RUSH: Something you\u2019re going to have to remember and constantly have to remind yourself as you listen to the program today: I am the mayor of Realville. I deal in reality. And not too many other people are right now.<\/p>\n
And once again, Open Line Friday, whatever you want to talk about, the one day of the week that\u2019s okay. Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address elrushbo@eibnet.us.<\/p>\n
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I want to start today asking a question. If you watch the media, if you watch television, if you read the media, you cannot escape the reality or the conclusion that everybody wants to do something; that people are shouting for something to be done about mass shootings. Somebody\u2019s gotta do something.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a natural emotional reaction borne of frustration, heartbreak, anger. Somebody\u2019s gotta do something. But I don\u2019t hear very many people at all actually coming up with anything to do that\u2019s going to matter, that\u2019s going to make a difference, and that\u2019s even grounded in something even close to reality.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also something happening here that is perfectly illustrating a point that I\u2019ve been making for a couple of years. And that is that the American media has become the power center and the source of energy and guidance for the American left. Not the Democrat Party, but the media. The media gives the marching orders. The media are the activists. The media are not involved in news. The media are not reporting anything. The media have become full-fledged advocates of one particular thing.<\/p>\n
They are not reporting anything. They are supporting the one particular thing they want, and they are ridiculing and condemning and lying about anybody who is not on the same page as they are. The Democrat Party used to be the organism that represented the American left and other people in the left followed the lead of the Democrat Party. Today, it is the media that is leading. And the reason this is important is because many people don\u2019t know it. Many people don\u2019t realize it.<\/p>\n
Most people think the media is the news. Most people — well, I hope not most — but a sizable number of people think that when they turn on cable news or the three nightly newscasts, or now the late night comedy shows, that they\u2019re actually getting news. And they\u2019re not. They\u2019re not getting anywhere near what is news. They\u2019re not even getting correct facts. People tuning into cable news, the three nightly newscasts, or reading the big newspapers, are simply reading radical activism that is disguised as news and perpetrated as news because of the people who are presenting it.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s important to keep this in mind throughout the entire lifespan of this particular story, because the only agenda here is political victory. Frankly — and I wish this weren\u2019t the case — but I don\u2019t think their primary interest is in getting rid of guns. They would love to take out the NRA. They would love to diminish the NRA as a powerful political organization in America. But getting rid of guns, that\u2019s not what this is about.<\/p>\n
This is about getting rid of Donald Trump. This is about getting rid of Republicans. This is about Republicans being characterized, libeled and slandered consistently and regularly so as to harm their electoral chances at the next election and all elections subsequent to the next ones coming up. Because if people were really grounded in reality, we would be listening to an entirely different set of comments, opinion, analysis and solution.<\/p>\n
But the media is presenting one solution with a number of subsets. And that one solution is, if taken to its extreme, getting rid of the Second Amendment. Short of that, it\u2019s somehow a piece of legislation getting rid of guns or preventing the sale of guns going forward. If they could, they\u2019d wipe out the Second Amendment. That is the objective and that\u2019s the sole perspective that we\u2019re being presented. There are subsets of that that we are getting, but it\u2019s all oriented around that.<\/p>\n
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The second prong is, of course, is that the Republicans don\u2019t want that. The Republicans want to continue to let your kids get guns. The Republicans are totally supporting anybody who wants to get guns because they\u2019re owned by the NRA. Well, the NRA doesn\u2019t own anybody, except its members. I won\u2019t even characterize it that way. The NRA is so widely misunderstood. The NRA is not the among the biggest donors in American politics. They donate a lot, but they\u2019re not among the biggest. That\u2019s not their power.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not why the left so fears them. The reason the left fears them is that they have an unbreakable bond and connection with their members and their members are deep into the American culture and society all over this country. The NRA has deep connections with the American people. That is the threat posed by the NRA.<\/p>\n
Now, the media would love you to believe the threat posed by the NRA is that they totally solely support Republicans and that they want anybody who wants one to have as many guns as they want. And then they want you to believe the NRA is not opposed to anybody getting guns and that the NRA is not opposed to anybody doing whatever they want to do with guns. That the NRA will defend anything that happens with a gun in order to protect the Second Amendment. This is in a nutshell the media message. And it\u2019s disguised as news.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the NRA\u2019s message. It\u2019s not who they are. It\u2019s not what they are. And it is nowhere close to what the NRA believes, teaches, practices, endorses, recommends. There is literally so much fake news today that it is impossible for an average citizen who is not devoted to analyzing it to pick it out and identify it. It simply is not possible.<\/p>\n
And the amount of fake news that is part of this story from Parkland, Florida, is incomprehensibly large and impossible to wade through unless that\u2019s all you spend your time doing. Ask yourself a question: Do all the people that you see on TV really want to do something about this? And I\u2019m not being facetious.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not trying to be outrageous.\u00a0 I\u2019m smack dab, square center in the middle of reality.\u00a0 I want something done about this.\u00a0 If I may be selfish, every time an event like this happens, I hate the fact that my job is to talk about it.\u00a0 To have to professionally talk about these kinds of things is not something that I look forward to.\u00a0 For a host of reasons, but primarily because they happen.\u00a0 Everybody wants this to stop.\u00a0 Everybody wishes this weren\u2019t happening.\u00a0 Everybody wants to do something about it — or do they?<\/p>\n
Because the leading lights of opinion and the things they are suggesting are so impossible and impractical and blind that I sometimes have to wonder: Do they really want something done about this?\u00a0 Because I\u2019m here to tell you right now that doing anything with the Second Amendment or coming up with any new legislation that would have these people cheering — whatever it might be. I\u2019m leaving it open. Get rid of all guns. Everybody who has got a gun has to turn it in. No more guns allowed to be made. Whatever, wouldn\u2019t solve this.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t stop these events from happening.\u00a0 Will not prevent the next one.\u00a0 You know, folks, how many of you have — in your own minds — longed for what you consider to be the innocence and the simpler days of the past?\u00a0 How many of you have thought about how innocent life seemed back in the\u00a0\u201950s?\u00a0 Ozzie and Harriet.\u00a0 In the\u00a0\u201950s we had a Second Amendment.\u00a0 It was as robust and thriving then as it is now.\u00a0 What did we not have in the 1950s and into the 1960s? What did we not have?\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have school shootings.<\/p>\n
There were the occasional mass shootings, Richard Speck and the nurses in Texas.\u00a0 They were really, really rare — and those were in the mid to late\u00a0\u201960s which itself was a decade of great turmoil and revolution.\u00a0 But in the decade of the\u00a0\u201950s, the decade of innocence, the post-war economic boom decade — mom and dad, the 2.8 kids, white picket fence, family dog, station wagon gone in the garage. Whenever anybody reminisces about returning to those days, what are they told?\u00a0 They\u2019re mocked and they\u2019re laughed at.\u00a0 They\u2019re made fun of.<\/p>\n
“You can\u2019t go back!\u00a0 You can\u2019t do that!\u00a0 We can never go back to the\u00a0\u201950s.\u00a0 The \u201950s weren\u2019t that great anyway.\u00a0 We can\u2019t do that. You\u2019ve got to grow up.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to understand that things change — and even if you don\u2019t like\u00a0\u2019em, you gotta learn to accept them.”\u00a0 Now, in many instances the people wishing for a rebirth of those days of innocence are talking primarily about cultural things, when there seemed to be a more robust morality that the majority of the Americans abided by and agreed with.<\/p>\n
It is cultural degradation that most people lament when they talk about returning to the\u00a0\u201950s.\u00a0 And, of course, those who are benefitting from the cultural degradation who don\u2019t want to return, mock those who long for those simpler days by telling them, “Grow up! Get real! You have to accept things as they are.\u00a0 Things change — and if you don\u2019t want to change with them, then you\u2019re a so and so.”\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it interesting that the American media and its fellow radicals are essentially asking for a return to a more innocent time — a simpler time when these events did not happen?<\/p>\n
When school shootings, mass shootings, church shootings, movie theater shootings, didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 They are hell bent on believing that we can make that journey to the past.\u00a0 They are convinced that we can get there by simply eliminating the Second Amendment or eliminating guns or what have you.\u00a0 What would their reaction be if we were to say:\u00a0 “Come on, get real! You can\u2019t go back to the\u00a0\u201950s.\u00a0 None of us can go back to the\u00a0\u201950s.\u00a0 We can\u2019t turn back the hands of the clock.\u00a0 We have to deal with what\u2019s now.”<\/p>\n
Exactly what the left tells people who reminisce about the\u00a0\u201950s today. We can\u2019t go back to the\u00a0\u201950s!\u00a0 You\u2019ve got\u00a0deal with it! If you don\u2019t like gay marriage, deal with it! If you don\u2019t like transgender bathrooms, deal with it.!\u00a0 If you don\u2019t like open-borders immigration, deal with it!”\u00a0 People who long for a more innocent and simpler time are mocked and laughed at and impugned in any number of ways, and yet now it is the American left somehow seemingly longing for those days in the past when these kinds of events didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
They have a firm belief we can get back there.\u00a0 All we gotta do is something with guns. We\u2019ve gotta take them away from people that have them; we\u2019ve got to prevent new ones being made or sold. We\u2019ve gotta get rid of the Second Amendment.\u00a0 Totally unrealistic demand and unrealistic expectations.\u00a0 But even worse: A failure to recognize the current reality and deal with that.\u00a0 And until they, not us — but until they — can deal with the current reality instead of lamenting and wishing for days that no longer exist, we\u2019re never going to fix this.<\/p>\n
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We\u2019re never going to solve it. Because their solutions require us to get in our time machines and revisit a previous age where things were simpler and innocent.\u00a0 But if we can\u2019t do it with cultural issues, if we have to sit here and accept the reality that has become our society, then doesn\u2019t that hold for all areas of our country\u2019s evolution?\u00a0 And it does.\u00a0 We can\u2019t go back.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t the Twilight Zone.\u00a0 It\u2019s not Star Trek.\u00a0 We can\u2019t beam ourselves back.\u00a0 We can\u2019t beam the guns away.\u00a0 We can\u2019t go back and destroy those that have been made.<\/p>\n
Even if we get rid of the Second Amendment, there\u2019s still 300 million guns out there.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a reality we have to deal with — and we do in many other areas.\u00a0 We have air marshals on airplanes.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know who they are but they\u2019re there.\u00a0 We have armed security at so many places in this country. Try to go to a Super Bowl, any public supporting event. The security you\u2019re required to go through? (sigh) I mean, it never was ever like this. In the\u00a0\u201950s and the\u00a0\u201960s, you wanted to go to the ballpark; you went to the ballpark! You didn\u2019t worry about a terrorist bomb or a lunatic shooter.\u00a0 But now we have to, and we deal with it — except in schools.\u00a0 For some reason, we\u2019re told, “We can\u2019t turn schools into armed security depots.”<\/p>\n
Why?\u00a0 It\u2019s about the only thing that\u2019s really going to stop this.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH:\u00a0 Stick with me on this, folks, I\u2019m developing a whole line of thought on this to a conclusion, and it may take a portion of the remaining part of the hour.\u00a0 I have to tell you, I\u2019ve watched a number of the students from the high school being interviewed and I\u2019m dazzled.\u00a0 These are 17 years old — 18, 15 years old.\u00a0 The maturity that some of these students have is dazzling. It\u2019s blowing my mind.\u00a0 I watched a young student by the name… I think her name was Addison Jost, yesterday.\u00a0 She was just as cool, calm, collected, mature as a 25 or 30yearold adult.\u00a0 And she\u2019s not alone.\u00a0 Many of them have been dazzlingly impressive.\u00a0 However, they\u2019re also doing things that…<\/p>\n
Look it, I\u2019ve got to take a break.\u00a0 Just stick with me here, folks, stick with me.\u00a0 Just hang in there.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH:\u00a0 I knew this was going to happen.\u00a0 I just checked the email.\u00a0 I\u2019m overflowing with people saying, “Rush, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about when you say the NRA is not among the largest of the political contributors! That\u2019s just not right. That\u2019s just not right.”\u00a0 I can forgive all of you for thinking that the NRA is a major donor.\u00a0 All of your life that\u2019s how they\u2019ve been portrayed in the media.\u00a0 You think the NRA is the No. 1 donor for the Republican Party, probably.\u00a0 You think the NRA is donating left and right.\u00a0 The NRA has these politicians in their back pocket.<\/p>\n
Well, let me give you the numbers: Between 1998 and 2017, the NRA spent $200\u00a0million on all political activities.\u00a0 Ladies and gentlemen, that is 19 years, 20 years.\u00a0 In 20 years, the NRA spent $200 million.\u00a0 In 2016, alone, unions spent $1.7\u00a0billion on policy.\u00a0 The NRA is not a major donor, and they are not running around with politicians in their back pockets.\u00a0 The NRA is one of the largest special interest groups that has millions and millions of real American citizens as its members.\u00a0 Not members of Congress.\u00a0 Not the Senate. Not the House.<\/p>\n
Not all of these lobbyists and so forth.\u00a0 The NRA is powerful because of their reach with the American people.\u00a0 Not politicians.\u00a0 I\u2019m telling you, there is so much fake news.\u00a0 In this one story alone, it is impossible for an average consumer of news to know 10% of it.\u00a0 The media is destroying so much of what we think of as a peaceful culture, because the media isn\u2019t news anymore.\u00a0 The media has become the largest activist group for liberalism in the country today.\u00a0 The media.\u00a0 They are disguised as presenters of news and people providing information that you didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s not what\u2019s happening, and particularly when you get to kneejerk issues like this or abortion or President Trump, and I\u2019m going to demonstrate this in the next few minutes.\u00a0 Now, I want to go back to the students. Addison Jost — and unfortunately, I didn\u2019t catch any other names.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean to single her out.\u00a0 But she was amazingly composed and obviously intelligent.\u00a0 Emotionally intact.\u00a0 She\u2019s what TV would call “a great interview.”\u00a0 She presented well.\u00a0 It was amazing.\u00a0 I\u2019m looking at a 17yearold, I think.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure what grade.\u00a0 But 17, 18, 16.\u00a0 I\u2019m not around people that age much, and so I was remarkably impressed.\u00a0 Some others have been so overcome with emotion that they can\u2019t get through these interviews without breaking down or nearly breaking down.\u00a0 All of this is entirely understandable.\u00a0 They\u2019re kids.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been traumatized.\u00a0 They were there.\u00a0 They were the targets.\u00a0 So whatever they say, you have to keep all of that in mind.\u00a0 That\u2019s not how the media is using them.\u00a0 The media is using these students to advance the media\u2019s radical agenda.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll give you an example of what I\u2019m talking about.\u00a0 There was a prayer vigil last night.\u00a0 We have some audio sound bites of it coming up.\u00a0 One of the spokesmen is Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz. Her district is close by.\u00a0 She showed up and tried to turn that prayer vigil last night into the Wellstone Memorial.\u00a0 She started hammering Republicans and started demanding that the kids and attendees vote Democrat — in the middle of a prayer vigil — just like the Wellstone Memorial.<\/p>\n
What did the kids do?\u00a0 The students there started chanting, right in the middle of “Blabbermouth” Schultz diatribe: “No more guns! No more guns!” It\u2019s totally understandable.\u00a0 The students want no more guns.\u00a0 They were just targeted.\u00a0 Seventeen of their classmates are dead.\u00a0 They\u2019re devastated.\u00a0 Their world has been turned upside down.<\/p>\n
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SCHULTZ: (screaming) We must hold other peoples\u2019 elected officials accountable!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/michelleObamahashtagShort.jpg\")
They haven\u2019t lived long enough to amass a set of life experiences to understand this.\u00a0 They haven\u2019t lived long enough to be able to clinically put themselves in this in terms of reality.\u00a0 But we adults can and should.\u00a0 And the reality here is that “no more guns” is irrelevant, just as was #BringBackOurGirls for Boko Haram.\u00a0 But when you say this, as I did about #BringBackOurGirls, I was accosted and set upon in the media as having no heart and having no soul and having no understanding.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/APP-AAAA-RUSH-MASTERS-014.jpg\")
How many people protecting their homes stand outside at night or during the day shouting: “No more burglars! No more robberies!” Nobody does that. Why? Well, because it\u2019s completely unrealistic and ineffective. Your neighbors would laugh at you. If you live in Brian\u2019s neighborhood and you got home one night and there\u2019s Brian out there shouting, “No more burglars, no more burglars,” you\u2019d call the cops on him. Or anybody else in your neighborhood braying at the moon, saying, “No more burglars.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/APP-021618-Ozzie-Harriet-Nelson.jpg\")
“You can\u2019t go back to the \u201950s.\u00a0 We can\u2019t put genie back in the bottle! Ozzie and Harriet never existed anyway.\u00a0 You have to deal with things the way they are. We\u2019re making progress! America back then was a regressive regime.”\u00a0 Well, now, the very people who are telling us, “You have to accept what is happening in your country today. It\u2019s progressive change.\u00a0 You have to accept it and you have to love it,” now are wishing for a more innocent time where these kinds of shootings didn\u2019t take place.\u00a0 The problem is that all of the so-called solutions being advanced here by the media — which is the leading agent on this.<\/p>\n