A week ago, we noted that—negating Nicolle Wallace's notion that the woman who aided the New York prison break shouldn't do any time herself—Willie Geist observed "you can't help convicted murderers escape from jail." An NB reader remarked: "I get the sense that Willie Geist is a good guy trapped inside the leftwing matrix."
Far be it from us to cause workplace problems for Willie by praising him too much, but Geist was at it again on today's Morning Joe, this time making some common sense remarks on gun control. After Eugene Robinson praised Australia's "very serious" gun control laws, Willie first cut through the haze, noting that "Australia, to be clear, confiscated guns." He went on to make this observation—as remarkable for its truth as it is for his rarity in the MSM—"there are so many laws out there, and you can make more laws and still wouldn't capture the people, the criminal element, that wants to get his hands on a gun."
Shades of "if guns are outlawed . . . "
So, will Willie be called on the MSNBC carpet? Or has a new day dawned at the network, reflected in the sacking of Ed Schultz and others, in which hosts can more comfortably diverge from liberal dogma?
EUGENE ROBINSON: You look at a place like Australia which is a kind of a rollicking frontier society like the United States--individual liberty, people like to be left alone, they don't like the government telling them what to do. They had a horrific mass shooting in Tasmania, actually, years ago and afterwards the nation took stock and they took very, very serious gun control measures, stuff that we wouldn't do here, but they have reduced gun violence in Australia. Substantially. It can to be done.
WILLIE GEIST: Australia, to be clear, confiscated guns. They went out and said you can't have guns. That's not going to happen in the United States even if a lot of people would like to it happen. And it's worth pointing out that if you confiscated all the guns, if you ban guns right now, there's still 300, 350 million guns floating around. So a criminal with a bad idea is going to get his hands on guns the way that a person who wants to do drugs although they're illegal can get drugs whenever they want them. I'm not being defeatist about this, I'm just trying to be realistic, to say, there are so many laws out there, and you can make more laws and still wouldn't capture the people, the criminal element. that wants to get his hands on a gun.
