Neil Heslin, the heckled parent at the Capitol hearing on gun control...

[Playinghardball]

Neil Heslin with his son Jesse Lewis, aged 6 – Jesse was one of the 20 children killed in in Sandy Hook



From a CTPost: A false fire alarm, 45-minute waits to get into the Capitol complex, even the heckling of a bereaved parent of a Newtown shooting victim marked Monday’s day-long legislative hearing on gun control.

“The Second Amendment!” was shouted by several gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.

“There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened,” said Heslin, who grew up using guns and seemed undisturbed by the interruption of his testimony…..



Found on the Obamadiary

[MotherPetrie]

1. Heartbreaking....

[pkdu]

2. How fuckin dare they ....zero shame. They disgust me. Nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. He looks so unbearably sad.

You'd think the gun-humpers would have enough decency at least to respect the man's loss. But I guess they don't.

[MightyMopar]

4. The RBKArers don't think that met the standard of heckling

Really.

[tarheelsunc]

9. A large percentage of them actually think he's acting

It's so disgusting the way the extremist elements of the right wing have reacted to this tragedy. They either view it as an incident that never really happened and the aftermath is being staged with actors, an incident that did happen and is being taken advantage of by the "libruls", or just an attempt by the government to begin some sort of apocalypse. These people have no sense of what reality even is.

And all of this because they are scared of losing the right to have freaking assault rifles... well that and the paranoia and fear mongering being spread by Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, and Alex Jones. I've seen some deplorable crap come from the right, but the way they have reacted to this tragedy is probably the most despicable and tasteless I've ever seen

[Recursion]

21. According to the Facebook feeds of most of my HS friends, they think he's a paid actor

Remember when 9/11 "truthers" mocked grieving widows?

Yeah, me neither...

[lpbk2713]

5. Plain to see his life is shattered.

His hecklers will never know the courage it took for him to appear there.

[calimary]

28. It's just heartbreaking. I don't know what hurts more -

thinking of what that man went through - and so close to Christmas - OR the just plain shitty reaction from the gun nut contingent who insist on the right to massacre. That's all it is when you're talking assault rifles, weapons that can mow a multitude of people down in the span of a mere minute. That's a massacre. No one's trying to take single-shot weapons away. Nobody's trying to take anyone's rifle away, or handgun of any kind. If what these people are insisting on is wanton access to assault weapons, then what they're advocating the right to massacre. Someone took me to task on it here recently, and I just wasn't in the mood to argue. Nevertheless I stand by that wording.

[We People]

6. Those hecklers are just as despicable as the Westboro Baptist Church, maybe moreso

All self-centered, mentally/emotionally/ethically stunted, totally deaf to human pain.

Both photos of Mr. Heslin standing with his son's portrait capture his grief and devastation. I can't imagine how he must have felt.

[villager]

11. "totally deaf to human pain" is it

No empathy whatsoever. Just obsession.

[Demo_Chris]

7. Amazing isn't it

[ismnotwasm]

8. That man is devastated

What do those assholes think they're doing?

If they have a 'cause' this doesn't help it. They bring nothing except fucked up egos to sprinkle on top of horror.

God. I'm just sick

[NBachers]

10. So I wonder who pulled the fire alarm

[awoke_in_2003]

12. He looked so happy...

in that picture with his child. Nothing crushes a parent like the death of their child.

[tblue]

13. Oh my gosh. No no no no.

They can't do that. Who could do that? Poor man. I just want to hug him.

[KansDem]

14. These are the same people...

...who cheer and applaud executions and the deaths of Americans due to lack of health care.

They raise their ugly heads during moments like this one...

[LibDemAlways]

15. We live in a country in which

despicable assholes value weapons more than life itself. Mr. Hefin's courage humbles me. The lowlife scum who dared to taunt him make me ashamed for this country.

Was this story covered anywhere on the MSM? Watched MSNBC all evening and didn't see it.

[malaise]

18. Only Bashir covered this on MSNBC

There is video

[defacto7]

16. Sometimes I think part of humanity is in the process of mutation.

One branch still has the ability to feel the pain of others and respect the sacredness of life. The other is a mutation that can only see their own little sociopathic world that they manufacture in their minds if reality does not meet their desires. There are those who are able to see from another person's point of view, to walk in their shoes, you might say, then there are those who have absolutely no innate ability to see outside of themselves; to see themselves in another person is impossible, futile, oblivion.

It really seems as if humanity is splitting in two; we're like different breeds who think with two entirely different chemistries. Yes, there have always been people on both sides of this rift, but the rift is getting larger and the sociopathic branch is becoming less of an oddity and more pronounced and defined.

How else can you explain the mass lack of reason and empathy such as we see in this ugliness as well as in the rest of the world?

[moondust]

17. Advanced selfishness and hate.

A person probably could have guessed 30 years ago that the Reagan era of "greed is good," deregulation, and growing inequality might gradually devolve into virulent strains of sociopathy. RW media have stoked the fires on a daily basis for more than a decade.

I heard an excerpt from a Paul Ryan speech on the news Monday saying: "The president will bait us. He’ll portray us as cruel and unyielding." Stunned, I wondered if Paul had ever questioned why a recent Republican Presidential candidate felt it necessary to make a campaign slogan out of "Compassionate Conservatism." And that was back when there were still quite a few moderates in the party.

[TXDem1984]

25. Well said

They just have a completely different set of moral values. I have given up trying to understand the conservative brain.

[justiceischeap]

19. If I was in PR and was wanting to win further support for gun control

I'd hire me some heckler's to go into a hearing and heckle an obviously devastated man holding a photo of his young son.

Just saying... not defending the heckler's, my supposition is probably totally off-base but I tend to have a skeptical view of politics.

[Recursion]

20. I doubt you'd have to

I'm afraid the unhinging of a lot of the right is now complete.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

22. I think you're talking out of your ass, that's what I think.

With all due respect.....

I mean, on December 14th, before the bodies were even cold, we had people here on DU claiming that the shootings would never have happened if only a teacher was armed.

And that is on a progressive, liberal message board. You don't even want to know some of the stuff that I see on my Facebook wall.

These people are shameless. Truly shameless.

[Wednesdays]

23. K & R

[TXDem1984]

24. If anyone is shocked by this you haven't been paying attention.

Conservatives' moral values are so ridiculously f'd up. Forget about empathy for your fellow Americans. Regardless of the circumstances, any action taken by the government that could effect their lives in even the tiniest of ways is morally wrong, and therefore must be met with aggressive resistance.

I will never be able to understand this mentality. I understand what I'm describing is the most basic trait that separates conservative thinking from progressive thinking but, one would hope there would be certain issues that we can all agree on no matter what. I used to believe that the safety of our children was one of, if not the biggest one of those.

This extreme conservativism is, in my opinion killing our nation from the inside. We can't accomplish anything without nearly sparking a 2nd civil war and I'm sure we look ridiculous, if not voulurable and weak to the rest of the world as a result.

I really hope Hillary decides to run in 2016. God help us if not.

[Paladin]

26. Amen To That.

The unspeakable actions against this father are just a few degrees removed from the sort of thing one sees in the DU Gun Control/RKBA group every day: vicious trashing of Democratic politicians, particulary those who have very real, very painful exposure to gun violence (Diane Feinstein, Carolyn McCarthy).

[TXDem1984]

27. Exactly....

And yet in reading about those unspeakable actions I wasn't the least bit surprised. These same people are usually the ones that claim to be devout Christians while their behavior contradicts this completely.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

29. The comments on youtube are frightening

There are several videos on youtube showing Mr. Heslin, such as this, below. The youtube comments are almost universal in their attack on his character as a father who doesn't cry and that he's a paid actor in some kind of Obama plot to take guns away. The "nut" part of "gun nuts" is very real here and not just exaggeration. Disgusting.

[EastKYLiberal]

30. People like this have no respect for human life and expect society to allow them their toys. nt