Debunked: "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary ..

[Mick West]

Typical usage:

“We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.” - Bill Clinton

This is a classic example of a highly selective quote taken out of context. Clinton was talking about the ban on assault weapons. The quote has been lopped off mid sentence.

Here's the full discussion the quote comes from, with the sentence in full:

Q. The National Rifle Association right now, in New Jersey, is actively seeking to overturn the assault weapons ban that Governor Florio put on the books in 1990. They say if they're successful, then no other State will be able to enact rigid gun control and that you'll have a very tough time getting the Brady bill through Congress. Are you concerned about that?
The President. I think Governor Florio is right. And I'm going to sure try to pass the Brady bill. I think Americans who want safer streets and still want people to be able to hunt and fish and pursue their sporting activities should take a lot of heart in the success that Governor Wilder had in Virginia recently. And Virginia, it has become a source, as you know, of weapons for a lot of illegal activity all up and down the Atlantic seaboard. And they've gone to that once-a-month limitation on the purchase of guns.


You know, we can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles—it's something I strongly support—we can't be so fixated on that that we are unable to think about the reality of life that millions of Americans face on streets that are unsafe, under conditions that no other nation—no other nations—has permitted to exist. And at some point, I still hope that the leadership of the National Rifle Association will go back to doing what it did when I was a boy and which made me want to be a lifetime member because they put out valuable information about hunting and marksmanship and safe use of guns. But just to know of the conditions we face today in a lot of our cities and other places in this country and the enormous threat to public safety is amazing.


I've got young Americans now in Somalia trying to create conditions of peaceful existence there in a country where it is difficult. But there are a lot of young Americans who are living in neighborhoods today that are about as dangerous or worse than what kids are facing in Somalia in terms of shots, not in terms of hunger and access to medicine and shelter, that's different.
But I have to tell you I think that Governor Florio did a gusty thing here. I think Governor Wilder did a brave thing. I had my own encounters back home in Arkansas, and I just hope to be able to pass the Brady bill and do some other sensible things that do not unduly infringe on the right of the law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms, but will help make these children's future safer. And I think we ought to do that.


Q. Do you think that the NRA's contributing to that threat that you just talked about because it is opposing these gun control measures?


The President. Well, I don't want to get into character. I think that it is an error for them to oppose every attempt to bring some safety and some rationality into the way we handle some of the most serious criminal problems we have. And these things do not unduly affect the right to keep and bear arms. It's not going to kill anybody to wait a couple of days to get a handgun while we do a background check on somebody that wants to buy a gun.


I have personal experience with this. I live in a State where half the people have a hunting or a fishing license. I know somebody who once sold a weapon to a person who went out and killed a bunch of people because he was an escapee from a mental hospital. And the guy liked to never got over it. And if he had just had a law where he was supposed to wait 2 or 3 days to check, they would have found that out. I know that happens. I don't believe that everybody in America needs to be able to buy a semiautomatic or an automatic weapon, built only for the purpose of killing people, in order to protect the right of Americans to hunt and to practice marksmanship and to be secure in their own homes and own a weapon to be secure. I just don't believe that.


So I hope that this is a debate that will continue. And I think, as I said, what Governor Florio did and what Governor Wilder did, I think will contribute to Americans facing this and trying to reconcile our absolute obligation under the Constitution to give people the right to handle a firearm responsibly and our obligation to try to preserve peace and keep these kids alive in our cities.

Content from external source

Source:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46264

 

[Unregistered]

yeah lets not worry about gun rights. Lets just be like China instead of America.

 

[Mick West]

yeah lets not worry about gun rights. Lets just be like China instead of America.

That's not the point. The point is that Clinton was not talking about rights in general, as the out-of-context quote implies. He was not even suggesting we remove gun rights - in fact he said he strongly supports those rights. He was just saying we need to be sensible about it.

 

[blahh]

He was right then.

 

[Unregistered]

I'm glad to have the full quote. To me it is just as damning as the partial quote. In the interest of accuracy. it was not an Assault weapon ban. It was an Assault STYLE weapon ban. The ban is just as petty as the it sounds. It was all based on style. Assault weapons are weapons capable of full automatic fire. Assault Style Weapons ban was a ban on those that LOOKED like them. Two identical guns, one with a folding stock or "camo" stock would be banned while the "traditional" wooden stock version was not.

It is one of a series of lies told to limit/remove gun rights. Remember the Saturday Night Special law. Only sheep would believe that first its cheap handguns that are the major gun problem then switches to expensive SEMI-automatic rifles.

Let's have some honesty on both sides

 

[Mick West]

I imagine that a compromise was reached on what constituted an assault weapon. But that's not really the issue here. The issue is that the quote is often given as:

[bunk]“We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.” - Bill Clinton[/bunk]

And that's what I was trying to debunk.