken coop in Karval or a backyard in the Denver Highlands that’ll keep raccoons out. You clearly don’t know that raccoons come out after dark, when you have no damn business shooting at anything, and especially with a rifle and rounds that are so explosive that they’ll make a child shot to death in a classroom unrecognizable to even their own parents.
Dude. You don’t need a semi-automatic assault rifle to stay alive and collecting eggs in Vroman or anywhere. Get a dog. Maybe a broom and some chicken wire that won’t leave tens of thousands of innocent mass murder victims shot and dead at the end of each year.
Buck and his NRA cronies expect that kind of stuff from me, which they wave away as just the “lame-stream” liberals in the media who just don’t get guns.
But they can’t wave away Crow, who almost overnight released his own video, calling “bull” on the GOP argument that assault rifles are just plain ol’ guns that should have a place in every American heart and hearth.
“I spent most of my life around guns,” Crow says in his video. “Hunting as a kid, fighting for this country as an Army Ranger, and even now as a gun owner. The American people deserve some truth, and here it is.”
For generations, Americans have hunted and defended their homes with regular firearms.
Gun manufacturers want us to think we need weapons of war. Don’t be fooled.
It’s time to get assault weapons off our streets. pic.twitter.com/T8qV1fyaYZ
— Jason Crow (@JasonCrowCO) June 3, 2022
So he shows a deer-hunting rifle, and how it’s built for and used for hunting big game. Then he shows an assault rifle, explaining how semi-automatic rifles with explosive rounds are created and used in military battle.
“This nonsense about using AR-15s for ranching or home defense is a sales pitch by the gun lobby. Don’t be fooled, ranchers don’t fight armed platoons of raccoons. And if you say you need an AR-15 to protect your home, you’re just not shooting straight.”
That’s it. Short and sweet. Right from the mouth of a decorated military veteran that is the extremist GOP’s worst nightmare, a decorated veteran who says we can live with sensible limitations on the Second Amendment.
Crow makes it clear we don’t have to live in fear of being slaughtered by armed mass shooters who are enabled by leaders confused about rural Colorado, assault weapons and how to keep varmints out of the hen house.
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Get your facts straight. An AR-15 is not an assault rifle. And the rounds they fire do not explode. And yes, an AR-15 is a very good tool for home protection.
Okay, let’s be precise: an AR-15 is a weapon of war, made for battlefield use. The rounds do not explode, though they tumble and fragment for maximum internal damage.
Anyone needing such a weapon for home protection is either a terrible shot, as Rep. Crow points out, or so massively paranoid that he/she shouldn’t have access to this kind of weaponry.
Or, maybe you’re in favor of continuing to allow these instruments of slaughter to continue to be used to murder and maim children, shoppers, church goers, concert goers, and movie goers?
Well Gene, it appears you like to be precise and are not so often. Try this on for precise. The AR-15 has never, once again, never been used by the US Military. It was a somewhat copy job of the M-16 made by Colt for sale to civilians and law enforcement.
As far as rounds go, and I’m no expert there are many types of bullets for many uses that fit many types of weapons. As far as I know you might be able to buy rounds for the AR-15 that do back flips before they hit their target.
For your thought about being a terrible shot and your honorable Rep Crow knows this as being a Army Ranger, I qualified “Expert” during basic training. When I qualified with the M-16, before going to Viet Nam the drill instructor told us, “I don’t care how good of a shooter you are, when the shit hits the fan, fill the air with as much lead as you can”.
I get your point, Gene. It’s your precision that I have a major concern with.
Buck is just repeating the talking points given him by the Republican party, and drafted by the NRA. They do have great message control. Remember when Reagan and his party tried to cheapen schoolkids’ nutrition needs by claiming that catsup was a vegetable?
Buck just continues the long line of embarrassing Republicans boobs the Colorado sends to Washington: Allard, Campbell, Coffman, Lamborn, Boebert, the list goes on.
Remember in November.
We will remember in November. We will remember we had 2% inflation and $1.49 gas.
The economy ebbs and rises. Gun deaths and maimings continue to grow. Are you comparing a couple of dollars to 40000 deaths? Inconvenience doesn’t compare with suffering caused by gun violence. What actions are your representatives taking on either issue?
A couple of thoughts ago, I thought you just had a problem with being precise. Now you say that our current huge inflation and $7.00/gallon of gas is just an inconvenience to the American citizen. You are just a hater to anyone that thinks different than you do and an enemy to all Americans that search for a better life. I’ll try not to respond to your hatred in the future. Unless you have more uneducated and stupid thoughts.
I am a fan of Jason Crow. I have had a couple of minor problems in the past that I wrote him about. His staff responded very quickly to my emails, and straightened them out. I had some Medicare issues, and I was told, when I called Arapahoe County, that they had heard from Congressman Crow’s office about my situation and fixed things immediately. (Also, kudos to the Arapahoe County government folks for treating me with respect and handling things promptly and efficiently. They were very kind. Full marks!)
I have been writing on guns and the Second Amendment for decades now. Congressman Crow now adds some simple truth and common sense.
I have no personal axe to grind with Ken Buck. But I have never met anyone in rural Colorado who said they needed an AR-15 to kill raccoons. Seriously, this is the sort of idiotic reasoning they want us to buy? Get a pellet gun. Worked for me in the wilds of Wisconsin, and damned well at that. Didn’t kill them, either.
The 2nd amendment is not about deer hunting and is not about shooting racoons. People forget that the job of police is to solve crimes after the fact. When the civil unrest comes, we will be glad that we have the semi automatic rifles to protect what we love. Do not trust a politician that doesn’t trust you with a gun. Funny how they have plenty of them to protect themselves
I do not ever trust politicians, but what is going to cause the civil unrest is the guns! Without them, there could be no unrest. (DUH!) But now that every one of your people has a gun (or 20), I have no doubt that they will start shooting, as you say. Guns make people feel invincible. I will be glad not to have to participate in that, and if you and your people think it will be OK to mow me down, then so be it. I’m sure that won’t bother your conscience at all
It must be very sad to live with such terror. How do you get out of bed in the morning, if you are paralyzed with fear?
Would you like some more Kool Aid?
There is no credibility at which to take aim.