We cooperated with gun control and continue to pay a terrible price. There will be no more cooperation.
Ken Soderstrom
October 2, 2014
Comment to Gun control has become taboo issue
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
The View From North Central Idaho
Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
The article it refers to is weird. It approvingly recites some well known canards and straw men. For example:
“It seems obvious that early American senators and congressmen secured the right to bear arms for the purpose of self-defense or hunting game” — wrong. Hunting has nothing to do with it. It’s self defense in all its forms.
“Therefore, it’s not in the spirit of the Second Amendment to say anybody should be given a gun for any purpose.” — no one is talking about “giving a gun”; it’s about not stealing our guns.
“The Second Amendment fundamentalists, on the other hand, make no distinction between concerned citizens and homicidal maniacs. They believe that there should be no regulations of any kind insofar as the sale of firearms is concerned.” — straw man. Who says that? No one I know of. This is the classic dishonest premise that gun grabbers keep reaching for. He should know better than to quote it as if it were real.
“Their ideology is rooted not in the concept of self-defense, but self-identity. Radical anti-gun control activists evaluate their own personal worth on the basis of firearm ownership.” — that’s nothing more than a fancy-words rendering of the genitals notion.
Yet at the same time is is exactly correct in a bunch of places:
“Indeed, the sons and daughters of the Second Amendment are urban businessmen who walk to their cars late at night, battered housewives who fear that their estranged husbands might murder them, deer hunters who are trying to feed their families, movie stars who fall victim to the terrors of a violent stalker, convenience store owners who are at risk of being held up, and many more.” — precisely correct, except for the bit about deer hunters.
I’m really puzzled about his conclusion. He seems to be solid on the side of the gun grabbers, while carefully wording his conclusion to make it seem something else. “Sensible regulation” all over again.
Yes, Ken is absolutely correct.
I haven’t had much time for blog stuff recently and didn’t want to spend it doing a fisking although I saw the same muddled thinking that you did.
Thanks for doing that.
Yeah; “The Second Amendment fundamentalists, on the other hand, make no distinction between concerned citizens and homicidal maniacs. They believe that there should be no regulations of any kind insofar as the sale of firearms is concerned.”
The author’s a fucking idiot, pretending to be one of those Moderate types, tossing a bone to each “side” in the debate while assuming superiority over all. A colossal ignoramus and a bad poser. He’d make the perfect U.S. Senator.
As with all antis he assumes without saying so, that “regulations” (by which he means legal restrictions) will prevent a homicidal maniac from getting a gun illegally.
After pretending to throw us a bone by acknowledging a right to self defense, he pounces with the worst anti gun lie of all; we make zero distinction between the “concerned citizen” (concerned with what he doesn’t say) and the homicidal maniac, and that THAT is what defines a libertarian, or one who believes in the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence. So if you believe that rights are inherent to the man, you are incapable of making any distinction whatsoever between love and honesty on one hand and random murder on the other.
I think that must be John McCain writing under a pseudonym. It’s classic Republican horse shit.
He’s senile enough that he might not remember writing it.
And dishonest enough that he wouldn’t care.
It’s depressing to remember that McCain was once, years ago, an honorable man. It seems that when he became a member of congress he forgot what it means to swear an oath.
McCain’s basic problem is that he has no firm philosophical foundation and no clearly thought out framework for his ideology. Sandra Day O’Connor was another prime example. . .
This leaves him without a fixed framework to compare things to and evaluate them logically, in accordance with any set framework – it is all evaluated based on how it “feels” and “gut checks”.
This is common to many moderates and most liberals, and far from unheard of in conservatives, by any means. But it is almost universal amongst “moderates”.
Having a fixed framework of philosophy to use to evaluate ideas is very useful – and it leads to better intellectual and ideological honesty. Follow the philosophical principal to its logical end, and you not only avoid knee jerk populism (McCain), but you generally have a much firmer reason for your philosophy. And sometimes it can lead you to very unusual positions (compared to the “gut check” instant answer) – such as Lawrence Tribe and the Second Amendment.
Tribe? I’ve seen some of his work, which seems to be all about “the constitution means what I choose it to mean, more or less”. Has he actually acquired some principles recently?
Tribe’s the one who said, “Sorry, liberals, the Second Amendment DOES pretty obviously include an individual right to keep and bear arms — and you *really* don’t want to set the precedent that the people in power can just call a part of the Constitution ‘obsolete’ and claim it no longer applies.”