Nobody needs to have a handgun in America.
Nobody needs to have guns in their home, period.
That should be the starting point for any discussion about gun control in our insanely murderous society.
Jack Lessenberry
December 19, 2012
Ban all guns, now. Nobody needs to have a handgun in America — period
[“Insanely murderous society?” Citation needed.
No Jack, there are couple of other starting points in the discussion. 1) The Bill of Rights guarantees the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And probably most importantly; 2) When the collections start are you going to be taking point? There will be lots of openings for that position. There will not be a lot of opportunities for retirement but you can count on getting your 15 minutes of fame early, as well as late, in your career.—Joe]
“Gun confiscation will not happen in my lifetime.” Pat Kelley
From a previous QOTD
Nor in mine!
You can find it here.
And if you have seen Kelley shoot then you know when they take his guns away there is a high probability they will have to climb over a substantial pile of bodies to do it.
I tried to read his post. Gave up. Does he get paid by the word irrespective of um, y’know, acual thought?
Stipulating that the society is “insanely murderous”, then wouldn’t the following be true?
1. Good folks need guns for protection
2. The .gov folks coming to collect the guns are as insanely murderous as the rest
If Lessenberry wants to take my handguns, FOAD. If he’d like to trade, even up, one pistol for one FN SCAR heavy, I’ll be glad to swap some antique revolvers.
Y’know, Mr Loganberry would take your discontent with his position as a sign you should not be armed in any fashion. Not that I wish him ill, but I wonder if his position would change were he subject to a violent home invasion. Probably not, as guns would still be the source of all evil what with seducing criminals to act badly and such unlike the shangri-la that existed prior to firearms.
Some of these people need to live a year in some isolated rural place in America. Then they can come back and tell us how no one ever needs a gun.
I’d prefer rural isolation to in-town. I’m glad I’m packin’ cuz we’re ‘sposed to be on the lookout for a desperado on the loose from the local police. He escaped while handcuffed, which does not inspire confidence in our LEOs.
You have the right idea but I think the problem is more general than that. Ignorance of things outside of your little corner of reality is unavoidable.
I once thought the requirements for being a police officer would be very low. I took the test for the Idaho State Patrol and was quite surprised at how much math and English were required. As I was taking the test it made sense they were testing these things but I hadn’t anticipated it. I scored in the high 90’s (I ran across the test result recently and should post it here sometime) but that the test givers said the pass rate was rather low came as no surprise after I had taken the test.
In another incident involving the police I once overheard some police officers questioning a suspect before arresting him. It was so long ago that I forget the details but I remember I was extremely impressed with how quickly and well they constructed the logic trap that he walked right into as he essentially confessed to the crime and implicated his partner.
The politicians are now learning their ignorance of health insurance economics and web site design and construction is profound.
As I get older the more I have come to respect the knowledge of someone who has spent a significant amount of time in a particular endeavor. It may be you have a 30 point IQ point advantage on someone but that doesn’t make up for even three months of experience in their domain.
The “Ivy Tower Elites” who think they know things outside of their Ivy Tower need to spend some time not just “in some isolated rural place” but in factories, software development environments, insurance companies, police cars, and behind the counter at McDonalds. When they return to their Ivy Tower they should then trust those people outside the tower to make better choices than the elites could ever conceive of. They should then stop their pontification on things they know almost nothing about.
The police around here are highly educated (college degree required) and are paid commensurate wages with that education. The local paper interviewed one cop and he spoke five languages fluently. Even though I knew they put a premium on bilingual officers, the idea of FIVE languages just blew me away.
Regarding health insurance: The status quo is over and done with. We can’t go on the way we were — so things had to change. The Republican solution was what? Oh yeah, it was Obamacare (or Romneycare when they thought of it).
I read a speech Newt Gingrich gave to an insurance group and he said the old system had to be changed. As long as both parties believe this, there is no going back.
Spending just an hour with someone in the insurance industry was extremely enlightening. That neither R’s nor D’s understand how to run their business is not surprising to me.
They insurance industry wrote papers on what, essentially, is now called Obamacare in the 90’s. My expert wrote one or more of them. It cannot work. It was tried and failed in some states. The insurance companies tried to tell politicians this but they didn’t listen. What the insurance companies did to prepare for this is to store up cash reserves. The loses will be huge but they are hoping to be able to ride it out until the law is changed.
Also of significant interest is that in many states and companies the premiums don’t cover the medical payments. It’s only because they make enough money on their investments that they can afford to stay in business. If the stockholders were their sole consideration they would do better to get out of the insurance business in those states and be an investment company.
The government plans to backstop the insurance company losses: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-19/a-guide-to-obamacares-backstop-for-anxious-insurance-companies
Does your expert work for a reinsurance company or an insurance company?
By the way, I was listening to Faux news this past week and they had a panel on healthcare. One of their “Republican” solutions to the healthcare crisis was to eliminate any benefit to having employer paid insurance by taxing all the plans as income. I was only half-way listening to the program so I can’t tell you what it involved completely but I caught that part and thought it was interesting.
I’ll ask about the backstop soon.
Insurance company.
Joe,
The reason I ask is because I think reinsurance companies rule the world. Once they decide something can’t be covered or is causing them problems, everything changes. I think they are more powerful than the global banking industry though they work hand in hand.
My mom spent a career in insurance. She’s also a dyed in the wool Dem (but I love her anyway). What little I could get her to say about ObamaCare (she doesn’t like talking politics) amounted to “I can’t believe they thought something this stupid could possibly work.”
If we gun owners are so insanely murderous, why are all you anti-gunners still alive?