The national news polls suggest that the majority of Americans support more gun control. You wouldn’t know it from the mail I get. Whenever I write about the plague of gun violence, I get a huge blowback from the gun lovers of America. The rabid response of the gun lobby is damning, but impressive. They out-gun, out-email, gun-control advocates by more… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (256)“...most Americans support more gun control laws.”
Try asking, “Do you favor stronger anti-wife beating laws?”
Or — “Do you favor better health?” “Less crime?” You’ll get a LOT of affirmative replies.• Most Americans don’t even know what the current gun control laws are.
• Most have no idea how little the vast number of added laws have affected crime.
• Most don’t know that all except 2 states issue carry permits and have seen no huge increase in shootings and in some cases have had a decline.
• Most don’t know about the increase in “hot buglaries” (when guarranted unarmed people are at home) in countries with strick anti-gun ownership laws such as Great Britain.Gun control laws are not the answer, shooting people is already against the law.
If shootings are the problem it requires not just a gun, but a person as the other (most important) part of the equation.
Not quite so simple is it?
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 25, 2007 at 12:04 PM Remember that the pro-gun lobby has the benefit of monetary support from firearm manufacturers who have a great financial stake in defeating gun control legislation.
For gun-control activists to mount a truly symmetrical campaign, they will need to identify a business interest with a stake in controlling guns. I don’t know who that might be.
Posted by Theodore on Sep 25, 2007 at 1:44 PM tell me, if the brady campaign is the majority, then why does the NRA have TEN TIMES the membership rolls of the brady campaign?
Posted by davidpaddock on Sep 25, 2007 at 2:07 PM oh, and generally speaking, we inundate your reply boards and email inbox because we truly care about the issue, we’re in the right, and oh wait… maybe you get more replies against gun control than for because there are more people who actually believe in the second amendment as a civil right.
Posted by davidpaddock on Sep 25, 2007 at 2:10 PM davidpaddock,
Bullseye!
Nice group too.
—————————
Theodore,Who may be willing to subsidize the anti-gun cause?
• The drug dealers
• The neighborhood gangs
• The guy who burgled our house
• The people who actually subscribe to this magazine
• About two-thirds of Hollywood
• All those who think there are simple solutions to a complex issue
If I think of any more should I send them?
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 25, 2007 at 2:22 PM Same old tired liberal anti-gun tripe. I’ll try and respond to some of the points directly:
1)The public wants more gun control.
True if the question is put like that. If you ask “Do we need more than 22,000 gun control laws” most will say no.
2) The majority is represented by the Brady Bunch.
Then why do 39 states now have “shall issue” laws which provide any responsible citizen with a means to legally carry a concealed weapon? Did all of those state legislators go against the wishes of their constituents? The Brady Bunch represents myopic urban liberals who think one more gun law is the one criminals will all of a sudden obey.
3) Almost half the murder victims in the U.S. are black.
This is true and tragic. Wouldn’t it also be fair to point out that 90% of their killers were black? And where guns were used over 95% of those guns were already illegally in the possession of the killers. What is happening in the black community is a cultural problem not a gun problem.
Studies show legal guns are used between 1,000,000 to 2,500,000 times a year to stop crime. Would the author make those people who defended themselves with a gun new victims? In none of the states with “shall issue” law has the crime rate increased appreciatively and in some it has gone down. Does that suggest guns are the reason for crime?
The author may mean well but she appears ill equipped to evaluate issues based on logic and reason. Unfortunately lack of knowledge and intellect has never stopped a liberal with access to a keyboard and a venue.
Posted by wscott52 on Sep 25, 2007 at 3:05 PM Hi, y’all!
Ever heard of innocent bystanders getting killed in a drive-by stabbing? How about a disgruntled postal worker returning to his workplace and strangling a dozen of his co-workers ? The boys at Columbine didn’t do what they did with baseball bats.I’m sorry. I had to throw that out for the sake of symmetry. I’m not anti-gun at all. I own several that also comply with Clinton’s gun farce, I mean laws. I’m not giving them up without an insurmountably good reason. I do, however, believe that ALL firearms should be registered, and anyone who violates our gun laws should have the book thrown at them, in fact, borrow some of mine.
Jack-booted thugs? Puh- leeze! Change the tin foil in your hat!
Wild West if we allow concealed carry? Shyeah! Have you beeen wearing or smoking your hemp sandals!
Let’s face facts, shall we?
The gun control issue is an agitant issue. All it does is stir up emotion on both sides without accomplishing anything. In the process, a few people manage to profit from the discord.
We’ll never be able to buy AK-47’s out of vending machines, and the government will never kick down your door to take your deer rifle.
You worry about me killing a family member in an argument ? I worry about you getting killed by some Mansoneqsue group of psychos because of a lack of shootin’ irons.
Can we agree to disagree and go back to our pursuits without having to deal with more unnecessary divisions/diversions?
Ta-ta!
Posted by Aunty Rightwing on Sep 25, 2007 at 6:48 PM “Women and the African-American church—get them behind the keyboard, and you’ll unleash a thunderous counterpunch to the gun lovers’ old one-two.”
Wake me up when that happens. Please don’t be too disappointed when absolutely nothing changes - except, of course, for more concealed carry laws to pass.
I personally think the existing gun laws need to be strictly enforced. That just isn’t happening right now. But I’m another one who is generally not in favor of more restrictions on citizens to purchase guns lawfully (provided they get a background check, don’t have a criminal record, etc).
But just politically speaking, this is a dumb issue for Democrats to try to champion. It’s proven to be win-win for Republicans time and time again.
Posted by readallsides on Sep 25, 2007 at 10:12 PM Some background: I was born and raised in Queens NY, and saw first hand during then Mayor Dinkins NYC administration how restricting people from having concealed firearms only made them softer targets for criminals, I witnessed first hand criminal gun play as I rode the J/Z line thru east NY and the E thru Queens and A to my in laws in Washington Heights.
“Adolph” Giuliani certainly cleaned up NY however at a great toll to peoples civil rights a) restricting private firearm ownership b) illegal searches (I with no criminal record was searched without cause, at least 2 dozen times during his reign of terror).
I personally do not like guns, however with literally hundreds of millions of guns in America, the choice is clear: I will take a few accidental shootings over the mass murder of un-armed students, teachers and innocent citizens by crazies and outlaws every day of the week.
In fact any legislator working on “banning guns”, “gun control” aka “citizen control” or are creating another useless “gun free zone” aka “soft target zone” in light of the facts is grossly irresponsible.
Case in point arrogant Mike Bloomberg by denying NYC residents their civil rights to self defense; an un-armed man was gunned down recently in Brooklyn. In Newark NJ 3 good young un-armed people were gunned down. In both cases they might all be alive today, if they were not denied their civil rights to self defense.
(So far Newark Mayor Corey Booker is looking like clueless Cory Booker by spending $3mm on “gun shot detection technology” instead of putting that money in after school programs.)
CA, MA, NY and NJ need “shall issue” concealed carry and “reciprocity” (like drivers licenses). vs. the current “may issue” which is reserved for politicians and their cronies.
Self defense is a civil right.
ps: Fact: the first “gun control” laws were written to keep blacks from owning firearms, look at Wash DC, LA, Camden, Newark, NYC…what’s changed?
Ms. Washington, why don’t you call to task the racism in “may issue” vs. “shall issue”?
If we ban guns whats to stop the ban of free speech ?
Just shred the Bill of rights.Lastly, Rev. Jesse Jackson has zero credibility on this, he is just playing his game and has you and others drinking the kool aid.
Posted by Tommy ORourke on Sep 25, 2007 at 11:49 PM “citizen groups, like the Brady Campaign”
The NRA has 4 million dues-paying members and it’s “the gun lobby”. The Brady Campaign is composed of a few dozen well-healed out-of-touch do-gooders and it’s a “citizen group”. Oy vey.
Also consider everything the NRA does beyond lobbying for our 2nd Amendment rights. Safety programs, training for law enforcement, accident insurance for it’s members, and a huge yearly convention that culminates in those dues-paying members voting on who will represent them on the NRA’s Board of Directors.
Does the BC have any other function other trying to ban guns?
Posted by PeteRR on Sep 26, 2007 at 4:35 AM “the Gun Industry pays for these groups”
Perhaps you could tell me where I should apply for this money?Britain (where i lived for 30 something years) banned civillian ownership of handguns and semi auto rifles larger than .22rf, result? armed crime has doubled since 1997. Of course the Brits can all now feel safer as all handguns are now safely in criminal’s hands, and the honest folk are dis armed.
In the mid 90’s britain enjoyed 2X the burglary rate of the US and 40% of British Burglaries were hot compared to 7% hot in the US, since that time the US rate has continued to fall and the UK rate has risen. A major reason for US burglars not tangling with the occupants is:
“that’s how to get yourself shot”You’re right, most (but far from all) legal gun ownership is by male, white, middle class, rural and predominantly middle aged… You’re also right about the shooting victims, mostly male, young, black, poor and inner city. You miss the vital connection though. The perpetrators are? ...... Come on ..... Yes? mostly male, young, black, poor and urban,
Those white rural middle age middle class males you demonise are not coming into the ‘hoods on a night to hunt young black kids, I think we’d have heard about it if it was happening, don’t you?
so, why are Jackson, Bloomberg etal not encouraging the inner city folks to turn in the street and drugs gangs members who are doing the shooting instead of going after law abiding folk? answer please?
Most drugs are illegal in most countries in the world. If I wanted I could get whatever drugs I want virtually anywhere in the world, name me a small town in the States where that is not true? Drugs are smuggled into the US by the ton. being illegal doesn’t stop it. Do you think it is anymore difficult to smuggle firearms?
Even if you could stop the illegal flow of professionally produced Firearms, take a look at www.thehomegunsmith.com to see how easy it is to make your own sub machine gun from readily available bits of pipe.
What 2a is about is allowing honest folk of all races, colours genders and wealth brackets the means to defend their own and their loved ones lives and liberties.
Could you please explain the social benefits of disarming the law abiding and only criminals having guns?
That’s before adding that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, PolPot etc were all keen on gun control.
Posted by alpacca45 on Sep 26, 2007 at 12:12 PM oh, just seen Aunty Rightwing’s comments,
Perhaps you could explain to the Branch Davidians and their children (those who survived that is) and Randy Weaver (who’s wife and child didn’t survive)that the Govt isn’t going to kick your door down.
Ask the people in New Orleans who were illegally robbed of their means of defense against lawlessness?
Go north of the 49th paralell and see how easily that event occurs. I have personal Friends in Britain who have been woken by the police armed response team breaking the door in to collect their individually licenced guns (they need to give good reason for each and every one, and give the make, model caliber and serial no to the cops plus store it in an approved safe, and only use it in approved places, oh and giving self defence as reason gets all your guns confiscated).
While I don’t subscribe to the Davidian’s beliefs or Weaver’s seperatist views, they were US citizens. believe me, it is a very short step from registration to confiscation.
In 1997 I had to hand in my British licenced .22 and 9mm pistols, my Mother had to hand in her .22 target pistol. What good did that do to the British armed crime figures? they’ve doubled.
Posted by alpacca45 on Sep 26, 2007 at 12:33 PM “They out-gun, out-email, gun-control advocates by more than 20 to one. “
You forgot one.
They out-gun, out-email AND OUTNUMBER gun-control advocates by more than 20 to one.
Posted by cyberella2002 on Sep 26, 2007 at 12:42 PM Gee, I didn’t think anyone could be uglier than whoopi goldburg:
http://tinyurl.com/288c4v
Regardless of what brought Washington to her evil conclusions and suggestions for the destruction of our Liberty, when her goals are met her kind will be hunted.
When guns are outlawed, “Liberal” season must begin.
http://www.willowtown.com/reality/blacksburg.htm
Posted by waypasthadenough on Sep 26, 2007 at 2:27 PM Laura, hoping you’ll help organize the Aftrican American churches…I’ve been trying and it’s just not that easy.
32 Americans die every day from gun violence. Everyday. That’s a VA Tech every day.
No one wants to tak guns out of the hands of law abiding Americans. But we must do a better job of keeping guns out of the hands of gang members and others who should not have them.
Losing 32 a day is our national shame and everyone who does not work to stop the violence is responsible. Everyone.
Posted by stopgunviolence on Sep 26, 2007 at 3:08 PM “Losing 32 a day is our national shame and everyone who does not work to stop the violence is responsible. Everyone.”
Bull.
The people responsible are the people pulling the trigger.
Here’s a quick newsflash: Criminals don’t obey gun laws, so passing more of them isn’t going to help. It makes things worse, because it allows the criminals to commit crimes with impunity.
Posted by cyberella2002 on Sep 26, 2007 at 3:40 PM And who were and what was the circumstances of the “32 a day”‘s demise?
Focus your good intentions on the cause and the effect will take care of itself.
These kids need guidance, after school programs, your mention of church’s, expanded mentoring programs etc.
Citizens need to call out their elected officials for real solutions, not feel good nonsense.
Case in point: Corey Booker Mayor of Newark spending $3mm on “gun shot detection technology” instead that money should be used in after school programs, a tech lab; bring in game software developers to share their knowledge with the youth, recreation center, field trips, athletic facilities, not just b-ball, tennis etc. heck put a golf driving range in Newark!!! There are endless things to do, summer camps in the country etc.
Posted by Tommy ORourke on Sep 26, 2007 at 3:45 PM Hi stopgunviolence,
unfortunately about 90% of murderers are already well known to the criminal justice system and typically have 3 or more convictions for crimes of violence before they murder.“They often know their victim” (Yes, usually a member of a rival gang, a rival dealer, or just someone who “dissed” them in the past).
Stats from around the world (see Kates & Mauser in the Harvard journal of law & public policy for a good review and source references) seem to show that murder rates of 3X the worst that America had can occur in societies with police state type controls on firearms. There are just more victims of stabbing, clubbing and beating to death.
Initiatives to unite the communities plagued by gang violence are to be welcomed if they give the honest majority in those communities the confidence that the perpetrators of the violence will be put behind bars until they no longer pose a threat to public safety.
Campaigns that target legally held guns are only providing disarmed victims who are easier for the gangs to intimidate and prey upon.
More general campaigns against guns , well, you see the reponse Laura’s op ed is getting here….
Waypasthadenough,
what side of the argument are you on? if you can’t muster a reasoned case in favor of 2A , perhaps it’s time to log off and get out a bit.It isn’t hard to counter anti 2A arguments with logic and reference to any study that goes beyond the “people were shot therefore all guns bad” level of reasoning, you don’t have to lower yourself to dishing out personal insults and threats, which is what makes me think you are in the anti 2A fold.
Keith
a person of the gun….
Posted by alpacca45 on Sep 26, 2007 at 3:48 PM To:
Keith
a person of the gun….Did you even bother to go to my web page?
This creature has just told us it would like to see us dead, or suffering at the hands of the criminal element, whether that element be govt. or street in origin. This creature deserves no respect from me nor anyone else who values their liberty.
And I know, because I’ve been fighting them a long time, and learned early on that being ‘nice’ to them doesn’t work. They love it when you’re stupid enough to think it does.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Sep 26, 2007 at 4:08 PM Just have, I’ll be back there again
Keith
A person of the gun…
Posted by alpacca45 on Sep 26, 2007 at 4:24 PM Laura Washington writes:
“While blacks make up about 13 percent of the nation’s population, they comprised 49 percent of all murder victims.”
Like it or not, blacks are mostly being killed by blacks so while blacks make up a disproportionate population of victims, they likewise make up a disproportionate population of perpetrators. Don’t just take my word for it:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
You’ll garner more credibility if you are honest in your use of stats instead of selective use that only benefits your (misguided) cause.
—MuzzleBlast
Posted by muzzleblast on Sep 26, 2007 at 5:06 PM Maybe black churches should be focusing their efforts on getting their youth into the pews every Sunday instead of being liberal PR machines with a gun agenda?
Maybe they could try to pass on values that would help to stem the tide of gun violence, teenage pregnancy, declining graduation rates, etc?
Gun violence is a horrific thing in the inner-city, and I completely understand what the author would want to see accomplished. But it just doesn’t make sense with the way she wants to do it.
Those “white, suburban males” just aren’t causing the problem. And everybody knows it.
Posted by readallsides on Sep 26, 2007 at 5:10 PM Here are a few more polls to chew on, since you seem to base your decisionmaking on polls
According to a recent Gallup poll:
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27229
“A Gallup update in January of this year found that Americans were more satisfied than dissatisfied with the current state of gun laws in the country. Fifty percent of Americans were satisfied with the nation’s laws or policies on guns, while 43% were dissatisfied. “
Recent Zogby poll:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1289
“Most Americans don’t believe that stricter U.S. gun control policies would help prevent tragedies such as this week’s shootings at Virginia Tech, a new MSN-Zogby poll shows.
While 59% don’t think stricter gun control policies would help, 36% believe they could make a difference by helping to prevent future shootings. More than two in three Americans (69%) believe the recent shootings at Virginia Tech were the actions of a deranged man determined to inflict mayhem and could not have been prevented. But 16% believe stricter controls of guns and ammunition would have prevented the tragedy.”
How do you like them apples?
Posted by goingbust on Sep 26, 2007 at 5:57 PM so many of you are so quick to defend your gun rights but you don’t stop to think that there are laws we need that would not impact you but would impact the terrible violence we have in the US. each of you who are so quick to say we don’t need any new laws (because the violence has not yet touched you) need to write back and tell us what YOU are doing to help stop the violence. are you in the schools working as a mentor? are you part of the big brother/big sister program. do you and your church reach out to the homeless? WHAT DO YOU DO TO STOP THE VIOLENCE
and if you’re not working to stop the violence, you’re part of the problem.
Posted by stopgunviolence on Sep 26, 2007 at 6:28 PM Dear “Stopgunviolence,”
The best way to “stop the violence” is to make it highly hazardous for criminals to engage in it. Criminals look for soft targets. They do not want to get hurt any more than you do.
Posted by philstanhope on Sep 26, 2007 at 6:59 PM Hi,y’all!
alpacca45 (cute name!)
The gun seizure you refer to is in ENGLAND, not in the U.S. Different countries with different laws.
Regarding the raid at Waco and the Branch Daviidians, let’s clear up a point or two.
1. They were not seizing legal weapons. Those weapons were illegally modified to full automatic. Why? Not because of a nutty belief. Rather they were to increase their value for sale. Vernon Howell was going from gun show to gun show selling said weapons to make money. Automatic weapons fetch prices five to twenty times their value as semi-automatic weapons of the same type. Ol’ Vern was trying to make extra money for whatever reason.
2. Vernon Howell was also trying to ILLEGALLY purchase weapons from his acquaintance, a gun dealer, by purchasing them without filling out a Form 4473. That’s a big no-no in EVERY state as it renders the weapon untraceable. That was also part of Vernon’s scheme.
3. The ATF agents showed up in force to meet a possible threat of several dozen people all of whom could have been armed with assault rifles, automatic or otherwise—like there’s a real big difference. Meet an army with an army.
4. Vernon and his followers did NOT have to fire at the ATF. However, they did in what was probably an act, however naively conceived, orchestrated by Howell to distract and muddy further prosecutiuon. Unfortunately, it worked. Albeit aided by partisan Republicans.Who fired first? No one ever answered that question—for political reasons.Did you listen to the phone and radio communications from the Davidians? I did. It was all recorded and Wayne Martin, a Harvard law graduate in the compound, knew that too.
5. Why the Bradleys and the M-60 tanks? Good ol’ Vern and his followers had a Barrett Model 82, a weapon that fires rounds that penetrate any type of vehicle that is not armored. Hiding behind a car, even behind the engine block is futile. Come to think of it, even a Bradley won’t stand up to the .50BMG all that well
By the way, when tear gas is thrown into the room—LEAVE! That is the purpose of tear gas, to make you want to leave, and not stay in there with a mask on hoping the cops will go away!
Davidians as victims? Victims of Vernon Howell!
Regarding Randy Weaver, sorry his wife was killed. That sniper should have had his *ss handed to him along with a summary dismissal. MIghty bad shooting. Don’t take a maybe shot if you can wait for a sure shot.
However, taking a “YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!” stance when dealing with law-enforcement is not a smart move.When you break the law they can and will come and kick in your door. If you open fire,they have every right to shoot you.
By the way, it was Bush 41’s ATF that killed Weaver’s wife. That incident occurred in August of 1992. Perhaps if he had paid more attention to his law-enforcement instead of trying to smear Clinton…
Sorry, no one ever discusses that and Weaver never once said “Republicans killed my wife and kid”.
Posted by Aunty Rightwing on Sep 26, 2007 at 7:22 PM “Remember that the pro-gun lobby has the benefit of monetary support from firearm manufacturers who have a great financial stake in defeating gun control legislation.”
No, they don’t.
Remember Smith & Wesson? They were the largest US firearm manufacturer. One of those huge corporate behemoths - with gross sales slightly lower than Ben&Jerry;‘s Ice Cream. (Mistaken assumption #1 - the gun manufacturers aren’t terribly large, and they don’t have the billions of dollars to throw around that, for example, the tobacco companies do.)
In any case, back during the Clinton Administration, S&W thought that it’d be good business to voluntarily sign on to Clinton’s “marketing” agreement - as an escape from the lawsuits, and a promise of preference in government contracts.
This was, you may remember, Bubba’s attempt to achieve through litigation what he’d been unable to achieve by legislation.
The gun rights community cut them off at the knees. People simply stopped buying from them. Their dealers, rather than accept the draconian restrictions that S&W had promised the Administration that they would impose on their dealers, simply dropped the product line.
Within six months, they were bankrupt. (And no, this was not the NRA - the NRA is anything but an agile institution, and by the time the NRA had noticed what was going on and made a futile attempt to get out in front of it so it could look like it was leading things, the damage had already been done.)
Smith&Wesson; closed its doors. Eventually, it’s owners managed to sell the trademarks to a couple of venture capitalists from Arizona, at about 10% of what they’d originally paid for it.
In any case, the story should have made it clear - the gun rights community stands up for the rights of the gun owners, not the manufacturers. The gun rights movement closed ranks against America’s oldest and largest handgun manufacturer, because that manufacturer thought that screwing over the gun owner would be worth the political favor it’d gain from an anti-gun administration.
If the gun rights movement was driven by the manufacturers’ agenda, it’d not have happened. But the gun rights movement is driven by the shared understanding of millions of gun owners.
They have influence because of their numbers, and because of their individual efforts, and their individual contributions.
They win not because of the deep pockets of their corporate sponsors.
They win because there are millions of them, and for them the IRKBA is the sine qua non. Absent gun rights, there _are_ no rights.
You need to understand this. It’s not the manufacturers. It’s not the NRA. The manufacturers would be happy to settle, if a method were found that let them keep their profits up. The NRA ‘s interest in the fight has been limited and weak. It’s been a constant fight to get them involved in the fight, and to keep them from compromising.
This is a true grass roots issue. Shut down the manufacturers, disband the NRA, and you’ll still have tens of millions of pissed off gun owners, absolutely convinced that not only do they have a right, but that they have a moral obligation, to Keep and Bear Arms.
Posted by jdege on Sep 26, 2007 at 7:26 PM stopgunviolence asks:
“so many of you are so quick to defend your gun rights but you don’t stop to think that there are laws we need that would not impact you but would impact the terrible violence we have in the US.”
*All* of the violence is already illegal. What is to be gained by passing more ineffective laws making it doubly or triply illegal?
“each of you who are so quick to say we don’t need any new laws (because the violence has not yet touched you) need to write back and tell us what YOU are doing to help stop the violence. are you in the schools working as a mentor? are you part of the big brother/big sister program. do you and your church reach out to the homeless? WHAT DO YOU DO TO STOP THE VIOLENCE”
I’m a father of a self-supporting family teaching my boys proper firearm use, marksmanship, handling and safety, instilling pride, honor and personal satisfaction in work, teaching respect for private property and an understanding of rights, freedom and liberty. They know that nothing is free, that you must work to get what you want, that government stuff isn’t free and that those who contravene these principles are parasites on society wholly undeserving of the fruits of their labor. We pay our own way and expect nothing from the government but to secure our rights and to be otherwise left alone. When the government is unable or unwilling to secure those rights, we take on the task as our liberty, safety and dignity are paramount. If that means deadly force to keep from being victimized, that is a choice made by the aggressor not the defender. See:
http://rkba.org/comment/cowards.html
“and if you’re not working to stop the violence, you’re part of the problem.”
If you are not personally refusing to be a victim of violence and expecting some disembodied legislator or poorly paid law enforcement individual to do it by proxy, you are perpetuating the problem.
—MuzzleBlast
Posted by muzzleblast on Sep 26, 2007 at 8:18 PM jdege,
“This is a true grass roots issue. Shut down the manufacturers, disband the NRA, and you’ll still have tens of millions of pissed off gun owners, absolutely convinced that not only do they have a right, but that they have a moral obligation, to Keep and Bear Arms.”
Well put and Right On!
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 26, 2007 at 8:21 PM Wow this broad is just so right! All blacks are gun hating church goers oppressed by evil whitie’s army in suburban and rural America. We have to get those guns from whitie! Too bad we can never get on the internet and voice our opinion. All those pesky NRA members are always roaming around hogging all the Wi-Fi and everytime I try to go to the local internet cafe them dang old hunters are there hogging all of the computers. When will this madness ever end? Why can’t we all just live in Laura’s fantasy land where there are no guns. I mean if guns were illegal nobody would have them right? Look at how well that concept works south of our border in Mexico. We could be just like Mexico!!! Hurray!
Posted by jagermann on Sep 27, 2007 at 7:07 AM Hi Aunty rightwing,
“Confiscations in Britain, different country Different laws”don’t try to spread complacency mate, yes it can happen elsewhere too, all it takes is for the good “people of the gun” tribe to do nothing. As youv’e probably noticed, we’re not complacent and we talk accross borders.
You have heard of international precedent in law? so have we.
I have a whole range of issues with the Davidians, I’ll stick to a few direct gun ones and the very important one of collective guilt. If there was a criminal among them, does that justify killing them all? was it all for the greater good? was it Progressive? I think the answer to that question will have resonance for inner city communities all around the world…. don’t you?My understanding is the Davidians had invited the ATF in to inspect the place, the ATF didn’t take up the offer and instead sent a SWAT team through the upstairs window without warning.
Sort of friendly eh?
Once the SWAT guys ran out of ammo and no longer represented a threat, the Davidians let them go. (obviously the actions of psychopathic killers, don’t you think?)
Let’s look at selective fire guns;
The ATF interest is as a tax collection agency, not anything to do with public safety, regardless of what the propoganda says.Selective fire guns and silencers were taxed in the 1920’s to help fund the “New Deal”
I’m not going to sympathise with the Davidians religious beliefs (whatever they were) or any belief that they could get away without paying taxes. Neither will I demonise them as freaky cultists (all faiths start as “cults”).
What I will sympatise with them on is that their (your) Govt had no right in using military force on its’ citizens.
The ATF had its oportunity to go in peacefully, it didn’t
There were pleanty of oportunities to arrest the “suspects” as they walked around town, or even, heaven forbid, travelled to and from gunshows. They weren’t taken.What was taken was the oportunity to display massive jack booted force. Period.
Actually, Selective fire weapons are not too difficult for determined individuals to make from scratch. Sten guns were cloned by the thousand under the noses of Nazi forces in wartime Europe, despite rationing and chronic shortages of metals and machine tools.
Still more stens were clandestinely manufactured under the noses of the Brits in pre ‘47 Palestine (pre independence Isreal).
The ‘smiths of the tribal lands in Pakistan are able to produce a copy of pretty much anything in a couple of days, then once they have their templates made, further copies can be filed and chiseled out in a day. All they need is a vise and a few hand tools.
Just like with drugs, if there is a demand, a market will spring up to satisfy it, you will never ever control that. What needs controlling are the mutants who are commiting the crimes of violence.
Keith
one of the People of the Gun
Posted by alpacca45 on Sep 27, 2007 at 8:45 AM stopgunviolence wrote:
“so many of you are so quick to defend your gun rights but you don’t stop to think that there are laws we need that would not impact you but would impact the terrible violence we have in the US. each of you who are so quick to say we don’t need any new laws (because the violence has not yet touched you) need to write back and tell us what YOU are doing to help stop the violence. are you in the schools working as a mentor? are you part of the big brother/big sister program. do you and your church reach out to the homeless? WHAT DO YOU DO TO STOP THE VIOLENCE
and if you’re not working to stop the violence, you’re part of the problem.”
No. 1. - You’ll never stop crime completely, or violence, or drugs, or war, or greed, or poverty, welcome to reality. Politicians keep promising that they’ll do such because the simple minded, on both sides of the isle, keep looking for simple solutions to their problems. Have the govt. send someone a check, that’ll fix it. The first step away from “Liberal"ism is to accept that you’ve been trying to stay in Neverland and start looking for the door.
No. 2. - I’ve been fighting “Liberal"ism(socialism, communism, progressivism, fascism, yes fascism is a form of socialism) and standing up for human LIberty for years so that’s my contribution. Stop paying young woman to bring fatherless children into the inner cities and get the “Liberal” freak ‘edukators’ out of the schools and you’ll go a long way toward ‘stopping the violence.’
Voting for a “Liberal” is like voting to live in Hell on Earth. Tolerating a “Liberal” is like tolerating a brain tumor. Tolerating “Liberal”ism in government is like tolerating cancer.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Sep 27, 2007 at 11:19 AM dear stop gun violence:
for your information, most of us are extremely active, introducing youngsters to the joys of hunting and fishing, i’m a scoutmaster, assist with coaching, church goer, recently joined my local archery range which sponsors a wide variety of youth activities teaching responsibility, discipline, and dedication, and i’m a dues paying member of my local firearms range which sponsors both concealed pistol license classes (proud graduate) and youth hunter safety programs, as well as various other groups. and locally, i’m considered inactive, because as a military veteran attending college and recently engaged (fiance got her first dear two years ago now, can’t wait to get her first buck…) i’m limited on my time.
i wake up every day knowing that because of the pistol hidden on my person both me, and those around me are safer, and that i influence young americans to exercise and take pride in all their civil liberties, including the second. i KNOW i help decrease violence because i confront it head on, and unlike so many of you liberal gun-blamers who claim to want peace, i’m willing to confront the violence head on when it is immediate and life threatening because i’m well trained and practiced in the use of force and willing to risk my own safety for the safety of those around me, just so like so many of the other CPL holders i know.
now that i’ve addressed your question, please tell us, what exactly do you do to decrease violence, besides posting on a web board?
please, inform us…
Posted by davidpaddock on Sep 27, 2007 at 12:23 PM And please stop using that favorite “Liberal” term ‘civil liberties.’ That intones that our rights come from the govt. or are ‘guaranteed by the govt. or ‘allowed’ by the govt.
see:
Noun 1. civil libertycivil liberty - one’s freedom to exercise one’s rights as guaranteed under the laws of the country
political liberty
freedom - the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints
2. civil liberty - fundamental individual right protected by law and expressed as immunity from unwarranted governmental interference
civil right - right or rights belonging to a person by reason of citizenship including especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th amendments and subsequent acts of Congress including the right to legal and social and economic equality
law, jurisprudence - the collection of rules imposed by authority; “civilization presupposes respect for the law”; “the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order”http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civil+liberty
Instead we must insist, with all our resolve, and on the blood of our enemies, both foreign and domestic, that we are born with natural rights, specifically a natural right of self defense, our most basic right, which underlies all other rights, to speech, arms, property, etc.
When the founders said “Liberty or death” that didn’t mean they were going to stand in front of the British troops and let them mow them down. It meant they were going to kill enough Brits to get the message across.
We will probably see the time come when we will have to kill enough “LIberals” or some other form of authoritarian to get the message across.
Wikipedia on natural rights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights
Posted by waypasthadenough on Sep 27, 2007 at 4:34 PM Sorry, meant to include this quote, still so applicable today:
“From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms!
Through the land let the sound of it flee;
Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer,
In defense of our Liberty Tree.”
—Thomas Paine
(1737-1809)
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Paine.Quote.73A0
Posted by waypasthadenough on Sep 27, 2007 at 4:39 PM @AuntyRightwing(assuming this actually describes what you are) You really need to read up on the Waco incident, you might want to start here - http://www.hardylaw.net/waco.html . Plenty of information along with the results, or in one case the nonresult, of several FOIA requests.
@waypasthadenough I find it quite irritating when people buy into leftist propaganda, particularly the idea that they have anything to do with liberalism. They do not, and by pretending they do you just allow them to gain the upper ground. They are just as authoritarian if not more so than the current overall direction of the republican party. As such, they no more deserve the term liberal than you deserve the term communist. Now, when it comes to social issues they are selectively more liberal than the right wing, but not really, and most of that’s short-term vote buying. Their actual actions speak otherwise when you look at their long-term implications.
Posted by ravenshrike on Sep 27, 2007 at 5:49 PM Hi Laura,
I think the comments here probably give you some small sample of the “People of the Gun” .Legal gun owners are a pretty good cross section of those in society who don’t have criminal records.
Can I make the suggestion that you go see firsthand?
Howabout a few visits to a local range? and, if your state is one of the many that allows it, take the training for a concealed carry permit ?
- entirely up to you whether you ever buy a gun or carry, but i think you’ll be pleasently surprised by the people you meet along the way
KeithOne of many “People of the Gun”
Posted by alpacca45 on Sep 28, 2007 at 9:21 AM According to The Brady Campaign, in 1998, there were 30,708 deaths in the United States from guns. That includes homicide, accidents, and suicide.
It’s a commonly held statistic that there are somewhere over 200 million privately-owned firearms in the United States.
Calculating that out as a percentage, this means that only about 0.015354% of guns are used in crime. That is, of course, assuming that every crime is committed with a new gun.
Yet the left continually bleats on about how the way to eradicate gun violence is to disarm people like me: law-abiding, upstanding citizens who’ve never pulled a trigger with ill intent.
Never mind the fact that gun-related deaths have been trending downward since the 1970’s, while at the same time the rates of gun ownership have gone up.
Oh, and Laura, don’t expect your call out to women to speak up for gun control to work. The rate of gun ownership among women has recently been increasing as women decide to take responsibility for their own safety, rather than using 911 to summon a man with a gun. The number of female competitive shooters has also been going upwards lately, as well.
I’d happily sit here and continue to poke holes in your assertions, but it’s a beautiful day out, and I’ve got a pistol match to attend.
Cheerio,
Captain Awesome
Posted by captain_awesome on Sep 29, 2007 at 2:28 PM Scholars engaged in serious criminological research into “gun control” have found themselves forced, often very reluctantly, into four largely negative propositions. First, there is no persuasive evidence that gun ownership causes ordinary, responsible, law abiding adults to murder or engage in any other criminal behavior—though guns can facilitate crime by those who were independently inclined toward it.
Second, the value of firearms in defending victims has been greatly underestimated.
Third, gun controls are innately very difficult to enforce.
The difficulty of enforcement crucially undercuts the violence-reductive potential of gun laws. Unfortunately, an almost perfect inverse correlation exists between those who are affected by gun laws, particularly bans, and those whom enforcement should affect. Those easiest to disarm are the responsible and law abiding citizens whose guns represent no meaningful social problem. Irresponsible and criminal owners, whose gun possession creates or exacerbates so many social ills, are the ones most difficult to disarm. A leading English analyst’s pessimistic view has been summarized as follows: “[I]n any society the number of guns always suffices to arm the few who want to obtain and use them illegally ....”
Therefore, the fourth conclusion criminological research and analysis forces on scholars is that while controls carefully targeted only at the criminal and irresponsible have a place in crime-reduction strategy, the capacity of any type of gun law to reduce dangerous behavior can never be more than marginal.- GUNS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE OR PANDEMIC OF PROPAGANDA?
Don B. Kates, Henry E. Schaffer, Ph.D., John K. Lattimer, M.D., George B. Murray, M.D., and Edwin H. Cassem, M.D., 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 (1994)
Posted by jdege on Sep 29, 2007 at 4:15 PM Laura S. Washington teaches journalism. That may help to explain the poor state of the news business. This piece includes most everything that’s wrong with modern journalism. The vilification of white males (especially non-urban), leftist hate speech, marginalizing or ignoring the function of centrist and right leaning rights groups, exalting left-wing extremist and organizations and demonstrating little or no knowledge of the subject matter. This piece is so riddle with misinformation and misrepresentations, colanders have less holes.
It hard to imagine how a reader without firsthand knowledge of this subject wouldn’t come away less informed and more ignorant after reading this piece.
The fact that Ms. Washington may be teaching other her brand of propaganda and trying to pass it off as journalism makes my blood run cold! I’m sure Joseph Goebbels would have been happy to know there would be people like Ms. Washington carrying on his work.
Posted by Lee Metford on Sep 30, 2007 at 1:46 AM I love how anti-gunners mention the Second Amendment in passing, as though it were an optional amendment of the Bill of Rights. And I love how liberals talk about white men as if they didn’t count. I can’t wait until we’re a minority, hopefully by then it’ll still be in style; but probably not because it doesn’t have anything to do with population proportions and everything to do with hate. I just posted on my favorite gun nut board for our resident non white non males to drop you a line just to let you know they’re out there.
I’m not going to bother tossing any arguments out there as to why the evidence is irrefutable that the Second Amendment had everything to do with personal rights because you’ve heard it all before and it’s irrelevant to you because the Constitution doesn’t mean anything to you unless it serves your purposes. I’m one of the few pro-gun folks who might’ve been tempted to come to some kind of compromise, but you know why we don’t compromise? Because the anti-gun lobby isn’t interested in compromise, their idea of “sensible” gun laws ultimately is the eradication of personal gun ownership. We only have so many rights and you will keep chipping away until there is nothing left and there are plenty of public servants who’ve let the notion slip past their lips; we know you want us to turn everything in and thus we aren’t giving any ground.
Take the microstamping bill on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk. This bill is an anti-handgun bill plain and simple. Once it is law, who in their right mind is going to want to own a handgun in California aside from crooks? You go to the range, you burn off a couple of boxes of ammo, you lose ONE shell casing with your personalized stamp on it, Joe the thug comes along picks up your casing and drops it at the scene of his next homicide; voila the police are knocking on your door. Meanwhile the thugs are using revolvers that don’t drop casings. Brilliant eh?
Posted by jdmac44 on Oct 1, 2007 at 4:20 AM oh yeah and even if you don’t lose a casing, what are you going to do with the ones you retrieve? Are you going to build a smelter at home to melt them down whenever you come home from the range? So long as they exist intact with that stamp they are a danger to your good name and freedom.
Posted by jdmac44 on Oct 1, 2007 at 4:24 AM Prohibition doesn’t work, won’t ever work, can’t work. It doesn’t matter if it’s forbidden literature, drugs, or arms, it’s the forbiddance itself that is unrealistic. There are illegal drugs and firearms in Saudi Arabia and Singapore, for example, despite the finality of the remedies each state uses to deter such. You have to deal with the *real* criminal elements to get them, but there you go, that’s part of the point.
I do favor having to qualify for gun ownership, no differently from having to qualify to drive a car, fly a plane, dive scuba, etc. That takes time, and leaves a paper trail. I mean more than a background check, but a true demonstration of safe skills. Cho Seung Hui did have a background check (i.e. he met the legal requirements, such as they were). It can be argued that his check wasn’t thorough enough, but privacy laws will have made it quite difficult to access his status as a mental patient. Besides, up to the point of his rampage, no one had a perspective on him that would have truly predicted the killings. Up to then, he was just another sullen, weird kid, like some others of us who have been similarly tagged. It may have to be admitted that terrible events like VA Tech are impossible to truly, 100% prevent (though they can be studied and interdictions set up to inhibit future similar attacks). In any case, 1000s of killings in a year aren’t the work of people getting psych services, sullen and weird or whatever.
(Having said that, what did Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold of Columbine HS, Jeff Weise of Red Lake HS, and Cho Seung Hui of VA Tech have in common? Years of pent-up anger brought on by ridicule, abuse, being chronically underestimated, ignored. All had lost any belief in their own worth. They were alienated so entirely as to see all other people as their tormenters, and all were determined to make their tormenters pay, really didn’t give a fuck who they got in their sites. Perhaps this is instructive for interpreting the high rates of inner city crime. We dehumanize each other at our collective peril.)
Obviously criminals will evade qualification requirements, but there’s where law enforcement’s role comes in. They already do what they can to interdict illegal arms traffic, and what they need from the lawmakers is a broader mandate and increased human and material resources. What they need from the courts are conviction rates and sentences for violent crime that leave no doubt as to the severity of the risks they take (over and above the risk that their intended victim might put a round through their sternum or skull). At the moment, with incarceration resources stretched to beyond the limit, the risks of crime may not seem too high.
(Ending the entirely fruitless drug war would free up a lot of these resources. Prohibition fails, every time, and prevents other possible successes by its inherent, flagrant waste.)
When it comes to self-defense, I’d hope my Remi 870 wouldn’t have to do the talking for me (nothing like the sound of a pump-action to get one’s attention!), but if it gets down to it I’m not going to quibble about what my civil right supposedly is. I have the right to guard my life and the lives of my loved ones whether the damn legislators or litigators acknowledge it or don’t. Hell, even an animal understands that.
Posted by Kuya on Oct 1, 2007 at 5:28 AM Waypast and Raven -
Good take on the Second Amendment.
The Bill of Rights were the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Liberal philosophy sprang from the Enlightenment, which largely originated in Great Britain and revolutionary France. The Bill of Rights was the distillation of centuries of philosophical development, and is at the foundation of our stable and flourishing Republic.
The Rights enshrined in the Constitution belong to the people; the government did not grant these Rights to us, we own them. The ability to defend our Rights is fundamental to the preservation of all our Rights; speech, press, worship. This makes the Second Amendment critical to the continuation of our Republic, and that is why the Collectivists want to destroy the Second Amendment.
The Bill of Rights and particularly the Second Amendment are indisputably “liberal” in the original meaning of the word at the time of the founding of the Republic.
In the early years of the Twentieth Century, a new Collectivist philosophy, originating in Europe in the 1800s, arose in the United States. Known first as “Communism”, it attracted few followers among the American electorate, who had extensive reports on the horrific death and destruction that accompanied the imposition of Communism in Russia.
Communism in the United States did not not thrive, but neither did it go away. Communists changed their name to “Socialists”, but Socialism also failed to attract many followers.
One thing you can say for the Collectivists, they are persistent. When Communism and Socialism were repudiated by the American people, they began to call themselves, fraudulently, “Progressives”. The Progressive movement in the United States had developed in the early Twentieth Century, and Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was its most notable proponent. When the Collectivists failed to etablish themselves under the Communist and Socialist labels, the stole the Progressive title. Henry Wallace, businessman/mystic/Communist, ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. He lost.
Shortly thereafter the Collectivists began calling themselves “Liberals”. If the expropriation of the Progressive label was fraudulent, the expropriation of the Liberal label was bizarre. Collectivists are the polar opposite of the values originally enshrined in the liberalism of the founding of the Republic.
Now I note that some Collectivists (Hillary, most notably) are again calling themselves Progressives. I suppose they are running out of labels with which to mislead people.
Controlling and confiscating guns is a priority among Collectivists, but it is profoundly illiberal and a direct violation of the peoples’ Rights.
Posted by scorp on Oct 1, 2007 at 2:47 PM Since the vast majority of ‘gun violence’ victims are African American
Maybe we should pass laws restricting gun ownership by blacks.
They won’t object-right? it’s what they want, so the legislation should be easy to pass- no blacks would complain or protest would they? No blacks will be allowed any firearm at all-period.
That way us rural/suburban white guys can live our lives and keep and shoot our guns and not be worried about the infringement of our God given rights, and the violence will decrease in the city. The original gun control laws were designed just for this, maybe they had the right idea. Oh and don’t worry-all you soon to be disarmed African Americans the police-the federal government and we (the white guys) will protect you.
Posted by cyberella2002 on Oct 1, 2007 at 7:06 PM Ms. Washington obviously has a problem with the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights contained therein. It is within the Bill of Rights that we find the 2nd Amendment with which she has a special interest in seeing removed.
It was interesting that she did not see, in her own tirade on gun ownership and the members of the Responsible Firearms Community (RFC) that she was also attacking the 1st Amendment, for she seems to have a problem with anyone who disagrees with her.One would think that a Senior Editor would write more from her mind rather than her emotions. She has the right to her opinions and that right was guaranteed to her by the same people that wrote all the other amendments.
She should be well aware that the USA has more gun Laws than any country in the world, the problem is 99% of them are ignored by Law enforcement until too late and by criminals 100% of the time.
Even the tiniest bit of research would reveal to her that the places with the most gun laws also have the most gun crime Places like Washington DC which should be one of the safest places in the USA is actually one of the most dangerous. Most of your major cities enact their own gun laws which restrict the State Gun laws even further. Areas that have the highest legal ownership of firearms actually have the lowest crime rates.It is unfortunate that self righteous people like Laura Washington believe that she and people like her have the Rights guaranteed her in the Constitution but no one else has the right to disagree with her.
I am a retired Police Officer in Canada who had to watch as the Liberal Government of the day passed the Current Firearms Act.
We are more at risk in our own homes here in Canada as the Current legislation makes the defensive use of a firearm impossible for the general public. Your doors can be kicked in and you can be beaten and robbed as your firearm is locked up complete with a trigger lock in one area and the ammunition must also be securely locked in another location.
Now dosen’t that just make you feel warm and fuzzy all over?The increase in Home invasions and street gang warfare followed the enactment of new gun laws that made criminals safer. Of course this is not a pattern that is unfamiliar to those in the USA which saw Federal Laws enacted there which turned schools that received any federal money into Gun Free Zones. This was immediately followed by a rash of school shootings as the killers knew they could come to the school and rack up the body count with the full knowledge that even when the police arrived they would hang around outside the school waiting for the shooting to stop. Then they would wait an appropriate amount of time before beginning to search for the shooter(s). While this was going on students were bleeding out in hallways and classrooms.
At least, now after facing much criticism from everyone, they have adopted new strategies for getting into the school quicker while the school lockes down in an effort to save lives.
The sad part is that The media keeps the event in the forefront of the news for so long it begins to influence other kids that begin to think “I could have killed more” Annual memorials keep the killers name in the news and they, even though they may have committed suicide have achieved a form of immortality because everyone will always remember them. In the mean time others with similar thoughts are biding their time while society ignores all the blatent warning signs, until they feel it is their turn for immortality.
One person in any of these areas who was the lawful holder of a Conceal Carry permit could have stopped the event shortly after it began. The unfortunate thing is that rather than concentrating on the fact that this person , most likely a teacher , would then become the target of people like Laura Washington and people like her.
Posted by xmountie on Oct 2, 2007 at 1:43 AM Ms. Washington works for the Chicago Sun Times, teaches at DePaul University in Chicago and more than likely resides in Chicago or a neighboring suburb ... all factors to be considered when reading her commentary. I would wager that she has rarely, if ever, travelled to see or spend time with any of those “white men from suburban and rural areas” that she so despises. Her circle of friends and acquaintances is probably composed mostly of like-minded liberal and progressive academia.
Sadly, Ms. Washington has taken her place among those who would lead the “African-American” (another label for another discussion) community ... the likes of Jackson, Sharpton and Pflegar who continue to preach victimhood to their misguided followers. “It’s everyone else’s fault but your own. Look to the government for salvation! The nanny state and its many laws will save you! The evil, repressive white man and his guns are the cause of all your plagues!” Unfortunately, their followers cannot see the sad and hopeless future that ideology portends for them. When they should be preaching personal responsibility they fail miserably.
I found the title of her commentary interesting as well “Let’s Pry Those Cold Dead Hands.” I’m sure she was just playing on Charlton Heston’s famous speech but I think she fails to realize that is exactly what would have to happen to bring her utopian dream to fruition. I’m sure she would want it done by proxy too since I don’t think she would be the one taking up arms to accomplish her goals. No, it’s quite clear that Ms. Washington is out of touch with “the gun culture” and “People of the Gun.” She fails to understand our motivation and our resolve.
For the record, I don’t get a phone call every morning at 0600 from “Gun Lobby” Headquarters with my marching orders for the day. I’m not white. My wife (who is not a white male) also owns and shoots several firearms. We have bills to pay, don’t live extravagantly but we still meet all our obligations. All our children shoot and own firearms as well (and have done so since age 8). I barely tolerate the NRA (they compromise too much) and prefer Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership (JPFO).
“People of the Gun” just want to be left alone and are willing to bear the consequences of their (our) choices without blaming others or asking the government for help. Perhaps Ms. Washington should tell all women and “African American” churches the same ... Perhaps Ms. Washington should tell young “African-American” men.
Posted by Wild Deuce on Oct 2, 2007 at 3:13 PM After reading most of the above comments I am beginnig to understand why USA is always at war with remote countries which never attacked them, it just has violence at the root of its culture.
What you so despise as “utopic” is an attempt at trying to live in peace as human beings. While you continue to manufacture and distribute weapons as a natural part of man’s life, many of us think it’s the wrong way to develop a humane culture. If on top of that we hear you preaching christianity and democracy and calling other cultures as inferior, the option is hypocrisy or blidness. If you blame Afro-americans for gun-toting you should review your policies towards a group of people who descend from the slaves you bought, illtreated and used to develop your empire.
Posted by Maria on Oct 4, 2007 at 1:26 AM You know, I’ve been trying hard to find a polite way to respond to Maria’s last.
But there isn’t one.
Seems that she thinks that the problem is that we’re violent, knuckle-dragging, neanderthals, who have no place in a civilized society.
She calls us bigots and hypocrites, while simultaneously calling us violent, racist, and inhumane.
She clearly demonstrates a large part of the problem - it’s not so much guns that she hates, as gun owners. She knows zilch about us, but she feels free to accuse of every vile thing she can imagine, based on no more than her own preconceptions and prejudices.
It’s bigotry in every sense of the word.
Posted by jdege on Oct 4, 2007 at 5:12 PM http://www.jpfo.org/ragingagainstselfdefense.htm
The Common Thread: RageIn my experience, the common thread in anti-gun people is rage. Either anti-gun people harbor more rage than others, or they’re less able to cope with it appropriately. Because they can’t handle their own feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have no desire to harm anyone. So why do anti-gun people have so much rage and why are they unable to deal with it in appropriate ways? ...
Identity as Victim
If I were to summarize this article in three sentences, they would be:
(1) People who identify themselves as “victims” harbor excessive amounts of rage at other people, whom they perceive as “not victims.”
(2) In order psychologically to deal with this rage, these “victims” utilize defense mechanisms that enable them to harm others in socially acceptable ways, without accepting responsibility or suffering guilt, and without having to give up their status as “victims.”
(3) Gun owners are frequently the targets of professional victims because gun owners are willing and able to prevent their own victimization.
Posted by jdege on Oct 4, 2007 at 5:15 PM Maria,
I do not despise all attempts at human beings living in peace. I only despise Ms. Washington’s method of obtaining that peace. Her view fails to take into account the true human condition. Man is basically sinful and in need of redemption. Without delving deeper into a religious discussion and going off topic, I will say that the solution is not found in government or within the individual. It is our very nature that is corrupt and after all, government is a human institution operated by humans. Government should serve the individual not the other way around. Ms. Washington would desire to make every person dependent on the government for everything (cradle to grave) ... including personal safety.
I never called any other culture inferior and I never blamed “African Americans” for gun toting. I have never bought, sold or “ill treated” any slaves. I’m not even white. I don’t have an “empire” either. On the other hand, Ms. Washington clearly feels that “white men from suburban and rural areas” are to blame for the ills that plague the “African American” community.
You said that we should “review (our) policies towards a group of people (African Americans?)” What specific policies are you talking about?
Please remember that human interaction breaks down into two categories ... persuasion or force. This principal was very eloquently stated in the following short essay :(http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-gun-is-civilization.html) by a man named Marko. I suggest you read it. This principal applies to interactions between the individual and government as well. If you will take pause and think about what I have said, you might begin to understand that it’s not “violence” that is at the root of our culture but rather, it’s Freedom that you will find there.
Posted by Wild Deuce on Oct 4, 2007 at 5:17 PM It’s a quaint bit of sophistry to refer to “gun owners” as if they all are, by definition, upstanding law-abiding citizens, and their “criminal” counter-parts are all, again, by definition, evil cold-blooded sociopaths, when in fact all of them, the citizens and the sociopaths, are gun “owners”. Ownership doesn’t necessarily confer respectability upon the owner, as any criminal gun owner’s crimes have shown. Making more guns more easily available simply compounds the problem. Restricting the ownership of guns will also restrict the commission of gun-related crimes. But then, restricting the ownership of anything in this country is pretty much a “capital” offense.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 5, 2007 at 9:53 PM A bit-o-substitution from what Major Major sez:
It’s a quaint bit of sophistry to refer to “gasoline purchasers” as if they all are, by definition, upstanding law-abiding citizens, and their “arsonist” counter-parts are all, again, by definition, evil cold-blooded sociopaths, when in fact all of them, the citizens and the sociopaths, are gasoline “owners”. Ownership doesn’t necessarily confer respectability upon the owner, as any arsonist owner’s crimes have shown. Making more fuel more easily available simply compounds the problem. Restricting the ownership of gasoline will also restrict the commission of gas-related arson. But then, restricting the ownership of anything in this country is pretty much a “capital” offense.
See how that works? :-) Same diff, eh, just a different “tool” ...
—MuzzleBlast
Posted by muzzleblast on Oct 5, 2007 at 11:28 PM Fifty years ago, the medical profession used to think that long distance running was bad for you, because it resulted in an enlarged heart and an abnormally low pulse rate - symptoms that were linked to heart disease in sedentary people.
Today, we understand that an enlarged heart and slow pulse is not a symptom of heart disease in someone who engages in high levels of aerobic activity. We’ve learned that the presence of an enlarged heart is shared by two distinct populations who have very little in common.
In other words, we are no longer so ignorant as to believe that the presence of an enlarged heart in and of itself has any predictive value as to general health.
Now as to the predictive value of gun ownership as to tendencies towards crime or violence, you still are ignorant enough to believe that such exists.
It does not.
There truly are two distinct populations of gun owners. One of whom owns guns legally, and the other of which is marked by a predilection for violence and crime.
It shows up in the studies, when the studies are designed so as to distinguish between the nature of the gun ownership. Unfortunately, the field is full of studies that are designed by people who are seeking to justify predetermined conclusions, and intentionally avoid tracking such fundamental variables as whether the gun was legally owned or not.
But in those studies that do track that fundamental variable, the differences are strikingly clear.
One you can read online is at:
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accn no=ED416294
“Gun ownership and delinquency
“Adolescent ownership and use of firearms is a growing concern, and results from the Rochester study suggest that the concern is well founded.
“By the ninth and tenth grades, more boys owned illegal guns (7 percent) than own legal guns (3 percent). Of the boys who own illegal guns, about half of the whites and African-Americans and nearly 90 percent of the Hispanics carry them on a regular basis.
“Figure 13 shows a very strong relationship between owning illegal guns and drug use. Seventy-four percent of the illegal gunowners commit street crime. 24 percent commit gun crimes, and 41 percent use drugs. Boys who own legal firearms, however, have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns.
“The socialization into gun ownership is also vastly different for legal and illegal gunowners. Those who own legal guns have fathers who own guns for sport and hunting. On the other hand, those who own illegal guns have friends who own illegal guns and are far more likely to be gang members. For legal gunowners, socialization appears to take place in the family; for illegal gunowners, it appears to take place ‘on the street’”
Posted by jdege on Oct 5, 2007 at 11:41 PM Major Major sez:
“It’s a quaint bit of sophistry to refer to “gun owners” as if they all are, by definition, upstanding law-abiding citizens, and their “criminal” counter-parts are all, again, by definition, evil cold-blooded sociopaths, “
Talk about sophistry, whoo boy! You sure dumped a steaming noxious pile there.
Most criminals are not in fact gun owners. What most of them are is in possession of stolen property. Stealing something does not make it yours. Especially if it’s durable and has a serial number that can be traced. When we say “gun owners” we are talking about people who have taken the trouble, and have the requisite history, to jump through the legal hoops required to buy a handgun. They are real “gun owners” in that the gun is registered to them and they payed for it.. So trying to equate legal gun owners with criminal sociopaths who either steal their weapon or buy it from a fence is deceitful, dishonest, and despicable.
I know you have to be an idiot to be a liberal but why is this so hard to understand? Criminals do not get their guns through legal channels. Making guns harder to get only means it its harder for law abiding citizens to own the best means available to protect themselves from, wait for it, ......criminals!! You are also disregarding the demonstrated deterrent effect armed citizens have on criminals. You are also ignoring the millions of incidents where lawful citizens use legally owned guns to defend themselves against, yes again,...criminals.
You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Even if you could round up all 200 million guns in this country and shut down all manufacturers of guns criminals will still have guns. Criminals do not obey gun laws. Guns will still be made somewhere in the world and smuggled in here. Guns will also be manufactured here in illegal workshops or factories. If you doubt this you need only look at the skyrocketing gun crime in the UK.
The real solution is arm as many law abiding people as we can. Give them the right to carry and use those guns when threatened by the lawless. We also need to put criminals away for a very long time if they use a gun in a crime.
Posted by wscott52 on Oct 5, 2007 at 11:54 PM Gun owners, and I refer to the members of the Responsible Firearms Community (RFC) here, Major Major not the gang bangers and drug gang members, happen to be the most law abiding segment of society. They even outshine most police Departments. The reason for this is they have invested a lot of money, time and effort in obtaining their firearms, becoming proficient with them and making sure they meet all the qualifications required by the State to obtain CCW permits or simply to either hunt or punch holes in paper at the local firing range.
They are a far cry from those who obtain their firearms illegally and use them for criminal purpose. 99% of them obtained their training from movies or television which is why so many innocent bystanders get hurt.I would also like to thank Muzzleblast for brining up the gasoline and cars analogy. I have responded similarly to gun grabbers with this same. My sister lost her boyfriend when the jeep he and four friends were in were run over the side of a cliff over a hundred feed to a rocky beach below by a drunk driver. She, only two years later was in a popular nightclub in Montreal when three young men were denied access to the club because they were drunk and disorderly. They left only to return a short time later with some gasoline in glass bottles which they threw into the stairwell leading to the club on the second story. 37 people died that night including my sister and another girl she grew up with. It was like losing two sisters given they were always staying over at each others houses on the weekends. About 40 others were seriously burned and still carry the scars today, yet their is no annual cry fest for them like the one held for the 14 victims of the shootings at L’Ecole Polythenique in Montreal.
There were no cries to ban gasoline or at least the sale of it in portable containers.
The reason for this is it would have also impacted the gun grabbers and others like them!
Posted by xmountie on Oct 6, 2007 at 12:35 AM Miss Washington’s article and my comments arise all kinds of “bad press”. No wonder, we both are women and as everybody knows, we are good only for giving birth, looking after children, old or sick people and mending and patching all the male deeds. We can be trusted to work hard in practically every profession but we are never consulted at the time of taking “big decissions which compromise other people’s lives”. That’s strictly the males’ privilege.Try to count how many women you know are willing to send their sons to a war, are jubilant to have a gun, center their lives on powerful cars, or machines of any kind, are not nature-caring, and you will have nine fingers too many.
I don’t expect politeness from you, jdge, thank you. I am not basing my comments on prejudice, I simply read papers, see the movies you produce, and I’m still trying to digest “you’re either with us or against us”. There are more than two sides to every issue as any intelligent person should know and producing and using weapons is not at the top of my list. Every life counts and all the progress in technology is worthless if it’s not used for the well-being of others.
Posted by Maria on Oct 6, 2007 at 3:55 AM In response to Maria’s last rant, all I can do is refer to Dr. Sarah Thompson’s paper, and the how important it is to some people to maintain their self-image as victims.
Posted by jdege on Oct 6, 2007 at 4:19 AM To say that law-abiding citizens occasionally “outshine the police” is hardly a compliment, even in that moral den of iniquity which calls itself the Canadian Federation. Comparing citizens of the United States to Canadian citizens is an insult to the civil sensibilities of American moral values.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 6, 2007 at 12:57 PM You bozos have yet to invade another country for no other reason than to acquire unrestrained access to its social and natural resources. Well, I guess that confiscating the land and resources of its native inhabitants counts for something, but even there you followed the American model, even though you failed to follow through with the requisite genocidal extermination. If only you had more available firepower…
Posted by Major Major on Oct 6, 2007 at 1:10 PM Where did the feminist rant come from Maria? Has anyone advocating legal gun ownership said anything about keeping women subjugated? My wife is far from “bare foot, pregnant, and in the kitchen”. She has a Masters degree in social work and a career as a probation officer and social worker. She owns a gun. Her two daughters love to shoot. Her sister shoots. We know several other women friends who shoot. None of them are lacking in femininity.
Your tired “if one life is saved” mantra is based on faulty logic. It overlooks the millions, literally, of lives that would be put at risk and possibly lost if guns were banned. Guns save far more lives than they take. As for “every life counts” I’ll agree to a point but here’s another concept repulsive to liberals: some lives count more than others. If I awake to find some crackhead looting my house at 4 in the morning, his life counts far less to me than mine and my familys. In fact said crackhead is in mortal danger unless he conducts himself very carefully after being discovered.
Maria, stop with the knee jerk liberal feminist reactions and educate yourseld about the realitys of legal gun ownership. You have been lied to and the lies you believe are dangerous.
Posted by wscott52 on Oct 6, 2007 at 1:10 PM I am not sure where the Major is going with his comments. The statement from which he took three words does not contain the word occassionaly. I said “MOST” which is vastly different. These figures compare Citizens with CCW permits charged or convicted of a crime in various states,with police departments, State and Municipal, who have had officers charged and convicted of crimes.
I am unsure whether he was referring to me in his next post referring to “bozos” having yet to invade another country for no other reason…
If he was, I don’t see relevance.. That is the purview of our southern neighbors, who , as I recall tried to take this country many years ago but were chased back beyond Washing DC. We could not be bothered going any further so we burnt the Whitehouse and went back home.
Posted by xmountie on Oct 6, 2007 at 1:50 PM I was being sarcastic, Dudley. The wingnuts on this thread would have us believe that all gun owners can be conveniently classified into law-abiding citizens and the criminals who prey upon them. The reality is more complicated than their Manichean categorization: parents who kill themselves or their children or their spouses to prevent spousal custody of the children, lovers’ disputes, workers who kill their supervisors or their coworkers to avenge their unemployment or humiliation on the job, children who kill their childhood antagonists, or accidentally kill themselves (what’s the point of locking up your pistols when the purpose, to begin with, is to defend your family from the violence of your neighbors), all of them fatalities or injuries which could easily have been avoided or mitigated with more comprehensive restrictions on the ownership of firearms.
And the “relevance” is as obvious as your inability to perceive it: a nation of citizens armed to its teeth, aside from the dismal social significance of such a spectacle, is much more inclined to support the martial crimes of its government, such as the unjustified invasion and occupation of a nation which never threatened us.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 7, 2007 at 5:47 AM Uh, I don’t think you can insult a Canadian by calling him ‘Dudley’- Maybe ‘Hoser’ or something like that.
Anyway- can’t your argument (major) be made for any number of machines and objects that most people use every day, cars-baseball bats-hammers- steak knives (I heard some guy in New York City was killed with a steak knife- but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you)
My handgun is the best method of protecting my family and me in the event of a potentially deadly imminent physical attack. (Sometimes -they don’t just want your money)
The overwhelmingly vast majority of gun owners use their firearms for target practice-hunting and in the gravest extreme self defense.
Are you one of those ‘take fire away from men because they might burn themselves’ types?
I guess what it really all comes down to though is this HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO TAKE MY MANY, MANY GUNS AWAY FROM ME-ALL MY FAMILY-ALL MY FRIENDS AND COWORKERS-
I mean—-we are not going to just turn them over!
Personally- I don’t think you or anyone else for that matter-is up to it.
Oh—and you’re a wingnut-nyahh nyahh-hoser.
Posted by cyberella2002 on Oct 7, 2007 at 6:15 PM “The reality is more complicated than their Manichean categorization: parents who kill themselves or their children or their spouses to prevent spousal custody of the children, lovers’ disputes, workers who kill their supervisors or their coworkers to avenge their unemployment or humiliation on the job, children who kill their childhood antagonists, or accidentally kill themselves (what’s the point of locking up your pistols when the purpose, to begin with, is to defend your family from the violence of your neighbors), all of them fatalities or injuries which could easily have been avoided or mitigated with more comprehensive restrictions on the ownership of firearms.”
Two points, taking the second first.
2. “could easily have been avoided or mitigated with more comprehensive restrictions on the ownership of firearms.”
That, I’m afraid, is simply false. Restrictions on the ownership of firearms have never resulted in a reduction in violence or crime. So your premise is false.
But even if your premise were true, what you are proposing is a violation of the fundamental principle of a free society.
1. “parents who kill themselves or their children or their spouses to prevent spousal custody of the children, lovers’ disputes, workers who kill their supervisors or their coworkers to avenge their unemployment or humiliation on the job”
And all of which has what, exactly, to do with my gun? Or the gun that a nurse working third shift at an inner city hospital carries while walking out to her car?
Think about what you are proposing. My gun, or her gun, you will take away, not because of what I’ve done, or what she’s done, or even because there’s some indication in my or hers past behavior that indicates that she or I might be likely to do, but because of what other people have done.
It’s simply wrong. It’s a violation of everything that makes a society good and decent and free.
There is simply no legitimate justification for restricting the behavior of one individual because of fears about what someone else might do.
Posted by jdege on Oct 7, 2007 at 11:24 PM “Maria, stop with the knee jerk liberal feminist reactions and educate yourseld about the realitys of legal gun ownership. You have been lied to and the lies you believe are dangerous. “
wscott52, thank you for your kind advice, but my idea of education doesn’t include gun ownership, as it doesn’t include living in fear.
I agree fully with major major’s last paragraph of his comment.
Posted by Maria on Oct 8, 2007 at 3:57 AM My dear maria, your idea of education is living in neverland and electing someone to hire someone with a badge and a gun to force it on your neighbors because you are too cowardly and despicable to do it yourself.
I sincerely hope that your neverland is invaded and you get exactly what you deserve, i.e., what you are wishing on others, even if you are too stupid to realize it.
If I am told to turn my guns in, and I see you, your never land will end as will the never land of many “Liberal” freaks.
http://www.willowtown.com/reality/blacksburg.htm
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 8, 2007 at 11:22 AM “wscott52, thank you for your kind advice, but my idea of education doesn’t include gun ownership, as it doesn’t include living in fear”
No? You have resigned yourself to living like a victim? Here’s a newsflash for you: bad things happen to good people. There are people roaming the streets who have no regard for the rule of law or even civilization. More specifically, they have no regard for your life or health if they decide something of yours should be theirs. They will kill or maim you for laughs even after you have meekly submitted and offered them everything of yours. The courts have ruled the police have no duty to protect the populace from crime. The job of the police is to protect the herd by removing offenders, after the fact, from the general populace. So, do you live in some fantasy land where you believe no evil can come to you? Have you decided to willingly sacrifice your property, well being, or life to benefit the herd? I’m sorry for you if you have. I have not. I will be responisble for my own safety. As an added benefit to you if evil comes to me there is a chance I will destroy it and remove the possibiity it will come to you. A gun is a tool neither good nor evil. It can be used for good or evil. Far more guns are used to protect the good than to commit crime. If you choose to be a victim that is your choice. All I ask from you is you respect my right to protect myself and my family.
Posted by wscott52 on Oct 8, 2007 at 1:51 PM “wscott52, thank you for your kind advice, but my idea of education doesn’t include gun ownership, as it doesn’t include living in fear.”
So, what you’re saying is that Olympic competitors who shoot Free Pistol live in fear?That Jerry Miculek, who is one of the fastest and most accurate pistol competitors alive lives in fear?
That David Tubb, who designed and built the world’s most accurate competitive rifle lives in fear?
Matt Burkett, one of the top Multigun and IPSC competitors lives his life in fear?
All of the nerdy engineers at places like Sierra all live in fear?
What’s really funny is applying that mindset to other things:
Do you have a fire extinguisher in your house?
Why, you obviously live in fear of fire.
Do you wear your seatbelt?
Why, you must have an irrational fear of auto accidents.
I could go on, but I’m afraid I’d get far too gleeful.
Maria, your statement reveals everything we need to know about your stance. You’ve already decided that all gun owners are a bunch of fearful psychotics, and there’s nothing that can be said or done to change your mind on the subject, irrespective of the facts.
Nope, you’ve simply decided to dismiss the pro-rights stance out of hand and continue on your way without a second thought. That’s terribly close-minded, I think.
Oh, and would someone please alert Laura that her “People of the Gun” trope has been satirically co-opted by the very people she attempted to insult with it.http://www.peopleofthegun.com/
Ironilicious!:-)
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 8, 2007 at 3:13 PM “Maria, your statement reveals everything we need to know about your stance. You’ve already decided that all gun owners are a bunch of fearful psychotics, and there’s nothing that can be said or done to change your mind on the subject, irrespective of the facts.”
Yep. Like I said, it’s not fear of guns, it’s prejudice against gun owners.
Simple bigotry.
Posted by jdege on Oct 8, 2007 at 3:56 PM My views,which seem to arise all kinds of adjectives towards my self (stupid, victim, prejudiced, bigot, neverland inhabitant, liberal freak, etc.) are perhaps the result of having been raised and having raised my children with no one in the family ever having had a gun. Should I apologize for that?
Maybe I have served some purpose, which has got all of you together. Be happy!
Posted by Maria on Oct 9, 2007 at 4:22 AM The thing is, unless they’re hobbyists, people arm themselves for reasons that are for them more immediate, more directly at issue, than lofty and admirable ideals such as neighborliness, assertive peacefulness, and overcoming xenophobic out-grouping. I am not being sarcastic with the citing of the ideals, either, I think in fact that they’re about the only things that counterflow against more primitive, irrational trends in the human mind.
But in a given terrain, urban or out in the sticks or wherever, it’s only sensible to “arm” oneself with knowledge and the determination to prevail against the dangers and risks within that terrain. And that may also include arming oneself literally.
So I wouldn’t consider for a second going into the wilderness unarmed, any more than I would consider going out there without the other tools I’d need to help me live and cope with emergencies (water purifying tablets, meds kit, proper footwear, etc). It’s because my life is worth living, and therefore it’s worth protecting and preserving. There are terrains at least as dangerous as the wilderness in a wide variety of human communities, unfortunately. I didn’t create that reality, it’s just there. Part of the terrain.
I don’t want to shoot anybody, ever. I’ll be thankful if I can live out my life never having to see a human being facing the barrel of my weapon. But if an intruder comes into my house unbidden (and yes, these kinds of things do happen… how can it be said that they don’t?) then he is a direct threat to myself and my loved ones. I will not have gone hunting for him, he will have come in meaning harm to us, and to presume anything else is to court victimhood myself.
Fortunately I know what I’m doing, so I won’t be blowing off my own foot or putting a round through the neighbor’s window.
If I could believe for an instant that all the firearms everywhere could be rounded up, then maybe I’d have another view of it (and maybe if I hadn’t grown up in a place where crime had such a high profile), but I’m afraid I think of that as a distant wish and not much else.
And for the record, I’m disgusted with my government’s militarism in Iraq, my being a gun owner notwithstanding. Now if that country had been a for-real clear and present danger to the US, I’d think differently. Or if it had attacked, or had harbored attackers.
Self-defense is moral. Counterattack can be. I push the good ideals whenever I can, but some people have evil intent. They just do.
Posted by Kuya on Oct 9, 2007 at 8:07 AM Maria, should you apologize for that?
We all of us start out ignorant. It isn’t necessarily a permanent condition.
Back in the Carter Administration, the National Institute of Justice funded a study that was intended to be the final nail in the coffin of gun rights - proof once and for all that we needed more gun control for public safety.
The problem is that they hired some honest researchers. All of the authors had demonstrated an anti-gun bias prior to beginning their research, two of the three had written anti-gun opinion pieces.
But when they were done, they found that there was no evidence whatsoever that gun control did anything to reduce crime or violence.
Their report was published in a 1983, under the title “Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America”, ISBN 9780202303062.
It’s a good starting point.
Posted by jdege on Oct 9, 2007 at 12:34 PM Oh, right. Gun lovers are the victims of “simple” bigotry. My liberal heart bleeds for you, bro.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 9, 2007 at 10:48 PM “Should I apologize for that?”
You could start by having an open mind.
“Oh, right. Gun lovers are the victims of “simple” bigotry. My liberal heart bleeds for you, bro.”
Given the broad-based, close-minded and sometimes even downright hateful reactions I’ve received from leftists on the gun issue, yeah, I’d say they’re pretty bigoted against gun owners. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, the percentage of guns that are misused in crime doesn’t even amount to one-tenth of one-percent of all of the privately held guns in this country, yet people on your side of the aisle continually call for the forcible, state-based removal of arms from people like me. I bear you no ill will, I am not a criminal, psychotic, or nut who is putting anyone in danger. All I wish is to be left alone. Yet people like you continually use hate speech in your attempt to cast gun owners as villains.
Perhaps you should step back and take an honest appraisal of your own biases sometime. You might be surprised.
Oh, and before you attempt to cast that particular stone at me, allow me to qualify my statement by pointing out that I used to be anti-gun. Thankfully, those of us who have come to cherish individual human liberty are winning this fight.
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 10, 2007 at 3:19 PM >> Yet people like you continually use hate speech in your attempt to cast gun owners as villains.
>> It’s a quaint bit of sophistry to refer to “gun owners” as if they all are, by definition, upstanding law-abiding citizens, and their “criminal” counter-parts are all, again, by definition, evil cold-blooded sociopaths, when in fact all of them, the citizens and the sociopaths, are gun “owners”.
QED
Posted by jdege on Oct 10, 2007 at 5:16 PM Excellent illustration of the myopia of the anti-rights crowd.
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 10, 2007 at 5:38 PM One-tenth of one percent? No shit, Sherlock. If a hundred million weapons are “privately owned”, then one hundred thousand of them are “misused”, according to your statistic. That’s (at least) a hundred thousand people who are killed or injured, just so you can feed your heroic fantasies of authoritarian retribution. Making handguns illegal will reduce the number of handguns in circulation, and thereby reduce the number of handgun-related crimes. Making education and health care more available to more people will reduce the number of people who are desperate enough to reach for their “privately owned” pistols, and possibly prevent you from the necessity of “defending” yourself.
I can see where that might terrify you.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 10, 2007 at 8:37 PM “just so you can feed your heroic fantasies of authoritarian retribution”
Like I said, you’re a bigot. You attribute malign characteristics to all gun owners, based on nothing more than ignorance and prejudice.
“Making handguns illegal will reduce the number of handguns in circulation,”
Wrong. True, making handguns illegal will reduce the number of handguns owned by ordinary, law-abiding citizens. But their guns are causing no problem. Making handguns illegal will not reduce the number of handguns owned by criminals. There will always be sufficient handguns available to arm those who are willing to violate the law to obtain them. They’re too easy to make,. too easy to smuggle, and they last too long.
Criminals who want guns will always have guns.
“and thereby reduce the number of handgun-related crimes. “
Not only wrong, but fundamentally irrelevant. For sane people, the goal is to reduce violence, not to reduce gun-related violence. If a handgun-ban reduced handgun-related violence, but violence over-all went up, no sane person would call it an improvement.
And making easier victims the most vulnerable among us has never resulted in less crime.
Posted by jdege on Oct 10, 2007 at 9:01 PM Whoops, my bad. The percentage was 0.015354%, or closer to one-fiftieth, which is way smaller than one tenth.
Geeze, you’d think you could have at least double-checked my math before going all schizoid.
Regardless, perhaps you’d care to elaborate on why you think it’s a good idea to punish 40,000,000 law-abiding gun owners because around 30,000 guns are misused. And if you do think it’s a good idea, perhaps you can illuminate us on how you would go about executing such a plan.
Bonus points if you can do it without references to how I’m just The Man out to hold people down.
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
(Who’s never seen a “fantasy of authoritarian retribution” at an Olympic-style pistol match.)
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 10, 2007 at 9:09 PM “I can see where that might terrify you.”
Mmm. Your irrational psychological projection is so sweet and yummy!
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 10, 2007 at 9:18 PM It’s great to see so many more people educated on how evil ‘gun control’ is than a decade or so ago when just mentioning that we might have a right to defend ourselves, against criminals in govt. or on the street, got us branded as Nazis, racists, extremists, etc.
But please continue to educate yourselves on these issues, particularly on how evil “Liberal"ism is, what it really is, what it’s goals are, and why we will eventually be forced, by the Amerikan Communist Insurgency, to use force to overthrow their evil.
And please stop with the crime argument. Even if it could be proven that ‘gun control’ lowers crime levels in rural or urban areas, it would be a moot point. All ‘gun control’ would still be about ‘control’ and would still be evil.The Founders left us the Second Amendment for one reason: in case we ever have creatures like modern “Liberals”(communists, collectivists, socialists, progressives, and other cute names) trying so desperately and telling any lie conceivable in an effort to regulate every aspect of our lives.
When Patrick Henry cried out “Give me Liberty or give me death” he didn’t mean he’d stand up and let the British blow his brains out. It meant they were going to blow British brains out. Our modern mantra needs to be “Give me Liberty or give me “Liberal” season,” just to make things clear to their government education addled brains.
How do you tell if a “Liberal” piece of garbage is lying? If its lips are moving, or if its wicked fingers are tapping on a keyboard. On the rare occasion one of them does tell the truth it’s in an effort to cover up their lies or angle for a better position after they’ve been trapped by their own lies.
Want to see what a foreign form of the cancer we suffer from has done to Britain? Go here:
http://www.willowtown.com/reality/blacksburg.htm
Just scroll down the page to the online articles that have appeared in British publications, mainstream Brit publications. Their societal cancer is so metastasized now there’s no hiding it.
But then so is ours. But our mainstream news media is just more adept at keeping a lid on the damage they’ve helped do. When the socialists and powers who want to always be who often fund them started paying unwed inner city females to have fatherless children in the early 1960s, they knew exactly what the results would be. They always need an ‘excuse’ for their ‘cure,’ which is of course always worse than the disease.
If the Amerikan sheeple don’t wake up soon, and take responsibility for what they are allowing these evil creatures to do to us all, then they will fully deserve the results.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 10, 2007 at 10:14 PM Fortunately in this country the “majority” doesn’t vote; the vocal minority does and actually pays attention to what anti-gun types want to impose on gun owners.
I honestly don’t care about criminals killing each other for their starter jackets or Air Jordans; anyway you can’t regulate personal behavior by restricting a legitimate tool that’s a symbolic cultural cornerstone that helped to settle this country.
Guns are not the problem. The weak minded abrogation of parental responsibility and out of control breeding by irresponsible people who are dumb and stupid and want to blame others for the violence in their communities is the problem.
Posted by Gunluvr on Oct 10, 2007 at 11:59 PM True liberal, no common sense.
They ban speech, then acts with no enforcement, then inanimate objects, and wonder why things continue to get worse!
In the 50s, you could mail order a gun, you knew and trusted your neighbor….........now after 4 decades of Democraps controlling Congress, the “Great Society”, Bill-Jo-Jim-Bob Klinton, and more Gobermint programs than we can afford what do we have beyond single mothers, kids without 2 parents, no respect, and a growing crime problem.
See any comparison? Those with a IQ greater than their shoe size do!
PS, you don’t worry me. I know you will not come after me. You might try to hire someone to do your dirty work to pry apart my fingers, but lack the will to do anything other than talk yourself.
Posted by Explorer1 on Oct 11, 2007 at 2:32 AM Why you letting kids like that kid in ohio who just whent on a killing ranpage have guns?
You gun nuts just want little black kids to die because you like to kill deer.
Why dont you kill deer with youre hands?
I go huntin at mcdonalds I dont need to kill no deer to eat meat!
You dont need no glock to hunt anyway!
Why dont you keep youre deer shotgun like that guy who ran for pesident did kerry?
You keep youre deer shotgun and throw that glock away because little black kids are dieing an you hate them thats why youre giving them guns.
You shood join the army because you can play with all the guns you like an not hurt no one to!
Posted by gunsarejustbadok on Oct 11, 2007 at 9:32 AM The best solution to any problem is often the simplest. In the case of gun violence, why not just outlaw murder, rape, and burglary?
Respectfully, A Person of the Gun
Posted by beech_35 on Oct 11, 2007 at 10:40 AM To gunsarejustbadok, why do you want African Americans to be defensless? An African American can’t defend their family in their home with a deer hunting rifle too well, that is what handguns are for.
An African American woman, woman of all ethnicities actually, are easy targets for violent criminals and a handgun is an equalizer. Why do you want to deny women the best self defense tool available?
Gun control nuts must actually believe that a 110 pound woman can fend off a 210 rapist every time.You want to see what some lawful gun owners look like? Look here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/C-A-F-E/
and here:
http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/
Ban guns all you want and criminals of all ilk will make them or smuggle them in anyway. All gun bans will do is make the law abiding defensless.
You want to see how easy it is to make a fully automatic pistol from common hardware store parts? Look here: http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/introduction.shtmlA few years in Baltimore the police raided a white supremacist’s house. They pulled a dump truck load of guns out of his row house. He made them all by himself in that same house.
Ten years after the total handgun ban in the United Kingom they have no more legally owned handguns (all confiscated or deactivated), but yet they have more handgun crime and murder than the year they started the ban. Gun crime and gun murder there went through the roof for seven out of the past ten years and is still high, so why is this when all lawful handguns turned in their guns? They made them and smuggled them in.
Your handgun bans do nothing but to make the innocent defensless. Self defense is a human right and the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right. I am a liberal and I defend all civil and human rights and I don’t know why other liberals are so misguided on this issue.
Posted by Novus on Oct 11, 2007 at 10:44 AM “Why you letting kids like that kid in ohio who just whent on a killing ranpage have guns?”
It was already illegal for him to have guns:
He was a minor.
He had been treated for mental illness.
He was in a school zone.Where did he get the guns? He didn’t walk into a gun dealer and buy them.
Posted by jdege on Oct 11, 2007 at 11:22 AM “You dont need no glock to hunt anyway!”
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms isn’t about hunting.
If by taking away every middle-aged guy’s hunting rifle, I could put a Glock into the hands of every single woman living or working in the inner city, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Posted by jdege on Oct 11, 2007 at 11:27 AM http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28978
October 11, 2007
Shrunken Majority Now Favors Stricter Gun Laws
Percentage favoring stricter gun laws has declined in recent years, while most still oppose handgun ban
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
Posted by jdege on Oct 11, 2007 at 2:23 PM I’m just going to ignore your cute ‘n’ petty attempts at race baiting.
I have to say that I’ve never much cared for Glocks. I think CZ and Springfield Armory make far superior products.
That said, your understanding of The People of the Gun is so ill-informed and rife with errors that I’m quite frankly shocked that such a level of outright ignorance could possibly exist, even here on t3h int3rw3b.
Perhaps you shouldn’t be airing an opinion about things you quite plainly don’t have the first understanding about.
But, hey, what do I know about guns, I mean, I only handle firearms on a daily basis.
Cheers,
Captain AwesomePS- Guns are cool!
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 11, 2007 at 2:24 PM Inherently, guns are neither good nor bad. They are just a tool like a knife or a screwdriver. (Either of which can and has been used to kill.) People behaving badly are the problem. Banning guns would be a boon to black market sellers.
This morning, just after I finished my pistol range session, a young man entered the shop and asked to see what holsters they had for sale. It seems twice lately (yesterday the most recent) local gang members robbed his store. This time they entered shooting and he and his employees exited the rear with bullets flying past them. He intends to move to a less violent part of the city, but until then he will be armed and no longer be defenseless.
I moved my own business out of that same area in 1996. Drug dealing gangs which had moved in shot a woman in broad daylight one block from my office, held up ATM customers across the street and burglarized my landlord’s photography business twice.
The banning of drugs (War on Drugs) has been the cause of far more deaths among young people than the actual use of the stuff itself. Stealing to finance their habits or fighting with competitors is a primary statistic in the high death of “children” we often hear about. In addition to gang members under the age of 21 innocent kids are often hit by stray bullets from gang warfare.
Let’s give drugs away free, stop putting users in jail and offer treatment to any who want to break the habit.
Meantime I’ll continue enjoying my hobby and use my gun defensively if needed.
Posted by whattheheck on Oct 11, 2007 at 8:07 PM A lively discussion that is rapidly deteriorating as a result of the fact that Gun Grabbers are incapable of responding to any thing posted here without vitriolic attacks on Gun owners.
Perhaps, rather than continuing to to let your ignorance of the subject show, you might want to do some actual research or read something where someone has already done the research for you.
A couple of books available are “More Guns Less Crime” (understanding crime and gun control laws and another “The Bias Against GUNS - Why almost everything you’ve heard about gun control is wrong. Both books were written by John Lott, Jr. , who teaches criminal deterrence and law and economics at the University of Chicago… His list of qualifications on this subject is long.. To quote from the inside fly leaf of More Guns Less Crime,
“Lott’s sources are broad and his evidence the most extensive yet assembled, taking full account of the FBI’s massive yearly crime figures for all 3,054 U.S. counties over eighteen years, the largest national surveys on gun ownership as well as state police documents on illegal gun use.
On his second book On the Media Bias, three Nobel prize winners among others praise his work on this matter.
Anyone criticizing gun owners should read these before making statements that do nothing but show their ignorance of the topic.Lott’s work has stood the test of peer review unlike the now disgraced Michael Bellisles an Emory University Professor who the book “Arming America” made him the darling of all the anti - gun nuts and earned him the Bancroft prize. The problem however, was that very questionable material was in the book and it failed to stand up to peer review. The Bancroft prize was rescinded as the book was found to contain statements that were not factual.
Posted by xmountie on Oct 12, 2007 at 1:31 AM Once again, “Liberal” policies and govt. save the day:
http://tinyurl.com/3xc48m
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 12, 2007 at 10:50 AM 10 IMPOSSIBLE THINGS LIBERALS BELIEVE BEFORE BREAKFAST
http://www.donfeder.com/
you gotta love it.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 12, 2007 at 11:19 AM Actually, that link was super-lame, and no, I don’t gotta love it.
Perhaps we should keep the discussion related to the topic of guns, instead of spewing talking points from Free Republic who’s expiration date was somewhere around 1997.
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 12, 2007 at 1:44 PM Here we are, pointing out how too many gun-control advocates portray gun owners as all being violent, malicious, anti-social, dangerous, etc. Refusing to distinguish between the few criminals who use guns in crime and the many who own guns and use them in a lawful manner.
And then we see the same sort of thing, about how all liberals ..., etc.
I disagree with all liberals. Because I disagree with their basic premises. But I don’t think all of them are idiots, and I don’t think all of them are malevolent.
Some are. Most are simply ignorant. They think the world works the way they would wish it to work, or that it would work the way they’d wish it to work if only enough people believed. And that because they have good intentions, the results of their policies will be good.
I think that’s dangerously naive. But I don’t think it makes them bad people.
For that matter, not all of them draw the same conclusions from their liberal premises. Quite a few of them are pro-gun.
Posted by jdege on Oct 12, 2007 at 5:45 PM If you thought that was lame you’ll really love this:
http://www.willowtown.com/reality/friends.htm
And you just hold your breath ‘til the publishers of this rag renounce socialism and apologize for trying to shove their garbage down our throats at the point of a govt. gun.
The only reason they allow this to be posted is because they’re so arrogant they think they can gain from it by showing the citiot “Liberals” who believe their garbage how evil us ‘right wing extremists’ are. It probably helps with fundraising.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 12, 2007 at 11:48 PM jdege -
I disagree with all liberals. Because I disagree with their basic premises. But I don’t think all of them are idiots, and I don’t think all of them are malevolent.
Some are. Most are simply ignorant. They think the world works the way they would wish it to work, or that it would work the way they’d wish it to work if only enough people believed. And that because they have good intentions, the results of their policies will be good.
I think that’s dangerously naive. But I don’t think it makes them bad people.
Naaah. They are bad people.
In the first place, “Liberals” are the most illiberal of ideologues. Individual and community self-defense, the object of the Second Amendment, is a liberal value. So why are the so-called Liberals opposed? Why do they try to impose the “Fairness Doctrine” on the media and to silence Rush Limbaugh? Are the “Liberal’s” attempts to restrict free speech found in the liberal Bill of Rights?
Let’s call them Neocommunists. After all, the Marxist Socialist movement came to prominence in the USA during the Great Depression when they were calling themselves Communists. They could not win an election in the USA as Communists, so they began calling themselves Socialists. They could not win an election in the USA as Socialists, so they began calling themselves Progressives, as Henry Wallace did as the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948. They could not win an election in the USA as Progressives, so they began calling themselves Liberals. They cannot win an election in the USA as Liberals, so they have begun calling themselves Progressives again, as Hillary did just recently.
Whatever they call themselves, the results range from catastrophic (100 million dead in the Soviet Union and Communist China) to catastrophic decline (European demographic collapse).
The Neocommunist agenda includes appeasement, pacifism, and globalism. These are ideological values, not empirical values. God knows where they are trying to take us. Auschwitz? Lefortovo? Tuol Sleng? Whatever their objectives, they cannot accomplish it while the people of the United States keep the means to defend themselves and their communities. That is why the Neocommunists want your guns.
A rational person would never entertain the thought of a Communist or Socialist power structure after the many abject failures of the ideology. But still they persist.
If the Neocommunists agenda and strategy are concealed and obfuscated, their tactics can’t be hidden. While the ACLU assaults religious practice and belief, Billary and Pelosi exploit their religious upbringings. Does anyone really believe that Bubba, a rapist and convicted liar, retains any of his Baptist choirboy values? Naaah.
And while the Neocommunists “support the troops”, they also do everything possible to undermine the troops’ mission, from politicizing the two-bit Abu Ghraib anomaly to Harry Reid’s declaration that the war is “lost”, even as it is being won. Hillary, Kerry, Reid, Biden, Edwards, and Schumer voted for the war, but this was a political calculation, not a statement of their values, which require the United States to lose, and be rebuilt as a Neocommunist utopia.
Not while the Second Amendment remains in effect. The Constitution of the United States of America and I guarantee it.
Posted by scorp on Oct 13, 2007 at 3:49 PM Scholar Invents Fan To Answer His Critics
By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 1, 2003; Page C01Mary Rosh thinks the world of John R. Lott Jr., the controversial American Enterprise Institute scholar whose book “More Guns, Less Crime” caused such a stir a few years ago.
In postings on Web sites in this country and abroad, Rosh has tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics. He is a meticulous researcher, she’s repeatedly told those who say otherwise. He’s not driven by the ideology of the left or the right. Rosh has even summoned memories of the classes she took from Lott a decade ago to illustrate Lott’s probity and academic gifts.
“I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had,” Rosh gushed in one Internet posting.
Indeed, Mary Rosh and John Lott agree about nearly everything.
Well they should, because Mary Rosh is John Lott—or at least that’s the pseudonym he’s used for three years to defend himself against his critics in online debates, Lott acknowledged this week.
“I probably shouldn’t have done it—I know I shouldn’t have done it—but it’s hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously,” said Lott, an economist who has held senior research positions at the University of Chicago and Yale.
Moreover, the AEI resident scholar acknowledged on Friday that he permitted his 13-year-old son to write an effusive review of “More Guns, Less Crime” and then post it on the Amazon.com Web site. It was signed “Maryrosh.”
His son gave the book five stars—the highest possible rating.
“If you want to learn about what can stop crime or if you want to learn about many of the myths involving crime that endanger people’s lives, this is the book to get,” the review stated. “It was very interesting reading and Lott writes very well. He explains things in an understandable commonsense way. I have loaned out my copy a dozen times and while it may have taken some effort to get people started on the book, once they read it no one was disappointed.”
Lott denied that he was the author of the review, an assertion made on various Web sites that have been tracking the controversy. He said his son wrote it, with some help from his wife. “They told me they had done it. They showed it to me. I wasn’t going to tell them not to do it. Should I have?”
Lott’s book, which argues that gun ownership deters crime, has been praised by gun advocates and attacked by those who favor gun control.
Lott also is a lesser player in the now-diminishing debate over the 2000 elections. In a study two years ago, Lott reported that the decision by the major television networks to call the Florida election for Al Gore before the polls had closed everywhere in the state led thousands of Republican-leaning voters in the Florida Panhandle not to vote. Other researchers dispute his findings, which have been embraced by conservatives as well as by critics of exit polling.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 14, 2007 at 1:26 AM Lott said that he frequently has used the name “Mary Rosh” to defend himself in online debates. The name is an amalgam of the first two letters of his four sons’ first names. In a posting to the Web site maintained by Tim Lambert, an Australian professor who has relentlessly attacked Lott’s guns studies, “Mary Rosh” claims to be a former student of Lott at the University of Pennsylvania, where the economist taught between 1991 and 1995.
“I had him for a PhD level empirical methods class when he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania back in the early 1990s, well before he gained national attention, and I have to say that he was the best professor that I ever had. You wouldn’t know that he was a ‘right-wing’ ideologue from the class. . . . There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material.”
When a reporter attempted to read the posting to him over the telephone, Lott stopped him after the first few words. “I’m sure I did that. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Julian Sanchez, a Cato Institute staffer, is the cybersleuth who tracked Mary Rosh back to John Lott.
Sanchez is a blogger—someone who maintains a Web site where they report and comment on the news—who had been tracking the debate between Lott and critics of his gun research. He became suspicious about Rosh after he noticed that several of Rosh’s online defenses of Lott seemed to track closely with arguments the scholar himself had made in private e-mails to Sanchez and other bloggers. He tracked Mary Rosh’s IP address (the computer code translation of the standard e-mail address) to Pennsylvania.
“I compared that IP with the header of an email Dr. Lott had sent me from his home address. And by yet another astonishing coincidence, it had originated at the very same IP address. Now, what are the odds of that?” he wrote in a posting on his Web site. “Sarcasm aside, we’re a little old to be playing dress up, aren’t we Dr. Lott?”
Lott said he initially used his own name in online debates with critics. “But you just get into really emotional things with people. You also run into other problems.” So he started using the name Mary Rosh. “I should not have done it, there is no doubt. But it was a way to get information into the debate.”
Officials at the American Enterprise Institute declined to comment yesterday.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 14, 2007 at 1:27 AM The author of “Let’s Pry Open Those Cold Dead Hands” has shown how poorly she understands the gun owner community. In general I find (as a member of that community myself) that pundits who launch attacks on gun owners usually have no understanding of what motivates the community, who belongs to the community, the values of the community, or the depth of personal commitment found throughout the community of gun owners.
For one thing, gun/ammunition manufacturers do NOT tell us what to to do when it comes to grass roots activism. Gun owners are self-motivating when it comes to that, and will gladly take a few minutes out of their day (as I am doing now) to express their opposition to useless gun control laws when they get the chance. They are not acting on secret instructions received via magic NRA decoder ring either; previous commentators to this article have noted that the NRA is frequently out of the loop on things.
Gun owners come from all walks of life, all conceivable education levels, and all races and sexes as well. Anyone who finds physics, mechanics, metallurgy, woodworking, metalworking, fine craftsmanship, technological change, materials science, history, relaxation techniques, or sports requiring intense mental focus interesting will find that guns are a rewarding hobby that incorporates all of these things and more.
A primary value of the gun owning community is being responsible. Although the news media love to play up as much gun crime as they can, more than 95% of American gun owners handle their guns safely and responsibly. We fully understand and respect the awesome power we assume when we handle firearms and we never want to misuse or abuse that power. That is borne out in the facts: the vast majority of firearms owned by the public are not used to commit violent crimes and never will be.
As to the depth of personal commitment that many gun owners display, consider what motivates it. Most gun control laws simply make legally acquiring or carrying a gun a hassle and do nothing about people who use guns to commit crime. As an example, it is a Federal felony for a person convicted of a felony to buy, possess, or attempt to buy a gun. For decades this law was not enforced, mostly because the penalties were so weak. Although the law is enforced more frequently now, the penalties are still weak. This is a very serous public safety problem; most gun crimes (80% or more) are committed by people who have previously been convicted of felonies. Greatly toughening the penalties for breaking that law should be a top priority in public safety, but gun control groups are more interested in trying to enact laws preventing law-abiding citizens from buying, owning, or using guns and claiming that their proposed laws will make the public safer. Quite frankly, I think that giving a convicted felon a slap on the wrist for weapons violations but enacting laws preventing me from legally buying whatever gun I wish shows how utterly dishonest and disinterested in the public weal the gun control movement really is.
Posted by KingKong on Oct 14, 2007 at 9:24 AM Laura, could you please clarify just how you want to “Pry Open Those Cold Dead Hands”. Do you want to do it personally, or do you simply want to empower the authorities to do your killing for you?
Posted by Reno Sepulveda on Oct 14, 2007 at 10:36 PM The Lott article is interesting. I heard him speak the other day. He is still far more credible than the “Liberal” freaks and their ‘polls’ that often only target certain demographic areas in order to attain predictable results, not to mention asking questions designed to get hoped for answers. But that’s how the liars operate.
But this enforces the point I made earlier: Even if ‘gun control’ could be proven to reduce common street ‘crime’ it would still be evil and un-allowable, un-forgivable, in a ‘free; society. It is about the natural right we are born with to fight, or shoot back, against those who would oppress us in any measure or way for any reason.
The founders killed British soldiers who came to disarm them at Lexington and Concord, as was their right, and it is our right to kill the black-suited Nazies the “Liberal” scum will send to disarm us and then to hunt the “Liberal” scum themselves.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 14, 2007 at 11:05 PM And to ‘scorp’: excellant job. I couldn’t have said it better. They are indeed evil creatures pursuing the enforcement of an evil ideology without consideration of the cost in human Liberty and thus life. They live for their revolution and unless many more realize this and live for Liberty in superior measure we will all be their slaves.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 14, 2007 at 11:09 PM Even if Lott and the other researchers were wrong about crime being reduced in states where gun control was more liberal like easier total access to carry permits in “shall issue” states, and even if there is no reasonable evidence that states with less restrictive gun control laws have less violent crime because of the laws, there is one thing that we ALL have to recognize. Gun bans have been proven not to work anywhere near as promised and have actually often resulted with the opposite results to the claims the laws were sold to the public with.
Washington DC’s total handgun ban, total ban on most rifles, and total registration of all firearms left has not resulted in any decrease in crime using guns or murders using guns in thirty years. If anything it is actually higher and at one point many times higher.
The United Kingdom’s total handgun ban, ban on semi automatic rifles and total registration of alll remaining shotguns has not stopped an enourmous increase in violent gun related crime or murders with handguns, or firearms, in general, in the eleven years since all lawfully owned handguns have been deactivated or confiscated and the twenty years since semi auto rifles have been banned.Gun bans and gun control that restricts law abiding gun ownership has NOT been proven to work and the evidence even suggests it causes more problems in some situations.
One thing that has to be concluded is that restrictive gun control does less (if any at all) good than allowing the law abiding to defend themselves with the best self defense tools available by lessening restrictions and requirements on them.I am a staunch liberal and I approve this mesage
Posted by Novus on Oct 14, 2007 at 11:48 PM Who Is John Lott and Why is He Claiming That More Guns Mean Less Crime?
John Lott John R. Lott Jr. is (was—1998-99, ed.) the John M. Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and an avid proponent of Chicago School theories on law and economics. He is also the author of a controversial new study purporting to show that allowing individuals to carry concealed handguns reduces crime. Lott shares a common heritage with former Judge Robert Bork and other prominent members of the Chicago School - the espousal of extreme points of view on the issues of crime, health and safety, and the environment. The following is a sampling of John Lott’s views culled from his writings.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:34 AM ON SCHOOL VIOLENCE
In the wake of the March 1998 schoolyard ambush of children by children in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Lott voiced his strong support for arming teachers and other school personnel against gun-toting juveniles. Lott argues, “Allowing teachers and other law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns in schools would not only make it easier to stop shootings in progress, it could also help deter shootings from ever occurring.”
—-“The Real Lesson of the School Shootings,” The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 1998.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:35 AM ON LAW ENFORCEMENT AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
An abstract of one of Lott’s studies details his findings that “increases in the percent of minority police officers increase crime rates” and that “racial and gender changes in the composition of police forces resulted in at least 2,000 more murders” in cities he studied.
—“Does a Helping Hand Put Others At Risk? Affirmative Action, Police Departments, and Crime,” Abstract listing by Social Science Research Network Electronic Library, July 25, 1997.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:36 AM ON CRIME
Lott argues that wealthy criminals should be able to purchase legal representation that will allow them to escape conviction despite their guilt. Lott writes, “Preventing wealthy people from influencing the opinion of the court in their favor will lead to expected punishments that are too large for the wealthy….” Furthermore, Lott argues that “allowing wealthy people to do what on first glance may seem like ‘subverting’ the legal system can be efficient.” Lott contends that a certain amount of crime is actually good for society. In Lott’s view, the benefit of a crime to a criminal can outweigh the harm that a crime inflicts on society. Such crimes, according to Lott, should not be prevented. Or, as Lott puts it, “[A] nation’s wealth [is maximized] if a crime is not deterred when the benefit to the criminal of a particular crime is greater than the total social cost of that crime.”
—-“Should the Wealthy Be Able to Buy Justice?” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 95, no. 6, December 1987:163-175.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:38 AM ON AVIATION SAFETY
Lott refers to Federal Aviation Administration inspectors as “busybody bureaucrats looking over [the] shoulders” of the airline industry. He also scolds Ralph Nader — whom he labels a “proregulation fearmonger” — for wanting the flying public to travel in “bomb-resistant planes.”
—-“The Regulatory Quest for Safety at Any Cost” [A Book Review of Collision Course: The Truth About Airline Safety by Ralph Nader], Regulation, Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 1994: 80-81.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:39 AM ON THE ENVIRONMENT
Lott labels global warming, ozone depletion, and the need for wetlands preservation “environmental myths.” He dismisses any idea that the toxic chemical dioxin might represent a hazard to human health, despite the fact that the substance is rated as a “probable human carcinogen” by the Environmental Protection Agency. Lott states that “the worst thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash.” He goes on to deride the federal Superfund program to clean up toxic waste dumps as “infamous and amazingly costly.” Lott further urges Americans to “stop worrying so much about the environment,” characterizing health and safety concerns about pesticides as “scare stories.”
—-“Regulatory Common Sense vs. Environmental Nonsense,” [A Book Review of Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense? by Dixy Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo and Science Under Siege: Balancing Technology and the Environment by Michael Fumento], Regulation, Vol. 16, no. 1, Fall 1993: 80-82.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:40 AM ON SMOKING
Lott says that any government regulation of indoor air quality — even smoking — is unwarranted. According to Lott, “The question of allowing smoking in a restaurant is no different than the question whether the restaurant provides music or other amenities.” He also opposes regulation of smoking on airplanes with the rationale, “To force airlines to ban smoking on all flights thus makes smokers worse off by a greater amount than it benefits non-smokers.”
—-“Regulating Indoor Air Quality: The Economist’s View,” coauthored with Robert G. Hansen, The EPA Journal, Vol. 19, no. 4 (October-December, 1993): 30-31.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:41 AM In conclusion, Lott believes that teachers should go to school armed, that putting minority police officers on the beat causes murder rates to increase, that some crime is good for society, that FAA safety inspectors are “busybody bureaucrats,” that dioxin and ozone depletion present no appreciable risk to humans or the environment, and that there should be no regulation of smoking in restaurants or on airplanes. Lott has a long and well-documented track record of zealously advocating an extreme anti-consumer, anti-public safety ideology. His view that arming the populace with concealed handguns will reduce crime is just one more extreme view to be added to the list.
From the Violence Policy Center. © 1999 Violence Policy Center
Posted by Major Major on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:42 AM Most recent Gallup poll from just a few days ago:
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28978From the report…
Various localities around the country, including Washington, D.C., have passed bans on the possession of handguns by ordinary citizens. However, since 1975, Gallup has found a solid majority of Americans disagreeing with laws. And, public opposition has expanded in recent years. The current 68% saying handguns should not be banned is similar to the 66% last year, but significantly higher than the 50% in 1987.Bottom Line
Gun control has not surfaced as a major—or even a minor—issue thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign. The most that’s been said is that the issue is hardly even being debated. The Gallup trends reviewed help to explain why. With public support for stricter gun laws waning after 9/11, the political climate for championing gun control is indeed different from when the Brady Bill was passed in 1993. Although half of Americans do say they favor stricter gun laws today, this is well below the 70% found in 1993. And when public attitudes about banning guns and enforcement are probed, there appears to be even less public demand for gun control.
From the poll
Question 22: In terms of gun laws in the United States, which of the following would you prefer to see happen—[ROTATE: enforce the current gun laws more strictly and NOT pass new gun laws (or) pass new gun laws in addition to enforcing the current laws more strictly]?Response to qustion 22:
Enforce current laws more strictly…..58%
Pass new laws in addition…...38%
No opinion…..4%When asked in addition to passing new gun laws, “the enforcement of existing ones more strictly”, only 38% of Americans wanted new gun laws. So when asked in better context it is apparent that the vast majority of Americans have not fallen for the anti gun ownership propaganda after many decades of dissemination.
Oh, and guess what Major Major, Lott had nothing to do with this survey.
Want to know what else Lott had nothing to do with? He had nothing to do with th survey showing 2.5 million defensive gun uses a year by lawful Americans. That study (and many others he conducted you would refuse to recognize because it shows the fallacy of strict gun control) was conducted by Gary Kleck…..Kleck, a former strict gun control supporter in the early 80s, a current ACLU member and a well renowned and respected criminologist.
http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/p/faculty-gary-kleck.phpOnce again, I am a staunch liberal and I approve this message.
Posted by Novus on Oct 15, 2007 at 5:24 AM Major Major
This guy is having some problems, and he goes to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist talks to him for a bit, and then decides to give the guy a Rorschach test. He tells the patient to look at these inkblot images, and to say the first thing that the images remind him of.
The psychiatrist holds up the first image, and the guy immediately says, “Oh, that reminds me of sex.” The psychiatrist holds up the second image, and the guy says, “That reminds me of sex, too.” The psychiatrist holds up the third image and the guy says, “That definitely reminds me of sex.”
The psychiatrist says, “Well, you seem to be obsessed with sex.” The guy says, “Me? You’re the one who has all the sexy pictures.”
I think that your obsession with Lott is unhealthy. You would be much better off being obsesssed with sex. You need to go get laid.
Lott has nothing to do with the problem presented in this article. Does the Constitution of the United States of America recognize the peoples’ right to defend themselves, or doesn’t it? Are police functions at the service of the people, or are people at the service of the government and the police? This is a profound question, if you are capable of profound thoughts.
The Communists and the Neocommunists believe that you are at their service.
Washington may think she can pry open cold dead hands, but what is she going to do about my live hands defending myself, my family, my community, and my values? Vote for Hillary?
Posted by scorp on Oct 15, 2007 at 10:26 PM Well so far Lott is batting a thousand. The only thing he might disagree with me on is that it’s way past time to go to D.C., arrest all the members of the socialist caucus, try them for treason, and hang them in front of the capital building with all the networks required to broadcast the events worldwide, then move on to the area in Virginia where all the “Liberal” foundations are located, arrest and try for treason and execute all their staff members, then move on to New Yawk City, hunt down the banksters who control the Fed and do the same to them.
But that’s just my ‘extreme’ opinion.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 16, 2007 at 12:52 AM Oh, and darn it, I forgot to mention my support for Hitlery. Her horny wife in chief sold more guns and ammo than any president since Lincoln. Hitlery will do the same, if not much more.
The patriot movement and militias also experienced more growth during billery’s tenure than at any other time in history. Hitlery may very well bring on what we need so badly in this country: “Liberal” season.
Well, I’ll actually vote for Ron Paul, but I know that the sheeple are still too stupid to elect someone like him. It’s OK, I’m used to ‘throwing my vote away’ while all the other ‘conservatives’ vote to keep the republicrat finger in the dike a few more years in the blind hope that all this can be solved ‘peacefully.’
“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition of socialism.”- Karl Marx”
And I got that quote from another commie website:
http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?view=contact&pid=322608461or this if the other one is too long:
http://tinyurl.com/26acwj
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 16, 2007 at 1:02 AM Should teachers be allowed to pack a gun?
By Brad Knickerbocker Tue Sep 18, 4:00 AM ETAshland, Ore. - In court documents, she’s known as “Jane Doe.” Innocuous enough, but the woman behind that pseudonym pushes one of the nation’s hottest political buttons: guns and school safety.
What Ms. Doe wants to do is take her Glock 9-mm pistol to the high school in Medford, Ore., where she teaches.
She’s licensed to carry a concealed weapon and she has what many supporters say is a legitimate reason for being armed: a restraining order against her ex-husband based on threats he’s allegedly made against her and her children.
But district policy prohibits anyone except a law-enforcement officer from bringing a weapon onto campus. When word got out that she had a concealed-carry permit, administrators reminded her of that policy. There’s the political rub: According to state law, “any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly.”
snip
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070918/ts_csm/aselfdefenseI won’t post the rest of the text. Ya’ll ‘re smart enough to copy and paste. Well maybe some of you are.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 16, 2007 at 1:13 AM Trying to sway pro-gun advocates by posting an article that was written by the Violence Policy Center is a tactic made of Grade A FAIL.
Do I even need to point out that most of their “studies” wouldn’t be academically or statistically rigorous enough to pass muster in a high school civics class?
Oh, major major, you’re so funny!
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 16, 2007 at 2:10 PM Dude, seriously. Stop embarrassing yourself.
Hitlery? Billery?
1995 called, they want their cliche political pejoratives back.
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 16, 2007 at 2:15 PM Captain A -
Hitlery? Billery?
Why don’t we all just settle on Hillarity?
“Do I even need to point out that most of their “studies” wouldn’t be academically or statistically rigorous enough to pass muster in a high school civics class?”
You obviously haven’t been in a high school civics class since the Neocommunist NEA has taken control of the curricula and eliminated thinking.
Posted by scorp on Oct 16, 2007 at 2:57 PM Major Major,
You seem very keen on attacking John lott for what you deem as the politics of the stances he takes, but I notice that you have nothing to offer in the way of studies or new data to refute his findings….
If you do come accross any which go beyond the reasoning of:
“some people get shot therefore; all guns are bad”
I’d be very interested to have the references.
As for having a bit of fun by commenting with a pseudonym, you mean you’ve never, ever done it?
Just for the record, my real name is Keith Anderson, what is your’s?
go over to Alphecca.com to see a picture of me among “The people of the Gun”, yeah, I’m white, but I don’t expect anyone to apologies for the colour they were born.
Maria,
My mother and both my grandmothers had their own legally held guns.In Britain, where I originated, the increase in armed crime appears to be inversely related to the reduction of legal firearms ownership.
Both of you, and any other antis commenting, if you want to be taken seriously by the vast majority of “People of the Gun” you’d better get some serious research together, personal smears and tweaking at heart strings isn’t going to win you any arguments here or anywhere else.
Alpacca .45
Posted by alpacca45 on Oct 16, 2007 at 4:28 PM Canada’s Gun Control Laws
Overview
Prohibited Firearm: Fully automatic military assault weapons, semi-automatics which can be converted to automatics, along with a few other selected models not suitable for hunting or target shooting, short-barreled handguns, sawed-off shotguns and large capacity magazines. In most cases, the previous owners of these weapons were grandfathered when the prohibitions went into effect, in lieu of financial compensation.
Licensing Requirements: Under the Firearms Act, all firearm owners will require a license to possess or acquire by the year 2001 (renewable every five years). Standard safety checks will be performed to ensure that the individual does not pose a risk to public safety. Under current regulations, spouses and previous spouses with whom the applicant has lived within the last two years. will also be notified of the individuals’ application. If someone with a license becomes violent or commits a crime that would make them illegible to own firearms, the Chief Firearms Officer will be able to revoke the license.
Registration Requirements: Under the new Firearms Act, all firearms must be registered (by the year 2003). New firearms will be registered at their point of sale and imported firearms will be registered at their point of entry. Every registration certificate will have a Firearms Identification Number (FIN). For firearms which do not have a unique identifier (those which have no serial number or have a serial number that, with the other characteristics of the firearm, still doesn’t identify them from every other gun), these are assigned a FIN which is affixed to the frame or received of the firearm. However, according to expert opinion at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at least 80% of firearms can be uniquely identified for the purpose of registration. A range of technologies are available for identifying weapons which lack serial numbers including invisible labeling (often used for identifying other valuables). The duplication or absence of serial numbers is not considered to be a serious impediment to proceeding and will be resolved over time as pressure is brought to bear on manufacturers to ensure their products conform with national standards.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 16, 2007 at 8:20 PM Storage Requirements: Firearms must be stored unloaded, with the ammunition separate. For handguns and other restricted weapons, the firearms must be stored in a locked container, unloaded and made inoperable (trigger locked), with the ammunition stored separately.
Training Requirements: All license applicants must take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and/or pass the test for the course, or show by some other approved means that they know about firearms laws and safety practices.
Penalties:
* mandatory 4 years for serious offenses with a firearm
* mandatory 1 year for a stolen weapon
* criminal sanctions for non-compliance with license or registration but first-time offense is punishable by summary conviction with up to a $2000 fine and 6 months in jail. However, law enforcement have discretionary powers in enforcing the law, depending on the motive.The Need for Licensing and Registration
Ensuring improved screening: All gun owners are now screened to obtain a licence and must renew it every five years. Previously, only 1/3 of gun owners had valid FACs (Firearms Acquisition Certificate) as a FAC was needed to acquire a gun, not to possess one. As of October, 2001, thirty-two times more licences have been revoked from individuals who no longer met the eligibility criteria than the total for the last five years of the previous program. For more examples of how the system is working, visit www.cfc.gc.ca.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 16, 2007 at 8:22 PM Enforcing prohibition orders: On average there are 17, 500 prohibition orders issued per year for people considered to be a risk to themselves or to public safety. Licencing and registration provide the information needed to enforce them .
Taking preventative action: Public inquests have repeatedly recommended licensing and registration to help reduce the risk of dangerous people having access to guns. These include the inquests into: the suicide of Jonathan Yeo who killed Nina de Villiers and Karen Marquis, the murder of Brian Smith, the murder of the Kassonde children, the Vernon Massacre, and the murder of Arlene May. Fully integrated databases and a central processing system will also provide access to information through CPIC to take preventive measures (i.e. removing firearms in situations of domestic violence). When a new violent incident is logged at the local level, the system searches the database for the license holder and alerts authorities. Unlike the old stand alone provincial system, the new, integrated, national information system provides police with continuous, real-time access to information to help remove firearms from those who are a risk to themselves or others.
Helping curb the illegal gun trade: Under the old system, an individual could buy as many guns as he or she wanted over a five year period, with little or no accountability because only handguns and restricted weapons were registered. These loopholes created a huge potential for illegal trading. Combined, registration and licensing will help reduce the chances that legal guns will be sold or given to unlicensed individuals because it will be possible to trace firearms back to their owner. The deadline is not until 2003, but already, as of October, 2001, 2 million firearms have been registered. In May 2000, the firearm registry helped uncover what is alleged to be one of the largest and most sophisticated firearm smuggling rings in North America. Likely destined for the black market, nearly 23,000 firearms and their components were seized.
Reducing Gun Theft: In 1998 alone, there were 5,832 firearms reported stolen, lost or missing, by definition falling into the wrong hands. With this information on who owns the guns, existing safe storage regulations are easier to enforce. Registration ensures gun owners will be held accountable for their guns which encourages compliance with safe storage.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 16, 2007 at 8:23 PM Providing critical information for police investigations: The firearms most often recovered in crime are rifles and shotguns, which were not previously registered. Registration will assist in criminal investigations by allowing firearms to be traced back to their original owner. It will also allow police to prove legal ownership of firearms, assisting in prosecuting gun theft and illegal possession. Licensing gun owners is essential to keeping guns away from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. To obtain a license an individual must be screened for a variety of risk factors. Registration is needed to control the illegal gun trade and to ensure that licensed gun owners do not give guns to unlicensed individuals.
Supporting police investigation: The importance of information to crime prevention and investigations is self-evident to those in the policing community. In many respects, policing is fundamentally an information processing activity and information about firearms has proved essential in a wide range of initiatives in Canada and elsewhere. Canadian police have often cooperated with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) who are often able to determine where a gun was manufactured, where it was first sold at retail and who bought it. Investigations can be built on that information, whether the object is to uncover a particular low volume straw purchaser or to identify a large trafficking operation.
Identifying legal owners assists in prosecuting illegal possession: As we are able to identify handguns which are legally held, we are also able to identify handguns which are illegally possessed. The same principle applies to imports, exports and in transit movement. By tracking the legal movement of firearms, we will be able to identify firearms which are being illegally imported, exported or transferred.
The system is already enhancing public safety: Visit the Canadian Firearms Centre website for statistics of the program.
Registering hanguns has helped limit handgun violence: While handguns are still misused, licensing of handgun owners and registering handguns has been one of the ways in which Canada has avoided the proliferation and misuse of handguns experienced in the US.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 16, 2007 at 8:24 PM Most countries license gun owners and register all guns: Canada’s new law merely brings us into line with other industrialized countries and the 1997 resolution of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
Licensing and registration will discourage casual gun ownership: According to a 1991 Angus Reid survey, half the firearms in Canadian households have not been used in the past year. Many are unwanted, unneeded or even forgotten.
The requirements for registration are reasonable given the risks associated with guns. To register a firearm, the applicant must first have a licence (or FAC that is still valid). For more information on the registration procedure, please visit the CFC website.
Gun control is a good investment: In Canada, an average of 1,300 people die of gunshot wounds each year. The economic costs of firearm deaths and injury are estimated at over $6 billion annually. Registration and licensing are cost effective methods of preventing firearm deaths and injury. In contrast, consider for instance the policing, social services, community and human costs.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 16, 2007 at 8:26 PM “Canada’s Gun Control Laws”
And:
http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/pdf_files/key2000i/index.htm
“An overall measure of contact crime was taken as robbery, assaults with force, and sexual assaults (against women only). The highest risks were in Australia, England and Wales, Canada, Scotland and Finland: over 3% were victims. This was more than double the level in USA, Belgium, Catalonia, Portugal, and Japan (all under 2%). In Japan the risk of contact crime was especially low (0.4%). “
Those gun control laws seem to be working well, aren’t they?
Posted by jdege on Oct 16, 2007 at 8:36 PM Canada has 20% of all housholds with firearms in them and about one handgun per every 30 people.
Washington has 0% of civillian households with a handgun and an estimated less than 1% of people with a shotgun or rifle permit.Canada’s murder rate where there are many legally owned guns is 2 per 100,000 people.
Whasnington D.C.‘s murder rate with no legally owned handguns and almost no legally owned firearms of any kind is 29.1 per 100,000.“Gun free” Washington DC has FIFTEEN times the murder rate as gun prolific Canada…..‘nuff said!
In Canada they are allowed to own so called “assault rifles”, and many different types of handguns tens of millions of Americans cannot own because of the states they live in. Their society hasn’t failed as a result.
In Canada they can own what sixty million Americans cannot legally own. In Canada they can own the dreaded AR15….oh my! http://www.marstar.ca/gf-usedguns/index.shtmI am a liberal and I approve of this message.
Posted by Novus on Oct 16, 2007 at 9:45 PM Canada has been sending police to stifle those who would use peaceful protest against an unjust law. A number of Individuals crossed the country a couple of times setting up information pickets outside the provincial legislatures. They have been trying to get the law before the Supreme Court where they and many others believe the law will crumble like a house of cards.
See http://brucemontague.ca/html/index.html for information. Bruce was engaged in peaceful protest and to that end he let his firearms licence expire. The police response was to arrest him while he was in the process of purchasing a saddle for his daughter’s horse at the agriculture fair. This fair which was held in conjunction with a gun show was deemed by the hoardes of police was deemed to be a safe place to leave Bruce’s young daughter so they could arrest the Mrs when she attended to pick up her daughter after being called by one of the persons who had a display booth there.
The police then tore through the house with a warrant and racked up a number of trumped up charges against Bruce and Donna. This began the long road to the Supreme Court. The prosecution has been fighting hard to ensure it never gets that far.
They even went so far as to seize the family home to prevent the Montagues from borrowing against their home to pay lawyer fees. They used a proceeds of crime law that was designed to prevent organized crime from using profits from ill gotten gains to assist them to fight the courts. This law was meant for groups like the Hell’s Angels and drug dealers, not persons involved in peaceful protest.The following is an exerpt from another case where police ran roughshod over a man for no reason “As reported here on Saturday, provincial court Judge Jon-Jo Douglas minced no words last Friday in delivering his decision to quash charges against Login, ruling in a point-by-point judgment that took almost three hours to finish that the Nottawasaga OPP, with the backup of military cops who also responded to the scene, had gone way too far.
“The police had not a whit of evidence to suggest (Login) was operating a firearm dangerously,” said Douglas.
“The arrest was (therefore) illegal and unconstitutional.”
The judge also ordered the police to quickly return Login’s seized weapons—even imposing a deadline of this Friday. “
see http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/JonathanLogan200603.html
There have been other night time raids by policemen dressed in black hiding behind bellaclavas in which seniors homes were broken into after first tossing a concussion grenade through a window. It goes on and on.
The registry is comprimised and the number of homes with gun collections seem to be targetted by persons who know what they are looking for and where to find it.
This is no surprise as Hell’s angels associates working in areas like Motor vehicle branches are able to supply the gangs with descriptiond of all unmarked cars including the licence numbers.
Posted by xmountie on Oct 17, 2007 at 1:05 AM So, who wants to place odds that major major’s just a spambot? You know, what with the epic posts that are just copied and pasted from other websites with no attempt to actually engage us in debate.
I find it hilarious that s/he posts a link to an article that shows how the Canadians have incrementally tightened their gun control laws since the late 1970’s.
Why hilarious?
Well, if gun control actually worked as intended, there would be no need for the gradual constriction of the law, now, would there?
But hey, I guess major major seems to think that if only legal gun owners are punished more and more, that it will reduce crime.
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 17, 2007 at 2:51 AM The old word “Liberty” that’s on our coins is probably ‘cliche’ to “Liberal” freaks too. But it means enough to me that the first “Liberal” freak who presents me with a gun ‘registration’ form will get a bullet in its head. The Canadians and the Brits should have already opened “Liberal” season, as should the sovereigns in Commiefornia, New Joiwsy, New Yawk, Chicago and a few other places for as posts here prove they will cling to their evil till their dying breaths. Oh what a joy to provide them with such.
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 17, 2007 at 10:06 AM to show what they really are:
A little history lesson: If you don’t know the answer make your best guess. Answer all the questions before looking at the answers. Who said it?
1) “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
A. Karl Marx
B. Adolph Hitler
C. Joseph Stalin
D. None of the above2) “It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few…and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity.”
A. Lenin
B. Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the Above3) “(We)...can’t just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people.”
A. Nikita Khrushev
B. Josef Goebbels
C. Boris Yeltsin
D. None of the above4) “We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own…in order to create this common ground.”
A. Mao Tse Dung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong Il
D. None of the above5) “I certainly think the free-market has failed.”
A. Karl Marx
B. Lenin
C. Molotov
D. None of the above6) “I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched.”
A. Pinochet
B. Milosevic
C. Saddam Hussein
D. None of the above
Answers :(1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004
(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007
(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005
Posted by waypasthadenough on Oct 17, 2007 at 10:46 AM About the Firearms Act
Why do we need this law?
Information is the lifeblood of policing and information about who owns guns and the guns that they own is one more tool to support crime prevention, investigations and prosecution. The new law required firearm owners to obtain a license (renewable every 5 years) by January 1, 2001 and to register their firearms (one-time only) by January 1, 2003. Licensing provides information on gun owners while registration will supply details on the firearms they own. This system is comparable to driver’s licenses and car registration.
How will the new law help fight crime?
Ensuring effective screening of applicants: The new law requires that all gun owners obtain licenses and be carefully screened. These licenses must be renewed every five years. Under the old system, 2/3 of firearm owners did not have valid FACs (Firearm Acquisition Certificate) because the old law only required an FAC to acquire a gun and not to possess one.
Enforcing prohibition orders: In Canada, there are 17,500 prohibition orders issued in a typical year. Licensing and registration will provide the information needed to enforce them.
Taking preventative action: Public inquests have repeatedly recommended licensing and registration to help reduce the risk of dangerous people having access to guns (the inquests into: the suicide of Jonathan Yeo who killed Nina de Villiers and Karen Marquis, the murder of Brian Smith, the murder of the Kassonde children, the Vernon Massacre, the murder of Arlene May). Fully integrated databases and a central processing system will also provide access to information through CPIC to take preventive measures (i.e. removing firearms in situations of domestic violence). When a new violent incident is logged at the local level, the system searches the database for the license holder and alerts authorities. Unlike the old stand alone provincial system, the new, integrated, national information system provides police with continuous, real-time access to information to help remove firearms from those who are a risk to themselves or others.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 18, 2007 at 12:44 AM Helping curb the illegal gun trade: Under the old system, an individual could buy as many guns as he or she wanted over a five year period, with little or no accountability because only handguns and restricted weapons were registered. These loopholes created a huge potential for illegal trading. Combined, registration and licensing will help enforce the requirement that guns only be sold to licensed individuals because it will be possible to trace them back to their owner. Already we have seen impressive results – In May 2000, the firearm registry played a pivotal role in uncovering what is alleged to be one of the largest and most sophisticated firearm smuggling rings in North America. Likely destined for the black market, nearly 23,000 firearms and their components were seized.
Reducing gun theft: Every year approximately 5000 firearms are reported stolen, lost or missing, by definition falling into the wrong hands. Without information on who owns the guns, existing safe storage regulations are very difficult to enforce. With registration, gun owners will be held accountable for their firearms, which will encourage compliance with safe storage.
Improving officer safety: While police always assume a firearm may be present in any call, more information will be an added advantage. We know that between 1961 and 1997, 112 police officers were murdered on duty and all but 5 of them were shot.
Providing critical information for police investigations: The firearms most often recovered in crime are rifles and shotguns. Registration will assist in criminal investigations by allowing firearms to be traced back to their original owner. It will also allow police to prove legal ownership of firearms, assisting in prosecuting gun theft and illegal possession.
Why not just punish the criminals who use firearms?
The law already includes a mandatory minimum sentence of 4 years for 10 violent crimes committed with firearms (criminal negligence causing death, manslaughter, attempted murder, causing bodily harm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery and extortion). This legislation is a balance between prevention and deterrence. Minimum sentencing alone is simply not enough because it applies after the fact, which is why we also need to focus on prevention.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 18, 2007 at 12:46 AM Major Major,
The United Kingdom had handgun registration and owner licensing as well for many decades much more strict than in Canada.
The United Kingdom then banned all handguns just over ten years ago.
The United Kingdom banned handguns under the premise that doing so would lead to no, or less gun violence and gun murder too just like the slanted propaganda you posted about Canada.Guess what, the strict gun control, efforts just like they have in Canada now DID NOT WORK….and even a total handgun ban REALL did not work.
The only thing we know for sure is that strict gun control like in the UK of the past, in Canada currently and a total ban like in the UK now has not worked as the gun control advocates promised and predicted. If anything the opposite has resulted, but that is besides the point because all we need to know is that the gun control nuts were wrong then, they were always wrong and they are STILL wrong as well as have been PROVEN to be wrong beyond all doubt.
To cite references where a biased source claims success in the face of reality that shows they are wrong is ludicrous.I am a liberal and I approve of this message
Posted by Novus on Oct 18, 2007 at 2:11 AM Firearms registration and ownership licensing is a fallacy. In the UK there are no handguns legally owned, yet they have more handgun murders now than the year they banned all handguns. If there are more murders with no handguns to even be registered compared to when they had legal ownership, then what fool will fall for the promise of less murders with registration, licensing or outright banning?
The gun cannot be uninvented and they will be smuggled or simply made no matter what and those illegally existing guns will be completely untraceable no matter how many law abiding gun owners are licensed or banned from owning handguns…....
http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/introduction.shtml
I am a liberal and I approve of this message
Posted by Novus on Oct 18, 2007 at 2:22 AM “Registration will assist in criminal investigations by allowing firearms to be traced back to their original owner.”
Except that it never has.
Oddly enough, most criminals obtain their guns from illegal sources.
New Zealand used to have a firearms registry. After 20 years in which it had never been used in solving a single crime, the NZ police asked that it be scrapped, so that they could use the resources in a more intelligent manner.
Canada’s registry has cost a billion dollars. That’s enough to pay for thousands of police. Are the Canadians really safer for having spent billions on this boondoggle?
Canadians are twice as likely to be victims of violent crime than are Americans. Would they have been better off had that money been spent on police, courts, and prisons? Almost certainly.
Posted by jdege on Oct 18, 2007 at 2:41 AM Eh.
major major’s already lost the debate. s/he has no interest in actually engaging in a dialog, and has simply resorted to spamming the board.
Am I really to be expected to engage in a point-by-point fisking of the information s/he’s posting?
If so, what’s the point? It’s patently clear that major major has already made up his/her mind on the subject, and refuses to even entertain our arguments.
What would wading through an army of Googled-up strawmen accomplish in the end?
Nothing, really. I guess I’ll just have to take solace in the fact that more states now allow concealed carry than ever before.
Cheers,
Captain Awesome
Posted by Captain Awesome on Oct 18, 2007 at 3:05 AM Major Major -
You foolishly obsessed about Lott, and got nowhere. Now you are foolishly obsessing about Canada gun laws, and are getting nowhere.
THIS IS NOT CANADA. This is the United States of America. The people are sovereign. The government is our servant. The police are our servants. We have the right to own firearms. We may use our firearms well or poorly (mostly well, by a very large margin), but the government has nothing to say about it if no crime is committed. Murder is a crime, but failure to register a firearm is not a crime, because the people are sovereign.
The Bill of Rights was carefully thought out based on long and sometimes horrific experience. The Founders recognized that the people had to have the means to defend themselves if freedom was to have any meaning at all.
Yes, there are gun accidents. Yes, there are criminals that use guns improperly. That is irrelevant compared to a government that has a monopoly on power, and decides to use that power against the people. Can you think of any examples: Soviet Union, Communist China, Cambodia, Iraq, Darfur?
Is this line of reasoning to complicated for you? You can follow any line of reasoning you wish, but don’t fuck with our sovereignty.
Posted by scorp on Oct 18, 2007 at 3:52 AM MajorMajor’s espousing of background checks, mandatory registration, and gun rationing all fail to account for the total lack of a net gain in public safety from enacting these policies. As an example, a graph of the gun crime rate over the decade in which the Brady law (mandated background checks for gun purchases) should show that the gun crime trend line had a discontinuity at the point where the Brady law took effect. In the actual graph there is no such discontinuity (sharp drop/rise) in gun crime because Brady regulated only the legal gun market and failed to have any effect in the illegal markets where criminals obtain guns. In plain English: Brady was an abject failure at preventing criminals from obtaining guns when they want them. Such a graph is available at this link:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/guncrime.htm
The Brady law was enacted in 1993 but not implemented until 1994. Thus, while Brady was enforced beginning in February 1994, gun crime had begun to decline prior to that, and steadily declined until 1998, when it leveled off and began to increase in 2003. Notably, in 1998 the permanent provisions of the Brady law came into effect, requiring a background check to purchase any gun from a dealer. If Brady worked as its proponents say it does the gun crime trend should have dropped at a much faster rate after 1994 when the law was implemented. It should not have begun to increase in 2003 since the Brady law was strengthened in 1998 and in theory background checks keep guns out of criminal hands.
So what’s a better explanation for why gun crime occurs? Well the economy came out of a recession in 1993-94 and steadily grew until about 2002 when another recession began. To quote a great liberal politician: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Posted by KingKong on Oct 18, 2007 at 7:26 AM Hi,
Just looking through, I think it’s pretty clear which side of the debate has dominated the postings and dominated with knowledge of the issues. It is something of a shame that there appears to be a firewall between the grass roots shooters and the major news media.
I’d be interested to hear from Laura what her take on this is.
I notice that Xavier, in his blog has extended the offer to Laura that if she ever wants to try shooting, that we’d all be glad to help her get started.
Laura, please accept our sincere thanks, I’ll be printing the comments here off as a reference of pro 2a arguments and sources. I’m one of the ugly mugs in the “People of the Gun tribe” over at alphecca, thank you for the inspiration.
My personal email is recorded here, I’d be glad to exchange mails with you.
Alpacca45
Posted by alpacca45 on Oct 18, 2007 at 9:49 AM “If Brady worked as its proponents say it does the gun crime trend should have dropped at a much faster rate after 1994 when the law was implemented.”
Actually, there’s a more telling statistic. Prior to the passage of the Brady bill, some states already required background checks. Some did not. So the Brady bill imposed background checks on some states, and not on others.
If background checks had any influence on violent crime, we should have seen a relative decline in violent crime in those states in which a background check was being imposed, compared to those in which one was not.
No such relative decline was observed.
Violent crime declined, at the same rate it had been declining before the Brady bill took effect, and at the same rate in the states in which the Brady bill had an effect as in the states in which the Brady bill had no effect.
In other words, the Brady bill had no effect on crime rates.
Which is no great surprise, since few criminals commit crimes with legally-obtained guns.
Posted by jdege on Oct 18, 2007 at 11:00 AM Hi Scorp,
Can I add a few to your list?
Guatamala, The ottoman empire in Armenia, the former yugoslavia, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe (zanu pf) in Matabele Land, the Iranian Govt with the B’hai faith, the Burmese govt with the Koren people. Rwanda, Uganda on some of its tribal peoples.Actually, the Mexican Govt isn’t shy about sending the tanks into the south of its country to kill a few thousand of its’ own citizens.
Regardless that there are cells in the Hague, waiting for a lot of the people behind these acts, what really deterrs them is the thought that their jack booted thugs will be slaughtered by their intended targets.
We have barely touched on the usefulness of an armed populace in limiting the actions of genocidal dictatorships. or the usefulness of gun registration to the dictators in disarming that populace.
I forget the calculated figure, but it would take something like 2000 years of US armed crime to give a death toll equal to the death toll of dis armed victems at the hands of dictatorships in the 20th century
(actually, probably a lot longer as the figure for Mao was probably a gross under estimate, current estimates for his regime are around 70M).
Major Major might be pretty useless at marshalling a coherent argument, but he/she/it has done a useful service in bringing us to the danger to all when the citizens are dis armed and at the mercy of a dictatorship.
Before anyone says that democracy is that protection, many of the dictators were democratically elected.
It is the individual patriots with their guns who get to water the liberty tree with the blood of tyrants.
Posted by alpacca45 on Oct 18, 2007 at 4:33 PM Major Major:
Is that your real name? OK, unlike you, Lott may have used a pseudonym to discuss things in internet chat rooms. He apparently let his son post a review of his Dad’s book. By the way, did the newspaper publish any letters to the editor or corrections on this piece?
As to the quotes that you have on Lott’s views, Lott has a discussion of this in his book from the University of Chicago Press and these are gross distortions of what he actually wrote. The fact that you are merely repeating things from a gun control group doesn’t make you or the claims any more useful.
Finally, I don’t have a clue what your rants on Lott has to do with the article.
Posted by SamPApple on Oct 18, 2007 at 4:37 PM ON LAW ENFORCEMENT AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
An abstract of one of Lott’s studies details his findings that “increases in the percent of minority police officers increase crime rates” and that “racial and gender changes in the composition of police forces resulted in at least 2,000 more murders” in cities he studied.
—“Does a Helping Hand Put Others At Risk? Affirmative Action, Police Departments, and Crime,” Abstract listing by Social Science Research Network Electronic Library, July 25, 1997.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 14, 2007 at 9:36 PMWell, I just checked the first of you claims about Lott’s views. Your misquotes and partial quotes are completely misleading. The abstract that you quote from at the Social Science Research Network actually reads as:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=10541
Does a Helping Hand Put Others At Risk?: Affirmative Action, Police Departments, and Crime
JOHN R. LOTT Jr.
University of Maryland Foundation, University of Maryland July 1997
Abstract:
Will increasing the number of minority and women police officers make law enforcement more effective by drawing on abilities that have gone untapped, or will standards have to be lowered too far before large numbers of minorities and women can be hired? Using cross-sectional time-series data for over 200 U.S. cities for 1987, 1990, and 1993, I find that increases in the percent of minority police officers increase crime rates, but this apparently arises because lower hiring standards involved in recruiting more minority officers reduces the quality of both new minority and new nonminority officers. The most adverse effects of these hiring policies have occurred in the most heavily black populated areas. There is no consistent evidence that crime rates rise when more women are hired, and this raises questions about whether norming tests or altering their content to create equal pass rates is preferable. The paper examines how the changing composition of police departments affects such measures as the murder of and assaults against police officers.
Posted by SamPApple on Oct 18, 2007 at 4:45 PM The “tree of Liberty” is rarely “watered” with the “blood of tyrants”. It’s usually the people who follow the “patriots” or the “tyrants” who place themselves at risk. But the people who suffer and sacrifice the most are the bystanders who are always caught in the crossfire. The Patriots and the Tyrants usually retire to their palatial estates to write nostalgic, self-serving metaphors which glorify their own homicidal leadership.
One man’s patriot is another man’s tyrant.
Posted by Major Major on Oct 18, 2007 at 9:49 PM I am wondering why there is an american flag at the end of each of the posts made by major major. I would give strong odds on this person either being a member of the Canadian Firearm’s Association or one of Wendy Cukier’s rabid gun grabbers using a us internet ISP in order to have a US address.
Most of what he says is the usual propaganda spewed by both these groups. The RCMP Commissioner of the day when Alan Rock was lying through his teeth in the House of Commons about the benifits of the registry ans the mere two million dollar cost, wrote a letter to Parliament demanding that the Liberal Government stop stating that the figures being quoted as facts obtained from RMP statistics as their was no truth in anything being said.
M/M goes on in his post Why do we need this law?
“Information being the lifebloodof policing” is correct however he continues with “and information about who owns
guns and the guns that they own is one more tool to support crime
prevention, investigations and prosecution” is crap. The registry lost any chance for being a valid tool when owners refused to register their firearms. The only ones being registered were the stock of firearms in stores that sold hunting supplies and each new firearm that was purchased from a legitimate vendor. Others were older persons who were frightened into registration for fear of losing their guns..
The government’s own studies had concluded there were in excess of 7 million legal firearms owners currently in possession of approximately 21 million firearms, yet very few were in the registry. All previously registered handguns were supposed to be verified and re registered in order to ensure accuracy however in a desparate move to try to convince Canadians that the system was a success they abandoned the necessity of clearing up mistakes in the old handgun registry which had been in existance since 1934, and merely rolled all the information contained on the old cards into the computers thereby filling them with junk information.
Herb Gray- Liberal Deputy Prime Minister was asked in the House of Commons, ” How many crimes had been solved using the information contained in the old handgun registry since 1934 His response was “none” The response was the same when he was asked hoe many crimes had been prevented using the old registry. He had no response as to why all the information had been placed in the new registry mistakes and all.
The Liberals in an attempt to show people were embracing and complying with the new firearms laws as they stated that over 90% of Canada’s 1.5 million gun owners had registered approximately 6 million firearms. They have thus far been unable to explain what happened to the other five and a half million owners and the approximately 15 million firearms that their own studies had told them existed. Some how the owners and their firearms vanished in order to make it appear that the two billion dollars had not been wasted.Why not out your self as a troll here Wendy?
Posted by xmountie on Oct 19, 2007 at 1:54 AM -
register a new account »Posting Security
Also by Laura S. Washington
- Obama Needs a Black Agenda
- Honest Abe and Honest Obe
- The Whole World Was Watching
40 years ago this week, Chicago police battled protesters at the DNC. Two '60s radicals remember the madness, and look to Denver for change - Gun-toters in La-La Land
- The Great Election Robbery of 2008?
- Obama Not Feelin’ the Love from Smiley
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1977 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
462 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
426 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2007 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
