Metaphor maestra Michele Bachmann didn’t really mean ‘armed’ — but her bills do
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 10:50 am
- 12 Comments
Image: DumpBachmann
A spokesman for Michele Bachmann confirms what many suspected: The congresswoman was speaking in metaphor when she said “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax.” But while reading her lips leaves her meaning open to interpretation, reading her pro-gun legislation shows she’s a straight-shooter.
There’s been widespread bemusement and head-shaking over the Republican lawmaker’s latest utterances on the airwaves. But many commentators have also pondered how the response — Bachmann’s own, for instance — would differ if a left-wing political figure had said something similar. And TPM’s Midwest foreign correspondent Eric Kleefeld wonders if it matters that Bachmann meant it metaphorically:
On the one hand, it seems clear that Bachmann was speaking figuratively. On the other hand, is it appropriate for a member of Congress to speak in any context about being armed for revolution?
Is it appropriate to consider Bachmann’s comments in the context of current bills to which she has lent her name?
HR 17: To protect the right to obtain firearms for security, and to use firearms in defense of self, family, or home, and to provide for the enforcement of such right.
HR 197: To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide a national standard in accordance with which nonresidents of a State may carry concealed firearms in the State.
And here’s some context for her co-sponsorship of those bills: A fellow conservative says Bachmann told him last fall about the firearm she’d like to tote, with her own conceal-carry permit:
I saw her in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago … and she said, “You know, I am so proud of that. But you know what I really like? I really like an AR15. But you just can’t carry that around.”
An AR15 is the civilian version — a semi-automatic metaphor, you might say — of the M16 and M4 assault rifles.
Here’s the video:
(h/t DumpBachmann)
12 Comments
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 11:37 am
Yep. And us dangerous, radical liberal lefties would have been sitting here going “WTF is an AR15?” Thank you for educating me! :D
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
Actually, there are a fair number of lefties who not only know what an AR15 is, but own one. Or more than one; the Second Amendment is not just for conservatives, you know.
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Oh, and since I know that the MinIndie is proud of its commitment to accuracy: we don’t have “conceal-carry” permits here. Pinky swear.
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
“confirms what many suspected: The congresswoman was speaking in metaphor”
You people really are that stupid, aren’t ya?
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
As a part of my continuing efforts to look for the good in everyone, I will have to give her credit for not outright denying what she said, as she has in the past.
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
We are bringing back the carnival:
The Replace Michele Bachman Web Carnival is Back
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
Unable to mount a rational defense of most of their cherished beliefs, the crazy righties have pulled an old bog corpse out of the swamp–red baiting. It’s all the more absurd in light of Obama’s centrist liberalism. No matter. Put on the conserva-goggles and suddenly the utterly mundane and reasonable public policy tool of taxation transforms Obama into a Manchurian Marxist who hopes to eventually land Venezuelan troops in DC in order to grab all the guns and Bibles, set up soviet councils in executive suites, make sure evolution is taught in the schools, and that the Anti-Christ will be empowered to fight Jesus on His return.
What a shame on the district that elects this bathouse fruitcake to office.
Comment posted March 24, 2009 @ 4:39 pm
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Them as has guns may not use them, but they know they got them. Which gives them a tad more confidence in proposing and insisting on the rightness of their ideas, no matter how zany.
This country was at its most progressive just after WW2, when the average liberal survivor of the Great Depression and the World War was comfortable with the idea of being organized, armed, and ready to deal with violent nutcases in a civil and constitutional manner. But they got tired and distracted. And then television came along…
Comment posted March 25, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
I thought the election of Stuart Smiley and Jesse the Body were jokes. Wow you folks are f@34ed up on the northern plains. I was just checking out different online papers to see what folks from other parts of the world’s greatest country were saying, and you all are whack! I was looking for more info on Ms. Bachmann after seeing her school that tool Geitner today on CNBC. She rocks; she can come down to Colorado and replace these morons we have running our state!
Comment posted March 30, 2009 @ 4:33 am
“I was just checking out different online papers to see what folks from other parts of the world’s greatest country were saying”
Who cares what Canadians think?
Comment posted March 30, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
Ole girl just doesn’t haven’t on too tight! The GOP leadership better get the mental midgets with big ego’s and mouths, in check or the party will go even lower in the polls and lose more members. This is not the GOP’s finest hour. It is so sad!
Comment posted March 30, 2009 @ 7:04 pm
This is extremely disturbing!!!! Those who are looking for any reason for civil unrest (such as the RT wing-nuts and their “Queen of the Crazy People” none other than Michele Bachman, now have their free pass and permission from this nutburger, to act on thier much less than intellectual anger, to lock and load! This woman needs to be arrested and tried for terroristic threats and treason! This is very serious!
Treason: *a crime that undermines the offender’s government
*disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior
*treachery:an act of deliberate betrayal
princeton.edu/perl/webwn
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