Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority and a couple of other guys put in a lot of time trying to talk sense into some bigots over the last couple of days. I just lurked until today. I finally posted my Just One Question–which of course went unanswered.
Then the bigots attacked a gun owner that reported an instance where he felt he was about to be attacked by a couple of young men. He put his hand on his gun and without drawing it faced the young men down. They went away without incident. Then the bigots claimed the incident never occurred or that if it did the young men were just probably “asking if you want to buy a ticket to a school’s charity event.” That pissed me off. My response:
I find it quite interesting that someone that was not a witness to the alleged event concludes the event did not occur without producing any facts of their own or pointing out any inconsistency in the reporting of the event. Apparently they believe they have some sort of ESP that allows them to remotely view the event in the past without knowing the exact location or time of the event. Very impressive…
Or perhaps it’s just another bigoted statement against a gun owner. Dismissing their statements out of hand simply because they reported facts that are uncomfortable to the bigot.
Gun owners are the niggers/gays/Jews/pick-your-minority of the 21st century. What would your reaction be if the some politician demanded you be registered because of the color of your skin, your choice of sexual partners, or your religion? What if you were not allowed to freely associate with others of your kind without reporting it to the government (gun show laws present in some states)? What if you were subject to special investigation and discrimination in your employment if you spoke up about these infringements of your rights outside of work and on your own time? What if there were organizations that were openly advocating your extinction from society despite clear constitutional and statutory protection? What if the courts ignored the constitution and the laws supposedly protecting these minority? What if the bigoted politicians that, by law (check out 18 USC 242), should go to jail are instead regarded as “progressive” and “innovative” and are reelected again and again? What if people said you “are all empty scrotum shriveled dick creeps who need guns to bolster some sad sense of masculinity”?
That’s what it’s like to be a gun owner today. That is why we are so sensitive and why we are so dedicated. It’s because our culture is being threatened with permanent extinction by bigots who don’t care what the facts are. Bigots who can’t answer Just One Question.
It’s a waste of my time. It’s jousting with windmills, so to speak, but it made me feel better.
It does make you feel better, doesn’t it? Ah, catharsis!
The truth must at the least be made available before anyone can have a chance of absorbing it.
I can’t tell you how many young people I’ve spoken with who have never even heard about NFA ’34, didn’t know what the counrty’s legal landscape was like before FDR, or even the meaning of freedom and equality in the Jeffersonian sense. Many of them, including two current employees, have easily absorbed these ideas, once presented in a logical manner.
My son recently had a “Consitution Class” in 8th grade. He was the only one who brought actual letters and quotes from the Founders (provided by me of course) into class. They had a text book, which went through the Bill of Rights, one amendment at a time, and I shit you not– it simply skipped the 2nd as though it didn’t exist.
A free market in education is called for.
Here’s a video that you might be able to point them to.
1. He incorrectly defined full-automatics as illegal. I don’t know how many citizens legally own automatic firearms, but it numbers in the many tens of thousands. Therefore he was ill equipped to make the point that of all those legally-owned automatics, virtually none are ever used criminally, thus proving that automatics in the hands of regular citizens are no threat to any other honest citizen. But he’s either afraid to make such an argument, or too ignorant to make such an argument.
2. The idea of throwing out automatics (accepting the unfounded notion that they are “bad” [false] and that they are illegal [false] and that is just fine and dandy) is ridiculous anyway– the gun does not define its owner. Any principled advocate of the Second Amendment would understand this.
3. He put the bipod on backwards, and left that error in the video– he’s not your shining example of an expert.
4. He made no mention whatsoever of any American’s rights. That’s the worst mistake you can make in a debate over legislation– assume that rights are too insignificant a subject to even mention. For a law enforcement officer to make that omission is particularly offensive and dangerous.
5. Anti-gun activists (the leadership) aren’t going to give a hoot about any of this anyway, because they already know these things. Never make the mistake of assuming your enemies can be reasoned out of a position they never reasoned themselves into in the first place.
I watched it. As Lyle pointed out it’s got a lot of errors in it. Even if it had no errors it would make no difference. These people don’t deal with facts. Facts are irrelevant to them.