David Codrea.

“Lives lost to suicide are not as important as the public’s right to purchase firearms promptly, said Charles Heller, co-founder and spokesman for the Arizona Citizens Defense League,” the Arizona Daily Star cited Sunday in a report attempting to tie a university student suicide in with “same-day gun sales.”

That sounds pretty callous, doesn’t it? You’d think a seasoned advocate like Heller, a longtime radio host and AzCDL’s media coordinator, would be sensitive to that and more skilled at making his point without alienating people with such overt indifference to human tragedy.

That is if Heller actually said it. He actually didn’t.

“[Arizona Daily Star reporter Carol Ann Alaimo] made up a quote from me out of whole cloth,” Heller unequivocally declares at Liberty Watch Radio. “That quote is a lie.”

And he has the audio to prove it.

I have three main points to make here.

First, this is why Andrew Torba of Gab refers to folks like this as the legacy media.  They are no longer, and should not be referred to as, main stream media.  There is no honor left among them.

Second, I suspect that it doesn’t matter anyway.  They are preaching to their side.  Our side no longer cares what they say.  America is now too polarized for this to affect the enlightened.  Choices have been made, sides have been chosen, and in many ways we are speaking past each other.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to win the war of ideas, and winning requires engagement.  There will certainly be the occasional confused soul who gets blown about by the wind, and we may be able to persuade them to think rightly, but in my opinion the best medicine is to say the truth, tactfully but without apology, and let the chips fall.

Speaking of that, let me state without equivocation that the fact that someone may purchase a firearm and commit suicide with it is absolutely no justification whatsoever to infringe upon my right to purchase firearms or ammunition, be that infringement a waiting period, another background check, or whatever.

The issue with the wording the author chose to pin on him is that it is a formal logical fallacy, i.e., affirming a disjunct.

1. A is true or B is true.
2. B is true.
3. Therefore, A is not true.

It isn’t either-or.  It’s both-and.  Lives are important.  My right to purchase firearms is important.  My right to purchase firearms has nothing to do with the fact that a life is important.  I deny that infringing upon my rights will have any appreciable affect on lives lost due to suicide, and doing so certainly won’t have any affect on my life, as I do not intend to commit suicide.  That’s a sin.

Moreover, this isn’t how society is run.  The fact that someone may use a vehicle to drive drunk and kill themselves is no justification to infringe on my purchase of a vehicle.  The fact that someone may purchase food that is bad for them is no justification for forcing me to wait to purchase food or go to classes given by the government on what I should eat.

The tactful way to deal with this is to say that suicide is regrettable and sad, and God does not condone it.  And that observation has nothing whatsoever to do with my ownership of firearms or the speed with which I can purchase one.  And you can’t prove there is a connection.  Finally, even applying a rule like that to firearms ownership is more than society does for the rest of life, whether drugs, vehicles, food, or anything else.