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Cruz Torches Feinstein’s Straw Men

By: briansikma (Diary)  |  March 15th, 2013 at 12:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took the torch of liberty and started burning some straw man arguments dearly loved by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) this week. At issue was a gun ban proposed by Feinstein and other liberals. Feinstein has argued that the ban is necessary because civilians don’t “need a bazooka” and Congress has a responsibility to start banning guns and ammunition that could be used to kill humans.

Feinstein may not know this, but bazookas are already off limits.

As for Congressional responsibility to act, well that hinges on the Constitution. And this is where Cruz starting making things uncomfortable. Bypassing the debate about bazookas and the merits of political posturing, Cruz questioned Feinstein on the constitutional merits of her proposal.

Daniel Horowitz highlighted the video of the Cruz-Feinstein exchange here.

What Cruz did was brilliant; he torched the straw man arguments raised by Feinstein simply by going beyond the surface rhetoric and focusing on the underlying issue: is this legislation constitutional?

For decades in Washington, both parties have agreed to a sort of kabuki dance that involves focusing on bureaucratic details to the exclusion of debates about principle. Chief among the reasons for this is a bi-partisan recognition among some political leaders that the “ruling class” is all in this together and principles are not terribly important when re-election and political power are the bottom line.

Conservatives need to start scoring some wins, even as they lack full power in Washington. The way to do that is to ignore the bureaucratic morass and start focusing on the big picture and the fundamental issues at stake.  The rule class will hate it, but the country will applaud it.

COMMENTS

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  • irishgirl

    Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are leading the way. Now if only some others will jump on board and join them. It’s energizing to watch these two senators are work.

  • runner12

    I found Feinstein’s tour of pity-poor-me appearances on the news programs extremely insulting as a woman. This ultra-feminist had the audacity to pull the old “how-dare-that-man-be-mean-to-a-poor-woman.” Grow up, Sen. Feinstein and be a woman. If you cannot endure honest scrutiny on your positions, perhaps you need to choose another profession. Shameless behavior on your part.

  • rockxie

    All the elites on both sides were clucking and decrying Cruz’ “rudeness” today! All the “people” were standing and cheering! It’s about time someone stood up and gave the Democrats back what they have been shoveling us for a very long regime!

  • jimmyg

    I think the question is what, if any, limits there are to the 2nd amendment? Justice Scalia expressed the opinion that their are limits to the 2nd amendment. A future SCt. decision will tell us what those limits are.

    “Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says “yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed” on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. It’s up to future court cases to determine what those limitations are, he said on “Fox News Sunday.”"

    http://cnsnews.com/news/article/justice-scalia-2nd-amendment-limitations-it-will-have-be-decided

  • plh

    Thank God someone has, and the rest had better do likewise!

  • etbass

    Great article. Way to Cruz. We need more Senators like Cruz and Paul and a whole lot less of McCain and his Mini-me.

  • etbass

    Power. They know their power is limited as long as the people retain our freedom. If they can take that, including our right to bear arms, they gain ultimate power. They care nothing about children, the poor, middle class or America. Only the gain of more power. It’s behind everything they do.

  • etbass

    Well said!

  • checkmate2012

    Cruz’s comments were brilliant and this diary is equally astute to point out that he indeed burned Sen. Feinstein’s strawmen intentionally and proved she had no answer to the real question as she obfuscated; he thus proved her to be an elitist law maker like most of them without a limiting principle.
    .
    But the real beauty of his comments were to get her to admit she thought her law was Constitutional and get her goat up and show her ignorance for the public to see. She was playing with fire with someone who litigated the Heller case at the Supreme Court and she stepped in it. Cruz knows darn well what the SC decided in the case and her law is definitely un-const., yet she persisted on her high horse as he was making his point.
    .
    Some say he didn’t state his case strongly enough by not quoting the outcome of Heller but I think sometimes less is better….

  • saccrewdog

    Feinstein comments that civilians “…don’t need a bazooka…”
    If that’s the case, why do the police need tanks?

  • checkmate2012

    Cruz knows the limits thus got the missy Senator to show her cards, i.e. she doesn’t care what the C. says. Read the Heller case.

  • sudomakeme

    Less is better to those informed but remember, we are trying to reach those who aren’t and don’t care to put the effort out.

  • Dave_A

    Most police armored vehicles are designed to protect those inside from rifle-caliber gunfire & thrown objects (eg, for riot control)…. These are logical threats the police need protection from.

    Tanks have a crew of 3 or 4, an
    artillery-caliber cannon, and exist only to kill things (they don’t
    move/protect foot troops) – the police in the US don’t have tanks…

    Further, thanks to the 1968 Gun Control Act & 1934 National Firearms Act, obtaining a bazooka (or RPG, AT-4, or any other antitank weapon) is a difficult process requiring a $200 tax & extensive paperwork. Thus these items are NOT commonly available to civillians, like normal firearms are.

    BTW, the entire basis for Feinstein’s ‘Rocket Launcher’ crusade, is the fact that the LAPD ‘bought back’ an expended AT-4 tube that had been stolen from a military base.

    The AT-4 is a single-shot weapon that cannot be reloaded – the ‘tube’ is only useful for teaching troops how to fire one without the danger of giving an untrained troop a live rocket launcher. But the LAPD waved it around on TV like they had recovered a live rocket, and thus Feinstein now thinks there is a threat of criminals using AT4s in bank robberies… So they must be banned! Now! For the Children!

    <— National Guard tank crewman.

  • Dave_A

    The better ‘score’ would have been to lecture Feinstein on the perils of making policy based on what she watches on TV.

    The entire 94 assault weapons ban, and almost all of her legislative initiatives, come from what she sees on TV & the movies – not how guns are used in real life…

  • mt32

    Right and the Constitution restricts and restrains the federal government, not the people… Our rights come from our creator and not the government.

  • sudomakeme

    I think saccrewdog’s point is – I may be wrong but this is how I took it – that the 2nd amendment grants us the right to whatever is available at the current time to be on a par with the tyrannical government we need to defend ourselves against.
    So how can they constitutionally take our ____ while they are buying up tanks, ammunition, and assault weapons themselves?

  • Dave_A

    And that is not the point that you want to focus on, if you want to win this debate ‘in the hearts and minds’ of the American people.

    I am not denying the historical origins of the 2nd. However the majority of Americans do not see ‘a tyrannical government that we need to rebel against’ as a realistic possibility. You can argue this point with all the historical examples in the world, and they still will not believe it is a realistic threat. Even further, they will consider anyone who suggests that needing to fight it out with the police/military is a reason to own guns to be a dangerous lunatic.

    These are the people you have to convince, if you want to see the 2nd preserved.

    They are not convinced by arguments about revolution & resistance against the government.

    They are convinced by arguments that emphasize the use of modern weapons in recreation & defense against crime, and that paint the Democrats as an out-of-touch bunch of ignorant elitists who think Hollywood gunplay is real-life & are trying to pass laws based on what they saw Bruce Willis do in the latest iteration of ‘Die Hard’…

  • sudomakeme

    Of course the mere ability to retain the right is likely to prevent tyranical uprising. But you are correct. The majority of Americans do not believe that can ever happen here and it is too abstract a situation for them to even think about, let alone understand.

    Perhaps in order as well would be consistent reminders of how the Democrats pushing for these restrictions have their own personal armed bodyguards and their children attend schools protected by armed guards.

    I do wonder what could possibly be going through Ms. Feinstein’s head.

    I see in your last paragraph a seed of how possibly to address plumely’s diary entry regarding “our message”.

  • checkmate2012

    Your reasoning is exactly right since it won’t help change minds on the 2nd. What might work better are the amendments that Sen. Cornyn tried to add to the bill (listed in my Feinstein diary). He had valid points and all were voted down.

  • Dave_A

    Agreed…

    And quite literally, the features targeted in the ‘ban’ on assault weapons comes straight from popular media…

    Look at 80s & 90s action movies, and you will see all of the things that were targeted for ‘banning’ on display by the ‘bad guys’ (and a few by ‘barely good good-guys’ like the heroes of Die Hard & Lethal Weapon)…

    However, when you actually see what weapons were ‘preferred’ by criminals of the day, it’s not the relatively pricy military-style gear prized by gun-collectors, but rather ‘the cheapest available & most concealable’….

    So why did we hear about ‘spraying from the hip’ and all this other scare-rubbish about ‘assault weapons’? Well, the fact is that our ingenious legislators – most having no experience with guns – believe that the depictions of gun-use and gun-availability in the movies are based on real-life… Hence bans on ‘barrel extensions’, ‘rifle-grenade launchers’, and so on… Hence the claim that the AR15/M16 (one of the most accurate small-caliber rifles out there) is a ‘random spray-fire’ weapon, since in the movies it’s always used on full auto & rarely aimed – even by ‘special forces’ troops in war movies… Never mind that real-life military training emphasizes single-shot accuracy & no one with a brain uses full-auto the way the movies show (Even if you have a gun that’s capable of it)….

    So that is what’s on DiFi’s mind: It’s in the movies, so it must be true… Typical hollywood lib idiocy…

  • sudomakeme

    I’m not much up on the specifics in these movies, but who hasn’t seen at least the occasionally shoot-em-up clip or trailer? How frightening is it to have to imagine that such a long-standing Senior Senator would attempt make such far-reaching legistlation based on fantasy. There could be no turning back if this passes. And yet, how else to explain such idiocy…

  • funwithknives

    DiFi seems to know lotsa’ stuff about bazooka ownership that even the BATF seems to not know, and yet she gets all kinda’ uppity when she’s called out on her [supposed] Constitutional Knowledge.

    So which is it, Diane-Dearest ? Are you “The Sage of San Francisco” or just Blowing Sewage, because you can…?
    (Every bleeding time I see her, I am called -back to her years-ago statement about
    “… rounding them [guns] all up….”, and it reminds me that ‘some people’ can never change.)

  • http://www.apoliticalpundit.wordpress.com A Poiticalpundit

    Sad, but true….

  • http://www.apoliticalpundit.wordpress.com A Poiticalpundit

    Sadly, our creator depends on we mere mortals to defend our God Given rights!!

  • http://www.apoliticalpundit.wordpress.com A Poiticalpundit

    I think we should start appealing to their brains and common sense. Hearts and minds can be fickle indeed!!