Piers Morgan: Hypocrite

By John Sexton

Piers Morgan has transformed himself into a noisy advocate for gun control lately, but it turns out that not too long ago he discussed shooting his enemies.

Charles C. Johnson has uncovered a 2006 interview Morgan gave to the Daily Mail shortly after he was fired as editor of the rival British tabloid the Daily Mirror. In the interview, Morgan imagined having a chance to gun down his three top professional critics, saying "So the real question is, if I had a gun with just two bullets, who would I shoot?" Unable to decide, he imagines killing one critic outright and then using a ricochet shot to fatally wound the other two.

Of course there's a difference between imagining violence and being willing to actually commit violence. But in a separate article published in 2004, Morgan described his hatred of home-invasions burglars. After stating his liberal bona fides, he goes on to say he can't extend his liberalism to burglars. On the contrary, he wants them tortured and killed: "I want them erased from life, all of them. Preferably after a decent period of cattle-prodding, testicle electrode treatment, and slow gentle skewering over hot coals."

Lest you imagine this is mere bluster, Morgan makes clear he would be willing to get violent himself. He describes how, after buying his first home, he became the victim of multiple burglaries in which the perpetrators ransacked his home. In light of this experience he says, "I wouldn’t shoot anyone because, like most people in this country, I’m not licensed to carry a gun, but if I woke up to find a thug in my house at 2 am, stealing my hard-earned things, and posing a clear and present threat to my well-being and perhaps that of my children, then I wouldn’t hesitate to grab the hardest thing I could find and defend myself."

There's an old saying that a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged. Piers Morgan appears to fall into that category when it comes to burglars. He's willing to fight and even murder someone who enters his house using whatever tool is available to him. From his description, it sounds as if he'd happily use a gun if he had one. Maybe that would be a good place to start a more honest discussion of gun control, rather than the gotcha journalism he's been attempting on his show recently.