RUSH: Well, folks, my New Year’s resolution to adopt a lower profile is now totally blown. Once again I was the focal point on two different discussion topics, maybe three, at CNN yesterday. We got the evidence. It’s all coming up. It’s great to have you here. I am Rush Limbaugh. No matter how low a profile I try to keep I still end up dominating here at the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Telephone number, if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. E-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

One of the things they went into a tizzy about over at CNN is that Biden yesterday said we’re gonna be looking at everything on this gun problem. We’re gonna be looking at executive orders. We’re gonna be looking at legislation. We’re gonna be looking at all kinds of things. And I said, “Okay, if you’ve got two avowed leftists like Obama and Biden talking about guns and executive orders, what in the world are you talking about? Confiscation.” And I said, “Who knew that executive orders trumped the Second Amendment.” That sent them into a tizzy. They went out and got experts and said the executive order doesn’t trump the Second Amendment. It was a rhetorical question, for crying out loud.

You know what the biggest mistake I make in the course of hosting this program is? And not with you, not with callers, don’t misunderstand. The biggest mistake I make is assuming that people elsewhere in the media are relatively intelligent, relatively aware, relatively informed. And every time I do that, I make a mistake. They are not. It really is stunning, the degree to which the narrative, whatever it is every day in the media, dominates everything. And it is amazing the groupthink. We’ve chronicled it here, but it still blows my mind.

The first time we did this was when Bush chose Cheney to be his vice presidential running mate and the media, we had about 35 different media people using the word “gravitas.” I mean, every media person in the world used gravitas to describe the pick. We’ve used it because it was entirely illustrative of the groupthink and how one single take, one single reaction, one single opinion, point of view, becomes the only and dominant point of view. So there is no growth in the mind. There’s no curiosity. There is just a smug-arrogant-know-it-all attitude when they don’t know much. I constantly overestimate the knowledge and, yes, the root intelligence of other people in the media.

I also should never forget this, and you shouldn’t, either. They don’t have a sense of humor on the left. I mean, not on their issues. On very little else. I mean, even their comedians, their comedy is nothing but rage and anger.

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RUSH: Now, we get to the CNN sound bites on guns. The CNN people, folks, literally cannot believe, and they even go out and find a conservative guy named Will Cain to agree. They cannot believe that anybody would actually think that Obama would try an executive order to trump the Constitution, not even after he’s done it. He has done it on immigration. I forget the other instance. And even after Obama has done it, we have people who’ve witnessed him do it say he would never do it. It’s not possible. And they get into a long, drawn-out, “How can anybody think this?”

All I did was raise the question. Okay, you got Biden, an avowed leftist, talking about using executive orders when we know what they want to do is get guns out of people’s hands. What else are they talking about? What else are they thinking? It might have something to do with ammo. I’m gonna have to find a way to stop this. I am gonna have to find a way to — I have concluded — and not that I care. I think it’s just fascinating. You know, I get into all these controversies with these people, and it’s literally because A, they don’t listen to the program. They get it second party, third party, from Media Matters or whatever. But even if they did listen, I don’t think they would get it. They are not up to speed. Either they’re not informed to the degree that you and I are. They’re certainly not as intelligent.

It’s really surprising to me. I have to be honest about it. Which is more real, the Republicans’ War on Women or the Democrats’ war on gun owners? And, by the way, many of the country’s gun owners are women. Here’s Obama and his regime, and they don’t have one woman in the cabinet. By the way, the media is finally starting to notice that. They’re getting a little nervous about it, but still cutting Obama slack on it.

It’s as though he must have a reason that we, us, must not be bright enough to see. There must be a reason why all of Obama’s close advisers are white guys with an occasional minority thrown in there and no women. It must be ’cause Obama’s smarter than they are that they can’t figure it out. What’s that old saying, “Guns don’t kill people, abortions do”? Hee-hee-hee. Wait ’til they hear that one!

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You know, HR just reminded me of something: My New Year’s resolution. I didn’t tell anybody about it. What’s the point? You don’t announce marketing plans; you just execute ’em. But HR pointed out something that’s really true. Everybody needs support, particularly in New Year’s resolutions.

When you have major life changes, you need support.

Here I am hanging out there all alone. If Oprah announced, again, that she’s gonna go on a diet, would the media send her a truckload of ice cream? No. They’d send her a truckload of tofu if they sent her anything. Now, I didn’t announce it, so I can’t really blame CNN. .

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So I had this New Year’s resolution. I wanted to go low profile, or lower profile, less noticed. Just stay out of everybody’s way. You know, just come in here every day, it will be you and me, in three hours it’s over, go home, come back, do it the next day. And I’m not getting any support. Not getting assistance here. Two days in a row now that I’ve been the focal point over at CNN.

This is last night on the Situation Room. This is Wolf Blitzer’s show. I don’t know if Wolf was there, some guest host, or what have you. I want you to listen to what they do here and how they package this. Now, all of this results from an observation that I made yesterday. It was on Drudge. The vice president, Joe Biden, went out and told the press that he and Barack are looking at everything to fix the gun problem. Now, there’s some things that we know going in. We know that Biden and Obama are Democrats. We know that they are avowed leftists. We know, as a result of that, that they resent the Second Amendment. We know that if they could, they would do away with the Second Amendment.

This is not supposition. It’s not guesswork. We have listened to them over the course of many years. Now, in recent days or months they have not said specifically, “We want to get rid of the Second Amendment.” They used to say that and they would say it a number of varied ways. The Second Amendment’s outlived its usefulness. The Founding Fathers never intended the Second Amendment to encompass what it encompasses. The Founding Fathers never envisioned millions of Americans having guns. The Founding Fathers knew that people wanted to hunt.

The Second Amendment is there specifically to make sure the people of this country have the firepower they need to defend themselves; and not just against burglars and muggers and purse snatchers and rapists, but government as well. It’s why it’s there. It’s the Second Amendment. It comes right after the First. It’s not an add-on. It’s not a casual throw it in just to put it there. It’s not, well, we need ten for the Bill of Rights, let’s add that. It was well thought out, and we just have to have the courage to admit it. In the course of my lifetime the Democrat Party doesn’t like it.

In fact, the Democrats and the Constitution are a funny study. Because to them the Constitution is whatever they want it to say. And they’ve come up with theories. They dislike the whole the Constitution, anyway, folks, because the Constitution limits government, and they are Democrats, they’re big government people. They resent. FDR was one of the first to propose a second Bill of Rights that would specify what government got to do, not what government can’t do. Obama and his acolytes in the Democrat legal community really resent the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They call it a charter of negative liberties.

But remember, now, they come from the perspective of loving government. So when they say it’s a charter of negative liberties, you might scratch your head, “Wait a minute, all it does is guarantee our freedom. What’s negative about that?” From their standpoint, their focus is government power. They don’t want government power to be limited. They want it increased, enhanced, growing. So the Constitution’s a threat to them. And I’m just telling you what they have said. And you know as well as I do, if given the chance, they’d take your gun away from you, despite what their protestations to the contrary are today.

I mean, how many of you have run into liberals, in the course of living your lives you’ve gotten into gun control debates, you know full well that’s what they would do if they could. Make you give up your gun. It’s not a mystery. It’s not a supposition. It’s not a wild theory. We just listen to what they say and react to it. So in the midst of the federal government having meetings on what to do as a result of Sandy Hook, Biden says, “Well, we’re looking at a number of things: executive orders, legislation.” Executive orders for what? Taking guns. Limiting guns. Making them harder to get, maybe confiscating them, who knows.

But this is not arguable. All it takes is a little courage to admit it and a modicum of intelligence to know it. And this is my problem, as I stated cogently and clearly in the first hour. The reason I get into tit tats with these people is I assume that they know more than they do. I assume they’re smarter than they are, and I assume that they are aware of more than they are. And they aren’t. And therefore that’s why they don’t get me. Dawn, why are you rolling your eyes in there? Oh. I thought you were rolling your eyes ’cause you were mad at me for bragging. I’m not bragging. I’m trying to spell it out here.

I don’t care what the controversy involving me is with the mainstream media. If you dig deep in it, you don’t have to go to too deep, even, you’ll find that it’s rooted in they just don’t understand what happens here, partly because they don’t listen. They get third party reports about what happens here, out-of-context sound bites, and so forth. So given that, Biden says we’re looking at executive orders, we’re looking at legislation. To do what, I said? Take guns away. That just threw ’em for a loop at CNN. How could anybody think that? Really, you’ll hear it. How can anybody think that’s what Obama wants to do?

How can anybody think it? He does it. How about forcing the Catholic to give away abortifacients, violating the First Amendment religious liberty, forcing them to give away contraceptives as part of their health care. He spits on the Constitution with that. He has issued executive orders involving immigration that fly in the face of federal law. Now, another thing you’ll hear them go absolutely batty over is the fact, you know, I raised the question, who knew that an executive order trumps the Constitution? And they react like, “Wll, no, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. An executive order doesn’t trump –“

That’s right, it doesn’t. You guys don’t get it, we got a guy who tries it. You are covering a president who tries to trump the Constitution. But you don’t see it, you don’t want to see it. I don’t know. But it is their problem, as you will hear. So, in their quest to paint me as Cyanide Barrenheart, as some Dick Dastardly kind of guy, this sound bite that you’re gonna hear, they quote me saying what I said yesterday, which is a recap of what I just said to you, and listen to how they juxtapose it.

KEILAR: Word the White House will go it alone on some measures was met with suspicion on the right.

RUSH ARCHIVE: So when Biden, himself a liberal Democrat, says that himself and the President and the cabinet, the Attorney General, all a bunch of leftist Democrats, are talking about using executive orders, when you say, “For what?” It can only be to take guns away from people. And who knew that an executive order could trump a constitutional amendment?

Unidentified Man #1: My daughter was killed in Aurora, Jessica Ghawi.

Unidentified Woman #1: My 16-year-old son, Blair Holt, was killed in Chicago, May 10th, 2007.

GODDARD: My name is Colin Goddard. I’m a survivor of the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007.

KEILAR: Victims of gun violence and their family members who met with Biden were heartened by the news the White House will take executive action.

RUSH: So they play me, a sound bite of me talking about what Biden and Obama really want to do. They back it up with sob stories from victims, which, of course, is designed to make me look like a cold, heartless, cruel Cyanide Barrenheart, Dick Dastardly kind of guy. And then they go, “Victims of gun violence and their family members were heartened by the news the White House will take executive action.” What are they heartened by? What does everybody think is going on? What can it be other than federal executive action to do something with guns that would be a big — what else is there but coming up with a way to make ’em harder to get, take them away from people, limit them somehow.

Isn’t that what everybody knows what’s going on? And yet I somehow am the wacko extremist. We don’t know the details of how they’re gonna do it, but we all know what they’re aiming for, and yet I somehow am the mean SOB for pointing it out. So that’s one. Then Carol Costello clawed her way back into the Limbaugh beat. She did a segment on me and guns this morning on her show on CNN.

COSTELLO: Rush Limbaugh and others saying the Second Amendment now in jeopardy, even though no one is talking about overturning the Second Amendment or confiscating guns in America. So what impact could an executive order really have? Doesn’t it just inflame things?

RUSH: You see? This is a great illustration of exactly what I’m talking about. Here is a woman — she’s an anchorette, she’s an infobabe at a major cable news outlet — who is clueless. “What could an executive order do? Nobody’s talking about overturning the Second Amendment.” Carol, I’m 62. My whole life they have been dreaming of “overturning the Second Amendment,” and for many of these years they have said so!

And everybody knows this.

Where have you been?

“No one’s talking about overturning the Second Amendment. Nobody’s confiscating guns.” Why are gun sales at an all-time high? Why are people running out and buying guns at a record pace? The NRA has gained more than 100,000 new members in the last 18 days. Why is that? The media has done nothing but try to destroy the NRA the last 18 days. The last 18 days they have tried to humiliate, destroy, obliterate Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, and anybody else associated with it.

People are buying gun at a record clip, joining the NRA at a record clip. What do these people think? I’ll tell you what they think. They’re ticked off! They think that they are destroying the NRA. They think people ought to be quitting the NRA. They think people ought to be resigning at a hundred thousand a day. They think, because of the way they’ve been covering the NRA, that people ought to be volunteering to give up their guns.

They’re mad that you’re buying guns. They’re mad that you’re joining the NRA! After all they’ve done to destroy the NRA and you’re joining them? The point is, what are they doing? What are they afraid of? They know who Obama is. They know what Obama and Biden are talking about when they start throwing around executive orders as they talk about “the gun problem.” To a liberal, what is “the gun problem”? That they exist! That is the problem, to a leftist, to a Democrat. The problem is the guns exist.

Therefore, what is their solution?

If the problem is the existence of guns, the solution is, get rid of ’em. That’s like 1 + 1 = 2. They don’t get it, and somebody who points this out is obviously an extremist, wacko, Dick Dastardly kind of guy. That’s me. Now, what’s going on? “Nobody’s talking about overturning Second Amendment or confiscating guns!” So she asked that question, “What impact could an executive order really have?” She asked it of Roland Martin, another Wizard of Smart who populates the airwaves at CNN, and this was what he said in response to her insightful question…

MARTIN: Anytime we talk about dealing with this issue, uh, folks, what do they do? They run to the far extreme by saying (mocking), “Ohhhh, they’re trying to take our guns.” This is why we can never move forward, because they want to go automatically to (whining), “They’re taking our guns! They’re taking our guns!” Calm down. Stop it.

RUSH: All right, what do you want to do?

What is gun control?

What is making modifications to Second Amendment, Roland? How ignorant do you think we are? People are reacting quite rationally here to what they’re hearing and seeing in the media when they’re going out and joining the NRA and buying guns. They know what they’re up against. They’ve heard Democrats all their lives. They know what you guys really want. Your problem is the existence of guns.

Now you got your president and vice president contemplating executive action. To do what? Make them cheaper? Make ’em safer? Regulate bullets? Then they went to their “conservative,” the house conservative at CNN, a guy named Will Cain. Carol Costello said, “Doesn’t it sound like a threat, Will, that Obama and Biden say they’ll use executive action to control guns? It’s not exactly a great negotiating point.”

CAIN: Rush Limbaugh’s wrong. He’s not going to be able to trump the Second Amendment. President Obama is not going to be able to trump the Second Amendment with an executive order.

RUSH: Well, um, that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

You know, Obama will try anything and has — and nobody stops him, by the way. He has trumped the Constitution’s First Amendment on religious liberty. He has trumped the Constitution on immigration. He essentially granted amnesty to a million kids without benefit of legislation. He’ll do anything that nobody tries to stop him from doing. Of course an executive order doesn’t legally trump the Constitution!

But if he issues an executive order to try to confiscate guns or something along those lines, and nobody stops him, does he not get away with it? So he has trumped it, then. Again, I have to tell you: It just is amazing to me how… I don’t even know how to say it right, ’cause I don’t want to be insulting. I’m really not trying to be insulting. I am stunned at how… I guess the kindest word is “ignorant” people are about, you know, what we’re dealing with here. It’s stunning.

RUSH: This ought to be the theme song for the new show on the Oxygen network’s All My Babies’ Mamas. It’s Love Rollercoaster, the Ohio Players.

Okay. I have two more sound bites and next segment we’ll go to your phone calls. So I said yesterday — in humor, sarcasm, irony — “Who knew an executive order could trump the Constitution?” It can’t! The point was that Obama and Biden are trying to do just that. Who…? These people actually think that I was saying that I thought an executive order trumps the Constitution, and they had to make a point that I don’t know what I’m talking about. And it’s they with no humor ability at all. They don’t get subtlety or irony.

Here, first off, Ashleigh Banfield…

BANFIELD: No. No. Sorry! No, Rush. You are very entertaining and I’m sure a lovely man, but you are wrong.

I will say this. What Rush Limbaugh is saying is something that is being echoed across this country. People are panicking. They hear, “Oh, rule by fiat! Our guns are going.” An executive order is very powerful but it cannot supersede the Constitution.

RUSH: Exactly. That’s exactly the point. And yet we’re governed by people who will try it. Duh! And here is Jeffrey Toobin. The legal beagle at CNN weighs in.

TOOBIN: Nor can it supersede a law that Congress has passed, for example.

RUSH: No kidding!

TOOBIN: There was an Assault Weapons Ban from 1994 to 2004. President Obama — on his own, by executive order — cannot impose an assault weapons ban, because Congress has to do that. Only Congress can pass a law.

RUSH: Stop the tape! Stop it. Where are you people? Are you paying attention to what this president is doing? He’s using executive orders, or wants to, in violation of the very things you’re describing, and you don’t see it? You think I don’t know what I’m talking about when I’m subtly making the point? I literally, folks… I’m stunned at this.

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Look, just a couple more things on this and I’m gonna get back to the phones.

You people at CNN, with all due respect, you need to be telling Joe Biden and Obama what you’re telling me. ‘Cause I already know it. I know an executive order doesn’t trump the Constitution. You don’t need to tell me. You need to be telling Obama and Biden. They’re the ones contemplating using one. I’m not. I got it. If you don’t understand, let me put it in terms that maybe you all at CNN would understand. If George Bush and Dick Cheney (throw him in there) and Alberto Gonzalez…

Let’s throw all three of those guys: The attorney general, the vice president, and Bush. If they got together and decided too many people were dying because of abortion in this country and said that they were looking at ways to curb abortion, and that one of the things that they were thinking of doing was using executive orders on abortion, what do you think your reaction would be? I’m telling you, outraged panic would set in. If the vice president, Dick Cheney, had gone on television like Biden did and said:

“Oh, yeah, this abortion, it’s killing too many kids. Look at numbers! Over a million kids are dead every year because of abortion, and we’ve got to stop this, and we’re looking at any number of ways to stop it, and one of the things we’re looking at is an executive order,” can you imagine what you guys at CNN would be doing? My gosh, you’d be having cows. And you’d be out there shouting, “You can’t do that! You can’t do that! You can’t do that! Abortion’s protected by the Constitution. You can’t do that.”

“Oh, we’re just looking at an executive order.”

If Bush, Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales talked about issuing an executive order on abortion, would they be laughing at CNN? Would Carol Costello be laughing at anybody who thought it might put abortion at risk? “Come on, they’re nothing! Come on, don’t get so panicked. An executive order doesn’t trump the Constitution. They can’t ban abortion with executive order. Don’t worry about it, Carol!” Yeah, right. “Don’t worry about it, Ashley! Don’t worry about it, Roland. Don’t worry about it, Jeffrey. An executive order can’t trump abortion in the Constitution. Roe v. Wade. It’s right there.”

New York Times: “Cuomo to Press for Wider Curbs on Gun Access.” By the way, we have the sound bites from Governor Cuomo, Andrew the Pious, and I’m telling you: He’s fit to be tied. So you got New York Times: “Cuomo to Press for Wider Curbs on Gun Access.” What does that mean? What are these people trying to do when it comes to guns? Limit them. Take them away. Confiscate them. Who knows? But we all know what Democrats want, and we all know what Democrats think about the Second Amendment. I’ve run into Republicans — moderate, Northeasterner Republicans — who’ve harangued me over guns.