Mark Levin Tees-Off on Tom Brokaw

Shorter Mark Levin: I do not approve of that Tom Brokaw fellow and his lack of knowledge of America’s history, particularly as it applies to the Second Amendment. But Levin’s phrasing, as transcribed by Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters, is just a tad more emphatic:

Have you lost your mind Tom Brokaw? Do you realize what an idiot you are? Have you lost your mind? I mean, ladies and gentlemen, the second amendment is a civil right. Does this man have any context for what he’s talking about? Of course not. He’s just popping off…shut up! All of you. Just shut up! You don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.

The second amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, Tommy. The Bill of Rights. To protect the individual. This isn’t Selma, Bull Connor, people in their homes who are being quiet. People all across America, they are speaking with their actions. They’re exercising their right under the Constitution second amendment, their individual civil liberty right, and they’re purchasing guns in record numbers, purchasing ammo in record numbers, because they’re concerned that their individual, civil, constitutional right will be violated.

What the hell does this have to do with Selma or the south in the 1960s or the Klan takeover or the cult? What are you talking about? Do you realize how pathetic you sound? Absolutely unbelievable. Not one damn word about how doctors are to conduct themselves if Obama has his way. They’re patients, and the poor people who seek doctors because they have serious mental challenges, mental problems, and they want help, and their family wants to get them help. Those doctors and those patients and those families are going to suffer as a result of this nonsense. And it has zero to do with mass murders in this country, certainly in Connecticut. We have no statistics that mental patients are running around with weapons and slaughtering everybody. Where are the numbers? And I know they don’t matter, but where are they?

I mean, this is pathetic. So now, so now, if you mind your own business, you purchase firearms, you purchase bullets to go in the firearms, whether you’re a hunter, a sportsman, for self-defense or whatever, whatever your reason, as long as it’s lawful, you purchase firearms and ammunition, you’re like Bull Connor? You’re like the Klan? Because that’s the implication.

Tom, meet Charles Hicks. Mr. Hicks has a story you would benefit from hearing:

When Charles “Chuck” Hicks does the Martin Luther King Jr. Day peace and freedom walks Saturday, he’ll also be taking a step for what the National Rifle Association has dubbed “National Rifle Appreciation Day.” That’s because Hicks is the son of Robert Hicks, a prominent leader of the legendary Deacons for Defense and Justice — an organization of black men in Louisiana who used shotguns and rifles to repel attacks by white vigilantes during the 1960s.

“The Klan would drive through our neighborhood shooting at us, shooting into our homes,” recalled Hicks, 66, who grew up in Bogalusa, La., and has been a civil rights activist in the District for more than 35 years. “The black men in the community wouldn’t stand for it. You shoot at us, we shoot back at you. I’m convinced that without our guns, my family and many other black people would not be alive today.”

Although the cognitive dissonance of hearing such new and unexpected information might cause Brokaw to short circuit. Back in November of 2008, Brokaw — despite working for one of America’s most prominent and well-funded “news” agencies — professed to not knowing much about Barack Obama or the worldview of the then-president elect. I’d love to hear Tom’s take on him today; I imagine would sound very much like the audio version of this.