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DiSanto: Gun Laws and Murder Laws Don’t Stop Crime, So Why Bother?

Rep. Lynne DiSanto (R-35/Rapid City) goes to crackerbarrel to argue against legal restrictions on guns… and makes an argument for legal restrictions on guns:

Rep. Lynne DiSanto taking aim, Facebook post, 2016.11.18.
Another talking point misses the target…

Representative Lynne DiSanto of district 35 explains “I am a firm believer that if someone wants to get a gun they will get it, I am a believer in that. Saying we’re going to keep the bad guys from getting guns is like saying why don’t we just make a law that makes murder illegal and murder will go away. I don’t think it works that way. I wish it did, I wish it were that simple” [Brent Wise, “Rep. Lynne DiSanto Touches on Several Topics Including Wednesday’s Incident,” KOTA-TV, 2018.02.24].

Uh, Lynne? We have made a law—a bunch of laws—making murder illegal. Nobody said, “We’ll just make these laws, and murder will go away!” The authors of South Dakota’s murder statutes probably said, “Murder is bad. We should punish people who do it.”

Rep. DiSanto is sponsoring a bill (SB 92) to make it a Class 3 felony to throw acid at someone. We recognize a law won’t stop every instance of a psycho using acid to hurt others, but we propose laws like that to punish the remaining evildoers who would commit such a heinous act.

I was going to attribute Rep. DiSanto’s confusing statement on guns to her still being rattled by her set-to with Rep. David Johnson on Wednesday. But at that same crackerbarrel, she said she has accepted Johnson’s apology and is ready to move on. So given that she appears to have processed that fracas and moved on, we may attribute her self-contradicting statement on dangerous guns and legal restrictions thereupon to her inability to come up with a reasonable, thoughtful justification for her own ammosexual absolutism.

17 Comments

  1. grudznick 2018-02-25 18:06

    I suspect that Ms. DiSanto is saying she accepts Mr. Johnson’s apology, but behind the scenes she and her wingnut friends are out to fry him. That’s evident.

    I also suspect that Ms. DiSanto probably had a handgun in her purse, and when Mr. Johnson (did whatever he did to threateningly move upon her, yelling, intimidating, but slowly enough some other fellow put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down) Ms. DiSanto was, according to her, terrified for her safety, she froze, she could not draw that gun and point it and protect herself.

    Should we allow this kind of gun slinger on the floors of our legislatures? I say no. Ban guns from the handbags of all women in the legislatures and search their purses, every day.

  2. Roger Cornelius 2018-02-25 18:21

    Disanto is quickly becoming a dinosaur of the 2nd Amendment and their archaic propaganda.
    Since the Stoneman Douglas School shooting I have been listening closely to the intelligent and articulate survivors of the shooting that have been dismantling NRA claims.
    One of the young crusaders actually had an answer for Disanato’s comment, saying the gun laws and criminals laws we have are meant to mitigate crime and that gun laws should ensure that criminals don’t have access to guns of mass destruction. An effective lawmaker should know this fact.
    These Stoneman Douglas kids are on the move and not slowing down. They have already made dozens of corporations withdraw their endorsement of the NRA. The kids are having a tremendous impact on the NRA’s cash flow.
    As we edge closer to the mid-terms, the kids will be exposing every politician that receives campaign donations from the NRA.

  3. Adam 2018-02-25 19:18

    Lynne Disanto’s views are so immature, and downright ignorant, that we all may as well reconsider (just for a very brief moment) if there might actually be a place in this world after all, for a husband spanking some sense into his wife. It ALMOST seems like viable Psychological Treatment for women like Lynne DiSanto – in order to help them find it within themselves to one day pull their head out of their ass.

    But then when you really think about it, not even that works for such mushy-brained hot messes of thoughtless emotion.

  4. grudznick 2018-02-25 20:05

    Mr. Adam, have you not met Mr. DiSanto?

  5. Linda Boyle 2018-02-25 20:15

    DiSanto is a disgrace as a “representative.” There is no JUSTIFICATION for her being in office. From her racist, inhumane and violent post concerning “running over Native folks and others exercising their rights to safeguard the Missouri River from oil pipeline contamination to her recent remarks intimating “Why bother making laws” to protect people from assault weapons, I believe she has no right to be a representative in South Dakota, seeing she seems to believe law don’t make a difference.

  6. Adam 2018-02-25 23:13

    I’ve seen him work and read about more of it; I don’t care to meet him.

  7. Rorschach 2018-02-26 07:17

    First of all, DiSanto’s acid bill is completely unnecessary. Aggravated assault is already a class 3 felony. Throwing acid on somebody is aggravated assault. So it’s already well covered under existing law.

    I liken universal background checks for guns to the homeland security checks we all go through at the airport. Are we all threats? no. We may grouse about taking off our shoes and emptying our pockets and taking off our belts, but we do it and we go on our way. Gun background checks are for less onerous than homeland security checks at the airport. All you have to do is wait for a few short minutes to clear the computerized check then walk out with your gun. No stripping down needed. We accept the law on homeland security checks because we know it’s for everybody’s protection. We should accept universal background checks for the same reason.

    But … you say. These things are different. Nobody can get on a commercial airliner without going through the check. But even with universal background checks dangerous people could still get guns from friends or family, or illegally. Well people can get hydrocodone from friends or family or illegally too, and they do. But we still require a prescription for hydrocodone. How many more people would have hydrocodone if there was an exception to the prescription requirement for drug shows? Folks, you need a prescription for hydrocodone, except at drug shows where all you need is cash to leave with as much as you can buy. Sounds ridiculous, no?

    The solution to gun violence is more guns. That sounds ridiculous too, NRA.

  8. Dana P 2018-02-26 09:19

    DiSanto is a piece of work, isn’t she? A scary piece of work.

    Yes, Ms DiSanto, people could still get guns if they wanted to. But why the hesitance to make it harder? People could still get Sudafed to manufacture methamphetamine, but we’ve taken steps to make it more difficult. And it’s working! People could still get fertilizer to make bombs (Oklahoma City bombing – 168 people killed), but boy howdy, we’ve made it more difficult. It’s working! So many more examples, so many. Ms DiSanto and the gun nuttery folks just refuse to “go there”.

    And now that her husband has “infiltrated” the Pennington County Commission? Ooofdah

  9. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-02-26 09:26

    Good point about aggravated assault laws, Ror. If existing law already covers the crime, we don’t need to write new special laws. That’s just good conservative sense.

  10. Jenny 2018-02-26 09:34

    SD really needs to elect better people, like real pro-life people that care enough about our children getting shot up and killed and want to DO something about it. Good leaders that will take charge and listen to these children that have lived through these massacres. Making the same old deflections is such a tired old assertion.

    Thank goodness there are still some common sense politicians out there left, like DFL Rep Tim Walz MN of the 1st District and running for governor who has finally had enough of the NRA and mass shootings of innocent bystanders and has come out supporting a ban on assault weapons.

  11. mike from iowa 2018-02-26 12:31

    Maybe Michelle “one L” Bachmann’s hubby could pray away the NRA. Now that god has officially put her on notice to never darken his doorstep again.

  12. o 2018-02-26 13:42

    The NRA and its paid legion of legislative mouth-pieces have over-played their hand. The fanatic stance of an absolute Second Amendment right has been great for sales, but not at all healthy for a nation. Now a national shift seems to be holding with more momentum than past uproars of mass shootings. A nation cannot stand by while a minority of radicals inaccurately tell us what we must stand for and what we must tolerate as the price for that stand.

    The ultimate backlash will go far beyond bumpstocks and large-capacity clips: we will call to question the very notion of an over-armed populace.

  13. o 2018-02-26 13:46

    Laws help define the expectations and culture of a civil society. More than only a list of prohibitions, law denotes what we stand for and what we believe to be right. Law is aspirational.

  14. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-02-26 17:47

    O, I love that last line. “Law is aspirational.”

    I do not aspire to a society in which everyone is armed. I aspire to a society in which we need no such deadly force to go about our daily lives. We must legislate and live the way we want our country to be, not the way exaggerated fears and corporate agendas make us think we should be.

    On absolutism: to put it bluntly, we need to convince young men that guns are for sissies, that we turn to guns only when we’ve failed to find good solutions. Picking up a gun should fill us with dread and shame, not righteous rage and machismo.

  15. Bill Dithmer 2018-03-11 11:02

    Dont get all defensive with me over this. It’s about the relationship between “fake religion,” the NRA, congress, and the gun. This is a song, and yes the music is already written.

    THE BIBLE AND THE GUN

    It started many years ago, we heard the church bells ring
    Except for words of silence, they didn’t do a thing
    At Columbine and Sandy Hook they’ll stay forever young
    Our country was a changing, to the Bible and the gun

    It’s no mistake, it’s no misunderstanding
    The rights of some trump those who lost their lives
    Tell that to their sons and daughters
    Tell that to the husbands and the wives

    All this time the country built more weapons
    The preachers preached that was enough for some
    Our leaders made a deal with the devil
    The new religion is the Bible and the gun

    It’s no mistake, it’s no misunderstanding
    The rights of some trumps those who lost their lives
    Tell that to their sons and daughters
    Tell that to the husbands and the wives

    You can’t outrun the bullets from a gunsight
    Ask those who’ve tried—oh wait those lives are done
    They still pretend that they’re protecting people
    But really it’s the Bible and the gun

    It’s no mistake, it’s no misunderstanding
    The rights of some trumps those who lost their lives
    Tell that to their sons and daughters
    Tell that to the husbands and the wives

    It started many years ago, we heard the church bells ring
    Except for words of silence, they didn’t do a thing
    At Columbine and Sandy Hook they’ll stay forever young
    Our country was a changing, to the Bible and the gun

    THE BLINDMAN

  16. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-03-15 06:13

    (Thanks, Blindman! I’ve made just a couple spelling and punctuation edits.)

Comments are closed.