I’m a little slow to this story, but apparently Alex Jones went on CNN and acted like Alex Jones. The forward-thinking staff of Piers Morgan framed the pro-gun lobby by using Jones. If you haven’t seen the segment, click here to view the train wreck. It’s beautiful trash television.
I’m not going to sit here and go through all his asinine points because he’s a goddamn rambling, incoherent lunatic. Though I will approach one of his more famous declarations in the interview, and one that has had some legs on various social networks since the program aired. At one point he exclaims the following gem of absolute insanity:
“Hitler took the guns, Stalin took the guns, Mao took the guns, Fidel Castro took the guns, Hugo Chávez took the guns, and I’m here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!”
You know, because Piers Morgan is the barometer for ethical decisions and he is the single greatest journalistic influence in our country. This seems to be the crux of the argument for Jones and many who defend the second amendment: we need guns to protect ourselves from tyrannical governments, like those spearheaded by the aforementioned world leaders.
Except Hitler didn’t take the guns: he eased German ownership during his time in power.
Stalin didn’t take the guns: citizens were allowed to own one revolver and one rifle.
Mao didn’t take the guns: there weren’t any restrictions on gun ownership until – shocker – capitalism came in after the Revolutionary era in China.
Castro didn’t take the guns: Cuba allows gun ownership but limits it to handguns.
The only person to actually “take the guns” was Hugo Chavez, and he did so with the full support of the United Nations. Venezuela has a long history of violent gun crime and Chavez made an executive decision to try to curb violence by eliminating the main tool for murder in his country. This regulation came into full effect in the summer of 2012, so we’ll see how well this social experiment works in a developing country like Venezuela.
Listen, I know that Alex Jones is not the voice of the gun lobby, and its not the public face that gun lobby wants. Sensible folks around me who are pro-gun have used this anecdote pushed by Jones in their crusade to convert non-believers, but at the same time blast Morgan for being manipulative and Jones for being a nutbar. I’ll just say this: if you want to be taken seriously, distance yourself from Jones and take responsible steps to frame your argument legitimately.
But I digress from my original point: Alex Jones is insane. But I get his schtick – he’s playing a role that has been popular on shortwave radio shows for years. He’s the Illuminati-believing, anti-Bilderberg, tin-foil hat enthusiast. When I listen to Jones talk, though, I can hear his ambivalence. The more ridiculous wrinkles to the New World Order he can sandwich into his show – be it through military conspiracies surrounding UFOs, visits to Bohemian Grove, or indulging in the absolute batshittery of the 9/11 Truth movement – the bigger his audience of simple-minded nutjobs gets.
And then this interview happened, and while those unfamiliar with Jones chuckled at his manic performance, I was like “Just Alex Being Alex.” This guy is the consumate “End is Nigh” soapbox doomsdayer for the modern age. Any little bit of doubt in a story, room for a splash of conspiracy, or if it stinks of a complete rejection of Occam’s razor…BAM! Alex Jones has already disseminated it to his millions of listeners.
Now, Jones’ website InfoWars has lightly tiptoed around the swelling community that claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax – strange for a website that called the Aurora movie theater shooting a “false flag” only days after it occurred. But I fully expect Jones to come to his senses and begin to push this new Sandy Hook Truther story into his revolving door of dogshit buffoonery he calls “The Alex Jones Show”.
Alex Jones could be the most entertaining performer working today, but unfortunately, WAY too many people earnestly consume his act, so it is just damaging. It hurts a valid national debate on gun control, it saturates the internet in the form of shoddy YouTube videos, and it somehow begs to be referenced by the mainstream media. The acknowledgment by the greater public is all Alex Jones is looking for, and we gave it to him that night on CNN.
