Piers Morgan’s Final Shot

by Gerard Emershaw

Like General Cornwallis thumbing his nose at the newly formed United States on his way back to Mother England after surrendering, fired CNN host Piers Morgan has taken one final shot at the American people on his way out the door of CNN studios. In his final episode, which aired on Friday March, 28, 2014, Morgan said:

But that’s where guns belong—on a military battlefield, in the hands of highly trained men and women fighting for democracy and freedom. Not in the hands of civilians. The scourge of gun violence is a disease that now infects every aspect of American life. Each day, on average, 35 people in this country are murdered with guns, another 50 kill themselves with guns, and 200 more are shot but survive. That’s 100,000 people a year hit by gunfire in America.

Now, I assumed that after 70 people were shot in a movie theater, and then, just a few months later, 20 first-graders were murdered with an assault rifle in an elementary school, the absurd gun laws in this country would change. But nothing has happened. The gun lobby in America, led by the NRA, has bullied this nation’s politicians into cowardly, supine silence. Even when 20 young children are blown away in their classrooms.

This is a shameful situation that has made me very angry. So angry, in fact, that some people have criticized me for being too loud, opinionated, even rude when I have debated the issue of guns. But I make no apologies for that.

As Sir Winston Churchill said: “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”

My point is simple: more guns doesn’t mean less crime as the NRA repeatedly says. It means more gun violence, death and profits for the gun manufacturers. And to those who claim my gun control campaigning has been “anti-American”, the reverse is true. I am so pro-American that I want more of you to stay alive.

But I’ve made my point. I’ve given it a tremendous whack. Now it’s down to you. It’s your country; these are your gun laws. And the senseless slaughter will only end when enough Americans stand together and cry: Enough!

Piers Morgan hates the natural right to liberty in general and the right to bear arms in particular. He has the right to think these things and the right to state his beliefs. He also has the right to be wrongheaded, which he most certainly is in this situation. The most important thing to focus on is Morgan’s claim that guns belong “in the hands of highly trained men and women fighting for democracy and freedom” and “[n]ot in the hands of civilians.” One could not possibly be more wrong about anything than he is wrong about this. Given that Mr. Morgan is a British subject, let us consider some examples from British history which demonstrate why the citizenry must have the right to be armed in order to prevent government tyranny. Mr. Morgan likely believes that his fellow countrymen are the most civilized human beings on the planet. Such chauvinism is natural. If so, then if civilized Brits in government can be dangerous despots, then this is certainly true of any government—including the United States government.

On April 23, 1930, British soldiers fired machine guns into a crowd of peaceful protesters at Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar, India. This resulted in the deaths of as many as 400 unarmed civilians.

On December 12, 1948, British troops in Malaya near Batang Kali killed 24 unarmed villagers.

In June 1953, 20 unarmed people were killed by British soldiers in Chuka, Kenya.

On March 3, 1959, 11 Kenyan detainees at the Hola British concentration camp were clubbed to death by British soldiers.

On January 30, 1972, in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireleand, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed Irish civil rights protesters and bystanders, killing 14.

If the civilized British government is so willing to fire upon unarmed civilians, then it is clear that British subjects need to be armed in order to deter such potential murderous tyranny. If this is true of the British government, then it is also true of the American government—or any government. Human beings are human beings wherever you go. No humans wielding massive government power are immune to the lure of violent despotism.

Now that Mr. Morgan has some free time, perhaps he should spend the hour between 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm EST reading up on the blood history of his nation’s government. Maybe then he will begin to realize the necessity of the right to bear arms.

Kick Piers Off the Pier?

CNN host Piers Morgan is a foppish pseudo-intellectual twit. There is no doubt about that. Morgan is the host of CNN’s highest rated show “Piers Morgan Tonight,” having replaced CNN mainstay Larry King in January of 2011. Morgan was a writer and editor with several British tabloids including The Sun, The News of the World, and Daily Mirror and has also been a judge on “Britain’s Got Talent” and “America’s Got Talent,” and the winner of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008.

Despite being the host of CNN’s highest rated show, not that many Americans followed him very closely because ratings on a television network are a relative thing. Morgan’s show pulls in less than 1 million viewers a night on the average and finishes a distant third in the Nielsen ratings well behind Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News and Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC.

On December 21, a petition appeared on the White House’s website demanding that Piers Morgan be deported.

British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment. We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.

As of December 24, 2012, more than 48,000 people had signed this document. The policy of the White House is that if a petition receives 25,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House is obliged to respond.

Why do Americans want the federal government to give this tabloid journalist fop the heave ho? The furor began in the wake of comments that Morgan has made on his show and on Twitter following the tragic school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14. Morgan has consistently attacked the Second Amendment on his show, culminating in an embarrassing performance on December 19, 2012 when unable to engage in a rational debate with gun rights advocate Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, Morgan resorted to childish name calling. During this broadcast, Morgan called Pratt “an unbelievably stupid man,” an “idiot,” and “a dangerous man espousing dangerous nonsense.”  

Morgan continued his gun control crusade on Twitter, tweeting several suggestions for new gun control regulations that he would like to see enacted. These suggestions include a ban on “assault weapons,” more stringent background checks, a ban on guns for any felons or people with a “mental health history,” and a ban on guns for any person less than 25 years of age. In addition, Morgan suggested “a huge incentivized gun amnesty,” noting that he does not believe anyone needs more than one gun. 

The idea that Piers Morgan should be deported has been energetically expressed by Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto and by popular talk show host Alex Jones. Morgan had argued that he was protected by the First Amendment, but Taranto replied that Morgan’s opinion was protected but his presence in the United States was not, citing Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972) – a case involving the denial of an immigration visa by the Attorney General to a Belgian Marxist journalist – in support of his opinion. 

Jones argues that Morgan should be deported because he is a foreign agent attempting to subvert the Constitution.

It’s one thing for an American citizen to ideologically assault and trash the Constitution, although odious such activity would be protected under the First Amendment, but Piers Morgan is a foreigner in a position of influence on prime time television. He is a foreign agent using his power to lobby for the constitutional rights of American citizens to be overturned. If I was on British television every night calling for the Queen to be dethroned and kicked out on the streets, many British people would also call for me to be deported. Morgan is subverting the very foundation of American freedom, the second amendment. 

 
Morgan is clearly correct in stating that stating opinions in favor of gun control is protected by the First Amendment. The real question concerns whether Taranto and Jones are correct in there being grounds for the federal government to deport the chat show host.

In Kleindienst v. Mandel, Belgian journalist Ernest E. Mandel – who was editor-in-chief of the Belgian Left Socialist weekly La Gauche – was appealing being denied a nonimmigrant visa to visit the United States in the fall of 1969 to speak at a conference. The Court upheld the denial of the visa on the grounds that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 provided that avowed Communists such as Mandel were to be denied visas unless the Attorney General approved it at his or her discretion. At the time, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 stated that aliens were ineligible for visas if they fell into certain categories.  Aliens to be excluded from receiving visas included:

Aliens … who advocate the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship ….

Aliens who write or publish . . . (v) the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship ….

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 has since been amended. It now states “any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party … is inadmissible.”

The first thing to note is that Piers Morgan is already in the country, and his visa would have to be revoked for him to be deported. The second more important point is that there are simply no grounds on which to deport Morgan. There is no evidence that he is or ever has been the member of any totalitarian party. In fact, it is rather unlikely that he ever has. One would guess that Morgan is most likely a member of the UK’s Labour Party, which is equivalent to the Democratic Party of the United States. Therefore, Kleindienst v. Mandel simply is not relevant to Morgan.

Morgan is expressing a fairly mainstream opinion today. Stricter gun control laws are advocated by many Americans. While such an argument is dubious, dubious opinions are not forbidden in the United States. The attitude expressed by Taranto, Jones, and the signers of the petition to deport Morgan is a symptom of the disease of attacking one inalienable natural right to defend another one. The remedy to bad speech is not to censor it. The remedy is good speech. The case in defense of the Second Amendment is far stronger than the case against it, and Morgan is not exactly a skilled orator. The answer is not to kick Morgan out of the country but to ridicule him and to make loud and strong arguments in defense of the Second Amendment.