Quote of the day—Jeffrey Goldberg

Gun-control advocates, and their friends in Congress and state legislatures, must admit to themselves that the fixes they propose are mainly symbolic. There is a striking timidity to the gun-control movement. America is awash in guns — about 300 million are now in private hands. Mainstream, incremental, gun control measures, if enacted, would not reduce the number of guns in society, and they would only work at the margins of the problem. In other words, laws that would have prohibited the Newtown killer’s mother from acquiring her weapons would have been more helpful.

Jeffrey Goldberg
December 20, 2013
Jeffrey Goldberg: Why Newtown didn’t change America
[If you read his entire post you will discover Goldberg has a good understanding of the gun politics. The only thing he messes up above where he expresses his belief that “laws that would have prohibited the Newtown killer’s mother from acquiring her weapons would have been more helpful”.

He apparently does not understand a couple of things. It’s too bad because that understand is critical to his reaching the correct conclusion. Those items are:

  1. Firearms are used to protect innocent life. Hence any restrictions on firearms must take into account the reduction in benefits as well as the reduction in risks.
  2. Prohibiting firearm ownership to people with no propensity to commit violent illegal acts, such as the Newton killer’s mother, would not be “helpful” in the sense Goldberg might imagine it. In addition to the Constitutional issues flooding the courts there would be significant percentage of existing gun owners that would choose to act outside the law to demonstrate just how “unhelpful” they could be.

I applaud Goldberg’s call to gun control advocates to recognize they are mainly symbolic and do not advocate for practical benefits. But he still needs addition education and, contrary to the gun control advocates, I think he is rational and honest enough to learn.—Joe]

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7 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Jeffrey Goldberg

  1. I’m not too sure I’d consider Goldberg as having the potential for awakening. At the tail end of his piece, he infers that the true solution is to essentially examine the role and use for the Second Amendment, at least in my quick reading.

    Jeff B.

  2. It would have been more helpful, but not for good, not for the people he thinks it would be helpful for, and not in the way he thinks it could be helpful. Final Solution is right, Goldberg thinks the Jews in the Attic test went out of style 60 years ago.

  3. Pingback: First News Links of the Year | Shall Not Be Questioned

  4. Newtown did not work for the anti-gunners for the simple reason that it was not publisized to the extent that Colorado and nevada were. There was no blood lible shown on the evening news.

    • What planet were you living on last year?!? It was NEWTOWN – NEWTOWN – NEWTOWN, all the way to the failure of gun control in the Senate. . .

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