Democrat revives 'nuke' threat to gun owners
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sometimes politicians make those statements they wish they hadn’t.
Remember Hillary Clinton’s description of vast numbers of Americans as “deplorables?”
And Barack Obama’s now-proven silly claim that under his Obamacare, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?”
And now there’s U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s “threat” to use government nukes against Americans who would refuse to give up their firearms under his suggestion for a confiscation program.
Most of those politicians try to let those comments die.
It’s in their opponents’ TV ads that they keep appearing.
In Swalwell’s case, however, the California Democrat is returning it to the headlines.
On Twitchy was the report, “Wow. Rep. Eric Swalwell just can’t keep that foot out of his mouth. First, he set all of those crazy militia types straight when it comes to fighting against a tyrannical government. The government has nukes, and all they have is the AR-15s he’d like to confiscate.”
Swalwell’s threat was to a commenter who said if he pursued a gun-confiscation program, actually he wanted to buy back weapons and then criminally prosecute those who would not cooperate, that the government “has nukes.” And the war would be “short.”
“You’d think Swalwell would be smart enough to let his ridiculous tweet slide out of the news cycle, but no: on Monday he cited fact-checking site Snopes.com as proof that he didn’t make a ‘serious threat to nuke gun owners,'” Twitchy said.
Swalwell wrote on social media: “Well this should end the faux-outrage from gun groups. @snopes DEBUNKS @DailyCaller and others who claimed I made serious threat to nuke gun-owners.”
First, there’s the issue that Snopes is notoriously liberal and trusted by almost no conservative in America.
Second, it’s not really what Snopes found.
The “fact-checking” site said of the statement: “In November 2018, Democratic U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell suggested launching nuclear weapons against gun-owners who refused to hand over or sell semi-automatic rifles to the U.S. government” that it was a “mixture” of true and false.
“In a tweet on 16 November, Swalwell responded to a gun rights enthusiast who said the Democrat’s proposal to confiscate or buy semi-automatic rifles would result in ‘war’ due to resistance from gun owners, stating ‘it would be a short war’ because ‘the government has nukes.'”
Then Snopes just repeated Swalwell’s claim that it was “no more than a joke.”
The origins came from Swalwell’s opinion column for USA Today where he demanded a ban on “military-style semi-automatic assault weapons,” and said the government should buy such guns and prosecute those who wouldn’t hand them over.
Snopes explained Swalwell’s tweet, with the threat, “was undoubtedly authentic.” It added, however, “he quickly clarified that he had intended his reference to nuclear weapons to be a joke.”
Fox News’ show host Tucker Carlson took up the issue with New York City councilman Jumaane Williams hours later, trying to get an answer to the question of what happens when the government declares something ordinary, like a gun clip, illegal.
Williams repeatedly refused to answer, insisting that such questions be taken off the table.
He insisted to Carlson that people have to start the conversation by admitting that guns are a part of the gun violence problem in the nation, which is, by definition, true, but doesn’t address the core dispute over guns, self-defense, a threatening government, and more.
The conversation, which starts about 14 minutes into this video:
Twitchy explained, “Dude … can we call you dude? Dude, no one thought you were seriously going to nuke gun owners – we’re pretty sure as a congressman you don’t have the launch codes. But the fact that the idea even crossed your mind, let alone made it into a tweet … it’s mind-blowing. This was not ‘faux outrage.’
“What ticked off Second Amendment defenders was that you made their point for them: if a congressman can even suggest nuking American citizens, then yes, there should be a legitimate fear of the government having too much power.”
Explained Conservative Review, “It’s easy to point out how insane it is that a sitting member of Congress is talking about confiscating the property of American citizens and using nukes against those who don’t comply, because it’s pretty insane. Whether or not you believe his claims of being facetious is up you.
“But it’s also nice to see an anti-gun politician take the mask off for a moment to remind us what the debate about the Second Amendment is really about and why 2A exists in the first place. The talk about gun control is around these mythical ‘commonsense’ laws that we can put in place that will supposedly make Americans safer through further firearms regulation. ‘We don’t want to take your guns away,’ the argument goes, ‘we just want some common sense.'”
But the commentary said whenever “commonsense” policies are suggested, they violate at least one of the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and 14th Amendments. And the plans generally are “completely ignorant” of how guns work.
“This brings us back to the natural end of the gun control movement: bans and confiscation. Utlimately, this is where most anti-gun politicians and professional activists want to end up; those ‘commonsense’ measures are stepping stones.”
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You should tell the truth once in a while, as the 10 Commandments requires you to do. Swalwell didn't say that he was going to confiscating all guns. His buy-back plan only mentions semi-automatic assault style weapons.
Confiscation will never happen because it would be a political disaster.
Correct. But politicians of any ideology will make hay of extreme positions when they feel it benefits them.
In current American politics, any negative mention of the 2nd Amendment is even more of a political 3rd rail than cuts to Social Security and Medicare. I agree that we need to work on gun violence in the US but this idiot just wrote his challenger's campaign commercials in the next election.
Well said...
Few of us ( i guess i should say "not me") took his "nuke" comment literally. I mean really ..... do we have one person tactical nukes now? Ridiculous!
However, his comment is telling as to what his true intent and desires are. That is, doing whatever is necessary to forcefully remove US citizens property that he personally finds offensive. Without their consent.
A very slippery slope regardless of what that property is.
Agreed, absolutely. The smallest (oldest) nukes take out about 25 square miles.........
Sarcasm doesn't translate well across printed mediums.
There used to be nuclear weapons available for large (155 or 203mm) artillery sizes, but I think those were eliminated in one of the SALT treaties.
Atomic Annie
This is what I remember from my history teacher laughing about. The troops would be inside of their own blast range.
Somewhat like the fella who built a boat inside his basement.
Now what?
Actually they would not be. Atomic Annie as Dave pictured above was used to test fire a W-9 nuclear shell during Operation Upshot–Knothole . The test firing called Operation Upshot–Knothole Grable fired an 11" W-9 nuclear artillery round in the Nevada firing range. The W-33's were tested twice but tested in the usual way, suspension over Ground zero or underground.
They knew how far they needed to keep the troops away, the firing was to determine the effective use of such a weapon and testing survivablity of the equipment in use at the time... It yield was similar to the Hiroshima detonation of 14-15kt.....
The tactical usage of a nuclear artillery shell coincided with artillery tactical practice at the time, which was interdiction of the choke points of the advance line of an advancing enemy force. Time on Target is what it was called. I could go into the technical details but I don't think anyone would be interested...
In practical reality, it took longer to set up the gun than it would have been useful once ready to fire, therefore it never proceeded beyond prototype testing.
I always wondered how Jethro Gibbs on NCIS was going to get the boat out of his basement.
Funny.
That is an old story my mom told me when I was a young child.
It was a guy she knew. When the guy finished the boat, he knocked a section of basement wall out and took the boat outside.
Turns out he also wanted to do some kind of patio thing too.
That is an extreme way to remodel the basement and add a patio.
I guess so. The more we talk about it the more of the story I recall.
IIRC he was able to finish the boat during the winter (no idea when he started the project) and once the boat was out, began on the patio project as things warmed up.
Hey, there was no internet and smart phones back then.
Probably very little tv too.
think through the series he actually built more than one down there and they never let on how he got them out....
I'll give him points for determination.
I get lost via trying to micromanage the details and it would never get done.
I assumed that Gibbs took the boat apart in smaller sub-assemblies and carried it out via a door to be reassembled somewhere else.
Technically incorrect, the smallest nukes take out about a square mile, the Hiroshima nuke took out about 5-7 square miles, when you count the spread of the fires afterwards, the direct blast only took out about 3 sq miles.
25 sq miles is the destructive range of the largest thermonukes in the inventory
"Swalwell responded to a gun rights enthusiast who said the Democrat’s proposal to confiscate or buy semi-automatic rifles would result in ‘war’ due to resistance from gun owners, stating ‘it would be a short war’ because ‘the government has nukes.'”
From that I can conclude two things. One, he was addressing what would happen if any group took up arms and fired upon our police or military thus starting a "war" which is the complete annihilation of the idiotic insurgents. Two, it was obviously an exaggeration as no one is stupid enough to think we'd launch nukes on our own soil just to take out a handful of disgruntled Sovereign citizens.
That's how I took it , basic rhetoric of our guns are bigger than your guns , so might as well comply, but history has shown that a determined adversary can have limited and inferior weaponry and still prevail.
All it takes is one person to irrevocably change the course of history by statement or deed, my evidence is look how the great war started , im pretty sure that the person who shot the arch duke and duchess , was considered as someone of no real importance.
another flaw I see in ointment is it wont be conducted like any other warfare we have witnessed if it comes to pass. yes the military has nukes . not the government , and you are right to think those members will never launch such weapons on their own people. as for the military participating in a gun grab? its a crap shoot if they would or not , and has been pointed out , most local LEO out where it counts , might just decide that they do not need that job and resign or retire, which leads still any government organization has the same problem as the other 2 , they are made up of people , that are also taken from the population that is being suppressed by the giving of that order to confiscate by force, what they are doing to others , others are doing to their own family members somewhere else , how do you think that's REALLY going to set? I would think not very well .
any law can be made , but that's never a guarantee everyone will follow the law if they disagree, where the rubber meets the road will be in the enforcement aspect , take a step too far and the criminal by law becomes the modern day robin hood , look at the gangster era and how criminals where made out to be those fighting the supposedly corrupt system.
I don't think this is a can of worms anyone really wants to open , even in jest, I am reminded of the spartan response , not the molon labe one , but the sardonic one to king Phillip when he said that If he invaded ( supposedly to unite all the greeks under huis control) that Sparta would not exist, the spartans reply was …. IF.... nothing more , King phillip never invaded , and sired alexander who went on to conquer the known world at the time , known as alexander the great.
MBFC really sucks?
WND, true to form, takes the literal words and tries to make a case out it. The speaker was obviously being sarcastic, but no one can deny what he originally tweeted, so let's "lock him up", lol.