Later this morning, President Obama will deliver his plans on gun violence. I'll be putting up a post this afternoon on what was said. In the meantime, I've got something on my mind regarding the subject of guns.
The relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook domestic terrorist attack have spent the last several weeks grieving and trying to figure out what to do with the massive hole in their life.
This is an excellent start. But that's all it is...a start.
I look at the questions on this list and then I think about the gun lobby and their supporters. The inevitable and quickly realized conclusion is that these questions will be received in a manner similar to Alex Jones' mouth foam on Piers Morgan last week. When I think of this likely reaction and then think about the people running out to buy the same gun that killed all those children, it's clear that more is going to have to be done.
The people that are running the Sandy Hook Promise and other organizations like it need to understand that the gun lobby are a bunch of greedy fucking scumbags. And the only way to deal with greedy fucking scumbags is hit them where it hurts: their money. In fact, the people trying to do something about the FUBAR that are our nation's gun laws already start with an advantage: they don't give a shit about money. Their end goal is protection and safety, not profit. They are motivated by the love of other people who they never EVER want to see go through what they are going through now.
So, we have to start with the dissemination of a simple fact. Groups like the NRA and other gun rights groups don't give a shit about "freedom from tyranny." That's the line they feed to sate the paranoids (and man, do they lap it up). They want to sell guns and they play hardball to make sure they are going to get to keep doing it. They've already made millions off of the bullet ridden bodies of 6 and 7 year olds and they want the gravy train to keep running smoothly. So, hardball statements like this need to be repeated over an over again.
They make money off of dead children, black presidents, fear, and paranoia.
If they don't like hearing this, they can fuck right off. They are the ones that set the tone for this debate so they deserve to get it back tenfold.
Now, many on the left make the error of thinking the next step means bans on guns or high capacity magazines. This is a giant mistake and plays right into their hands....feeding their paranoid delusions and pathological hatred of government. Instead, what they need to do (in addition to the things I listed recently) is start showing photos of dead children who have been murdered with military grade weapons. Go on talk shows, the news, the internet...wherever...and show what a dystopic present looks like. People don't really know how bad it is and they need something visual to truly understand how awful these weapons are and what they can do. The problem with most American is that they are shielded from the realities of the world due to "good taste." Well, the gun lobby doesn't have good taste so it's time to take that advantage away. This is a street fight, not the debate club.
Some of the victims families may balk at this or even think I'm way out of line. Obviously, this is something they really need to think through. Do they really want to win this? If so, it's time to break the cocoon of good manners and let reality smack people upside the head. With a cocoon in place, the gun folks are able to create an imaginary villain on which they can project a paranoid fear. What the public needs to see is the results of the actual problem and that's going to require some tough stuff.
If some brave family decides to do this, an image will be in our minds that will never go away. None of us can forget the sight of the planes hitting the towers or the people jumping from the World Trade Center's top floors. We weren't coddled then and, since this is really is domestic terrorism, we shouldn't be coddled now. Put up one photo and start running ads and this shit is over and done with in a fucking week. Publish a list of all the Congressional representatives that support Joe Shitkicker being able to have his own private arsenal "just in case" we become monarchy again. Play the video of Alex Jones right next to the photo. Put up quotes from gun blogs along with it as well.
In terms of gun deaths, we certainly have plenty of examples to make great visuals don't we? We will likely have more as this process plays out. Let's show people just exactly what the fuck happens when someone gets shot with a Bushmaster and other weapons like it. People need to be so sickened by what military grade guns can do that they won't want to buy them anymore. Demand will fall off, companies that make money selling weapons that ordinary people shouldn't own...of off fear and dead bodies...will change their business model or go bust, and the free market will sort it all out. Unless they are trained and regularly checked out, make the people that own these weapons about as socially acceptable as child molesters.
If they families of the Sandy Hook victims or any other past shooting spree truly want something done, this is where they have to go. I liken it to the highly graphic drunk driving videos produced by MADD. It has to be that in your face and it absolutely has to be from a private, non governmental source. Having the government put this stuff out will only feed that imaginary demon the gun lobby and their supporters have created. Let's give America something real to be afraid of for a change.
That's the promise I want to see people make.
21 comments:
what a pile of mouth foaming, emotional shit stirring.
Guess if you can't win the argument with facts and logic then you got to go with the appeal to emotion.
I guess M was lying all that time he said he had changed his opinion about guns and the 2nd.
The campaign he's proposing is essentially the same one the right has been running for years against abortion. But the same people who scream incessantly about how abortion stops a beating heart just don't seem to care that bullets do too.
What's the difference between putting pictures of fetuses on billboards and pictures of bullet-ridden children? Why do people on the right care more about the fates of children that have never been born than they do about people who are living and breathing right now?
More than 30,000 people a year die from guns in this country every year, and the NRA's solution is more violence. Their solution is essentially the same sort of Mutually Assured Destruction that almost brought the world to a nuclear Armageddon.
Even Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush saw the fallacy of ever-mounting arsenals of nuclear weapons, and this realization led to the adoption of the START treaty which resulted in the reduction of the nuclear stockpiles of both the US and USSR. We need a START treaty for the reduction of the massive arsenal of guns in our own country.
Because guns don't provide protection. Ronald Reagan was surrounded by a full detail of armed Secret Service agents when some clown with a six-shooter managed to shoot him, his press secretary, a cop and a secret service agent. The press secretary, Jim Brady, suffered a debilitating brain injury. His wife now runs one of the largest gun control groups in the country, though its budget is a mere pittance compared to the NRA's massive warchest.
Now, many on the left make the error of thinking the next step means bans on guns or high capacity magazines. This is a giant mistake and plays right into their hands....feeding their paranoid delusions
This is incredibly rich.
Let's start with a few word definitions, shall we…
paranoia:
baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.
delusion:
a false belief or opinion
So, in short, a "paranoid delusion" is a false (baseless) belief that someone is trying to do something to you; in this case it means "no one is trying to ban guns."
What's spectacularly funny is that he is complaining about "many on left" "feeding [the] paranoid delusions" by attempting to do the very thing that is supposedly "baseless"!!!
Here's a clue, Mark. If someone really IS trying to do what someone thinks they're trying to do, then it is neither a delusion nor paranoia.
Nikto, I'll ask you the same questions I've been asking Mark:
1) What is the PURPOSE of the Second Amendment as stated by the men who put it in the Constitution? (This is an open book question. Feel free to look up the answer.)
2) Is the Constitution law?
We need a START treaty for the reduction of the massive arsenal of guns in our own country.
Interesting. Actually, it makes sense that the people who the most shrill about gun rights in this country are largely the same ones that adopted realism as their political ideology during the cold war. They believed the world was an anarchic place full of evil people who had to be kept at bay with more and more armaments. It was only through weapons and violence that violence would be reduced. The end of the Soviet Union showed them to be completely wrong (Note: Liberalism (diplomacy and international unity) also failed to bringing about the end of the Cold War.)
What ultimately did it was constructivism or the pursuit of new ideas based on innovation and the people that drive it. That's where the solution to gun violence in this country will come from. It won't be from the gun lobby nor will it come from gun control groups either.
Both Mark and Nikto have bought lock, stock and barrel* into the emotionalism being peddled by the Obama administration:
Thus it is that mainstream reporters can now matter-of-factly describe the White House's mission on gun control this way:
----------
Obama's advisers have calculated that the longer they wait, the more distance there is from the Newtown massacre and the greater the risk that the bipartisan political will to tackle gun violence will dissipate.
"This is not something that I will be putting off," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in an interview broadcast last Sunday.
At the White House meeting, [Sheriff Richard] Stanek said, "the vice president indicated that there was a very short timeline for him to get back to the president with his recommendations because the American public has a short memory."
----------
Think about that. The president and vice president of the United States are urging immediate action on gun control, pre-empting all debate about the measures' constitutionality; and their justification for this urgent, anti-constitutional action is that "the American public has a short memory." In other words, this is not a real crisis (i.e., an ongoing threat), and the public will soon realize that, and carry on with life as usual; therefore, we must act before that happens.
— Obama's Disarming Haste
There's a Chinese proverb which applies very well here:
In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter.
In other words, don't do anything important or unalterable when under the influence of strong emotions. The reason for this is that decisions made purely on the basis of emotion tend to be very, very bad decisions.
Why Logic Will Make You Happy - And Emotions Will Not.
Don't Let Your Emotions Get In The Way Of Your Logic
Emotions vs Logic
Whether it's money, who you want to marry/cohabitate/sleep with, as simple as what you want to eat, or as involved as national policy, letting emotions overrule reason is a recipe for disaster. You know it's true. Just think of people you know, or even yourself, who have made decisions they regret. Odds are, they were emotionally driven decisions.
But it's not just our own experience that tells us that emotions are a horrible basis for making decisions, the Bible also tells us not to be ruled by emotions:
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
— Ephesians 4:26–27
To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
— Proverbs 1:2–5
In short, the basis of good decision making is knowledge, wisdom and prudence/discretion, all of which are logic side qualities, not emotion.
So Mark and Nikto choose to focus on the 26 innocent people killed by a madman. (Cherry Picking Fallacy: unsound, erroneous, misleading, deceptive, FALSE.) Dead children definitely pulls on the heartstrings. But are they the only ones affected by gun ownership? Even the Brady Campaign admits that there are at least 800,000 defensive gun uses per year. How many of those protected the life of an innocent child? How many protected the life of an innocent adult?
And then there are the lessons of history. 12-20 million disarmed people murdered by the Nazis. 20 million unarmed people murdered by the Soviets. 35-45 million unarmed murdered by the Chinese. 2 million unarmed murdered in Cambodia. 1-1.5 million murdered by the Turks. And on, and on, and on, and on (literally) ad nauseum.
That is the tradeoff we are looking at. 20 bright eyed and beautiful children murdered vs. guaranteeing (as best as possible in this world) that millions more cannot be added to history's dismal death toll. Which is the logical choice?
(* Lock, stock, and barrel: What a fascinatingly appropriate phrase, especially given it's origin.)
Here is a FASCINATING look at the numbers for Democide.
(Democide: murder by government, not including war and legitimate punishment for crimes like murder.)
Hmmmmm…
To have the conversations on ALL the issues
Conversations where listening is as important as speaking.
Contrast: Voices In Mark's Head™
Markadelphia once again putting himself in his opponents head and knowing exactly what they are thinking. Your sides intentions = good. The other side = bad. Asking yourself questions again and then answering your own questions? You've admitted that you do that. Why didn't the 500 or so murders in Chicago move you? Guess it has to be white folks in the suburbs for things to change with you.
Compelling arguments, really.
So, do nothing, is the answer. Logic dictates that nothing should, or can be done to stem the violent nature of our society. We should view statistics as misleading, and that our form of Democracy is fatally flawed in this sense. The scope of the issue is far to broad, and that any legislative focus towards this extent is futile and distracting, and would do nothing to solve, well, a non-issue.
I couldn't agree more. However, I won't begrudge this Blogger's right to a passionate appeal, and I don't see the point to debasing here. We are Earthlings, and not Vulcans. I feel a tinge of outrage when I read that a 7 year old girl experienced death by means of 7 hollow-point slugs entering her body. Of course, to say that this is the only time I, or any other person associated with this issue has felt that, and that something should now be done about it, is a false assumption. I just tend to think that, as of recent events and the seeming escalation of atrocities, social tolerance is reaching critical mass.
So why not act, futile as it may be. Litigate, and not legislate. Keep it dispassionate and Spock-like. If logic dictates that cigarette manufacturers be held liable for cancer and death because they knew their product was addicting and in fact worked to create stronger addiction, why not apply the same to guns? If it can be proven that assault weapons were designed to kill people (and not game), and that, most importantly, they did little to educate the user of this fact . . . you know, challenge the logic of guns don't kill people - people kill people. Put that premise on the table, create algorithms to it . . . Spock it up. The means are just as important as the ends.
Here's a premise. I'm the driver of the getaway car. My buddy robs a 7-11 and kills the checkout person as a result. (let's say he strangled him) That wasn't the plan, but it happened anyway. We get caught, and we are both liable for judgement and sentence for the murder. I provided the means.
I think it more effective to publically go after the makers of Bushmaster, and the store that sold the weapon. Force the industry legislate itself. Threaten the money.
f logic dictates that cigarette manufacturers be held liable for cancer and death because they knew their product was addicting and in fact worked to create stronger addiction, why not apply the same to guns?
Good question. I think that's where we are going. Cigarettes are not banned for purchase. People can still buy them. Yet they are terribly unappealing and have a greater social stigma than they ever have. If this happens with guns, violence will go down.
Force the industry legislate itself. Threaten the money.
Yep.
Should the Constitution invalidate penal infringement on the right to bear arms, it would also prohibit the achievement of the same objective through the tort law: "What a State may not constitutionally bring about by means of a criminal statute is likewise beyond the reach of its civil law of libel."[69] Making handgun manufacture, distribution or ownership economically impossible through strict tort liability or overly broad negligence standards would create an atmosphere where second amendment freedoms could not survive. "Whether or not a newspaper can survive a succession of such judgments, the pall of fear and timidity imposed upon those who would give voice to public criticism is an atmosphere in which the first amendment freedoms cannot survive."
http://saf.org/LawReviews/HalbrookHamline.htm
Nikto, I'll ask you the same questions I've been asking Mark:
Hey, NMN, have you heard of this site?
http://www.debate.org/
Perhaps you should post YOUR answers to those questions there and debate someone. Share the link here when you are done and we can see how you did:)
So, do nothing, is the answer.
I wouldn't say that. There are things that can, and should be done. Making every law abiding citizen in the U.S. defenseless isn't one of those things. Two big reasons why:
1) Why punish the law abiding? In what system would be considered just to punish someone other than the criminal who committed the crime?
2) Criminals find ways to get guns anyway. See England for an example. In fact, disobeying laws is the very definition of "criminal."
I think the first thing that should be done is pretty clear from this incident. Several students raised an alarm that the eventual shooter was talking about trying to murder several people. They had posted their concerns on Twitter. This particular article mentions it in passing, but another one I saw (and can't currently find) explained that when the administration saw the tweets, the administration called in the whistleblowers and their parents and disciplined them instead of taking the warnings seriously.
It seems to me that this was exactly the wrong approach. That the administration had temporarily suspended the eventual shooter shows that they knew something was going on. Whether he was being driven to it by bullying or was a sociopath is unclear from the news reports. But the first response should never be to blow it off and try to suppress the issue for some P.C. "self-esteem" garbage. They should be investigated. If it turns out that it was a false alarm and the tweeters were being malicious, then they should be punished. If it turns out the warning is accurate, then the administration must respond appropriately. (As a mental health issue, suspension is not the appropriate response. That's more of a head-in-the-sand, make-it-somebody-else's-problem approach.)
I also think that having an armed security guard or police officer is a good start, but there are a couple drawbacks. One is that you have to pay more money to hire these people to do nothing but sit around. (How many schools? How many shootings? Everyone else does nothing.) Another is that if you do get an active shooter and that shooter has any brains, the very first target is the guy in uniform with the gun. If the shooter can take out the armed guard while they still have the element of surprise, the shooter once again has free reign to be evil.
One of the major advantages of concealed carry is that potential shooters cannot know where the guns are. He cannot know who to shoot first, and his spree could be ended right away by someone who happens to be Johnny-On-The-Spot. This tends to discourage someone who wants to live long enough to do a lot of damage. Another advantage is that you're already paying the teachers, so you would not need to add an extra salary (or three or five or whatever) to the payroll.
I feel a tinge of outrage when I read that a 7 year old girl experienced death by means of 7 hollow-point slugs entering her body.
Agreed. Despite Mark's faux mind-reading schtick, you won't find any gun rights supporters who are not bothered by such evil. We just realize that the potential alternative is far, far worse, as I pointed out above.
If it can be proven that assault weapons were designed to kill people (and not game)
This reminded me of a story about a Texas Ranger named Charlie Miller:
A citizen noted the hammer back on the 1911 carried in the waist band by Charlie Miller, Texas Ranger. The Citizen asks, “Isn’t That Dangerous?” Charley replied, ” I wouldn’t carry the son of a bitch if it wasn’t dangerous.”
And that in turn, leads to this quote:
“One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that ‘violence begets violence.’ I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure—and in some cases I have—that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.”
— Jeff Cooper
The problem is not that people have guns, it's that a small percentage of people see violence as a way of getting what they want. Nor is this violent tendency the result of guns. Violent people have been part of humanity for all of recorded history. But with the invention of the gun, physical strength now has very little to do with the ability to project force. With a gun, a 90 pound woman can defeat a 240 pound linebacker sized man.
Guns are supposed to be dangerous. When some idiot decides that he wants what you have, and is willing to kill you to get it, he needs to be stopped right *bleeping* NOW! Most of the time, that means simply presenting him with the option of stopping or getting shot. The hard core idiot must be made physically incapable of carrying on his violence. For the time being, that means shooting, and possibly killing him.
Sometimes it's worse that a simple assault. Other unfortunate events of the recent past include riots, natural disasters causing a loss of order, gang crime, and the like. If you need to protect your home or your livelihood from two legged predators, like the Korean shop owners did during the L.A. riots, you generally need something with more oomph than a hand gun. You need something designed to kill people, much like you would need something to put out a fire if that's the situation. You need the right tool for the job.
Here's a premise. I'm the driver of the getaway car. My buddy robs a 7-11 and kills the checkout person as a result. … We get caught, and we are both liable for judgement and sentence for the murder.
That's an appropriate premise. In fact, many states already have laws much like that. In those states, if anyone dies during the commission of a crime, all of the perpetrators are charged with murder, even if the person who died was one of the perps.
I'm also a strong believer in making the punishment fit the crime. If you murder someone (as opposed to accidental), then the appropriate punishment (after making sure to the best of human ability) is the death sentence. Taking an innocent human life is the ultimate crime, therefore it should deserve the ultimate penalty.
Another step I think should be taken is that when someone goes on a shooting spree, the shooter's identity should be wiped from under heaven. They should be not be given any notoriety. The media should actively avoid talking about the shooter. (Though it seems most of the media is pro-gun control, and making a spectacle out of pain is how they advance that agenda.) If they have to be talked about at all, they should be given a generic moniker, like "Shooter X", or "Loser 15". Do not give any encouragement to someone to gain fame through committing unspeakable horrors.
I have more ideas, but I've gone on long enough.
I think it more effective to publically go after the makers of Bushmaster, and the store that sold the weapon. Force the industry legislate itself. Threaten the money.
It sounds like you haven't spent any time around the gun culture. I think you should. You would probably be surprised at how important self-control and self-regulation already is.
Perhaps you should post YOUR answers to those questions there and debate someone.
I thought YOU said YOU wanted to "have a discussion."
what they need to do is start showing photos of dead children who have been murdered with military grade weapons.
You mean like these?
Oh, sorry, that's not the kind of murders you were talking about. These are just (mostly) the results of gun control, not armed societies.
I appreciate the dissertation, NMN. You make compelling points.
Arming the schools.
To me this addresses one segment of the vulnerable populus, albeit one of the most important. However, we have had shootings at shopping malls, theatres, political events . . . there seems to be no limit to potential targets. I await the day when someone shoots up an athletic arena since without body patting, at a minimum, my neighbor in the stands could be packing a semiautomatic handgun, and start with me. Arming the teachers is an idea, but, arming the public at large seems the only effective solution. However, I posed a scenario where conceal/carry could have stemmed the bloodshed of the theatre massacre, soon after the event . . . to my lisensed conceal/carry, marine trained cousin, and he came back with a swift rebuke, citing lots of reasons including environmental factors, willingness, ability, and others. I was taken aback, but, his opinion has some merit, I suppose.
Mental Health.
Thanks for the background on this, as I was not aware there was history to report there. To the point of reporting or recognizing potential threats, I'm fearful of McCarthy(ism). That implies vast government oversight, and it seems a slippery slope. I'm not saying it couldn't be used to some extent . . . I'm skeptical that it can be effective. Does my use of ADD medication preclude me from owning a gun? Defining the parameters as such, and the increased level of training, processing, and storage inherent seems daunting.
Automatic weapons.
I see your point on appropriate levels of defense. Landa's mom was the owner of the automatc weapon. She was complicit in the education, and training of her son, and felt it was helping his self esteem. She was obviously prejudiced in her judgements pertining to his fitness to having access to her weapons. Clearly, as a gun owner, she failed to "self-regulate." It doesn't take a gun owner to recognize that, and one has to wonder how many more gun owners are risking the same.
guardduck . . . thanks for the legals. I guess, the second amendment is beyond the reproach of public opinion and sentiment. However, given the fact that the ATF now has the balls the size of my 10 month old sons, it would seem to me all the interested parties relating to oversight, manufacture, sale, and the like, have managed to tip the scales too far the other way. Nobody wants to stop the runaway gravy train. Much like derivatives, or the pot-head smoking that primo Mexican, when the shit goes down, at least my hands are clean.
Landa's mom was the owner of the automatc weapon. She was complicit in the education, and training of her son, and felt it was helping his self esteem. She was obviously prejudiced in her judgements pertining to his fitness to having access to her weapons. Clearly, as a gun owner, she failed to "self-regulate." It doesn't take a gun owner to recognize that, and one has to wonder how many more gun owners are risking the same.
There are a LOT of open questions about what really happened. To my knowledge, no one has reported how the nutcase's mother stored her guns or what he might have done to bypass any secure storage. So we cannot reliably draw conclusions based on mere speculation.
Furthermore, there are clear reports that he was found to have only 3 guns, the "infamous" AR-15 and two pistols. Shortly after the shooting it was reported that the AR-15 was found in the trunk of his car, which makes sense if he tried to get buzzed in (you don't want them to see a rifle) and then climbed in through a window.
I should also point out that an AR-15 is not an "automatic" weapon. It is semi-automatic, only firing one bullet per pull of the trigger.
Furthermore, as a killing weapon, the AR-15 isn't particularly good. Some states have outlawed using the AR-15 for hunting deer (a creature of similar size and durability as humans) because the round used by them (called either .223 Remington or 5.56 mm) is generally insufficient to kill a deer immediately. Part of the military's reasoning in choosing this round is that it is more likely to wound than kill. Their reasoning is that 1 wounded man takes 3 or 4 others out of the fight to care for their wounded comrade.
What annoys me most about this story is all the hysteria. It's buried any chance at discovering which information is reliable under a flood of "this is our chance" attacks and invective against our fundamental right to defend our lives, instead of working to figure the why of Nutcase L's attack so similar decisions can actually be prevented. Remember, nutcases who engage in killing sprees often get guns by stealing them or even by using other means of killing, such as explosives. Even if you could make all guns disappear tomorrow, you would still have to deal with violent psychopaths who come up with creative ways to kill. Focusing on one type of weapon instead of the psychopath leaves him in play to come up with a Plan B, or C, or D, or, well, you get the idea.
Post a Comment