A viral post drawing comparisons between gun control and abortion rights has been mistakenly attributed to the feminist activist Gloria Steinem for years—but a Navy veteran appears to be the man with whom it all began.
Brian Murtagh, 52, shared the text for the first time on Facebook in October 2015. The post begins with the idea of treating ‘every young man who wants to buy a gun’ like ‘every woman who wants to get an abortion’, and points out how abortions are harder to get, in several Sates, than firearms.
‘I thought it was a really, really clever way to show the hypocrisy between the different positions,’ Murtagh, a native of Banbury in Oxfordshire, UK, who now lives in Summerville, North Carolina, told Bustle about the comparison in an interview published yesterday.
Origin: Navy vet Brian Murtagh, 52, a native of Banbury, UK who lives in Summerville, North Carolina, has emerged as the first person to share a gun control post that went viral in 2015
Once more: Earlier this week, Murtagh shared the post again on Facebook, this time writing: ‘This still seems like a good idea to me’ next to the paragraph
The quote has resurfaced in the past few days due to the horrific mass shooting that left 59 dead and more than 500 injured in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday.
It has been slightly tweaked over the years as it got shared over and over again online, but its substance remains the same: it prompts the reader to imagine what the world would look like if would-be gun owners also had to go through a waiting period, extensive travel, and many of the hurdles people can face when seeking an abortion.
‘They can throw all kinds of ridiculous obstacles in the way of a woman getting a needed and legal procedure and they see nothing wrong with that, but you try to put the smallest and most reasonable limitations upon carrying a gun, and this is just impossible,’ Murtagh added.
The Navy veteran explained that he shared the post on Facebook as a reaction to a now-defunct article written by William Hamby in 2013 and published on Examiner.com.
While that story is no longer available, it can still be viewed online on Way Back Machine.
Much like Murtagh’s post, it draws a link between gun ownership and abortion access, and begins with the sentence: ‘What would gun rights look like in America if we treated them like abortion rights?’
Murtagh told Bustle he has no resentment when it comes to his viral post being attributed to Steinem by mistake, and that he wishes he had attacked Hamby’s name to it when he first shared it.
Earlier this week, he shared the post again on Facebook, this time writing: ‘This still seems like a good idea to me’ next to the paragraph.
Context: The quote has been mistakenly attributed to Gloria Steinem (pictured) for years and it resurfaced in light of the mass shooting that left 59 dead in Las Vegas on Sunday
All over: Steinem shared a version of the post in December 2015 while making it clear it wasn’t from her, but many people have attributed it to her regardless (pictured)
Steinem shared a version of the viral post in December 2015 while listing her 10 dearest wishes for that year’s Christmas.
‘I want any young men who buy a gun to be treated like young women who seek an abortion,’ her quote reads.
‘Think about it: a mandatory 48-hours waiting period, written permission from a parent or a judge, a note from a doctor proving that he understands what he is about to do, time spent watching a video on individual and mass murders, traveling hundreds of miles at his own expense to the nearest gun shop, and walking through protesters holding photos of loved ones killed by guns, protester who call him a murderer.’
It adds: ‘After all, it makes more sense to do this for young men seeking guns than for young women seeking an abortion. No young woman needing reproductive freedom has ever murdered a roomful of strangers.’
List: Back in December 2015, Steinem shared a version of the viral post while listing her 10 dearest wishes for that year’s Christmas
Steinem at the time said she found the quote online but didn’t know who had originally said it.
The original Christmas-time post also included nine other points, many of them similarly political.
In the first, she hit out at then-candidate Donald Trump for leading the Birther movement against President Obama, demanding he apologize for ‘daring to rate women as no longer Tens when he himself has never been a One,’ filing for bankruptcy and for ‘setting the hair weave industry all the way back to Rogaine.’
She went on to blast the government for overspending on prisons as well as incarcerating far too many citizens as well as for leaving millions of citizens in crippling debt.
Steinem also praised Black Lives Matter and President Obama in the post, expressing her wonder at how Obama survived against ‘ultra-right-wingers who, if they had cancer, and Obama had the cure, wouldn’t accept it.’
The feminist icon first debuted the list during an appearance on musical group BETTY’s holiday show in benefit of their The BETTY Effect organization, which focuses on empowering women and LGBTQ community members through music.