Quote of the day—Ana Marie Cox

Activists such as those at Everytown need to redraw focus away from the infrequent horror of mass shootings and get voters to recognize the daily tragedies of gun violence. A taller order, but just as necessary: make clear that the gun violence is not about violent people with guns – it’s about guns, period.

There is no such thing as a neutral position on guns, because there is no such thing as a neutral gun. Guns have one purpose: to kill things. They are no more neutral than a poison. They can be used for good or ill, but the reason they exist is to hurt someone. In the “bad guy with a gun” versus a “good guy with a gun” scenario, the problem isn’t who’s bad and who’s good, it’s that there is a gun involved, period.

Ana Marie Cox
July 8, 2014
This Is The Real Reason Gun Control Is Failing
[By this logic the police shouldn’t have guns either then because it doesn’t matter if they are a good guy with a gun or a bad guy with a gun. I have to conclude Cox has some sort of mental disorder to have their thinking this messed up.

In any case don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns away. As well as not letting clearly crazy people possess guns we shouldn’t let crazy people take our guns.—Joe]

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14 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Ana Marie Cox

  1. I don’t think having a blog most famous for providing details of secretarial anal sex for cash with bureaucrats in DC is the best possible background for serious commentary on social issues.

    In fact, that this person gets any attention at all is a sign of disfunction, not enhancement, of the powers of the US free press.

  2. It’s the same kind of illness that thinks the NRA wants the criminally insane to own guns and sources Talking Points Memo to prove it.

    What’s fascianting is two paragraphs before going all “guns are bad” Cox says this:

    “”
    That’s the key misunderstanding between gun-control advocates and the wide swath of voters they need on their side: Americans are OK with guns. They don’t like violence. They don’t like guns in the hands of mad men and criminals, or shoved in their faces in restaurants and shopping centers, but they’re OK with guns.
    “”

    Which is acutally rather on the nose. It’s especially shocking in light of how she ends the peice with the concluding paragraph where we see a prime example of deodand thinking:

    “Guns are not objects, and I doubt we can change the way our country deals with them by thinking of guns as merely potentially dangerous things that need to be regulated, no different than unstable chemicals or cold medicines. Guns are death waiting to happen, and Everytown’s survey is a quaint eulogy for those who have already passed.”

    Not objects. Death waiting to happen?

    This is a person who puts sinister agency towards firearms and must have written the sentance “Americans are OK with guns. ” with horror.

    And we see that her problem is not with Bloomberg’s goals but his tactics. Basically she wants an even more shrill drumbeat about how guns have mind rays that cause voilence and death by their mere presence.

  3. A gun does not have any potential without a person to wield it. Just like a hammer will not randomly build a house or tear it down. I do not fear a good guy with a gun. He was never inclined to do me harm. A good is more inclined to come to my aid in a crisis. Like a police officer that may potentially use a gun to stop a bad guy while coming to my aid.

  4. In the “bad guy with a gun” versus a “good guy with a gun” scenario, the problem isn’t who’s bad and who’s good, it’s that there is a gun involved, period.

    Doubtless she believes in “the Cycle of Violence”, which must always be broken so it will not continue. Well, sister, I happen to know for a fact that man (and women, for those grammatically challenged lefties), being a being with a moral sense, recognizes that in every such “cycle of violence” there is one point at which the cycle stops at an immoral result, and one point at which the cycle stops at a moral result. She, just like everyone else, recognizes that fact, and will complain if the cycle stops at an immoral result. A gun is a tool no better or worse than the person using it, and its absence from the proper hands will enable the cycle of violence to end at what she can only admit is an immoral place.

  5. An interesting note is the author’s use of poison as an analogy. From wiki:

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants

    Specifically:

    “Plants cannot move to escape their predators, so they must have other means of protecting themselves from herbivorous animals. Some plants have physical defenses such as thorns, but by far the most common protection is chemical.”

    Also of note is the bug spray we use to protect ourselves and our homes from pests. Now you “could” use that same poison to harm someone, but then, that requires intent and personal accountability.

    Or, you know, just blame the poison…

    • Curare was used in medicine as a muscle relaxant and anesthetic until better synthetic forms were developed.

      Botulism toxin is used in plastic surgery (she should remember that one, considering Kerry’s had enough injected into his face to make him look like a horse).

      Her point about poisons is more than a little incoherent.

    • The conclusion is clear: self-defense is a basic natural right. Not just a human right — it is so fundamental that even mushrooms understand it.

      (Which goes to show that socialists are dumber than mushrooms.)

      • But, shouldn’t one be entitled to “natural” self defense instead of “manufactured” self defense? After all, we are talking about natural rights, not manufactured rights.

        • You’re trolling again.

          Would you seriously make an argument for the “natural right” to free speech rather than “manufactured” free speech?

          • Well, if you think about it — you are free to stand on a street corner and speak all day long. You can even scream. But the minute you start using “amplified” free speech (like a loudspeaker), you’ll probably get ticketed.

            So, maybe “natural” rights aren’t exactly the same when you start tinkering with them.

          • You can write using pen and paper with no more restriction than those you would have using a stick in the sand. And this right has been updated to the modern day with computers and the Internet to include speech (and video) “amplified” such that the entire world can “hear” it.

  6. I have come to dislike the “the only purpose of guns is to kill” argument. It isn’t just that there are so many counter-examples (for example, how many people would refuse to carry a competition gun for self defense, because the accuracy makes it less reliable?)…but it misses an entire point; well, two, actually.

    First, sometimes a good person has to kill a bad person. Otherwise, why do we give policemen guns? Heck, in times of war, it may even be necessary for a good person to kill another good person, because even in Nazi Germany, there were good people who had reasons for fighting for the country. And this is why soldiers have guns.

    Secondly, though, in self defense, the goal isn’t to kill people, but to stop the life-threatening attack. Gun shots don’t always kill those who are inflected with them! The reason why we’re taught to shoot first for the chest, and then maybe a third shot for the head, is because it maximizes the chance that the person intending harm would be stopped. Once the person is on the ground, or has run away, we call the ambulance and police (assuming we weren’t able to do so already), and they do their best to save the guy shot.

    For this purpose, it’s immaterial whether the person lives or dies; death is just a nasty side-effect of the process. Indeed, if a thug lies down after getting shot, and is no longer a threat, and the self defense shooter then fires a shot to make sure the thug is dead, the situation turns from self defense to murder!

    So while it may sometimes be necessary to kill a person, that isn’t the primary purpose of even self-defense weapons: their purpose is to stop the threat as soon as possible; anything beyond this is murder.

    • That point about the purpose of self defense is important. A lot of energy is spent by victim disarmers in mixing things up. For example, the classic “study” in which the number of people killed by gun in accidents, suicide or crime was compared with the number of people *killed* in self defense. The unstated implication is that, in self defense, killing the attacker is the goal. Gary Kleck discusses this “study” and calls that comparison “the nonsense ratio”:

      “What is so deceptive about the ratio is the hint that killing burglars or intruders is somehow a “benefit” to the householder. This is both morally offensive and factually inaccurate.”

      Every person who claims that “guns are only for killing” is making this same morally offensive statement.

  7. Of course you dopey female of the genus canis, it could never be the violent individual that could be responsible. All the gun banners seem not to realize that violence in the human condition has not been restricted to the era of firearms. This convenient blindness is feature that allows their insane belief.

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