You know the drill: there’s a mass shooting, democrats demand gun control laws that wouldn’t have stopped that mass shooter, and the liberal media pretends like none of this is bullshit. All of that changed on Sunday when CNN’s Jake Tapper, of all people, called Cory Booker out for exploiting a tragedy with irrelevant gun control proposals. I checked, this is not Opposite Day, so this really happened.
On Friday a gunman opened fire in a Virginia Beach municipal facility, killing 12. Like how it is whenever there a tragedy of this magnitude, the democrats began calling for “action” to make sure mass shootings like this never happen again. NJ Senator and 2020 “also-ran” Cory Booker didn’t disappoint:
11 people dead. My heart breaks for those killed in another senseless act of gun violence & the loved ones of the victims whose lives are now shattered. We have the power to stop this—we can & will pass commonsense gun safety laws to end these tragedies. https://t.co/twaqJ99l95
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) May 31, 2019
Booker then went on CNN’s State of the Union and host Jake Tapper had questions:
“You said yesterday that mass shootings in America — quote — ‘cannot just go on in our country.’ And you have unveiled a comprehensive gun reform plan. Now, ATF says that the two weapons used in the attack were handguns, not semiautomatic assault rifles. And they say that they were purchased legally. How would your plan have stopped this tragedy, if at all?” Tapper asked.
Good question. I wonder how Booker will respond.
“Well, Jake, again, this is a tragedy today, but you know that every single day in the United States of America, in the aggregate, we have mass shootings that go on in neighborhoods like mine. I live in an inner-city black and brown community. You were there yourself. Moments after you left, we had another shooting in my neighborhood,” replied Booker.
That wasn’t close to answering Tapper’s question. What does Booker lying that he has mass shootings in his inner-city neighborhood have to do with his unconstitutional gun control proposals stopping legal gun owners from illegally killing people?
From there Booker rambled on about lower crime rates in Oakland (another lie) and said he has a “common-sense, evidence-based” plan to stop mass shootings. Tapper wasn’t having it and cut the babbling democrat off:
“But you keep saying — I’m sorry to interrupt, but you keep saying, we’re not helpless. So I’m saying: what would have prevented this tragedy? I mean, I think that’s one of the issues that people wonder about when there are these horrible tragedies. What steps specifically would have stopped the massacre in Virginia Beach?” Tapper asked.
Surly Booker will now answer this simple question, right? sadly, no.
“And you have taken a look at the 16, 17 things we have in my plan that would drop the levels of violence overall, from one-handgun-a-month laws, all the way to investing in the kind of mental health and the kind of community empowerment strategies that would do something about it,” Booker said.
Did you hear the question, Spartacus? Booker continued to evade by throwing out all of his gun control talking points and Tapper finally had it.
“I hear you not talking about this specific massacre, but talking about gun violence in general,” said Tapper.
The third time was not the charm on this one. Booker could not and would not say how his gun control plan would have stopped the Virginia Beach mass shooting.
The closest Booker came to actually answering the question was this horrible statement:
“If you want someone who’s going to take a fight on this issue, take a fight to the corporate gun lobby, take a fight against apathy and indifference, take a fight against the NRA, then I’m your person,” Booker said.
So in a nutshell, to stop criminals from doing illegal things, he’s going to attack the legal gun manufacturing industry, law-abiding gun owners, and the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. I wish Tapper would have asked him to explain how it’s possible to stop crime with laws that only go after people who don’t commit crime.
It’s kind of odd that Jake Tapper actually pressed Booker on his bullshit, but hardly a major accomplishment. Any democrat can be tripped up on all of their nonsensical garbage by simply asking, “how?”
