Clueless “Gun Guys”

I subscribe to the Gun Guys email list and get rants about how terrible guns are on a regular basis.  Most of the time it’s just pathetic, bigoted, ignorant blather.  However todays rant includes part of a recent CCRKBA news release.   Even when it’s spelled out for them these clowns just don’t get it:

Howdy Partners,

We told you on Tuesday about the police chiefs of Wisconsin standing up with the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort against the proposed concealed weapons bill there.  Great cops like Oregon Police Chief Doug Pettit have been telling America what most of us already know: that allowing concealed weapons on the streets is dangerous for both cops and citizens.

It’s all the more disheartening, then, when out of the woodwork comes a group like the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms attempting to undercut the police chiefs’ message.  In a press release on a conservative site MichNews.com, CCRKBA’s executive director, Joe Waldron, tries to infer that Wisconsin’s police chiefs don’t know what they’re talking about:

“Wisconsin residents,” Waldron said, “certainly deserve to be on equal footing with armed criminals, because police can’t be everywhere. Glibly arguing that only police should have guns ignores the fact that criminals prefer victims who can’t fight back… Gun owners will tell you that a place where only police have guns is a police state. Wisconsin is still part of the United States.”

“Police state” hyperbole aside, Waldron hints that the Wisconsin chiefs are attempting to ban guns from citizens’ hands.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  What police chiefs have been saying all week, throughout Wisconsin, is that they’re against concealed weapons on the streets.  The gun lobby is currently pushing for a bill to “outsource” public safety by taking the concealed weapon permit process away from law enforcement and putting it into the hands of private companies.  They want to allow concealed weapons in hospitals, places that serve alcohol, and even children’s sporting events!  That’s what the police chiefs in Wisconsin are urging lawmakers against.  They, like many citizens, are concerned about the safety of both police and residents, and know that concealed weapons will only make matters worse.

Instead of listening to the experience of these knowledgeable officers, however, Waldron chooses to attack their judgement and suggest that the opposite of what they’re telling us is true.  Thanks, CCRKBA, but no thanks.

The worst that can be said from a scientific analysis of the data is that citizens carrying concealed weapons doesn’t improve citizen safety and most studies show improvement in safety when the potential victims are allowed the tools most effective in defending themselves.  The clueless don’t care about scientific data.  They are only interested in a small subset of opinions–the opinions that match their bigoted viewpoint of the world.

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