The Internet was afire on Tuesday with outrage over a gun nut who
dared to
“heckle” the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victim,
shouting him down with a “Second Amendment shall not be infringed!”
chant while he was trying to speak. What a great story to feed the
righteous arrogance of the anti-gun crowd!
Except it didn’t happen. It’s a hoax, or at the very least a heavily massaged story, based on a doctored video clip.
Twitchy
busted the propagandists by running the full, unedited video… which
makes it painfully clear that the people in the audience who said
“Second Amendment!” were
responding to a direct question from the Newtown father, Neil Heslin.
The exchange is very easy to follow. Heslin says, “I ask if there’s
anybody in this room that can give me one reason or challenge this
question: why anybody in this room needs to have one of these
assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips.” Then
he sits there for a few moments, looking at the audience and
waiting for a response.
When he doesn’t get one, he declares, “Not one person can answer that
question.” He says this in a way clearly meant to convey triumph that
nobody responded to him.
Then, and only then, does someone call out, “The Second Amendment
shall not be infringed!” Several others are heard raising similar
objections at the same moment. The officials conducting the hearing
promptly told whoever this was to pipe down. They did not reprimand
Heslin for breaking format to provoke the audience.
Interestingly, Heslin turns to the people who shouted about the
Second Amendment and says, “Oh, right,” in a way that doesn’t sound
sarcastic or dismissive. After order is restored, he says, “Anyway,
we’re all entitled to our own opinion, and I respect their opinions and
their thoughts… but, I wish they’d respect mine and give it a little bit
of thought, and realize that it could have been their child that was in
school that day.” He does not behave as if he’s been heckled or
insulted. No one makes any further effort to interfere with the rest of
his remarks.
It all happens 15 minutes into the full, unedited video:
There have been a few game attempts to ignore the obvious and claim
the special edit doesn’t change the nature of what transpired. That’s
ludicrous. The segment removed from the video circulated by MSNBC,
among other sources, was carefully and deliberately excised to wipe out
the inconvenient moment when Heslin specifically asked for a response…
and then
proved it wasn’t rhetorical by
using the resulting silence as
“proof” that his argument was correct. The person, or persons, who
shouted about the Second Amendment didn’t say a word until Heslin
essentially
taunted them for remaining silent. I don’t
know that he realized he was doing that; he’s a grieving father who
probably doesn’t have much public debating experience. Having watched
the clip a couple of times, I think he was honestly waiting for someone
in the audience to answer him.
Obviously the people trying to pump this into an outrageous story
with doctored video aren’t interested in fair, reasoned debate: they
want to score points, and if they feel any vestigial remorse that they
must lie to do it, they reassure themselves that the absolute
righteousness of their position justifies all necessary slander. Only
one side is supposed to talk during our “national conversation on gun
control.” Emotional appeals are supposed to sweep away both logic and
inconvenient individual rights. It’s considered rude to note that what
Heslin did is profoundly dishonest and unfair. But I guess when you
disagree with the righteous, you don’t get to complain about rigged
debate rules and kangaroo courts of opinion.
