Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran on Sunday lashed out at the "paranoid," Orwellian theories of gun owners who fear what Barack Obama will do to the Second Amendment. Moran appeared with Republican strategist Karl Rove on This Week and mocked the former Bush aide for denouncing creating a gun registry.
After Rove insisted that current gun control proposals wouldn't have stopped the Sandy Hook massacre, Moran sneered, "You're scaring people with this Orwellian sense that black helicopters and the government if we register guns are going to confiscate Americans' guns." He added, "That kind of paranoia fuels" fear.
An irritated Rove shot back: "With all due respect, it is not paranoia."
Moran then suggested that gun licensing wouldn't be so bad: "Lots of things are registered in the United States of America because they're dangerous."
Rove pointed out, "Do we register books? Do we register other things that are constitutional?"
Moran, the co-anchor of Nightline, is not shy in hiding his bias. This week, he's repeatedly pushed gay marriage [1] while covering the Supreme Court.
A transcript of the March 24 exchange, which aired at 10:10am ET, follows:
KARL ROVE: Let's be clear about this. This is prompted by the Sandy Hook murders. Those guns were legally purchased with a background check. This would not have solved something like that. Let's be very careful about quickly trampling on the rights of people. And look, you want to get something done? Then stop scaring people. Don't say we’re going to keep a registry of all these guns. And let’s not make it so impractical–
TERRY MORAN: Stop scaring people? You're scaring people with this Orwellian sense that black helicopters and the government if we register guns are going to confiscate Americans' guns. That kind of paranoia fuels--
ROVE: With all due respect, it is not paranoia.
MORAN: Who's going to confiscate all the guns in America?
ROVE: People have a fear of this. Why do it? Why do you need it?
MORAN: Lots of things are registered in the United States of America because they're dangerous. Because we want to–
ROVE: Do we register books? Do we register other things that are constitutional?
MORAN: No we don't. The result of this is the only votes, really, that have been taken since Newtown have weakened gun control in America.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here [2] to follow him on Twitter.