Courtesy of MSNBC:
“He was my son, he was my buddy, he was my best friend,” testified Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in December before a Connecticut gun violence prevention hearing Tuesday. “And I never thought I’d be speaking like this and asking for changes on my son’s behalf. He’s my only son, he’s my only family.”
As Heslin asked legislators to tighten restrictions, gun rights activist interrupted his testimony, yelling “our rights will not be infringed!” and “Second Amendment!” Local news sources reported that there were nearly a dozen hecklers, who were quickly silenced.
Heslin’s son, Jesse Lewis, died after trying to flee the gunman with other students.
I quite literally have no words.
Update: For those who are confused by the NRA dipshit in the comments section claiming that the audience was only responding to Mr. Heslin's question, I refer you to Mr. Lawrence O'Donnell's response to that same bullshit excuse.
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Well I have words and they're not very nice. These animals are low-life maggots who have brains the size of peas and dicks the size of worms. Sorry, but these worthless bastards are examples of the thinning of the gene pools.
ReplyDeleteThey are people who are incapable of feeling sympathy, we call them sociopaths.
DeleteThe important thing is, their rights to waste laying weapons is more important than the pursuit of life and happiness for a classroom of babies.
DeleteA whole graduating class, slain, by a bastardization of what the 2nd Amendment stands for.
The more they talk the more the regular American people can be enlightened to just how freaking crazy these NRA types really are. There's a strong argument that being a member of the NRA should disqualify you from being able to own a weapon of any type.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly. I find myself much more biased towards gun owners now, and especially NRA members.
DeleteSelfish, heartless bastards without even the saving grace of passing empathy.
ReplyDeleteNo words here either, just tears.
ReplyDeleteWell, my Congressman, Dr. Dan Benishek, thinks that the problem is one of "human dignity" not gun control. Whose "human dignity" though since he thinks the Second Amendment prohibits any gun control laws? I think he and many other Congressmen are more concerned about the "human dignity" of NRA gun nuts than they are about the victims. I think every member of Congress should have to view the morgue photos of the Sandy Hook victims.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
Wingnut Michelle Malkin's Twitchy website along with The Blaze, Townhall, HotAir, and other RWNJ sites poutraged about MSNBC daring to air the above drastically edited video (yeah, the irony just drips), but they ARE correct.
ReplyDeleteThe full video is over 17 minutes, and the interruption occurs after Neil Heslin asked a RHETORICAL question of the Connecticut legislative body and the spectators.
This is one RWNJ site's summary of the incident (not one of the aforementioned obnoxious sites; don't want to give them the clicks): "Listening to the audio with an unbiased ear it is clear that those who spoke up did so respectfully in an inaudible chorus The only audible statement from the crowd is: “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.” Clearly no one heckled Mr. Heslin personally, the crown was simply responding to an inquiry posed to them twice by Mr. Heslin."
Where is it either appropriate or welcome for anyone except a witness to give testimony in a hearing? How bizarre is it that the pro-gun wingnuts think they can just shout out their opinions? They should get an invitation to sit down and give testimony, otherwise STFU, just like they expect "leftists" to do in a heavily-RW venue.
I agree here. The father did ask a rhetorical question ... he even looked around the room as though he were addressing the room ... and when I listened to it I heard people answering. I did not think anyone was rude. Everyone was speaking his own truth. I am completely against assault-style weapons available to the public. I dislike guns intensely. I feel terribly for that dad and for all the the families. But I think this spot was edited to mislead, and I don't like that either. The person in charge of the hearing silenced people and it proceeded.
DeleteThanks for sharing this, and your observations are spot on.
DeletePerhaps this event was not as outrageous as depicted, but I can't imagine anyone responding to that man's question with that comment, no matter how respectfully it might have been said.
DeleteThe man is in agony after having his son brutally murdered, and these yahoos have the audacity to respond with “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.”??? What about his son's right to not be murdered in his kindergarten classroom???
I'm not for repealing the Second Amendment and confiscating everyone's guns, but to speak that quote under those circumstances is simply heartless and cruel.
The answers did NOT come after "a rhetorical question". Mr. Heslin asked the question one time, even looking at the audience when he did so. Everyone in the audience remained silent, assuming that the question *was* rhetorical. But then he looked around again, asked the question again and claimed the lack of response the first time was because no one had an answer. He was clearly challenging the audience for an answer, and after the 2nd challenge and a claim that they couldn't answer, a few people obliged him.
DeleteI find it quite ironic that a site claiming to tout the value of character is running with this blatent lie...and that they fell for it so easily even given how many times NBC/MSNBC has been caught red-handed deceptively editing audio and video in order to push a false narrative.
Busy little bullshit troll, spreading blatant lies yourself.
DeleteAnonymous @ 5:20 PM, you miss the point. The point is, Mr. Heslin was asking a rhetorical question in a SENATE HEARING, which is as close to a courtroom testimony as it can get -- aside from the fact that one is legislative and the other is judicial.
DeleteThere's no place for shouters in the gallery, any more than the gallery behind plaintiffs and defendents in court.
If the shouters want to testify, they should put their names in the queue and wait their turn.
-------------------------------
And FU, Anonymous @ 8:48 PM. I'm right and you're wrong. IT'S A SENATE HEARING, YOU MORON, NOT A RW-DOMINATED TOWN HALL.
That just made me have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I'm disgusted and sick.
ReplyDeleteWhat's really going to make you sick is when or if you finally come to terms with the fact that you're just as much a part of your violent society as the gungoons are. And you really don't care all that much, at least until it's one of your own. That will surely give you stomach trouble!
DeleteThere is something seriously fucking wrong with you troll 4:37
DeleteEveryone really needs to read Stephen King's "Guns" available as a single on Amazon for Kindle. It smashes the notion that America is overtly violent both in video games and entertainment. Very eye- opening and only 99¢.
DeleteAnon @ 4:37 PM, nothing is more obnoxious (if you're not already a RWNJ) than to have someone who's evidently not living in the USA or is a citizen of the USA tell us smugly that our society isn't as good as yours is. Politely, FU. You're welcome.
DeleteTroll 4:37 just wants attention and thinks mocking dead children and grieving parents is the way to "push our buttons." Probably some bored teen-just trying to stir up trouble.
DeleteWhen you're the father of a child living in a violent society such as yours,you need to get used to the idea that some of your children are going to get shot dead. He needs to get over it and have another one because infringing on the rights of others is not going to do him any good. Looking into the root cause of the problem will but that's in his head just as much as it's in the heads of all americans.
ReplyDeleteOh it's you, the douche responder 4:37 to Anon 4:09 p.m.
DeleteYou aren't coherent. You are confusing and menacing and if you are on snark, you aren't very good at it.
I sincerely hope you are not implying that he can just have another child to replace the one that was murdered. The second amendment is not absolute ... Ask Judge Scalia.
DeletePete and Re-Pete. See my comment under Anon @ 4:37 PM.
DeleteHas to be a robot or one of the insane. Saving one's child from maniacs with guns is NOT infringing on anyone's right. The US gun culture at home is even more frightening that the US war culture off shore - The President has the power to stop the latter - but apparently not the former.
DeleteNOTHING provides more grief than the death of one's child - I hope you never have to learn that truth.
That should pretty much push any undecided folks off the fence.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up 2nd Amendment whackos - you're must making it easier.
- "That should pretty much push any undecided folks off the fence."
DeleteWell, it might...when they learn that MSNBC doctored the video, and that the full one makes it clear that they lied about Mr. Heslin being "heckled".
8:49
Deletereally ?!? is that what's goin' around on breitfart ?!?
pissant,
go fuk yourself
So, do you have any independent proof of this, Anon 8:49, or did you just pull that one out of your ass? We have seen how "civil" these gun-toting patriots were during the health care town hall meetings. MSNBC didn't have to doctor any tapes.
Delete8:49 = delusional gun nut with a micropenis
DeleteRemember back when Karl Rove was heckled off the stage at a book signing by Code Pink and the rightwing-o-sphere immediately went nuts clutching their peals over the "violence of the left" and how unAmerican that behaviors was, infringing the free speech and everything "just like Hitler's Brown Shirts"?
ReplyDeleteAnyone want to bet on whether any of 'em will mention this story? Actually, I can see some of the radio douchebags going for the "we're offended that the parents of dead children use their loss as props to further 'librul agenda'" or some crap like that. That's about the speed of disingenuous sociopaths like Rush and Mark Levin...
'Cause you know, for the right there are NO words, ideas or actions TOO VILE to double down on when publicly called out on them.
Westboro Baptist suddenly doesn't seem like such an isolated example of extremist hate anymore. I expect to see teabaggers protesting at the funerals of dead children soon...
Wasn't Westboro planning that already? I thought they DID try to go to Sandy Hook.
DeleteYep, they were planning on it but were kept inside their hotel rooms by a human barricade, a much more satisfying resolution than the way they were "bought off" with free radio air time when they were set to protest at the funeral of the little girl who was killed in Tucson.
DeleteI'm just assuming that soon weapons-fetishing Teapeople will replace them. The only difference will be that their signs say: "George Washington loves dead children" and "Thomas Jefferson hates fags"
By the 2nd Amendment fanatics acting in such a barbaric manner, only further convinces those who are sitting on the fence to be swayed in restricting firearms. Their stupidity is one of the greatest argument we have for restricting firearms. Even the NRA shot themselves in the foot not once, but several times by using illogical arguments against restricting firearms. I own firearms myself, including 5 pistols, but I have no qualms restricting the size of magazines or making assault rifles illegal. Those asking the question why anyone needs an assault rifle are asking the correct questions. I have yet to hear or know of any reason or purpose for owning such a weapon. It seems to me it's just those who have childish fantasies of themselves playing a soldier and saving our country from communists who are the ones speaking the loudest. Why else would we have people forming secret militias, saying our rights are being taken away, there will not be another election for President because Obama is making himself dictator? Many of these same beliefs are what Palin supporters at C4P have been spouting off in the last 2 years. Go there and read their comments if you haven't already, and you'll see the type of people who are attracted to Palin.
ReplyDeleteThing is, these guys would be worse than the government against us unarmed citizens, they can't wait to lord their power over us by hoarding resources, claiming eminent domain and administering two-finger purity tests and putting girls and women in one of two camps, virgin or whore where they take their pleasure out on both. It's a vile thing to say, but it isn't as vile as the argument that their right to high capacity weapons is more important the public safety in America.
Deleteanonymous 5:49
DeleteLike, like, like.
Not likin' the information, butt I believe it is so true of the warped mind-set of the righties.
In the last day or so, I've read about the heckling several times. Each time, it makes me cry.
ReplyDeleteThe hecklers are animals. I haven't been online much but when I was on, I didn't see that any TeaParty, GOP politicians or "journalists" were denouncing the hecklers' actions. Their silence makes them equally guilty. They make sick.
Yes, this particular offense was the worst I've seen. Here's a link to a newspaper article that goes into detail and the man was VERY respectful toward those who disagreed.
Deletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gun-rights-advocates-heckle-father-newtown-victim-article-1.1250124
This part was hard to take:
"It's not a good feeling. Not a good feeling to look at your child laying in a casket or looking at your child with a bullet wound to the forehead. It's a real sad thing," said Heslin, who held up a large framed photograph of himself and his son."
Where are these "Constitutional Defenders" when the Patriot Act was put into effect? Or the fights against not incriminating one's self? Or when Bush the Younger broke his oath about "defending the Constitution..."??
ReplyDeleteThe NRA wasn't funded by Big Arms Dealers then, I guess.
Signed by a Patriot and a parent, who wept over the senseless slaughter, too
The gun goons were there to protect their right to slaughter 20+ innocent victims without reloading. Because what the fuck else do they think you can do with a fucking assault rifle or a magazine that holds 100 bullets? Or even 30 bullets, for that matter?
ReplyDeleteThey have this fantasy that their guns are going to allow them to go down in a blaze of glory when the government comes to take their little penis extender. When they're returning fire from a 50-cal it wont matter hiw much they have in their magazines. Go ahead and play John Wayne with an Apache while you're at it as well
If these fuckers show their asses, they'll wind up like the Koresh cranks down in Waco, crisp-fried to a crackly crunch.
Cowards and punks, every goddam one of em.
Typically impolite, and in your face Tea party types, no respect for a grieving father.
ReplyDeleteThe 2nd amendment says:
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.
Ok, then, so what kind of "arms" were they talking about? Black powder muskets and cannons and bombs were the only arms available, unless you want to count crossbows and bow & arrows.
So, fast forward 250 years or so, and we not only have a standing militia in every state (National Guard) we also have a 3 million person military.
What is the NRA fighting so hard on this point for?
What's truly ironic, and apparently never occurs to these fanatics is that they ALREADY LIVE with well over a thousand limits RIGHT NOW on what weapons they can't legally own or use.
Outside of military, special forces, NSA, CIA, FBI, NO ONE CAN LEGALLY have the following:
Nuclear devices
Battleships
Howitzers
Bombs
Helicopter gunships
Tanks (weaponized)
Drones (weaponized
Rocket launchers
Grenade launchers
RPG's
Why aren't the NRA and all these gun fanatics pushing for grenades and rocket launchers?
Everybody needs an RPG or a tank to protect their family right?
Since you didn't include submarines, I want one of those sumbitches. I'll TELL them teabaggers where they can find me down in the Gulf of Mexico. I'll wait until they establish a beachhead before I shoot the first little tomahawk missiles at them, just to be fair and balanced.
DeleteSo to keep things fair and balanced, Fox paraded out the Tin Man, none other than Gumball in Chief Dick Cheney, to talk about gun rights. He mumbled worse than before he got his new heart and ended with a sneer.
ReplyDeleteThis is the leadership of the 2nd Amendment goonies most of whom seem not to have read the Amendment or any of the history around it. I guess a tricorner with a teabag attached is all you need for depth these days.
Rambling. Pissed. Time to sleep.
Its even worse than I imagined: I quite stupidly stopped channel surfing at the local Fox affiliate, long enough to get hooked into listening to the overwhelming propaganda that emanates from there, like a leaking outhouse.
ReplyDeleteI can only assume that the five minutes I watched were not special in any way--that its always like that: a barrage of mindless hatred aimed at anything the government, and any normal person, stands for.
I no longer wonder why there are idiots like those who heckled this father of a slain kindergartner, I am now flabbergasted that there aren't MILLIONS of Fox watching dittoheads, burning homes and churches, and shooting at anything that moves--as a result of the inciting to riot that "news" source provides.
- "Its even worse than I imagined: I quite stupidly stopped channel surfing at the local Fox affiliate, long enough to get hooked into listening to the overwhelming propaganda that emanates from there, like a leaking outhouse."
DeleteHow ironic, considering that your comments here are the result of being duped by yet another bit of doctored MSNBC video propaganda.
And, Anon 8:52, the ad hominem attack is the last refuge of someone who has nothing else.
DeleteI can't imagine even the words "He's my only son, my only family" coming from my lips. There's so much wrong with these people, and nothing "right".
ReplyDeleteThere are no words. They're cold, empty, and heartless.
Speaking of heartless, look who's shooting from the hip over the POSSIBILITY of a Gun Control Bill on Fox News?
Yep, it's Darth Cheyney!
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/29/gun-safety-advice-from-dick-cheney-the-guy-who-once-shot-his-friend-in-the-face/
Cheney.
DeleteOnce a dick, always a dick.
There are warning labels are a lot of things we buy today, so maybe there should be a photo of a dead child, baring the result of being riddled with 11 bullets into him, on each package of bullets sold.
ReplyDelete(Sorry, I am so sick and tired of having to argue for common sense firearm regulation.)
I love it when some wingnut comes forward to defend Fox channel's traitorous actions, by pointing out that its the progressives who are being "duped."
ReplyDeleteRIGHT: the lobby for poor people, bullied children, rape victims, and the unemployed is SO strong--that we are just INUNDATED with expensive propaganda to defend the weak and the downtrodden.
Geeze...how can anyone with even a few working brain cells fall for such Rush Limbaugh type bullshit?
It is amazing how many people NBC continues to control with half truths and lies. For those that think "the Hecklers were rude or noncaring. Ask NBC to play the entire video instead of their cropped version, or go to another news source that aired the entire video and not just the cropped version to continue the divide that Obama himself started. The entire video shows the speaker asking anyone in the room to answer him and when they do (not in a heckling manner but in direst response to his question, they are warned against speaking out.
ReplyDeleteYou obviously have a problem with comprehension. The nutjob hecklers in the audience did not answer his question. All they could do was spew irrelevant nonsense like a child having an outburst. Sort of like you just did.
DeleteAt Anon 3:45.
DeleteYou obviously didn't watch the clip did you? Of course not.
They DID show the clip of the grieving father asking the rhetorical question of, "Why would anyone need an assault type weapon or military weapon or high capacity clips?"
The hecklers didn't answer that question. They can't answer that question. They just started out yelling about second amendment rights.
So, no. If these douchebags, and I hate to call them that, because even a douchebag has a use, were pretending that they were "Answering the question", they were not. They don't have the intellectual capacity to do anything more than repeat talking points that are given to them in their little right wing bubble.
If they weren't agreeing with the distraught father then they were heckling him. Anybody with compassion, empathy, sorrow, just plain common sense should have just kept quite. There isn't a reason (a reason for assault weapons and clips) especially after 20 babies were mowed down along with six teachers.
DeleteGun nuts all day long.
It's amazing how many defenders of the 2nd amendment forget there is a first amendment. And that of the three LIFE comes before pursuit of happiness.
DeleteYour happiness doesn't trump my life.
Your second amendment doesn't trump this Father's first.
Look up rhetorical if you must.
And no, they didn't answer the question put to them.
It has heckling.
No was has still adequately explained why game hunting or defending your home requires a military automatic weapon and a 30 round drum.
It's amazing how many defenders of the 2nd amendment forget there is a first amendment. And that of the three LIFE comes before pursuit of happiness.
DeleteYour happiness doesn't trump my life.
Your second amendment doesn't trump this Father's first.
Look up rhetorical if you must.
And no, they didn't answer the question put to them.
It has heckling.
No was has still adequately explained why game hunting or defending your home requires a military automatic weapon and a 30 round drum.
I like guns just as much as the next sane person and yet i have not been able to find one who could explain why anyone needs a semi-automatic weapon or assault rifle or why they have to have 30 round or 100 round drums. When i hear 2nd amendment all i can think is fine lets go by the second amendment and the guns that existed at that times since common sense is obviously not common anymore.
ReplyDeleteOT: Colin Powell asked Bill O why he only sees him as African American. I don't usually watch that channel but i did have to watch that link.
Stay credible and maybe something can be changed. My wife looked in when she heard this on the Lawrence show and said, he wasn't heckling was he? I'm anti-gun and my wife is even moreso. She may have never fired a gun and I don't own one and haven't for years. They were repeatedly welcomed by the man to ask questions and so they did. That's all. Stay credible because your cause is being lost when you're not. This one backfired.
ReplyDelete~your Canadian troll
For the dozenth time, IT WAS A SENATE HEARING. The man asked a rhetorical question because IT WAS A SENATE HEARING, not a debate, not a forum, not a town hall.
DeleteDo you know what that means? Calling it "heckling" may be a bit strong, but it WAS out of place, unwelcome, and subject to immediate ejection. I imagine that's what happened to the interrupters, probably in a more kindly manner than RWers disposed of hecklers in GOP town halls last year.
If Neil Heslin's testimony was in a court of law, those hecklers/interrupters/shouters would be in contempt, and fine-able.
Thank you. People need more than ever to pay attention for themselves and not just take for granted that everything they hear and read in what they feel to be the more progressive media is true. I am as progressive as they come but this was NOT an incident of heckling ... it has been edited and blown up to seem so and that is a shameful way to try to create intelligent discourse on both sides of the aisle on such a critical topic. Think for yourselves, people!
DeleteRepeating a comment I have made here quite a few times: Fanaticism for ANY reason is dangerous!
ReplyDeleteThere is NO sane reason for assault weapons in a home. Period.
The LOD video with Mr. Heslin's expanded testimony just proves how heartless those hecklers were, that they could sit through his heartbreaking testimony unfazed and take up the first opportunity to shout out their idiotic "our rights will not be infringed." Have they no shame? And to the troll who was claiming that NBC/MSNBC edited out the context of the hecklers' response, are you going to respond now that you do have that context? Because from where I'm sitting, it doesn't help your argument one bit.
ReplyDelete