There are people out there whose minds we will never change. If you are a parent, if you are a mother, if you have children — how can you look your child in the eye and say we are willing to allow you to be collateral damage in order to keep what some people perceive to be their constitutional rights? If we as a society are willing to accept that, what kind of society are we?
Barbara Parker
August 30, 2015
Alison Parker’s parents on gun-control fight: ‘We cannot be intimidated’
[Answer to the first question: It’s not just a perception of a constitutional right. It is a specific enumerated right which all nine justices of SCOTUS agreed was an individual right. And we can look at our children and say, “We are going to defend your right to keep and bear arms in defense of yourself, your loved ones, your community, and your country even when grief stricken friends and relatives attempt to infringe upon our rights. And we can do that even as we feel and express our sympathy for their horrible loss.” Other than keeping and driving cars is not a constitutionally protected right this is no different than the situation where someone uses their car to deliberately hurt someone else. And in my personal experience this is more common that people using guns to hurt innocent people.*
Answer to the second question: We are a society which knows our rights are important and protect them from violation even when people, overwhelmed with emotion, are unable to think and act rationally.
And I don’t know anyone that wants to “intimidate” these grief stricken people. We just want them to respect us and our right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]
*Ry encountered someone driving straight toward him on the freeway at a high rate of speed. Ry narrowly missed being hit by leaving the freeway over the shoulder. He stopped in the grass beside the freeway, got out of his vehicle and vomited. The driver of the other vehicle continued on down the freeway in the wrong direction, and connected with a semi-truck and killed the driver of the truck.
My cousin Johnny and his friend Lonnie were struck head-on by a car going the wrong direction in their lane. Johnny reported the guy was alert, looking directly at them, and corrected when they took evasive action. Johnny and Lonnie were seriously injured but survived and mostly recovered. The other driver was killed in the attack.
I don’t know any friends or family who were shot by another person other than during military combat.
What kind of mother are you, willing to sell your children into slavery that you can continue to feel good about yourself?
Also, her argument is built on the fallacy that by simply giving up your rights, this collateral damage will go away. They still haven’t been able to show that gun control works one iota.
These are people who think the American Revolution consisted of sit-ins and demonstrations.
Well, of course they aren’t able to show that gun control “works”. The reason is that the evidence is very much in, and it makes the opposite argument: gun control increases crime.
So the correct statement isn’t actually “they aren’t able to show that gun control works” but rather “we are able to show that gun control hurts”. That’s a key difference; the former implies a lack of data, while the latter says the data exists but proves the opposite of what the bad guys want to pretend.
No, Alan, those people don’t think at all; let alone have any clue about the American Revolution.
But if they and their friends keep pushing, they are liable to find out more then they ever wanted to know about “revolution”.
Refusing to agree=Intimidation.
It’s congruent with the remarks her husband has made.
http://www.pagunblog.com/2015/08/31/again-with-misdirected-anger/
So, you are all saying that you would be okay with your kids being killed (as collateral damage) to keep your constitutional right to guns? Or are you trying to evade the question?
Just for the exercise let’s answer the Troll.
Yes, a society of free people with individual rights has its costs. So does a society of slaves. And let’s not cavil at the term slavery. To quote the philosopher; “An unarmed people are slaves, subject to slavery at any moment.” Huey Newton. The condition of freedom has, if you insist on the term, collateral damage. So does slavery. Even the most casual review of human history will indicate which is the greater. So, yes, I work and pray that my children and grandchildren will face the risks inherent in human freedom and avoid the mass murder that is the inevitable result of slavery. And, by the way, you should too.
Are you Ok with your children being killed (as collateral damage) by some more powerful thug (official or otherwise) so that you can ban the one tool that they could have used to protect themselves? Or are you trying to avoid the facts of the matter?
I reject the premise of the original question. My children will be safer if more people own firearms. Furthermore my position is based on empirical facts, and not vague emotions.
Check and mate.
The facts are that very few people are victims of violent crime.
Yep, and those number have been falling fast, even as gun ownership rises.
Or is this that part where you go “but accidents!” because, as far as accidents are concerned, organized sports are far more dangerous than firearms ownership, both in total number of accidents and in actual trauma caused. Are you really saying we should ban organized sports “for the children?” Statistically speaking, firearms ownership is one of the safer hobbies you could have.
And of course there is the odd little connection that the reason violent crime is so uncommon is (at least partially) due to that high ownership rate. Do consider the correlation that the highest crime areas of this country also typically have the strictest gun control.
Then there isn’t any good reason to restrict the private ownership of firearms, is there?
Very few people are the victims of fatal traffic accidents yet we take comfort in having seat belts, air bags, roll cages and contempt for drunk drivers.
Very few people are victims of violent crime, but guess what, fire extinguishers, seat belts, CO2 detectors, and a host of other life saving devices are useless for that threat. Only firearms provide supreme utility versus a violent criminal.
Hell, if I had to install claymore mines, electric fences, and robotic chain guns to protect my wife and children I would be morally right.
Ubu, you will not be there to protect my family and your efforts to disarm me deserve utter contempt. It is your choice to be a disarmed victim-in-waiting, but you have no moral authority to impose the same on me.
“The facts are that very few people are victims of violent crime.”
The statistical probability of being attacked (or hit by a meteor) may in fact be low, but the consequences for the individual in that situation can really SUCK if the statists leave them no options to defend themselves.
So ubu, I’m guessing that YOU are OK with it if YOU happen to be on of the statistics?!? So, YOU don’t wear seat-belts, or have fire extinguishers handy, or have insurance? Man-up and play the odds. That’s what you are wanting US to do.
Sorry, but I’m NOT OK with me or mine being a statistic if I can prevent it.
Are you OK with your children or loved ones being killed in a place where guns are completely illegal and the law of the land does not recognize any right to arms?
In classic Progressive fashion, ubu poses a false choice– Those who give up essential liberty in exchange for security will have neither.
Try again, Sister. That foolish argument was dispatched generations ago, long before your great grandparents were born, so you’re 200 years behind in your thinking.
The anti rights lobby would prefer to see a woman dead in her apartment, strangled with her own pantyhose, rather than seeing her alive and her attacker shot— The latter would be “gun violence” which is baaaaad.
In my family it was my sister who was stabbed to death, and her daughter then strangled, at their home by an invader. My sister and her husband were of course un-armed, being as she had fallen emotionally victim to the anti-rights ideology much as ubu reveals in her question, plus they were living in California.
Seriously, ubu; that was a lame attempt, but the harder you try the more foolish you’ll show yourself to be. That’s what happens when you’re on the wrong side. It’s not pretty and I take no pleasure in having to shame you, but shame you I will, every time you come forward with such nonsense.
@Ubu,
In my family it was my cousin, beaten to death with a baseball bat on his own suburban street. I have no idea on his ideology regarding firearms, but it doesn’t matter. He was 20 and living in California (in particular, a county where “may issue” means “no issue”), and therefore barred by law from owning/carrying a defensive handgun due to both his age and his locale.
Neither Lyle nor I are attacking the rights of people who own items similar to those used to murder our family members. We’re not calling for “reasonable restrictions” or “common sense laws” on those items — laws which even the proponents admit would not have prevented the events which help drive our activism.
No, we’re calling for laws (or more commonly, the repeal of contrary laws) which actually could have helped, by enabling and empowering victims to dissuade or overcome their attackers and thus prevent their own murders.
As for my children potentially being “collateral damage”, my sincerest hope is to raise my children to make their own informed choices and accept the consequences. My hope is that my beautiful daughter, who’s always been on the small side, will not fall victim to a (nearly guaranteed) larger aggressor just because she’s small.
If my kids choose to be unarmed as adults, it won’t be because I taught them the lie that guns are bad and 4,367.8 times more likely to murder someone in the home than an intruder, and it won’t be because I didn’t teach them to use and to respect (but not to fear) firearms.
Any lifestyle choice comes with its own inherent risks. The high-level question is whether we decide for ourselves which risks to take and/or mitigate, or have that decision forced upon us. I know which option I prefer.
My children are ALIVE today because Daddy had a gun, so you can take your false choice and go perform obscene acts with a cactus for all I care.
If you think liberty is dangerous, try the alternative (just don’t try it here).
Besides; it wasn’t the second amendment that pulled that trigger. It was the murderer – a person with years of pent-up race hate and Progressive ideas of Victimhood and Social Justice.
If this murder had been done by someone with even remote ties to the teaparty, we’d be hearing for weeks about how the teaparty did this, and how the teaparty is a terrorist organization. By that standard then, that murder was carried out by the Progressive movement, the shooter being no more than a pawn thereof.
ubu,
No one’s fear, grief, anger or desire trumps my rights.
A thousand times the above!
Our rights are rights, not needs. They are not null and void because your panties are twisted up in your nether regions.
This is not a friendly disagreement or debate between rivals of equal status, such as a discussion of which catering service to use for an office party. (ubu) This is an epic war between right and wrong, good and evil, human liberty verses coercion and servitude.
You cannot bring an anti human rights position to the discussion and expect to be treated with anything but scorn.
Some otherwise nice people have been fooled, through clever manipulation of their emotions, into adopting an anti-rights agenda and those we should treat with patience and understanding*, but once the truth has been explained to you plainly and succinctly you have no excuses—To continue with what amounts to a pro-slavery, pro-criminal, pro-tyranny position is a transgression that will be your undoing.
* We haven’t been very good at this, I admit, as at times I’ve taken pride in the art of snark and sarcasm, but to throw the “baby” of liberty out with the “bathwater” of rancor would be a mistake.
The moment an anti gets a well-thought rebuttal they evaporate.
Of course it’s cowardice, but they can always claim other excuses.
She’s pretty consistent with her hit-and-run tactics.
And there is a part of the problem today. Rather than take responsibility and spend their time “world-proofing” the child they choose to make grand and futile gestures of “child-proofing” the world. And they defend the nonsense they spout as “Hey, look at me! I’m doing something!