What I mean by that is that the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby have such a firm hold on our political system that no one can bring up the notion, which we bring up with every other kind of tragedy, that maybe we can do better. Maybe there are laws we could pass that would prevent something like this.Maybe we can do better.... laws can't solve everything... but if that were the standard, then we wouldn't pass any laws at all... so... so, what? Since we do sometimes pass laws, we must think that laws can sometimes help when there's a problem. And there's a problem, so... so... what? Let's open this up. Let's talk about it. E.J. Dionne is afraid we'll just knee-jerk do nothing, instead of knee-jerk propose gun control... I mean think and think with thoughtful contemplation and talk about and around and through and through and arrive at the solution that immediately popped into E.J. Dionne's mind.
No one pretends that better laws would prevent all tragedies, but if that were the standard, then we wouldn't pass any laws at all. We have the most permissive gun laws pretty much in the industrialized world. And I hope, but I have no confidence, that we won't make the same mistake again.
I'd like to think that one time, we could say: Oh, let's open this up. Let's talk about the assault weapons ban. Let's talk about ways in which we might reduce the chances that someone with mental problems might get a gun. And I'm just worried that we're going to revert right back to our usual sort of giving and saying, well, the gun lobby controls Washington, so we can never do anything about things like this.
I'm fascinated by this notion that we do sometimes pass laws and therefore that means that we should pass laws. The resistance to passing laws is some nasty dysfunction caused by a nefarious interest group — here, the NRA — but good people want to do something. This do something orientation is characteristic of the modern liberal mind. I heard Dionne saying that on the radio yesterday evening, but it came back to me as I was reading about rabies and marveling at the crazy — desperate — ideas for a cure: "you burn a hair from the dog that bit you and insert the ashes into the wound... [a] maggot from a dead dog's body... a linen cloth soaked with menstrual blood of a female dog... [c]hicken excrement, 'if it is of a red color'... [a]shes from the tail of a shrew-mouse...."
When is it that reasoning goes haywire? After Dionne presented his patchwork of liberal logic, the host called upon David Brooks. (Don't say NPR doesn't balance liberals and conservatives!) He said...
Well, I'm no fan of the NRA, I'm not really an opponent of gun control or an assault weapon ban...That sounds like a necessary preface for the NPR listeners, but I'm going to give Brooks credit for subtly deactivating the bogeyman Dionne inserted into his call to action, because Brooks continues with:
... but, you know, public policy is based on evidence and data and whether it would work.Brooks is displaying the pin with which he is about to puncture the liberal's inflated self-image.
This is one of the most studied things in criminology. And the weight of the evidence is pretty clear that there's no relationship between gun control and violent crime. Areas with higher gun control do not have less violent crime. Over the last few years, the number of new guns entering the country has been about four million a year.So you've got to look at evidence, not your instinctive notions about what just might work. Put down that shrew mouse's tail now, E.J.
At the same time, violent crime has plummeted by about 41 percent a year.Brooks's "evidence and data" dump seemed really powerful until he got to that implausible percentage. What is it, 41% a decade, I don't know what to make of this point-counterpoint style radio presentation. There are no links to click on, so I'm just forced to be suspicious of Brooks's I've-got-the-facts posturing. [ADDED: Meade suggests that the percentage of decline has increased by 41% a year.]
Brooks concludes:
So I'm not necessarily opposed to the policy, I don't really think it would matter in violent crime generally, and I really don't think it would matter too much in the case of lunatics or whatever who are committed to this sort of pre-planned massacre.So Brooks retreats to reassuring the NPR audience: He's not opposed to gun control, he just doesn't think it would work. He began with the assertion that "public policy is based on evidence and data and whether it would work," explained why he didn't think it would work, but nevertheless won't oppose the policy. Brooks isn't a conservative by my standard. I think to be conservative, you should have the instinctive orientation: do nothing. You have to convince us what you've got there is better than nothing. And what have you got there? A bucket of red chickenshit? A dog's tampon?!!
Now, how will the very very thoughtful E.J. Dionne deal with Brooks's argument from evidence! and data! He's got to demonstrate that he's one of the smart people, the non-haywire people, your betters who proposed open and thorough debate about solutions to problems (after the bogeymen are kicked out of the room):
DIONNE: If we had better background checks, yes we'll miss some lunatics, but with real background checks, we could reduce the number of lunatics who get guns. And there's also a spillover. If you have permissive laws in one state - as Mayor Bloomberg has shown, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, who has proposed a lot of very practical remedies, not sweeping remedies but practical remedies - he's shown how loose laws in one state can send guns into a state that may have stricter laws. So I don't think we should throw up our hands and say it's impossible...And there you have it, the liberal mind at work, in real time.
BROOKS: Yeah, one area of agreement, I do think people who have history of mental health issues, and this came up with the Loughner case, that...
SIEGEL: The shooting of Gabby Giffords...
BROOKS: That should show up when you're trying to buy a gun. And legally, that's supposed to happen, but it doesn't always happen.
SIEGEL: We don't know all that much about the suspect. So far no indication that any such record would have shown up. We just don't know yet.
DIONNE: Right, and my argument is not that you can prevent every one of these things, but when I heard this this morning, like everybody else, I was, you know, sick about it. And I just thought that every time this happens, people say, well, there are very particular factors in this case, so let's not talk about gun control, gun control wouldn't solve it. Well, maybe it would, or maybe it wouldn't in a particular case, but it would prevent some of these things in the future.
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180 comments:
How does Dionne explain Chicago? High murder rates despite very tough gun laws and compliant progressive government/polity, all the way up to the state level?
(Don't say NPR doesn't balance liberals and conservatives!)
"Balancing" a lunatic like Dionne with someone like Brooks who's at least one full sigma left of center leaves you ...
Pretty much to the center of the NPR audience I guess.
Nevermind.
The first problem is that JUST passing a law in reflex to an issue that is either not related to the initial "problem" or is only marginally associated, means that the law being passed is a bad law. It doesn't fix or address the initial "problem" and likely creates worse unintended consequences. Prohibition is a prime example.
The other first problem with passing bad law is that rarely if EVER is a bad law removed from the books. We just keep stacking more and more bad laws on top of bad laws.
Using political points to try to solve social issues only exacerbates the social ills. The only reason these bad laws are passed is for political power and to have the politicians try to justify their jobs by doing something. Even if it is ineffectual and wrong....it is still something......"See!! Re elect ME!"
1. Something must be done.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore it must be done.
People like Giffords and Loughner have their own private demons and outlawing firearms won't stop them.
consider the booby traps in Holmes' apartment and the grenades he threw yesterday. Some of that, if not all, was homemade and the recipes are all over the Internet. So, after the next nut does it with homemade explosives, people like Dionne are going to outlaw bottles of ammonia and censor the Internet?
Which, of course, is what they want.
This is about controlling people as Nanny Bloomberg once again demonstrated. If he wants gun control, he ought to start with Eric Holder and the current Administration.
For anybody who remembers the assassinations of the late 60s, there was a spate of gun control laws passed in their aftermath, but the 70s was one of the most violent decades in recent memory.
There are sensible laws passed that do protect the general public; I am thinking of FDA meat inspection that for the most part has improved our health. And in many professions, such as engineering, there is a code of ethics, not a law I understand, that places the public safety first-- above client needs. One simple thing that could be added to gun control is to limit the sale of clips that hold more than ten rounds, as it seems when the killers pause to change clips that creates an opportunity. And as always more extensive background checks-
Maybe we could prevent some of these horrific crimes if we could take more more active measures to institutionalize the mentally ill BEFORE they committed a crime.
It's interesting that while the Left thinks it's okay to strip people of their 2nd amendment rights, it's not okay to go back to the bad old days of relatively easy institutionalization.
Nowadays, thanks to the ACLU, if one is dealing with a mentally ill adult, you can't do anything with them until they hurt themselves or others.
What I mean by that is that the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby have such a firm hold on our political system
Notice how with the left it is always boogeymen, and never their ideas.
It must be fun to live in such a cocoon of sweet, comforting lies.
roesch/voltaire said...
There are sensible laws passed that do protect the general public; I am thinking of FDA meat inspection that for the most part has improved our health
The USDA FSIS inspects meat in the United States.
By the way, the shooter broke two Colorado statutes regarding the transport of weapons before he fired a shot.
But don't worry, EJ Dionne who doesn't know what an AR-15 is or what AR-15 stands for, will guide us to "sensible" legislation.
As noted above re David Brooks: I am sure that he is conservative vis a vis NPR. As my ladyfriend points out, David Brooks is the kind of conservative that the liberals in Manhattan like to invite to cocktail parties to show how inclusive they are.
What edutcher said! Him speak heap big medicine! (Apologies to great Native American Liz Warren--hate to impinge on the noble identity of the Red-Man)
Let's talk about the assault weapons ban. Let's talk about ways in which we might reduce the chances that someone with mental problems might get a gun.
Yeah EJ, let's talk about it.
First, the AWB did not prohibit the manufacture of AR-15, and dealt with cosmetics. It was so much symbolic legislation, that it was not really controversial to let it lapse.
Secondly, the shooter in this case apparently was never diagnosed or treated for "mental problems"
So I'd love to know how you, or anyone reading, could implement a system preventing this "joker" from obtaining a firearm?
Further, EJ is, I'm quite sure, very, very ignorant of the gun laws in Colorado. But EJ will guide us to "sensible" legislation.
I get the NY Post here in CT and a recent story has been of a mentally ill (really ill) guy who stabbed a young woman in Manhattan. His family said he may not have been taking his meds and they wanted him hospitalized. But Mayor Bloomberg still hypes about gun control.
Two or three times a year someone is pushed onto the subway tracks by a mentally ill person, as well as numerous stabbings, assaults and other crimes. If the NRA is the left's boogyman, then the ACLU should be the one for everyday crimes.
Liberals are going to have to confront the fact that more laws are not going to solve the problem. You can't legislate guns out of existence. Well, you probably could, but no one would want to live under the fascist state required to make that happen.
What if we made universal arms training a law??
Imagine the response if everyone in the theater was packin' heat!
Meanwhile, for context, don't forget about Jeanne Assam.
What would have happened had a Jeanne Assam been in the theater?
What would have happened had two Jeanne Assams been there?
One of the chief difficulties with American life is the free-rider problem. Life goes along pretty well, most of the time.
It goes along pretty well, even with only a small percentage of the potentially responsible-and-mature adult population bothering to actually exercise their responsibility and maturity through sober-minded civic participation in various ways (informed voting, knowing CPR and water rescue, staying out of debt, voluntarily assisting others in need, giving blood, and carrying a concealed weapon they're skilled at using under emergency circumstances).
Because life gets along pretty well with a fairly small percentage of the population exercising adult preparedness, fewer and fewer adults bother to be prepared and responsible in their daily lives. Vast swaths of the populace can't balance a checkbook, can't swim, can't reach-throw-row-go, don't know stop-drop-roll, have never practiced operating a fire extinguisher, can't change a tire, and don't carry or have access to a firearm in case of emergency circumstances arising.
Not everyone, of course, is capable of doing so. I wouldn't want to force it on the populace generally. (Likewise, a wheelchair-bound person is not the best candidate for training to do a water rescue, and someone with emphysema is not the best candidate for learning mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.)
But because normally life gets along okay without everybody being adequately prepared, a lot of folk who could be more responsibly prepared aren't. They just hope they'll get by, that an emergency won't happen.
They're free riding.
How to change the culture so that we encourage more preparedness and fewer free riders?
I don't know. I only observe that it would be to our benefit if we did. Any suggestions are welcome.
Is it even acceptable (among the non-haywire) to suggest that loonies are more violent than anyone else? I thought only doubleplusungood oldthinkers still believed that.
BROOKS: Yeah, one area of agreement, I do think people who have history of mental health issues, and this came up with the Loughner case, that...
SIEGEL: The shooting of Gabby Giffords...
What I found striking about yesterday was how much notoriety the murderer got. He cried for attention in a heinous way, but he got the attention he craved. Those who cried out in the theater, not so much. Even today, Brooks recognizes Loughner, with at least Seigel mentioning Giffords. Who were the people that actually were killed that day in Arizona? Neither remembered them.
But that's part of the story isn't it? Some of us think the protagonists are the theater victims, and the antagonist is the shooter; thus its a tragedy. Dionne and Brooks; the protagonist is Holmes and Loughner and the antagonist the gun lobby which lead the poor souls to commit their crimes; thus to them, the tragedy.
***SARC ALERT***
Dionne misses the most obvious (and what would certainly be the most effective) law: a law saying that people must obey the law. That would have stopped this and many other crimes. Why haven't these geniuses who have inexplicably been given soapboxes figured out this elegant solution?
***END SARC***
We now return you to your regular commenting, already in progress.
". . . other people go crazy and can't think straight, so let's check out the quality of Dionne's thinking." I enjoyed reading what followed.
E. J. Dionne often wonders why he can't strike out batters when he plays t-ball. The night George W. Bush defeated Kerry in 2004, Dionne said the blue states should secede because the red states don't see reality the way he does. I agree with part of that statement, just not the part that he would consider flattering.
What I find amazing is that Dionne concedes that any solution will not actually stop events like these from happening. Oh, it'll stop SOME of them, perhaps.
But what is left unspoken is mass murders like this are relatively rare and rather extraordinary when compared to gun crime in general.
Dionne is proposing passing laws to stem the horrible tide of rare mass murder events like Aurora, while conceding that the lunatics will slip through.
What level of violence is therefore acceptable to Dionne for him to feel satisfied that he's "done something?"
(An aside: Why is it assumed that mental health is at issue in these shootings? Why is Holmes considered a "lunatic?" Do we jump to these conclusions based on our sense of horror? Do we have such a need to withdraw in shock from the act, that we have to label Holmes as insane in order to restore our sense of balance, because, after all, a sane person could never perpetrate such an act of violence? Sane people throughout history have perpetrated amazing violence. Perpetrating violence has always been the norm in human culture historically.)
madAsHell said...
What if we made universal arms training a law??
Imagine the response if everyone in the theater was packin' heat!
Interesting point (George Marshall wanted universal military training on the Swiss model after WWII). Somebody might have stopped him before he shot 70 people.
PS Notice Dionne doesn't want a more moral, respectful, even Christian (or Jewish) society, just a more regulated one.
Imagine the response if everyone in the theater was packin' heat!
Yea I can just imagine.
What an exceptional country we live in.
Amen, RogerJ--I would only add that Brooks is also the kind of "conservative" that unabashedly aspires to be thought well of by those self-same lefties hosting said cocktail parties and actively seeks the invite, let alone bathe in their approbation..
You missed Dionne's really big lie.
We HAVE gun control. We HAVE background checks. We DON'T allow sales of guns to people who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent. We have an elaborate system in place. Personally, I think it's, at best, a waste of money, but we do have everything that Dionne says we should have, in place.
That's the big lie I hear over and over again from gun-control advocates. They talk as if we haven't already done what they claim they want.
Clearly, they must want something else, but they don't want to say it.
PPS Anything come of that allegation Holmes was an Occupier?
I have yet to see any substantiation.
As a Village Administrator for a small town in Ohio since 1998, I've had to work with politicians, i.e. the Village Council. 95% of the Councilpersons I've had would haracterize themselves as "strongly conservative" if asked. Yet, no matter what the problem is, politicians at any level feel they have to "do something" when a voter points to a problem, real or perceived.
Politicians of all stripes are reactionary, and that unfortunately is a hallmark of democracy. It is why I cringe when folks call our political system democracy. It was intended to be a representative republic. We screwed it up.
That's the big lie I hear over and over again from gun-control advocates.
BarryD, there was one frothing at the mouth guy on the radio yesterday screeching about the "gun show loophole"!
Did you know that ANYONE can buy a gun at a gun show in Florida? Felons, mentally ill, ANYONE!
I learned all about it!
V/R,
I am thinking of FDA meat inspection that for the most part has improved our health.
Nope. Producers have an incentive to provide the highest quality meat that people will buy. The FDA has nothing to do with that. Your statement is saying this: consumers are so stupid that they will continue to eat meat that makes them sick. Only the FDA can prevent that.
Also, the FDA by and large is responsible for a net loss in life due to its ridiculous drug trial programs.
And in many professions, such as engineering, there is a code of ethics, not a law I understand, that places the public safety first
Imagine that. A privately run set of standards without the need to resort to laws. If only that happened in every industry. Oh wait it does. But simpletons like you think it's not enough, then proceed to make matters worse with government intervention.
simple thing that could be added to gun control is to limit the sale of clips that hold more than ten rounds, as it seems when the killers pause to change clips that creates an opportunity.
You are aware that many major cities and states have this ordnance in place, right? Didn't affect crime at all. It is illegal to buy a hi capacity magazine (over 10 rounds) in Maryland, yet shocker of all shockers, Baltimore is still a leading contenter for most violent city in Western civilization.
And as always more extensive background checks-
Still no affect.
Does it ever occur to you and people like you to look at the actual affects" of laws rather than just assume that the laws you implement do any good? I bet it never even crosses you small little mind that these laws only affect LAW ABIDING CITIZENS. Thus, you leave defenseless the very people you are trying to protect, increasing violent crime.
The saying "Outlawing guns, then only outlaws will have guns" is true, but that sales right over your head. Try a little critical thinking before uttering completely failed policies as good things.
Forget the guns, what we need are more laws against gas canisters./
"Meadow Mush" for brains is too kind a term to use in describing these two mental midgets.
I think we should pass a law, named after one of the victims, preferably a child. Those are always the best kinds of laws.
David Brooks is just the NYT's idea of an "acceptable conservative," and has made a career of that position.
This guy Holmes seem to be in the Loughner-Breivik kind of behavior. Norway's gun laws are way stricter than even Chicago's. So have these laws helped much?
Something bad happens and the liberals (not to mention O'Reilly) wants to rush off and pass another Jessica' or Fido's law. They get that done, think they have accomplished something, and charge off on the next cause of the moment and opprtunity to pass an Anniken's or Spot's law.
2 killed, 14 wounded in Chicago overnight.
Chicago is experiencing an Aurora per month while having the most restrictive gun laws in America.
EJ Dionne furrows his brow...
Leslyn,
It's our culture. We had the Old West, with six shooters, goldarnit, not swords and battleaxes, and we won"t give it up!
For good reason.
"Maybe we could prevent some of these horrific crimes if we could take more more active measures to institutionalize the mentally ill BEFORE they committed a crime. "
The shooter may have had mental issues known to his family from what the ABC interview reported but, of course, that is ABC.
The mental illness legislation in the 60s made it impossible to deal with sick people. One additional problem is that a well organized schizophrenic ,capable of doing this shooting and all the organization of the booby traps, etc., may not be easy to recognize without close observation.
We had such a guy in the hospital a few years ago and the family put a letter in his chart describing his delusions so the medical staff wouldn't be taken in. He sounded great until you go into his delusions which involved, not violence, but big plans to fly to Korea and buy property. It turned out that he had nothing and had attacked family members who tried to reason with him.
Loughner was well known to be ill but his mother was a Democrat official in Tucson and a friend of the sheriff who mouthed off on TV.
One simple thing that could be added to gun control is to limit the sale of clips that hold more than ten rounds, as it seems when the killers pause to change clips that creates an opportunity. And as always more extensive background checks-
I'm always impressed with the dearth of knowledge that you bring to the table. What's to stop someone from using two guns? Welding two magazines together-the garand used clips everything else uses magazines. Outlaw the object and resourceful people will find a way to obtain it. And this sociopath was nothing if not resourceful.
I've lost count of how many gangbanger wannabes have asked me if I can make a silencer or a machine gun. Machine guns and silencers BTW are illegal to own without the correct tax stamps.
"(Don't say NPR doesn't balance liberals and conservatives!)"
I'm sick and tired of hearing David Brooks being portrayed as a conservative by liberals. He is nothing but a suck up elitist and he isn't a conservative and I don't think he is very smart either though I did enjoy his book "Bobos in Paradise". David Brooks is what liberals would like conservatives to be.
The solution is stop pulling ratings with tragedy entertainment.
There's no reason to kill off shopping center of people if nobody will cover it, even if you're crazy.
And they're still pulling ratings with it. It won't end until a beautiful young white girl is abducted and the better ratings move to something else.
The media are also partners with every terrorist group in the world.
"One simple thing that could be added to gun control is to limit the sale of clips that hold more than ten rounds, as it seems when the killers pause to change clips that creates an opportunity."
Someone who is using a gun offensively, e.g. a killer firing into a theater of unarmed people, can easily change magazines. This guy could have probably done the same thing with a single-shot rifle.
The only real need for a standard capacity magazine (15 rounds or so in a pistol has been the standard for decades) is DEFENSIVE use. That's why the police switched from the revolvers that had been their standard defensive weapons for a century: if they needed to defend themselves, they were probably in a bad position to reload.
Trying to limit offensive use of firearms by limiting magazine size is backwards. Three robbers entering a store, each with a gun, have no concern about magazine capacity. It's the store owner, faced with multiple attackers, that might.
The KC Star said Aurora should prompt "honezt discussion" about guns. Tje problem is that honestly revealing their position dooms the Democrats. Witness the evolution in his position from state senator Obama to presidential candidate Obama.
How quickly we forget:
On December 9, 2007, a gunman opened fire in the New Life Church, striking four people and killing two, sisters Rachel and Stephanie Works. Jeanne Assam, a church security volunteer, shot and wounded the gunman who then killed himself.
David Brooks a conservative? Surely, you jest.
I know this is a difficult thing to try to ask all of you gun grabbers out there, but please think before you comment. James Holmes legally bought his guns and passed a background check.
Please explain to me what law, exactly, could have prevented him from buying a gun. Put together a coherent argument for preventing a man who passed a background check from buying a gun.
Then explain to me how your proposed law will actually make gun violence decline in general. Can you do it? Likely not.
The left's new narrative is that this "joker" guy bought too much ammo.
The suggested approach is now that if you buy "too much" ammo it should raise a "red flag" and someone should come and "check it out"
Sounds sensible, right?
*GIGGLE*
leslyn said...
It's our culture. We had the Old West, with six shooters, goldarnit, not swords and battleaxes, and we won"t give it up!
Ah, yes, the Puritans were whacking each other with swords all the time in Olde Plymouth.
But it seems the only places shootouts in the street are endemic are cities run by Lefty Democrats.
Yesterday, I lamented that a man could be so hateful to commit an atrocity like this.
As a supporter of many gun restriction laws my entire life - my family is full of hunters, but I would never own a gun - I also believe that the Second Amendment guarantees the rights of citizens to own and use guns for certain protections and sport.
What I cannot understand to this day is the automatic Knee-jerk reaction and belief of so many in the media and educated world that restricting all access to gun ownership is the default position for reasonable people. Why do so many just not get the need and value of self-protection? Is there some number of deaths of innocents that could have been prevented by self-defense acceptable to these people?
For such a "caring" set of people - those always taking the liberal political view of things - why are they more concerned with doing away with the death penalty, and closing Guantanamo, et al ad nauseum than they are valuing the lives of innocent individuals? How many of yesterdays victims would be alive if concealed carry by servicemen or off-duty police or even security had been allowed in the theater?
Ken said...
Please explain to me what law, exactly, could have prevented him from buying a gun.
Ken, they can't, the whole phrase is just cover for them in admitting they want to ban "assault rifles"
Did you know that the AR-15 is a "military assault weapon"?
I learned that on Twitter yesterday by all the helpful leftists...
Leslyn (and I do love the name) mentioned: We had the Old West, with six shooters, goldarnit, not swords and battleaxes, and we won"t give it up!"
When we outlaw guns then the next step will be to outlaw swords and battle axes. Seems to me we have some experience with prohibition--didnt work to well.
Most people, IMO, follow laws except for possibly not coming to a full stop at a stop sign. Criminals simply do not follow the existing laws, which, of course, is why they are crimminals.
Does it strike any of you gun grabbers as odd that the most horrific gun massacres over the last two decades occurred in "gun free" zones? Can you even put two and two together? A gunman walks into a place KNOWING no one else will be armed and your shocked, SHOCKED that no one can stop this person before killing a lot of people. You idiots set up perfect targets for people who never expected anyone to be armed.
All those who support gun free zones and draconian restrictions on gun ownership and carry have blood on your hands.
Judging by garage's idiot statement, you clearly cannot put two and two together.
It always sounds cold and calculating, but don't we always, in the end, balance risk and reward? What benefit do we get from more gun laws vs what do we risk in terms of burdening law abiding people with unreasonable restrictions? And, the risk of such laws being used against the people they're supposed to protect.
And the "old west" lasted for about 25 years. When those damn women came, they built schools and churches and the old west that Leslyn pictures lasted for about 30 years.
Now in fairness to Leslyn I infer she is saying there is something in our "culture" that tends toward violence. I respectfully disagree: the vast majority of Americans are law abiding and subscribe to the social contract.
Seems to me it doesn't matter so much what sort of weapon the criminal has (and you can NEVER stop someone intent on having one). What is important is the sort of weapons, if any, the intended victims have.
He may have multiple assault rifles, but can still be taken down with a single shot from a little 9mm.
roesch/voltaire said...
"One simple thing that could be added to gun control is to limit the sale of clips that hold more than ten rounds, as it seems when the killers pause to change clips that creates an opportunity."
And yet, because theaters and schools are posted GUN-FREE ZONES, the killers have plenty of time to reload at their leisure. There's no hurry, you see, because all the guns in the place are yours, and nobody else is going to stand up and shoot you because you're reloading. Because the victims don't have any guns of their own.
And yet, the times when a killer walks into a place and starts shooting only to be cut down by an armed citizen seconds later - those never seem to make the news. Because the body count isn't high enough to make the headlines.
The problem is not "a madman with a gun". The problem is "a madman with the ONLY gun".
Why it is almost as if leslyn is ignorant of the 77 people killed in the Norway mass shooting or something.
Just for reference for all you wild west referring gun grabbers out there, keep this in mind:
The battle at the OK Corral lasted seconds and NO GOOD GUYS died, but four bad guys lay dead.
Thanks for bringing that up, leslyn. This highlights the necessity of having good men armed when predators are out and about.
Yes, YoungHegelian, why don't any of the talking heads address this issue?
And why don't the talking heads ever mention incidents like Jean Assam, where guns actually saved lives? I would like to see a movie about this woman. Maybe Meryl Streep (or her daughter) could play her.
I should have added: There is no getting around the truth of the simple saying, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."
Liberal knee-jerk to pass more laws is an example of God-consciousness gone awry.
Liberals may not believe in God, or have muddled spiritual beliefs, but I believe each human has a connection with God that cannot be exorcised or denied.
The immature/undeveloped God-consciousness in Liberals gets channeled into destructive policies that attempt to create a God-reality through more laws, more government. There will never be enough laws or government to satisfy Liberal's misdirected God consciousness.
Each new law strips away liberty and aggregates power in a government that manifests for Liberals, God on earth.
Damn--OK I put in two different dates: for consistency lets assume the "old west" lasted 27.5 years: problem solved.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold purportedly violated about 20 firearms laws in collecting their weapons pre-Columbine. Nevertheless, we saw the same call for more gun regulations post-Columbine. Maybe a 21st firearm law would have deterred Eric Harris, but I don't think so.
If I remember it correctly the shooter was covered in body armor and wore a bulletproof helmet.
DIONNE: If we had better background checks, yes we'll miss some lunatics, but with real background checks,
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
If only those dummies at the State Police Barracks who are responsible for approving all handgun sales would listen to EJ!
Remember, EJ supports police!
He does!
Article 17, section 1 of the Colorado state constitution declares that "The militia of the state shall consist of all able-bodied male residents of the state".
The army wasn't there. We didn't expect them to be. The national guard wasn't there. We didn't expect them to be. The state guard that Colorado authorizes in Title 28 wasn't there. We didn't expect them to be. And the police weren't there. We didn't expect them to be.
If you put any of those people at every movie showing we would be rightly concerned about a police state. But the militia, now the militia was supposed to be there. It was there. And it failed. It's legitimate to conduct a failure analysis and to possibly change the laws to enhance its effectiveness.
Why did it fail? What could we have done differently so that it would have been more effective? That's a conversation that would satisfy Dionne's fuzzy request for "opening up" a discussion but one that would predictably horrify him. The existing laws provide for one group of people that you expect to be around in case of emergency consistent with avoiding a police state, the state militia as identified in the Colorado state constitution. Why did they fail?
Go start your analysis there, if you have to do instant analysis before the funerals are done, if that's what you need to do to process the tragedy.
Plenty of good clip-and-save material out there today that might come in handy later, after they've gone back to pretending that they've no interest in gun-grabbing.
Bill Quick at Daily Pundit has some interesting thoughts on the body armor aspect.
Still, the weaponry isn’t nearly as interesting as the full body armor: The police stated he was wearing a bullet proof helmet, vest, greaves, as well as crotch and throat protection. He was obviously trying to protect himself against being shot by somebody else. But who?
The other weird aspect of his preparations provides what I think might be a clue: Before he started shooting, he ignited at least one, possibly two irritant bombs of some sort – mace, pepper spray, tear gas, something designed to disorient those in the theater who might have opposed him.
Well, you say, he was ready to take on the police.
Except he didn’t. As far as we can tell from the published reports, the police “arrested him without incident” immediately upon their arrival and confrontation with him. In other words, he made no effort to resist.
So why all the preparations? I think he feared being opposed by his own fellow citizens.
Something to think about.
If I remember it correctly the shooter was covered in body armor and wore a bulletproof helmet.
Which would have proteced the shooter to some degree but not enough to allow him full control to continue. Any shot at him that connected would have slowed him down and saved some lives.
Additionally, any serviceman with a weapon would fire multiple times and do whatever necessary to get as clean a shot as possible at the head/face or any unprotected area.
My son is a US Marine MSG. He went through Quantico, where his shooting skills and response were heightened to a degree that I find almost unbelievable. And for that, I am very thankful.
New york city has had the country's toughest gun laws for 50 years. It is practically speaking almost impossible for the average person to own and carry a handgun. In the early 1990's we had over 2000 murders a year, most by handgun. We are now down to 500 to 600. The gun laws have not changed. What changed? We started arresting criminals and putting them in jail. Oh, and we started enforcing the gun laws we do have. It is called Stop and Frisk, almost universally opposed by the same liberals who want Second Amendment rights limited. So the net effect of the liberal view is: laws that prevent the law abiding from exercising their right of self defense and laws that protect lawbreakers from complying with the law.
The fear of an uprising of Tea Partiers bent on revenge seems to be spooking the MSM and the Journolisters. They really believe in their delusions.
The problem is that intellectuals living in NYC/New England and their adjunct monument town called Washington have never lived outside of a bubble that sees real American citizens as a hostile hoard. It resembles the image they have of southerners and take to be proven real...after all they saw a movie.
The oldest Tyrant's trick is waiving around that false fear to justify imprisoning and mobilising a nation in a crusade against free people...really dangerous and scary free people, I tell you.
The coverage of Mr Perfect Killer's deeds early on had a comment from a Texas U S Representative, who wondered how a crowd that large did not have several concealed carry folks in it to return fire.
That was hooted down as insanity and crazy thoughts. Why it could mean they shot the wrong persons in the dark. That was a weak reply, but his thoughts had frozen the Liberal propagandists for a moment because his comment WAS the answer to the entire impossible problem.
I am wondering how the Dems in the MSM are disciplined so well. Does a Soros funded gang threaten to take them out and shoot their careers without a trial?
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. - William Burroughs
Holmes probably slipped into psychosis over the past few months. The onset of schizophrenia during the early adulthood is fairly commons. I worked with several such cases when in mental health, including one who had murdered his mother. (Really nice guy when properly medicated.)
Helen Smith, aka Ms. Instapundit, takes a look at this from a parents view and the lack of mental health services.
As a libertarian, my first knee jerk is to preserve freedom. Every day, we run the risk of dying. How much freedom are we willing to give up to minimize that risk? I think our risks are already acceptably low and I like being able to personally protect myself and my family.
Dionne prefers we turn the country into a massive prison to "protect" ourselves. But, it won't work. The physically stronger thugs, those with illegal weapons, and those in government with weapons will rule over us.
the resistance to passing laws is some nasty dysfunction caused by a nefarious interest group — here, the NRA — but good people want to do something.
Will you present evidence that congressmen and women have no problem defying the NRA? Can you present evidence that the efforts by the NRA do not defeat congressional candidates for national office? Forget evidence. Have you examined the question?
that sounds like a necessary preface for the NPR listeners,
of which you are apparently one.
We HAVE gun control. We HAVE background checks. We DON'T allow sales of guns to people who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent. We have an elaborate system in place. Personally, I think it's, at best, a waste of money, but we do have everything that Dionne says we should have, in place.
and
By the way, the shooter broke two Colorado statutes regarding the transport of weapons before he fired a shot.
The problem is that when we have too many guns on the books, it ceases to be a government of laws, and becomes a government of people. The cause of this problem is selective prosecution. There are so many laws on the books that everyone pretty much is violating laws every day. And, so, it becomes a question of which laws to enforce against which people.
Dionne, being a good liberal, believes that if you only get the right people running the country, that this determination can be done honestly and fairly. Yet, he most likely voted for Obama, who put Holder in charge of the Justice Department, and we find some of the most egregious selective enforcement of laws in our lifetimes. We have non-enforcement of voting rights laws against blacks, but overzealous enforcement against voter ID laws in order to protect the Dems ability to stuff ballot boxes. His department had gun dealers violate the gun laws to ship large numbers of guns to a cartel in Mexico so that they could get stricter gun laws back here in the U.S. (and, they even used our money to buy some of those guns). And, immigration laws are not being enforced in order to pander to the Hispanic community to better their chance for reelection. And, we are even seeing some of the selective IRS auditing of political enemies that was so popular during the Clinton years.
The problem with this progressive world view is that the type of people who manage to claw their way to the top politically, and, esp. on the Dem side, are often the most ruthless and unprincipled. In politics, nice guys often finish last. Philosopher kings never get elected.
Roger J. said...
And the "old west" lasted for about 25 years. When those damn women came, they built schools and churches and the old west that Leslyn pictures lasted for about 30 years.
Well, not really. If you start with Lewis and Clark, and their expedition spawned the first of the mountain men, the Wild West phenomenon went through the Republic of Texas (1830s), California Gold Rush, all the way to the Oil Boom of the 20th Century, so we're talking about 120 years.
Now some places (such as Oregon, the central valleys of California, and the Norther Plains) settled down quickly, others, such as the mining camps and cattle towns (about 20 years) stayed wild for a while. When Teddy Roosevelt wanted to make Bat Masterson the US Marshal for Oklahoma, Bat begged off, saying it was a job for a younger man as the Sooner State was "still woolly".
The issue of packing a gun and settling your own quarrels was as much about distance and independence as anything else.
Bruce Hayden is on FIRE two days in a row.
Thanks for the best and succinct summarizing of the liberal position and it's practical lunacy and ineffectiveness.
The NUMBER ONE factor that influenced this guy, and the many before him, is the PUBLICITY that was given to the event and the killer. None of this is new, none of this is original -- they are all copycat wannabes.
This punk got the idea from hearing about what others have done. And he heard about it from the mainstream media.
If we really want to stop these things from happening, as Dionne wants, then we need to pass a law prohibiting the Washington Post and New York Times and ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR from reporting or otherwise even discussing these things. Shut them down! Do it for the children. Won't somebody think of the children?!
The main reason for carrying a gun is that cops weigh too much to carry them easily.
JrorxMckie--there is the expression that when many police haul ass they have to make two trips.
If we pass more laws against murder, we'll have less murder. It's simply because a law exists that you don't break it, not the penalties associated with breaking it.
People who break the laws against murder would obey the laws against guns.
Sure.
This post brought to you my Kahr Arms and the PM9.
Another facet of this incident that few mention is the guy is probably a genius. A true evil genius. Whatever his mental illness or level of it, it didn't interfere with his ability to plan and organize. We see very few geniuses of this type. But, we still need to test and evaluate all geniuses to prevent a recurrence.
The problem isn't gun control, it's nut control.
Talking about six degrees of separation my wife found out on FB that a good friend of hers in San Diego was a nearby neighbor of the killer, and that he was always perceived as an odd kid, something not quite right about him kind of kid. Back before the Warren Court it was easier to have the nuts institutionalized but even if the Warren Court changes were revoked there is no sure way of predicting this kind of behavior years in advance.
Guns can't be un-invented and as our fairly draconian drug laws have proven if people want something bad enough they will seek it and someone will supply them despite the risks. After all most armed criminals don't legally buy guns.
Well, I think you could consider Jimmy Carter kind of a "philosopher king."
So how did that work out?
What if we made universal arms training a law??
Imagine the response if everyone in the theater was packin' heat!
Ever been to Israel?
And I've noticed that liberals [well, collectivists] like Dionne [and the trolls] only want to "open up discussion" when they're on the losing side. When they're winning they tend to yell "STFU" to their opponents. Odd.
I say err on the side of infringing on the rights of the dangerously mentally ill before infringing on the rights of the law-abiding, non-mentally ill citizens. With medical privacy laws being what they are, the fact that his guy didn't show up as having been adjudicated mentally-ill is not a huge surprise at age 24, especially since he may have been diagnosed/treated on campus (or maybe never diagnosed and treated at all).
The reflex to see this horrific crime as an excuse to tar conservatives or try to re-ignite gun control makes me sick. As does the misapplication of the word "tragedy". A tragedy could be an earthquake/tornado/landslide/engineering failure that caused a movie theater to collapse and killed and injured the same number of people. This was a crime, intended, with an enormous amount of specific and complex forethought by a deranged individual.
I'm already tired of the media coverage of this. More focus on folks like Dionne and this will become the Paul Wellstone memorial event of the 2012 campaign. I think that Obama was probably saved from making a connection to Tea Party conservatives/NRA a la his Giffords remarks by the awful (but timely for Obama) leap made by Brian Ross.
My advice to the James Holmes who was called out by Ross, callL. Lin Wood in Atlanta. He's not Colorado barred, but he can affiliate with a local bar member. And he'll take a piece out of the hide of ABC and Ross.
Will you present evidence that congressmen and women have no problem defying the NRA?
Why on earth should she? Nothing Althouse said implied that the NRA is powerless-- only that they're speaking for a significant portion of the public.
Frankly, this is the risk that we take for living in a free society (as unduly restricted and limited as that "freedom" is today).
If we must have laws to reduce such things from happening, then it must be a return to the natural law. People need to take up what is rightfully theirs, the natural law right of self-defense and others.
Rather than threatening prosecution of people who might try to stop such things, especially if the perpetrator was eating Skittles and drinking iced tea when the shooting began, the government must remove the barriers it has imposed upon this natural law of self-defense and defense of others.
Ultimately, it is not up to "the government" to stop these things from happening. The people must stop them.
The only way to really address the issue is to lower the standards for commitment of the mentally ill, lower the standards for coercing compliance with treatment and to fund more asylums to treat them.
Since background checks only turn up people who have been adjudicated as committed, the background check argument is plainly false.
Garage, you know all of those "No Weapons" signs that stores and restaurants have on State Street and Capitol Square? I'm packing anyway.
I am ok with guns.
I grew up with guns.
My dad has a hunting room with tons of guns.
Crazy lunatics are the problem and there will always be crazy.
tits.
And the "old west" lasted for about 25 years. When those damn women came, they built schools and churches and the old west that Leslyn pictures lasted for about 30 years.
And, what must also be remembered is that the "wild west" continued to move throughout this time, for just that reason, as the frontier continued to contract. By the 1890s, not much of it was left, as evidenced by Butch Cassidy's Hole-in-the-Wall hideout being almost are remote as you can get.
Another point that is often overlooked about the west and gun control, is what happened when the James-Younger gang tried to rob the First National Bank of Northfield (Minnesota). The gang got pretty well shot up by the citizenry of the town, many of whom had served in the Union army just a bit over a decade earlier.
Yeah, pass the law, kill all the cats which tended to appear wherever the bubonic plague struck.
Progs like Dionne who toy with making guns illegal are being intentionally ignorant of the War on Drugs. How has that worked out?
Brooks is a pantywaist, but he subtly uses empiricism to blunt Dionne's argument, as noted by Ann. The left self-proclaims itself to be the party of science, but apparently not when it runs counter to their 'feelings'. I'll give props to Brooks for that, although the subtle dig is lost on lefties.
I'm all for SOME regulation of gun purchases. Background checks, waiting periods etc. and perhaps enforcing the existing laws more, but lets be honest. The first thought I had was that if I were in that movie theater and some crazy lunatic came in with a rifle and started shooting people thtat having a gun would be the only means by which I could defend myself. So, regulation is good, but people can get around regulations if they want a gun bad enough. And if you regulate the way dems want to regulate, it actually means bans. And then you'd have the case where only the criminals had guns and law abiding citizens had no way of protecting themselves against these types of scenarios.
Whereas, if some people were carrying in the theater, and saw this guy pull out a rifle, they could have put him down before he even fired a bullet.
Also, in regards to gun control, are those proposing it aware of things like The Silk Road on the web? There you can buy any illegal drug you want in almost complete anonymity (unless of course the cops are monitoring the site, which I hope they are) and they've expanded to where you can buy pretty much any gun you want, no background check. So unless, your response also dealt with things like The Silk Road saying we should have stricter gun control laws sounds good, but is completely innefectual.
We have laws against murder. People know we have laws against murder. But some people want to murder anyway. Restricting gun ownership may possibly lessen the occurrence of "heat of passion" murder. But that is not what happened in Colorado. The guy in Colorado took several weeks to meticulously plan his crimes.
Not unlike Oklahoma City, where the criminals did not rely on guns to commit terror. Or the Unabomber, who did not use guns to commit his terror. Or the guy who wanted to blow up a van in Times Square a couple of years ago.
The Unabomber's IQ is 167 and the guy in Colorado apparently graduated with "highest honors". When smart people decide to go to the dark side, they are going to do so whether access to guns is restricted or not.
Also, why ignore the benefits of guns? How many people have deterred a violent act because they had a gun? Dionne conveniently ignores the benefits of gun ownership, and only wants to focus on the tragedies.
Notice the Liberal boogeyman argument never accounts for the political power of the boogeyman?
The NRA, et al. are powerful because so many voters agree with them and a smaller number donate to them. Grover Norquist's Americans For Tax Reform pledge crushes opponents because taxes are so unbelievably unpopular not because AFTR has so much cash to spend.
This agreement between "sinister" power and policy explains why Mondalean pronouncements lead to political retirement and euphemisms.
Liberals don't run on raising your taxes and making it harder for you to get a gun or ammunition. They run on revenue enhancements from the undeserving bastards that accidentally raise your taxes.
"I'll cut your taxes by cutting spending" would win more than 90% of the time if the opponent said "I'll raise taxes and spend more." That would be a honest election platform. But Progressives and Liberals know that.
Wanting to do something, while not, in my opinion, a laudable characteristic for government, is a very human reaction. If one of my family members is in trouble, I'm going to do something. I can't just sit around and wait. My efforts might not be effective, but I can't help but indulge in the very human need to do something to help out a loved one.
But it's an impulse best left to individuals and families, not governments. Dionne can't seem to reconcile his human response with the empirical case against a larger-scale governmental response.
Barry D wrote:
We HAVE gun control. We HAVE background checks. We DON'T allow sales of guns to people who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent. We have an elaborate system in place. Personally, I think it's, at best, a waste of money, but we do have everything that Dionne says we should have, in place.
That's the big lie I hear over and over again from gun-control advocates. They talk as if we haven't already done what they claim they want.
Clearly, they must want something else, but they don't want to say it.
What they want is not regulation but bans, kind of like what Obama tried to do in DC where they banned guns,before being slapped down by the courts.
That being said, it might not hurt to do a better job enforcing the laws on the books.
"The suggested approach is now that if you buy "too much" ammo it should raise a "red flag" and someone should come and "check it out"
Sounds sensible, right?"
Of course, the only people who would show up in this are competitive target shooters, who often have tens of thousands of rounds on hand. A friend's daughter was an aspiring Olypmic shotgun competitor. He practically set up his own shotshell factory, so that the family could afford the expense of practice.
But I guess people who have never seen a gun except in a movie wouldn't know that. Too bad that doesn't keep them from having an opinion. Most of us actually withhold judgment when we know nothing about a subject. Gun control advocates are a glaring exception to this, consistently.
Althouse, that was an excellent commentary.
Why don't the chatterers talk about Violent Movie Control? My goodness something must be controlled. We must do something.
Is a society stronger and does it last longer the more or fewer laws it has?
""No one pretends that better laws would prevent all tragedies, but if that were the standard, then we wouldn't pass any laws at all.""
Cartoon version of something
that nobody agrees on.
Missing middle.
Opposite extreme of cartoon version of something nobody agrees on.
What possible solution can such a bizarre construction lead? Should I bother with the rest? No. Skip to comments. They might be more interesting.
This is the nadir of Brooks' existence.
Ann Althouse (Obama groupie [recovering]) is calling out Brooks as not sufficiently conservative.
Laws define boundaries and provide recourse for individuals who respect them.
A passive enforcement system is only sufficient, and liberty is only suitable, for individuals capable of self-moderating behavior.
As for gun control, it would be necessary to also control other dual-use items, including mobs of say three or more people.
In any case, the criminals always have the advantage, and so do individuals who enable them. It is competing interests who keep both from running amuck.
Everybody agrees that throwing yourself in front of a steamroller is a bad idea but if that is the standard.
Everybody agrees that installing a 1200 BTU burner in your toilet is a bad idea but if that is the standard
Everybody agrees that having a leap of the roof whilst holding onto the corners of a blanket and expecting it to perform as a parachute is a bad idea but somebody could have at least explained it to me.
What they want is not regulation but bans, kind of like what Obama tried to do in DC where they banned guns,before being slapped down by the courts.
That being said, it might not hurt to do a better job enforcing the laws on the books.
If enforced more vigorously, more black men would be incarcerated, as evidenced by the large increase in gun murder rates among blacks. This is an unacceptable outcome for the feds and the left.
It's easier for a crazy person to get a squirt bottle and fill it with gasoline and carry a cigarette lighter - than it is to get a gun.
And that could actually cause more deaths and do more damage.
Removing access to certain types of dangerous stuff just changes the method, not the act.
Chip Ahoy
I'll be giggling all day now.
"Some Seppo said...
1. Something must be done.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore it must be done.
7/21/12 9:51 AM"
This.
As an example of this mindset in action let us look back to 1968 after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Something needed to be done so the City of New York required all long guns i.e. rifles and shotguns in NYC to be registered with the police. At the time the promise was made that this information would never be used for a gun ban or confiscation. Now move ahead a few years to the high crime Dinkin Administration years. A family from Utah was visiting New York City for a week as they did every year to see Broadway plays, visit museums, restaurants and sample the cultural amenities of The Big Apple. On the way to one of those amenities, they were met by a group of underpriviledged minority youths who, in the process of redistributing some of the wealth accumulated by White Privilidge from the family manhandled the woman who was wife and mother of the tourists. When her son objected to the mistreatment of his mother, the underpriveledged youths stabbed him to death. News of this killing, unfortunately, was broadcast in places where similar families of tourists who also regularly visited New York City lived and they selfishly chose to vacation elsewhere, depriving New York City of needed tax income.
Well, obviously something needed to be done. The something that they chose was to ban possession of semiautomatic rifles in New York City and to use the list of registered long guns to send letters to registered owners requiring them to either turn those rifles in to the police or to show the police a bill of sale showing that the gun owners had sold the rifles to someone outside of New York City.
When Mayor Dinkins was asked about the promise that the gun registration lists would never be used for confiscation, his promise was that classic of the liberal philosophy of governance, "Well, I never made that promise."
Oh for chrissake, it's not like the US is the only nation in the world with laws regarding firearms. Want evidence? Fine. Look at any country with a lower incidence of gun crime and you'll find tougher gun laws. Guaranteed.
In order for your argument to make any sense at all, we have to pretend that the US is the only nation in the world. It's not. Tough restrictions work and the only reason we don't have them here is a powerful gun industry lobby, partisan hackery, and spineless politicians.
Holmes was a bright guy with knowledge of explosives. If firearms were not available, he would have found some other way to act out his malignancy. If he had gone the McVeigh or Krszynski route, perhaps there would have been more fatalities. Not the kind of guy you'd like to see hanging around the communicable diseases section of the med school library......During Prohibition traffic fatalities plummeted. Make liquor difficult to come by, and there are less people driving drunk. Nonetheless, it was the considered opinion of our chattering classes that the right to have a drink outweighed the consequences of having had that drink. The repeal of the Prohibition amendment has led to several thousand deaths a year, but that's the price we pay for our right to drink heavily. If you wish to take Dionne's martini, you will have to extract it from his cold, dead hand. I think it's safe to say that NRA types love their firearms as much as liberals love their drugs and liquor.
One simple thing that could be added to gun control is to limit the sale of clips that hold more than ten rounds, as it seems when the killers pause to change clips that creates an opportunity.
By the time you've finished reading this sentence, I could have easily changed magazines in any semi-automatic weapon I've ever used. As I understand it, the killer in this case was armed with a rifle, a shotgun and at least one sidearm. If I step through the door, throw a smoke grenade, unload a shotgun into the room, drop it and unload a hangdun into the room, drop it and unload a rifle into the room, are you really going to be charging me in that window of time that I'll use to reload? Even if I was only carrying one weapon and didn't use a smoke grenade, the likelihood that in the chaos somebody is going to notice that I paused to reload and turn to run at me instead of away from me seems pretty remote.
Banning high capacity magazines - like the "assault weapon" ban - is something that sounds good to people who know nothing about firearms except that some of them look scarier than others. Furthermore - why 10? Seems a bit arbitrary. Why not 11? Or 7? And after the next massacre when the killer uses 10 round magazines, what then?
Tough restrictions work and the only reason we don't have them here is a powerful gun industry lobby, partisan hackery, and spineless politicians.
All three of these are just euphemisms for being in the minority. Why don't you just admit that most people don't share your point of view.
Garage, you know all of those "No Weapons" signs that stores and restaurants have on State Street and Capitol Square? I'm packing anyway
There you go. I hardly ever go downtown. And almost never at night with family. For good reason.
"Everybody agrees that installing a 1200 BTU burner in your toilet is a bad idea but if that is the standard"
LOL, really!
A powerful image and a great takedown of Dionne's idiocy. Love it!
The reason we have a Second Amendment is to ensure that twenty years from now the police and the FBI aren't the only with guns. If the government is at that point over-run by right wing fascists prosecuting enemies for decency violations, or left wing communists prosecuting enemies for thought crimes, the cops won't be "police" so much as credentialed thugs. And we won't want such thugs able to make midnight arrests without a shotgun blast through the door. We won't want a politicized and partial "police force" free to run roughshod over neighborhoods without worry of what the citizenry might do. We won't want their buddy thugs confident that because the "police" will look the other way they can do what they like.
I know this sounds like the ranting of a crazy person but the point of our Constitution is to imagine a government in the hands of Bad People and limit what those people can get away with. One point of our rights is to provide tripwires that signal that Bad People are setting something up. Those wires can send false positives but you know how you avoid giving people the wrong idea? By staying the hell away from the tripwires.
The thought of a police force of Bad People free to do whatever it wants should be really scary, even twenty years removed. There is an awful lot of history suggesting common political forces will tend that way unless actively checked. I'm prepared to suffer the occasional psycho monstrosity to check the chances of a truly nightmare scenario.
Reasonable people like Messrs Dionne and Brooks will dismiss all that as ideological or paranoid. But until they're prepared to discuss the real reasons for the Second Amendment, and why those no longer pertain, and will never pertain again, I'm just going to have to assume they don't know what they're talking about.
About this idea that we need to make it easier for the government to declare people to be "mentally ill" and lock them up in preventive detention --
Worked pretty well for the Soviet Union and other similar regimes that put a lot of people in "mental hospitals."
And then there was that guy in some Islamic country a short while ago who they found to be mentally ill because he wanted to convert to Christianity (it was either lock him up for being crazy or cut his head off for the dangerous crime of apostasy).
The reason we have a Second Amendment is to ensure that twenty years from now the police and the FBI aren't the only with guns. If the government is at that point over-run by right wing fascists prosecuting enemies for decency violations, or left wing communists prosecuting enemies for thought crimes, the cops won't be "police" so much as credentialed thugs. And we won't want such thugs able to make midnight arrests without a shotgun blast through the door. We won't want a politicized and partial "police force" free to run roughshod over neighborhoods without worry of what the citizenry might do. We won't want their buddy thugs confident that because the "police" will look the other way they can do what they like.
I know this sounds like the ranting of a crazy person but the point of our Constitution is to imagine a government in the hands of Bad People and limit what those people can get away with. One point of our rights is to provide tripwires that signal that Bad People are setting something up. Those wires can send false positives but you know how you avoid giving people the wrong idea? By staying the hell away from the tripwires.
The thought of a police force of Bad People free to do whatever it wants should be really scary, even twenty years removed. There is an awful lot of history suggesting common political forces will tend that way unless actively checked. I'm prepared to suffer the occasional psycho monstrosity to check the chances of a truly nightmare scenario.
Reasonable people like Messrs Dionne and Brooks will dismiss all that as ideological or paranoid. But until they're prepared to discuss the real reasons for the Second Amendment, and why those no longer pertain, and will never pertain again, I'm just going to have to assume they don't know what they're talking about.
We need to crush the NRA's influence on sensible gun confiscation, errr control I mean.
garage - stay in your little bubble of gauze.
Terry Canaan:
Correlation is not causation. Case in point, which I read 20-30 years ago and do NOT have a link for:
Someone pointed out that the U.S. murder or gun-murder rate (I forget which) was four times higher than the rate in Japan, which had (probably still has) strict gun control. Someone else then pointed out that it's five times higher than the rate for Japanese-Americans, most* of whom can buy a gun whenever they want. Yes: Americans of Japanese ancestry with easy access to guns had a lower murder rate than Japanese citizens living in Japan, with severely restricted access.
A great deal of the difference in murder and gun-murder rates between the U.S. and other countries is cultural. Note: cultural is not the same as racial. Again, I read long ago (pre-web, so I have no link - it may have been the same article) that Black Americans whose ancestors lived in the Confederacy have quite a high murder rate, but those descended from post-Civil War African and Caribbean immigrants have much lower rates, and that white Americans whose ancestors lived in the Confederacy also have very high murder rates, much higher than other white Americans, even those who moved to Detroit or California many years ago. (Mass migrations of Okies and others make simple state-to-state comparisons as difficult as the nation-to-nation kind.)
I wish I knew where I'd read all this: probably The Public Interest.
*I say "most" because there are four places in America that basically ban guns, D.C., New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, and the last has a fair percentage of Japanese-Americans.
A more practical solution would be to allow CCW carriers to carry in ANY STATE AND BUSINESS. Yes business. The 'no guns here' sign should be invalidated.
Do some thinking. In one week a 71 year old man thwarted two robbers in Florida where he could carry his gun. An in Colorado, were the guns were banned a nutjob killed 12 and injured dozens.
One place a good citizen with weapon succeeded and in the other where no good citizens had guns they DIED.
Now that is the inside of a CONSERVATIVE LOGICAL MIND.
"Holmes probably slipped into psychosis over the past few months. The onset of schizophrenia during the early adulthood is fairly commons. I worked with several such cases when in mental health, including one who had murdered his mother. (Really nice guy when properly medicated.)"
My thoughts exactly.
So, actually, the answer to this very problem lies in our future ability to develop genetic screening and monitoring of schizophrenia.
So, assuming all the good liberals want to "do something" about this, how about doing something that will actually work, once the biotech becomes available?
How does Dionne explain Chicago? High murder rates despite very tough gun laws and compliant progressive government/polity, all the way up to the state level?
Oh, that's easy. he doesn't.
Background checks are really a poll tax.
From a bigger picture perspective, everyone realizes that the stupidity EJ exhibits on guns is just as prevalent with all the other issues he comments on, right?
I mean, leftists are just as stupid on economics, regulations, foreign policy, etc...
What I mean by that is that the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby have such a firm hold on our political system that no one can bring up the notion, which we bring up with every other kind of tragedy, that maybe we can do better.
This is laughable on two levels. First, EVERY TIME something like this happens, leftist politicians use it as an excuse to try to push for more restrictions on access to firearms. Second, there's no end to other tragedies with their roots in social situations that the left demands we ignore.
...public policy is based on evidence and data and whether it would work.
Seriously? Care to explain our AGW policy from the perspective that policy is driven by data? Or recent changes in welfare reform? Or Head Start?
And the weight of the evidence is pretty clear that there's no relationship between gun control and violent crime.
Not quite true. There is a relationship, it's just an inverse relationship.
Any one for bringing Bible readings back to the public schools? I'm told they have something to do with learning about good and bad behavior.
"Chicago is experiencing an Aurora per month..."
More like three Auroras per month.
Dionne is trying to explain Chicago here:
And there's also a spillover. If you have permissive laws in one state - as Mayor Bloomberg has shown, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, who has proposed a lot of very practical remedies, not sweeping remedies but practical remedies - he's shown how loose laws in one state can send guns into a state that may have stricter laws. So I don't think we should throw up our hands and say it's impossible...
He would say: Chicago has so much gun crime because nearby states have lax gun laws.
What that wouldn't explain is why those states don't have the gun crime of Chicago.
Well, not really. If you start with Lewis and Clark, and their expedition spawned the first of the mountain men, the Wild West phenomenon went through the Republic of Texas (1830s), California Gold Rush, all the way to the Oil Boom of the 20th Century, so we're talking about 120 years.
Now some places (such as Oregon, the central valleys of California, and the Norther Plains) settled down quickly, others, such as the mining camps and cattle towns (about 20 years) stayed wild for a while. When Teddy Roosevelt wanted to make Bat Masterson the US Marshal for Oklahoma, Bat begged off, saying it was a job for a younger man as the Sooner State was "still woolly".
Probably right after that, my grandfather was riding his horse up from the OK panhandle where he taught school in a one room schoolhouse on weekends to work land he was homesteading in SE Colorado.
Grown up around the west, and maybe it is in my blood. Remember when you would occasionally see open carry in downtown Denver by guys wearing boots and hats (1950s). Would occasionally ride by Buffalo Bill's grave on top of Lookout Mtn near Golden when in high school. And, by now, have (mostly inadvertently) been through pretty much every famous wild west town - Dodge City, Tombstone, etc. Stopped for gas in Glenwood Springs, where Doc Holiday died, a couple of weeks ago, while driving up to Montana.
Recently, lived south of Carson City, right by the southern route of the California Trail, and maybe 5 miles from Mormon Station, the oldest non-Indian settlement in Nevada. And, obviously, living there, Mark Twain's "Roughing It" is obligatory reading.
Where I am right now, in NW Montana, goes back another 30+ years, to right after L&C came through maybe 50 miles south in 1804-6. Starting the next year, and in response to the L&C expedition, intrepid British explorer David Thompson, who had mapped south central Canada, was sent to explore the Columbia, and, indeed, was the first white man to follow the river from its source to Fort Astoria at its mouth. Throughout the next six years, he built the first semi-permanent white settlements in E. Wash., N. Idaho, and, here in NW Montana as fur trading posts. The one here by the town that bears his name, was occupied for more than 30 years.
I have a map by me right now of his travels, and it is amazing that one man was able to be the first white man to explore and map so much of southern Canada, from Lake Superior and Hudson Bay in the east all the way to the Pacific. He was exploring several hundred miles north of me right now maybe 15 years before L&C, but didn't start coming south until their expedition.
Nope. Producers have an incentive to provide the highest quality meat that people will buy. The FDA has nothing to do with that.
Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense--it is immediately obvious to me when I get food poisoning not only what I ate in the last few days caused it but also the ultimate source of that food--especially something like fresh pack ground beef. Prepackaged ground beef which does have the packing plant information on it. But of course that information is on the package only because the USDA requires it. In your libertarian paradise even if you could figure out what made you sick, tracing it to its source would be near impossible
Do some thinking. In one week a 71 year old man thwarted two robbers in Florida where he could carry his gun. An in Colorado, were the guns were banned a nutjob killed 12 and injured dozens.
Of course the shooter was wearing body armor and was throwing smoke or possibly even tear gas around. Any one else who started shooting under such circumstances would wreak even more havoc.
Freder's solution - be a sheep and accept your slaughter.
My theory on the 41% is that he didn't mean the rate has decreased by 41% per year, but meant to say that the yearly rate has decreased by 41% over some span of time.
@Freder,
Any one else who started shooting under such circumstances would wreak even more havoc.
No, Freder, you've got that wrong. These goofballs are not highly trained, implacable, killing machines like the Marines or Special Forces. These guys are just schlubs acting out, and when confronted with much of anything that impedes their scenario, they just collapse. The guy in Aurora surrendered meekly to the cops. The two guys in Florida absolutely panicked when confronted by the 71 yr old with a gun, as you can see in the video.
The worst thing to do in cases like this is panic and run, because then the killer just shoots everyone in the back.
Military doctrine to fight in an ambush: close the distance. Don't let your opponent define you into the kill zone.
My solution: Move on and enjoy your life.
This stuff will always happen. Every remedy will have a cost to everyone except the next nut, who will do whatever he wants, because he's nuts. We don't have to join him in his obsession.
Even were gun control to lessen the prevalence of murders the real reason we are guaranteed the right to bear arms is to protect us from people like Dionne. What he is positing is that he would like a complete monopoly on force instead of the conditional one that is granted to the government only so long as it is not abused.
The Founding Fathers knew there would be people like Dionne and Obama and that there would have to be immutable protections placed in the Constitution to preserve our right to take up arms against these people. That we haven't done so yet just confirms that there is a lot of ruin in a country and that the people will put up with a LOT of tyranny before they feel the necessity to trod down the path of violence.
The fact they have not succeeded in taking our 2nd amendment rights away is probably the only thing saving them at this point. In short, Dionne is unwittingly advocating civil war and the violent overthrow of the ruling class when he talks about gun control and he doesn't even realize it. Americans are not yet sheep no matter how thoroughly we have been fleeced by Washington.
I am sure Dionne would be shocked to hear this but I think most of us would rather take our chances with the occasional lunatic who wants to murder us than to have to live in a world where everyone thinks like Dionne and is doing their level best to "help" us.
Of course Roberts is likely to find that the taxing power allows for defacto criminalization of gun ownership or that the word "arms" can reasonably be read as "shrubbery" so that it doesn't pertain to guns at all. Such are the idiots and outrages we must suffer until we can bear them no longer and we judge it worth the price to start all over.
But the 2nd amendment is the key to our ability to make that new start... and to put off that time for as long as possible. The only people who deny these truths are people who see such verities as an impediment to their plans and thus proclaim themselves the enemy of free and decent people everywhere. For if they were truly acting in my best interests they would have no need of disarming me.
Terry Canaan - Here's your country with more widespread guns and less crime, Switzerland.
Thank you for playing.
Freder: "Any one else who started shooting under such circumstances would wreak even more havoc."
YoungHegelian: No, Freder, you've got that wrong. These goofballs are not highly trained, implacable, killing machines like the Marines or Special Forces. These guys are just schlubs acting out, and when confronted with much of anything that impedes their scenario, they just collapse.
And some of us in the audience ARE former Marines, capable of taking down a perp with disciplined fire control.
I love it when Freder chimes in on stuff that I have direct experience with. Really puts his other assertions into perspective.
What has NRP and E.J. Dionne said about Fast & Furious?
Anyone know?
NPR not NRP
...NRA and the rest of the gun lobby have such a firm hold on our political system...
The NRA and the rest of the law-abiding, gun-owning citizens have such a firm grasp of the Second Amendment, a concept that is lost on the Left side of our political system.
FIxed it fer ya, E.J.
That Brooks routinely cherry-picks or flat-out invents his "evidence" - or that he's put up against a dithering lightweight like Dionne - are of course mere peccadilloes, dear reader! Dare not to sully your fine minds with heretical contemplations of the obvious when there's a ritual to obey: in this case, the "LOL-LIBTARDS/if-only-someone-else-had-started-shooting-too/2nd-Amendment-OR-ELSE" ritual that follows in the wake of every one of these now-regular atrocities like flatulence in the wake of a bean cook-off.
As any cursory overview of the numbers plainly shows, strict gun control works just fine to drastically cut down on gun violence everywhere it's applied with a real public will for it to succeed - which is precisely why it will always fail in a country that still fetishes Wild West gunslingers, soldiers & tough-yet-tender vigilante cops while it looks down on (if not outright despises) doctors, scientists & artists. Attempting to solve gun violence in America with laws restricting access to them is likely to be as successful as France banning wine. The NRA has won its war on public safety & cultural sanity with the generous help of a "liberal" Hollywood that provides good wholesome cinematic Grand Guignols with good wholesome body-counts for the viewers to track (if they have fast enough reflexes to keep score, that is).
Having a gun in your home exponentially ups the odds that you or a loved one will be maimed or killed by same - but if you don't hang onto that AK-47 like the Founding Fathers intended, then that will mean those awful libtards will have won! Better keep it under your pillow, just to be EXTRA-safe. What's truly horrifying is that THEY want to ban jumbo clips, so remember to buy an extra box or three before the Weekend 50% Off Sale ends - for FREEDOM.
You may as well get used to periodic mass slaughter of your fellow citizens & hope like hell you're not next, because The New Normal is quite literally mandatory now, whether you like it or not.
Our problem seems to be a Knee jerk respect for the Bill of Rights. I'd say that knee is indicating good reflexes.
I'm fascinated by this notion that we do sometimes pass laws and therefore that means that we should pass laws. The resistance to passing laws is some nasty dysfunction caused by a nefarious interest group — here, the NRA — but good people want to do something
I'm fascinated by how the Left has so successfully and deeply entrenched everyone, even non-Lefties, into default "boxes" of thought without anyone noticing.
Well, anyone-1, as I did notice it. EJ Dionne's presumed range of options is to either pass more laws or to do nothing.
Completely left out is a third option: repeal laws.
Am I wrong? Not Althouse or anyone in this thread seems to have noticed; search "repeal" on this page and there's one comment with that word in it, and it's a reference to Prohibition.
Leftists' entire worldview rests on that unstated premise: laws only ever get passed. Government control only ever expands, and "at worst" it stops growing.
It throws William F Buckley's slogan "Standing athwart history shouting Stop!" into a new light, doesn't it?
It should be clear that we've reached a pass where even conservatism's professed goal (to which they have not adhered all that closely) -- to be a brake on history -- has failed. A brake only slows you down; it does not change direction.
We don't need a brake anymore; we need an accelerator and a 180.
Let's turn this bucket around.
The word "repeal" needs to turn up hella more than once in this many comments on a topic like this.
E.J. Dionne is afraid we'll just knee-jerk do nothing
To quote one of my favorite movies:
Brighton: Look, sir, we can't just do nothing.
Allenby: Why not? It's usually best.
I think Bender is on to something. After 9/11, for about 4-5 years, we had no mass murders, I read. Perhaps the spectacle of 9/11, mass murder with mass public reaction, satiated the sick for a while.
I think these killers are attracted to the spectacle and the sense of ecstasy at being the master of the universe. Just like the 9/11 killers. Even death would only add to the rush.
Isn't that why every action movie has heroes outrunning a racing fireball? Danger, beauty, all in one. The paranoids don't want to stop at watching.
Seerak: Am I wrong? Not Althouse or anyone in this thread seems to have noticed; search "repeal" on this page and there's one comment with that word in it, and it's a reference to Prohibition.
Savy point. [hat tip]
I can solve this problem easily. Make every state an open carry state like we are. Just the physical presence of an armed person makes criminals polite. Except for the nut jobs, and then you cut down on the casualty count.
I've carried open for years in some very dangerous neighborhoods and never once have I been bothered. Also carried open into restaurants/storesa/etc...Almost all criminals fear getting hurt, they just want easy cash that they didn't have to work for.
As for limiting magazines to a certain number, you people who suggest that have now idea how fast a magazine can be changed out. This might give you an idea...
1)keep track of your shot count
2)when you reach eight start to grab for another magazine, usually located for a convienient grab
3)depress the magazine release of you weapon while advancing the new magazine to the magazine well.
4)ram home the new magazine solidly
5)continue firing.
Done properly, it takes less than a second.
This Holmes is a wanna be badass living in fantasy land. Good thing too. He would have killed more if he had used his explosives knowledge. Instead he packs 3 different guns, all requiring different ammunition.
He just wants his 15 minutes. True justice would be served if every mention of him ever existing were erased, and then burying him in an unmarked grave.
we should outlaw murder. that would stop these things in the future.
In other news, Wonkette has gone off the deep end on this. She literally wrote "gun-fondlers" in her latest screed. I swear leftists are in some delusional fantasy world if they think conservatives have nothing better to do then hold their Glock and stroke it to get some sexual thrill.
jim: As any cursory overview of the numbers plainly shows, strict gun control works just fine to drastically cut down on gun violence everywhere it's applied
Liar.
Oh, and lace your diatribe with more hyperbolic assertions and ad hom please. Really adds to your credibility.
Repeal is gonna get a great test over the next year. A huge law is on the chopping block. We'll see.
It would be wonderful if doing something (as politicians must be seen to be) meant undoing previous mistakes of overreach and overspending. Imagine a congress and President that removed more than they added to the pile of paper, confusion and requirements that we now drag around, slowing every task, and making many impossible that once were commonplace.
Oh, I almost forgot: repeal, repeal, repeal.
Ps
I'm a big believer in a cowboy load out. Keeps the re-supply at a minimum headache level. I've loaned my son in law a .45 so we can cross supply.
Pps
Buying ammo in bulk is like buying peanut butter at Sam's. It's cheaper to buy bulk. I try to buy cases when I can, followed by bricks, and lastly boxes.(for the rare stuff)
Wonkette has gone off the deep end on this. She literally wrote "gun-fondlers" in her latest screed. I swear leftists are in some delusional fantasy world if they think conservatives have nothing better to do then hold their Glock and stroke it to get some sexual thrill.
No. She's projecting. Last time we went out she mounted the stick shift in my beemer. I think she wants a rifle barrel up in her skanky ass.
There is a reason these assholes always shoot up unarmed groups. They don't try this at a shooting range, or the police station.
One thing they do fear with their plans is total failure. None of them want it to end quickly by a bullet coming the opposite direction before they can finish their little show, but that's exactly what the rest of want to see. There do seem to be some who think that extra bullet is the problem.
bagoh - the only one to successfully assault a cop precinct and win was The Terminator, but that was unfair.
Am I wrong? Not Althouse or anyone in this thread seems to have noticed; search "repeal" on this page and there's one comment with that word in it, and it's a reference to Prohibition.
Dust Bunny Queen alludes to this point in her same comment about Prohibition:
The other first problem with passing bad law is that rarely if EVER is a bad law removed from the books. We just keep stacking more and more bad laws on top of bad laws.
But yes; to your broader point I support the repeal of all sorts of laws. That's a tough row to hoe to win an election, but I'd be inclined to vote for someone running on a platform of downsizing govt.
Having a gun in your home exponentially ups the odds that you or a loved one will be maimed or killed by same
Only if your home is occupied by morons who don't know the first thing about gun safety or don't have the proper respect for guns.
Having a gas appliance in your house that can heat food to high temperatures (aka your cook stove) will exponentially increase your chances of a house fire.....THEREFORE....we should all cook outdoors over a pile of coals.
/facepalm
These fucking martini swillers repealed the 18th Amendment and now they're working on the 2nd. If you want to save lives bring back the 18th amendment. Every year the Kennedys alone kill more people while driving impaired than have perished in our nation's wars--- and this despite the fact that most Kennedys die younng from cirrhosis or ODs.....Can any liberal see a downside to screwing up the Bill of Rights?
"Brooks isn't a conservative by my standard. I think to be conservative, you should have the instinctive orientation: do nothing." No, Brooks is not a conservative. He is an excellent moderate intellectual who none the less understands much of the Right, and thus acts like a seeing-eye dog to the blind Left. But they remain sightless because of their projected rages.
E. J. Dionne is a homosexual beta-male.
Having a gun in your home exponentially ups the odds that you or a loved one will be maimed or killed by same
Nice job making up facts.
but if you don't hang onto that AK-47 like the Founding Fathers intended, then that will mean those awful libtards will have won!
You have not one utter clue what an AK-47 looks like.
I find the anti-gun argument specious at best. Lets say we outlawed illicit drugs. Would these drugs get into the country? Would "criminals" be able to get them in ANY quantity they wished? What about law abiding citizens? How many of YOU purchase illicit drugs for recreational use? I would suggest that the outright outlawing of any "thing" would make it all the more desirable. This is simply Human Nature.
"Oh, that's easy. he doesn't."
Being the standard liberal trotted out by every MSM and, worse, NPR/PBS, on a regular basis means never having to say you're sorry, nor explain, nor be discredited no matter how often your ideas and beliefs are shown to be wrong.
jim said,". Attempting to solve gun violence in America with laws restricting access to them is likely to be as successful as France banning wine."
Yep. You got that part right.
There's probably 200 millionguns in the hands of private citizens in this country and that's a conservative estimate. You got a plan to get rid of them?
"But the militia, now the militia was supposed to be there. It was there. And it failed. It's legitimate to conduct a failure analysis and to possibly change the laws to enhance its effectiveness.
Why did it fail?"
The same "places of public accommodation" laws which forbid private property owner from discriminating against differing races obviously also are intended to prevent the 2nd amendment rights of all Americans from being so much as infringed upon by state authorities.
The laws and signs which empowered the theater to create a free-fire zone for this madman are null and void under the constitution.
The militia was told not to show up, under color of law, in other words.
@jim, why on earth would you have an AK-47 for a home defense weapon? Just the sound of a Remington 870 being racked has been known to burglars back out the way they came in.
THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!
Keep up the GREAT Work!!
Steve
Common Cents
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
Having a gun in your home exponentially ups the odds that you or a loved one will be maimed or killed by same
In much the same way that a car in your driveway "exponentially" increases your odds of being in a car accident.
As any cursory overview of the numbers plainly shows, strict gun control works just fine to drastically cut down on gun violence everywhere it's applied with a real public will for it to succeed
I guess there is just no public will for it to succeed in Chicago or Detroit.
garage,
I hardly ever go downtown. And almost never at night with family. For good reason.
Because you're a racist and don't like black people?
Jim,
As any cursory overview of the numbers plainly shows, strict gun control works just fine to drastically cut down on gun violence everywhere it's applied with a real public will for it to succeed
As any cursory overview of the numbers plainly shows, you've never even had a cursory overview of the numbers regarding gun control laws and their affect on violent crime.
Having a gun in your home exponentially ups the odds that you or a loved one will be maimed or killed by same
And this is just more proof that you haven't even made a cursory look at gun ownership statistics.
William,
If you want to save lives bring back the 18th amendment.
Because as we all know, outlawing a vice and making it incredibly profitable for an organized crime syndicate is the best way to save lives.
The husband of a cousin commuted suicide - by hanging himself.
When are liberals going to do something about the scourge of rope (and belts, shoelaces, etc) in America? The presence of these things in your home exponentially increases the odds that you or a loved one will be maimed or killed by same.
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