GOP Senate Candidate: What Iran Needs Is More Guns

Posted by Jason Linkins, Huffington Post at 1:30 PM on June 22, 2009.

If you are not a regular user of Twitter, you might have some sort of "life," filled with "friends" and "activities," which offers you a sense of "meaning" and "solace" in these uncertain times. But at the same time, you would have almost certainly missed out on the wit and wisdom of Florida senatorial candidate Marco Rubio, who opined, thusly:

I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours. #sayfie #tcot #nra

I'm nobody's idea of an anti-gun crusader. But when I consider the sorts of things the Iranians could stand to borrow from America, a poorly worded amendment dealing with gun ownership rights and militias is way down the list. I think that maybe Iran could stand to have some separation of powers, a line between church and state, a free press, freedom to worship, the right to assemble, the right to speak freely, a freedom from unlawful searches, due process of law, womens' suffrage, and a government that doesn't terrorize its citizens with armed thugs or threaten its neighbors through terrorist proxies. In short, there's all kinds of stuff I'd commend to Iran from our own body of work. But, yeah, after all that, some guns maybe.
I will, however, commend Rubio's good judgment in that he did not include "#iranelection" or "#neda" on this tweet. This idea probably would not have gone over well with the people following either hashtag.
Anyway, it's symbolic of how much has changed that a conservative now thinks Iran could use more readily available weaponry.

Jason Linkins is an associate editor at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, DC.