Contributors

Thursday, October 08, 2015

The Myth of the Good Guy With A Gun

Looks like someone else is spreading the good word...

Speaking Friday on CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, perennial gun rights advocate John Lott said, “My solution for these mass shootings is to look at the fact that every single time, these attacks occur where guns are banned. Every single time.” 

That’s neither true in general nor true in this instance. The FBI tells us that active-shooter scenarios occur in all sorts of environments where guns are allowed—homes, businesses, outdoor spaces. (In fact, there was another mass shooting the same day as the Oregon massacre, leaving three dead and one severely wounded in a home in North Florida.) And Umpqua Community College itself wasn’t a gun-free zone. Oregon is one of seven states that allow guns on college campuses—the consequence of a 2011 court decision that overturned a longstanding ban. In 2012, the state board of education introduced several limitations on campus carry, but those were not widely enforced. 

And yet they keep believing all this shit....

1 comment:

Nikto said...

John Kasich gets the award for stupidest gun comment on the Umpqua murders for saying that the death penalty and longer prison sentences would help (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/john-kasich-mass-shootings-death-penalty).

Huh?

Punishment does not deter gun violence.

Nutjobs like the Umpqua killer usually kill themselves, or commit suicide by cop. Guys like this plan things out ahead, knowing full well that they'll die because they want to go out in a blaze of glory.

Some of them wear flak jackets not to survive, but to maximize the body count they leave behind. For these guys punishment is no deterrent whatsoever, so the death penalty is useless.

Most murders aren't planned out, however. They're committed in the heat of the moment, like when a wife-beater comes home and dinner's not ready and he blows his family away. Again, since these people aren't thinking about any consequences, the death penalty is no deterrent.

Finally, there's that small number of people who calmly plan to kill someone but aren't suicidal. These people think they're smart enough to get away with it, and again, the punishment doesn't even enter their mind because they don't plan on getting caught.

Conservatives seem to think the only thing that stops people from doing evil things is the threat of retribution. They are so repressed by their religion and philosophy that they can't comprehend that most people actually care about others and won't steal or kill because they don't want to hurt other people. It's wrong and immoral. A lot of people find it so abhorrent that they wouldn't kill even to defend themselves.

It's why liberals are generally against war, and conservatives are for war. It's why liberals don't want people to have guns and conservatives want guns. Conservatives seem to be completely self-centered and see no problem with killing, and they'd love to do it, just as long as they don't get punished for it.

Hence all the screwy stand your ground laws in conservative states.