Quote of the Day – Bill Whittle

…just because something is fun, and scares away weenies, doesn’t mean that it’s stupid.


Bill Whittle
November 4, 2010
What We Believe, Part 5: Gun Rights
[
Freedom is scary for a lot of people, and it means that people who hate you can’t tell you what to do or how to do it, just because they hate you.  It sucks for them, and it makes them angry.  Hence, freedom pisses people off.  Hence, if you love freedom, you have to come to grips with the fact that people are going to hate you.  Embrace it, Little Grasshopper.  Or as Zaphod Beeblebrox said after having a nuclear missile attack launched against his ship; “Man, This is Great!  It means we’re really on to something if they’re trying kill us!”–Lyle]

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12 thoughts on “Quote of the Day – Bill Whittle

  1. Never could understand why people would risk life and limb to jump out of perfectly good airplanes that are coming back to the same airfield they just left, yet I don’t see why Skydiving should be banned. The Anti-Gun Fallacy has always troubled me inso much as the fact that I have NEVER heard of anyone going from door-to-door forcing to people to take guns, yet the Antis would do the same methods to remove guns if they get the chance. The RKBA is Voluntary, unless you are needed for the Militia. And if we have to start calling out the Militia, then I think the Antis will be silent, hiding in their basements, hoping we, the Armed Citizen protects their sorry butts.

  2. Sadly, I’m having this argument vis-à-vis Open Carry at my blog with other gun owners. Because OC might scare the weenies, we should ban it!!!

    I know Joe had access to a report showing that some people truly can be frightened about OC, but so far in 43 states that allow it, I’ve yet to see any strong push to restrict rights based on OC alone (the gun banners are pushing regardless if we OC, CCW, or just leave our guns at home).

  3. I just recently wrote two posts addressing this issue: I called them “Libertarianism is Scary” and “Don’t Trust My Neighbor Syndrome”.

    They address the basic issue as to why I think there are fewer libertarians than there really ought to be: people want freedom for themselves, but they are afraid to give freedom to their hypothetical neighbor.

    We really ought to get over being afraid of each other, and look for non-governmental ways to settle our differences!

  4. Yeah, Lyle, I figured that video would appeal to you and Joe with its mention of gun control folks being akin to Hitler and Stalin and the big 11,000 “gun related deaths” lie.

    I can understand your accepting the Hitler and Stalin business, although it’s ironic that you say we are hateful, but the 11,000? How can you justify that one?

  5. First of all, a disclaimer: I haven’t seen the video, nor can I, since Flash is broken on my computer, and I haven’t yet had sufficient reason to try to fix it.

    Yeah, I agree with MikeB302000 on this one: only 11,000 deaths? Unless this number is just for the United States, and just for this last year. If we look to examples like Russia, Germany, and Rwanda, we can see that the number ought to be much higher than 11,000. Even looking to Mexico, which hasn’t (yet) had a genocide, we could see how violation of their Right to Bear Arms provision has left many people defenseless against the drug cartels. How many people have died from that?

    In addition to that, how many people die every year in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. because of an inability to defend themselves?

  6. As Whittle already said, we’re perfectly willing to accept 40,000 traffic deaths each year to keep driving legal. It’s typiclly not even news worthy when someone dies on the highway.

    Now if only we could get the number of air travel deaths way up, we’d be doing much better. It would mean more air travel, which would require more freedom.

    If you hate freedom, just leave. That’s easy. It doesn’t require organization, funding, lobbying, lying to get your people elected, sneaking around to get your people appointed, none of it. Just take a hike and quit yer bitchin’.

  7. The argument against the RKBA is akin to the argument against pitbulls. Because someone was attacked by a pitbull, all pitbulls are bad. Because someone was shot by a gun, all guns are bad. Ban them.

    Never mind that when you ban pitbulls soon German Sheperds, or Dobermans, or Rottweilers become the next dog in line that attacks someone, and then gets banned. Then someone says…lets ban all dogs over 40 pounds. And so they ban all dogs over 40 pounds. And then a chihuahua, or a pomeranian, or a dachsund attacks and kills a child. (Don’t laugh, all three breeds have documented attacks on small children resulting in death!).

    And yet, people continue to insist that there is some way to rid society of all gun violence, just like they believe that by banning pitbulls they will rid themselves of all dog attacks.

    IF you assume that there is some magical number that is acceptable for deaths of any type, then you must also use that same number for deaths of ALL types. You can’t say that 11,000 deaths from handguns is too high, but 40,000 from auto accidents is acceptable. If ANY death is unacceptable due to a cause, than ALL deaths due to similar causes are unacceptable.

    Freedom and Libery demand that there be risk, risk is inherent in the ability to choose. If there is no risk, than there is no choice.

    Our ForeFathers recognized that, and did their very best to codify the acceptance of that risk, understanding that a time would come when many would try to choose safety over freedom and liberty. They KNEW with every fiber of their being that too many men accept the loss of freedom for safety and wanted to make sure that Freedom and Liberty are safeguarded.

    They created the Bill of Rights to do so, and made sure that the 1st and 2nd Amendments supported each other.

    Now we are faced with those who will profess safety over freedom, and WE must stand as our ForeFathers did, and protect our Freedom and Liberty for future generations.

  8. MikeB302000: ” … the big 11,000 “gun related deaths” lie.”

    The numbers Whittle is using are obviously (at least it should be) just for the U.S. 11,000 is only a “lie” in the sense that it overstates the actual number of homicides committed using a “hand gun” by quite a bit. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report data shows only 6452 murders committed using a handgun in 2009, down from 7565 in 2005. The total murders committed using a firearm is 9146 (10,158 in 2005).

    So tell us, Mike, just how many homicides do you “think” are committed with a firearm? You did accuse a man of lying. Care to back it up with some facts.

  9. “…self-defence (sic) is not homicide”

    I beg to differ. If self defense results in the death of the perp, it is homicide (the killing of a member of Homo sapiens). It’s justifiable homicide, or sometimes, as Joe puts it, even “praiseworthy homicide” as distinguished from criminal homicide.

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