Just as the DOJ, NIJ/BJS, and the FBI are the hallmarks in research and statistics credibility, there are still politically motivated and tenacious entities like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence (formally Handgun Control, Inc.), the oddly named Violence Policy Center, and Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Handguns that shamelessly cite discredited studies, or simply pull numbers out of thin air while crafting bogus arguments to piously stand in the way of continuing reforms. Gun control in America was a chronic failure. Gun control is dead. It’s time to bury it where it falls and move forward which includes teaching and enabling society to be better prepared and more alert to these sudden mass shootings.
Nanjing03
17 year veteran of law enforcement investigations, administration, and training
October 18, 2011
Comment to Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor Speaking Tonight at Diablo Valley College.
[It’s the burying part that is difficult. Gun control is like a zombie. It slowly stumbles around without any intellectual capacity but it isn’t really dead.—Joe]
And like National Socialism, the mindset of “Yeah it failed, but we’ll do it right THIS TIME” seems to be a common mechanism of Magical Thinking for a not-insignificant (but a minority) of people in the world.
No matter how many times its shown that Gun Control (or National Socialism) is shown to fail, or even to INCREASE the very events it claims it will prevent, there are people who aren’t ready to chalk it off as a bad idea, but a GREAT idea that was just poorly executed, and easily corrected if we could jut get these nay-Sayers out of the way (preferably into camps, or mass graves) they would quickly and easily achieve their envisioned utopia.
The Violence Policy Center is not only oddly named, it has a decidedly odd policy on violence, holding that the instrumentality with which one commits the violence is much more significant than the intent to commit violence or the actual commission of violence itself.
Another in a long list of oddities in American society today, which recently added that it is ok to criticize a pastor for expressing a theological position which uses a term considered by some to be derogatory to refer to another religion, to which the pastor does not subscribe, but it is completely non-noteworthy to express imaginary hateful beliefs for one’s political opponents so long as they are conservative political opponents.
All very odd.
Welcome to the fundamental transformation of America.
Weer’d Beard beat me to it. The quote reads like a summary of socialism in general. It is widely known, or at least readily knowable, that socialism in general has always been a colosal destructive force, and the reply is always the same– “They didn’t do it right, but “we” can”.
I submit that reason behid that is; socialism, and gun control which is a part of socialism, really does work. It get the job done that was intended. It creates widespread instability, stagnation and then decline leading eventually to mass destruction. It is after all founded in the basic notion of the destruction of human rights. It is based on hatred of Mankind fueled by envy.
Meanwhile, the message from the Republican leadership is that they can do a better job heading the Minisrty of Central Planning.
If it fails again and again, it’s simply not insane to JUST DO IT HARDER! [sarcasm]
Since the urge to institute socialism/marxism/communism always seem to be around, we must have firearms to prevent the government from every thinking that it can start rounding up the undesirables to make way for a new political order. I’m quite convinced that the armed citizenry has done wonders for ensuring the peaceful transition of power with every election. Democracy is fragile and we need eternal vigilance so that the light of freedom is never extinguished.
Thus, I find those with totalitarian tendencies to be disgusting. So, while some gun control advocates might mean well; their ideology is flawed, dangerous, and evil.
“Never Forget!” and “Molon Labe!” are ideas that free and decent men should embrace.
All good stuff except that the U.S. isn’t a democracy. It’s a republic with some democratic features. At least it was not originally intended to be a democracy. That’s why we don’t pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the democracy for which it stands, nor do we sing “The Battle Hymn of the Democracy”. There were and are several very anti-democratic features in the constitution. One person (the president) may overrule the democratic decisions of a simple majority in Congress. Nine justices may overrule Congress and the president. One House of Congress may overrule the other. There are several other examples.
I’m aware that there has been a tendency to equate democracy with liberty, but that is the perpetration of a lie. Democracy is the trading of the tyranny of a ruling class for the tyranny of the majority. The founders knew that a democracy is a society in the process of devouring itself.
Quite right Lyle.
I was too broad and not exact enough with my use of the term “democracy” and I do realize we have a constitutional republic. It protects us so that we are not subject to the mob rule of 51% since certain rights such as the Second Amendment are protected from that nonsense.
I was trying to express that we have a representative government as opposed to being led by a “president for life” despot or a tyrannical autocratic government (or as you alluded to, the ancient Greeks). I fell prey to the common misuse of the term. Sorry.
I think I should have something more like we should jealously guard our liberties, so as to not risk losing them.
I’ve given the phrase “Insanity is doing something over and over again, and expecting a different result” some thought recently. I no longer believe it. I have a sister who has schizophrenia, and her condition wasn’t diagnosed by expecting anything. It was diagnosed when she started hearing weird voices in her head, and when she would tell my Mom that she couldn’t do anything, because she was dead, and my Mom would then say “But my daughter isn’t dead, and she needs to drink this” to convince my sister to drink something. Insanity is having a mental that is so messed up, that people need to say messed-up things to you, in an attempt to convince you to do the right thing.
So in that sense, the Brady Campaign and their ilk are insane.
But when I joke that “I cut the stick three times, and it’s *still* too short”, I’m not joking about insanity: I’m joking about being *stupid*. Thus, I would rephrase the quote “Stupidity is doing something over and over again, and expecting a different result.” Hence, the Brady Campaign is *stupid*, and so are all those Socialists who say, “Socialism will work, we just need to do it right!” as if all the previous implementers of Socialism were stupid dolts who didn’t know what they were doing. (They may have been dolts, but they were smart, even highly intelligent, dolts. They *had* to be, to accomplish the political maneuverings they accomplished!)
So we have learned that the Brady Campaign and their ilk are stupid too.
Now someone is *evil* if the actions he pursues results in an increase in human suffering. Such a person may convince himself he’s a good guy, but he’s not, if he hurts other people. In this sense, I could consider the Brady Campaign and their ilk to be evil…but not pure evil, because they don’t want to think of themselves as bringers of evil, so they convince themselves that their stupid laws really make the world safer, when the opposite is true.
Sadly, most evil committed in this world is done by people who convince themselves they are doing good, or at least they were justified in doing what they did.
It probably doesn’t help that even in college poly sci courses the word “democracy” is often used in an improperly generic fashion. My prof would use it as something as a catchall for basically any type of elected government–including parliamentary-based systems as well as republics. I think “democratically elected governments” would be better terminology, although still not perfect.
In our present society, no one is above gundecking (pencil-whipping) reports and statistics. Any politician or government bureaucrat who opens conversation by citing a “need”, then moving right to the stats without actually PROVING the “need”, is probably one of those who lie with statistics. At least there’s statistical co-relation in the possibility, heh.