Richard Branson’s Anti-Gun poster. (Photo: Facebook)
Richard Branson, the billionaire business magnate, reposted a stupid anti-gun poster this week on Facebook.
The poster displayed a revolver that was painted like the American flag, with red and white stripes and white stars outlined in blue. It rattled off the number of handgun deaths in various countries and then ended with, “10,728 In the United States,” followed by “God Bless America” and finally, “Stop Handguns Before They Stop You.”
When Branson put it up on his Facebook page he included this message, “Our thoughts go to every family who lost a loved one.”
Sure, Branson’s got a right to freely speak his mind. And his sympathy for victims of gun-related violence is sincere and is duly noted. But his apparent belief that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to possess, own, buy, sell and carry handguns is exactly the type of claptrap gun owners often hear from ignorant anti-gunners.
Branson’s a smart and successful guy, but when it comes to the issue of guns he simply has not done his research. For starters, those stats don’t differentiate between legal gun owners and criminals. Moreover, they don’t account for how many of those killed were linked to drugs and/or gangs. Also, it’s not clear if that figure includes suicides. I bring up all these points because, well, to state the obvious, guns don’t kill people by themselves it takes a human being to pull the trigger, and to ignore this aspect of the debate would be similar to arguing that we need to ban all automobiles because there are drunk drivers on the road. Branson’s not coming out with a poster saying, “Stop Cars Before They Stop You.”
Yeah, so, why is it with firearms do we focus on the gun, the physical object, and not the individual pulling the trigger? It makes no sense. Just as we need to stop drunk drivers we need to stop criminals. That ought to be the focus.
The other point to be made is that Branson ignores all of the positive aspects of gun ownership. Hunting, sporting, but mainly, the fact that firearms are used at the very least as much to stop crime as they are to perpetrate it. Defensive gun uses in this country are very common (somewhere between 200,000 to 3 million per year, depending on what social scientist and/or economist one consults), but unfortunately they often go unreported on the national news. The public just doesn’t realize how frequently good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns. I bet Branson doesn’t either.
In any event, that was a rather long digression. What I wanted to say in writing this is that I posted Branson’s poster to the GunsAmerica Facebook page and within minutes our fans began responding to it en masse. As always with social media, some of the responses were funny, others were insightful (many pointed out what I did in the paragraphs above) and some were outrageous and bawdy and everything in between. I decided to focus on the humorous, witty ones. So, here are some of my favorites:
Jim Symons, “Won’t be flying Virgin.”
Louis Paul Kadubic, “Now I want a revolver painted like that one. Thanks Dick Branson!”
Rich Reason posted this graphic in response to Branson. (Photo: Facebook)
Terry Hayworth, “He is an ass clown”
Ian Dietz, “West Germany….. God this is a 90’s ads?”
Melissa Windham, “‘Handguns’ is spelled wrong. It’s spelled ‘crazy people’ and they left out thousands of others wielding rocks, bats, knives, tools and other weapons.”
Leo Torres, “GOD DEFINITELY BLESS AMERICA!”
Aaron Scott, “How many teenagers were killed texting on their virgin mobile phones while driving.”
Garrett Ames, “250,000 killed by doctors.”
Andsebber Anber, “Wanker”
Steve Skinner, “Hooray for random unchecked and unsubstantiated facts! Oh wait… Its on Facebook, it must be true.”
Jeff Smith, “God Bless Texas! I am a ‘Bitter Clinger’”
Gary Ivy, “Freedom has a price. Socialist has a cost!”
Leslie Nelson, “In the immortal words of Archie Bunker, ‘Would it make you feel better if they had been pushed in front of a train, little girl?’”
This clearly proves that Americans are much better marksmen. (oops, “marks-persons”)
Hey Branson, how’s the crime and murder rate in the U.K doing since you disarmed the legal gun owners? How many of your unarmed police get beat to death every year before the gun cars can arrive? Your British Doctors now want to ban long kitchen knives which are used in half of the stabbings. “They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen. None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful”. Sounds like the gungrabbers “you don’t need a AR and 30 round magazine to shoot deer” line of crap doesn’t it. I’m sure your not a hypocrite and have bodyguards with firearms, do you?
The pen is mighter than the sword?
Especially when the politican is signing the back of Mr. Bransons check !
Islander
The poster needs additional data for an accurate analysis. It presumes that handguns, as opposed to people, were responsible for the deaths and that the citizens of the US are “out of control” with their liberty and need to be brought into line with the enlightened people of the world. To provide a more complete picture we need to know the populations of every country mentioned, the number of legally owned handgun in each country, a determination on how many handguns involved in the events were legally possessed (excluding government owned handguns) by country in order to compare the percentage of actual abhorrent behavior. And it needs to be emphasized that it is abhorrent behavior. This story needs a John Lott review if I ever saw one.
stevriot richard needs to get to mars as soon as possible, maybe then he can have his gun free planet…
OK, so tell us why thousands and thousands of people are killed by handguns in the US and not in countries where gun control is tighter. And while you’re t it, read the US consitution in full to see why bearing arms is only permitted as part of an ‘organized militia’.