In response to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that Bernie Sanders is an extreme gun nut, Sanders had the following to say
It means to say that very strong gun control advocates may not get everything they want. And people who think they should have a missile launcher in their backyard as a Constitutional right may not have that
A fundamental question is if Sanders, after leading a nearly all white rural state for his lifetime, with limited opposition, has the political, rhetorical, and logical credibility to lead a progressive party currently under siege from opposition that is neither logical or fact based. As I believe that the response to fantasy and illogical is not more of the same, but to stick even more to the rules of reality and logic I say he is not.
The statement above illustrate that he does not have the ability to lead the country towards a golden age, away from climate change denialism, assertions that the pyramids were grain silos, or that Obama is going to take all you guns. The reason is that the above states makes two fundamental mistakes that all radical extremist, progressive or conservatives, use when desperate to prove their point.
First, it starts with a falsehood to show an argument is valid. For instance racists say that they love all people, green, red blue, whatever. This is false analogy. I love green people. Green people are like black people. Therefore I love black people. However, green people are not common in reality, so the argument has no basis. In the real world, missile launchers are not part of the gun rights argument, so Sanders argument is false. Another argument, one that says switch blades are arms, Vermont bans switchblades, therefore Vermont does not support the second amendment, is valid. Though rocket launches may be legal for private citizens to own, they have certainly not be a major point of contentions
Second is the false compromise. Again, though rocket launches may be legal, all but the most extreme gun nuts agree that these are purely offensive and are not constitutionally protected, much like switch blades. This statement not only indicates that Sanders is, or at least speaks, as an extreme gun nut, but also that he will any argument, no matter how absurd, to make his point. This is especially important as Sanders could provide real financial reform that would return money to the middle class, and more importantly, provide enough revenue to insure that everyone has what they need to live comfortably in this very rich nation of ours. However, if he is to base his rhetoric on beliefs he wish were true, none of that can ever happen.
Even more worrisome than Sanders belief in extreme points of view and lack of knowledge of the basics of valid argument, is the fact that the statement in question is so fundamentally racist. It is akin to the southern strategy in which politicians showed they felt what the white people were felling when all those black people were taking their jobs and women. Sanders, but invoking a missile launcher, as such a thing is mostly associated with foreign terrorists, is telling the scared US citizens, mostly white, that he will protect their rights to kill, but makes sure those pesky foreigners, especially the immigrants, are not going to have the right to fight back. He feels the fear of the gun nut, empathizes with it, and will pander to it for votes.