Foot in mouth (Or open your mouth and shoot)

Just because you have a mouth, does that give you a license to open your mouth and shoot? Of late there has been a steady stream of politicians, academicians, religious leaders, amongst many others big and small to compete for the much coveted title of foot in mouth. These so called intellectuals (pseudo intellectuals) speak as if it were raison d'etre, unmindful of facts, figures and realities of life. At times, I wonder how different life would have been if these people just kept their mouth shut instead of rubbing salts into the wounds or for that matter if even we could do the same when we too give in the temptations to open our mouth and shoot.