Much like what I was arguing in the post below about violent criminals not being ordinary people who just snap. But I think perhaps we can come together with the Brady Campaign and agree that there ought to be no baring of teeth at political demonstrations. Lest someone be too intimidated to speak out.
Sebastian
September 5, 2009
California Still Has Good Self-Defense Laws
This is referring to a President Obama supporter who bit off the finger of a protester and the Brady Campaign representatives who insist gun owners should leave their guns behind when they go to political events. Even though none of those gun owners have used their guns in an illegal manner.
[Of course the Brady Campaign isn’t going to “come together” on this. They want to single out gun owners for “special treatment”. Just as KKK members think blacks are deserving of special laws and treatment.–Joe]
C’mon Joe. Even Clayton’s blog covered the fact that it was a pretty good scuffle between the finger guy and the finger biter. Would you say the finger biter would have been justified shooting the other after being punched in the face?
And wherever do you get that “special treatment” idea?
The criteria for the legal use of deadly force is usually the reasonable fear of serious permanent injury or death. Hence the “being punched in the face” provocation probably would not qualify unless there was a large disparity of force.
The special treatment is obvious. They nearly always refer to “gun violence” rather than illegal violence. Almost every time they use numbers in their statements they include legal as well as illegal violence inflicted with a gun. They present low rates of violence using a gun as a good thing even if the total violence rates are higher. All indications are that in their minds it is better that more people are injuried and/or killed with something other than a gun than if a lower number of people are injuried and/or killed with guns. They also advocate for increased penalities for a crime committed with a gun than if the same crime was committed without it.
mikeb; Taking Joe’s reply and distilling it to its essence, we get the phrase, “anti gun rights leaders and activists are bigots.” But we’ve been saying and demonstrating that here for a long time. Joe’s blog subtitle, for example, is in fact taking what’s been said of gun owners for a very long time and using it in mockery. We get treated like idiots, criminals-in-waiting, as dangerous, violence-prone, wife beating, inbred trailer trash with sexual dysfunction, trying to bring the whole country down to our base level, as a matter of course.
That’s bigotry– characterizing an entire group of people as inferior, without looking at the particulars or the individuals honestly. It’s much the same sort of bigotry the KKK promoted against blacks, Jews, and homosexuals, with very nearly the exact same insults and the same sorts of blind fear. It’s not even arguable, as anyone who’s been vocal about upholding the 2A can personally attest. In fact, it was racism that motivated some of the first gun laws in America, so Joe has some very strong standing in making his assertion. The only question is; when will you admit it?
And isn’t that a fact that must stick in the craw of every anti– that the only federal gun law this country had before 1934 was the second amendment? Until then it was considered as none of Congress’ business. Yes, a whole nation built without gun restrictions– no FFLs, no licensing of manufacturers, etc., and the most successful nation at that. Why didn’t Americans all kill each other, when there were people of all ethnicities and all economic classes coming from all over the planet to get here? If near zero gun laws was so damned bad, why the rush to get to the U.S.?
Nope. Gotta keep that from getting out. You bigots are going to have to get hold of more of the communications and education in this country, to keep from being embarrassed by reality. It’s really all you can do, isn’t it? Sooner or later, you’ll have to shut us up, or give up the fight in shame. For now you’ll keep up the smear, the ad hominem attacks, and the media saturation using scary stereotypes and improbable movie scenarios, hoping against hope that our Founding Principles, the constitution, human rights, and reality itself can somehow be forgotten.
There is a third path you can take, but I know from experience that only a small minority of bigots will take it. You can admit you were wrong (“horribly misled” will be accepted) and join the pro freedom ranks.
I think Sebastian may be conceding a false premise. Were the people carrying weapons down the road from presidential appearances there protesting universal health care or some other non-gun policy issue, or were they there to assert and normalize carry rights? Mainstream media tried to imply the former, and I can see how that would be bad tactics. But as best as I can tell at least some of the carriers were there for the latter purpose. If the issue is open carry rights specifically I don’t see any way around that step, sooner or later. These guys embraced some short-term negative coverage for a long-term gain. Its worth noting that the very first pessimistic predictions from our side have already been proven overblown.