Only the government should have guns to protect us. We can’t expect government employees to confront armed criminals. Pick one.
Ben Shapiro @benshapiro
Tweeted on February 23, 2018
[Shapiro has a logical response and expectation.
Unfortunately this is not how the minds of many people work. I have posted about the problem many times before. Many people do not have a process to determine truth from falsity (see also these posts). The truth depends upon how they feel. I have a lot of experience with dealing with people like this. I literally have decades of experience.
In regards to the first two sentence quoted above, the way their mind works is as follows: They have a feeling in regards to each sentence independent from the other. They both feel true to them. Therefore both sentences are true.
It used to be that I literally would be told that I should do two different things which were mutually exclusive. I would have to be at two places at the same time to accomplish them. When I would point this out they would get angry and say things like, “You always have to get your way!” Their feelings trumped the laws of physics. If you look into the characteristics of some personality disorders you will find that they create situations where their associates/family/friends/etc. “can’t win”. They will demand others adhere to their rules/requests/whatever but when you look at the requests you will discover it is impossible to comply with all of them. You will always be in a position to be found at fault and punished.
My counselor when dealing with these things in my personal life, Staci, told me there are two characteristics that are common to all personality disorders:
- The more close the relationship the more severe the symptoms. A spouse and their children will have a more difficult relationship than extended family which will be worse than co-workers which will be worse than with strangers. They can frequent “hold it together” while at work or dealing with strangers and still make life a living hell for their spouse and children.
- They will not, or perhaps more accurately cannot, admit they are to blame for anything. If you point out to a normal person they could have handled a situation differently and that would perhaps have resulted in a better outcome they can reflect on it, think it through, and accept they may have made some contribution to the poor outcome. The person with the personality disorder is unable to do this. Among other things this results in the “can’t win” requests. They may have made requests that are physically impossible to comply with. Yet, it is your fault the requests were not complied with.
Hence, I see a lot of evidence that many anti-gun people have mental health issues. Look around with just a hint of the correct filter and you can see it too.
They created “Gun Free Zones” around schools and over the years hundreds of children and teachers have been murdered. This is your fault. It is beyond their ability to recognize they contributed in any way.
They banned guns in Chicago/D.C./etc and have horrific murder rates committed with firearms inside those political jurisdictions. Just outside those jurisdictions such as in Indiana and Virginia, where guns are legal, the murder rate is much lower. We conclude the laws where the crime rate is lower should be emulated in the high crime areas. The anti-gun people conclude their gun control isn’t working because guns are available outside their gun free paradise—it is the fault of Indiana and Virginia “lax gun laws”. This is your fault. Again, it is beyond their ability to recognize they contributed in any way.
These people are “nuts” and we should not be trying to negotiate or compromise with them. They cannot determine truth from falsity in a manner normal people would recognize as valid.
As I was advised by Staci, life with these people will never be easy. If you can’t terminate the relationship then you will always have a “fiery relationship” with them. It is beyond their ability to think and behave in a normal manner. The best way you can deal with these people is to set limits and enforce them. You tell them, “If you behave in this manner we will not tolerate it. This is what we will do in response.” Then, if they misbehave anyway, you do what you said you would do. They have to have consequences for their misbehavior.
The most appropriate limits I have come up with are 18 USC 241 and 242. It’s long past time to enforce them.—Joe]
The authoritarian response to the quote “…Pick one” would be that you’ve presented a false choice, because both of your choices involve armed criminals. Their response is that if there are no gun then there are no armed criminals, and thus no need for armed self defense.
Your model, the anti-rights movement will say, describes a never-ending arms race among the whole population. “Your only solution to gun crime is to get a gun– Arm the teachers, arm the students, he’ll you might as well arm babies as soon as they’re born. To them our argument, framed in this way as they will do, represents insanity itself. It’s like saying that the only solution to arson is for everyone to stock up on matches and gasoline.
To the tools of authoritarians, you’ve blatantly, stupidly, ridiculously, left out the obvious solution. If we don’t want criminals to get guns then we can get rid of guns. Problem solved. What are “we” waiting for? It’s obvious, and so all “we” need to do is get serious for once.
Then you’ll say that self defense is a human right, and that for a small or weak person a gun is the only way to face a criminal with equal force.
Then they’ll say, What good are guns for self defense when having so many guns around is the main problem against which you need to defend yourself? Again, they’ll frame it in such a way that you are a blithering idiot who likes guns so much that you’re literally incapable of seeing the plain truth, that the only explanation for your denial of reality is that you must have a blood lust (or small penis, et al).
So the more studied on both sides do in fact see the other side as blithering idiots, and from each of their points of view for good reason. Each side will point out that the other side has merely been indoctrinated and isn’t “studied” at all.
My point is that a person will pick a position based on their world view, and so long as that world view remains they’ll defend that position even to the death.
So how can we define those two world views? (Don’t get confused; there are only two)
Authoritarian and liberal? Works for me, but the problem with that is, each side calls itself liberal and the other side authoritarian. Then we get directly into the same fight over the meanings of words that we’re having over gun rights, the right to life, and the right to defend life.
I think you’ll find the answers in the a Bible, and in the writings and biographies of Martin Luther.
The more I learn about this conflict, the more I come to believe that America was becoming a Protestant country and therefore had to be, and was, co-opted to prevent that.
In secular speech the best distinction I’ve found lies in the advocacy of wholesale coercion verses the advocacy of prohibition of coercion. But if that works at all, the word “coercion” will soon be adulterated by the authoritarians, just as the words “liberty” and “justice” and so many others have been corrupted through misuse.
The fact is that too many have accepted the concept of “government rule” which is a contradiction to the concept of liberty. Everyone on both sides uses language like “running the country” when describing the president or Congress. That right there is fundamentally defective thinking. We don’t have a king, yet we use the language and we behave as though we do have a king. “Someone in charge” means that we have to fight like dogs over what that “someone in charge” is going to force, to coerce, other people to do or not do.
The concept of liberty is utterly foreign now to most Americans, except for the fact that they’re being brainwashed to believe that liberty means a white patriarchy, inherent violence, and racism.
Fix THAT and the second amendment becomes respected with all the other rights, which in turn are understood properly. You have all the powers on the Earth aligned in synch against you in that endeavor of course. Any and all disagreements among the powers will be set aside until you’ve been destroyed, and they hold sway over all the assets, all the media, and all the major religious institutions, and all the institutions of “learning”, but who doesn’t like a challenge?
I think your assertion is in error. The number of people in the U.S. who claim the police and/or military don’t need guns is don’t is vanishingly small and irrelevant in any political debate.
It’s not my assertion. It’s coming from the anti gun movement’s central planners.
We say “more guns less crime” and they say “no guns less crime”.
They’re talking about the general population though, because their target is the armed citizen. They don’t address police or military in that particular argument.
I never claimed that it made any sense. I only said that it’s their argument, which of course it is. Some people even believe it.
I guess I failed to wrap up my long-winded point.
“Only the government should have guns to protect us. We can’t expect government employees to confront armed criminals. Pick one.”
The point of the authoritarian alliance is, “There wouldn’t be armed criminals if guns were banned and so your point is invalid, willfully ignorant and ridiculous (enter expletives and expressions of hatred).” Therefore we need more of an argument than that.
The quote I think it’s an excellent argument, but it doesn’t matter what I or any libertarian thinks. My point was that the quote ignores the entrenched belief of the ideological left, which is that banning guns means the scenario in the quote simply doesn’t happen- they’re talking about disarming criminals (by removing guns from the general population) and the quote assumes armed criminals as it’s starting point. To the leftist mind then, the quote is idiotic.
And so therefore we need to do better.
I’m playing “devil’s advocate” in presenting the arguments of the left, in hopes that we can come up with better arguments. And further, I assert that such purely logical arguments can and always will be countered with an “alternate logic” based on leftist faith. Further still, I assert that one’s allegiance pre-determines which brand of “logic” one will embrace.
And so, which side one falls to (or rises to) is a matter of one’s morals (or lack thereof), one’s allegiance (which is determined by those morals or a lack thereof) and one’s faith (in the precepts of one alliance verses the precepts of the other).
It’s about the methodology of changing hearts and minds (the heart often leading the mind), a hard and fast prerequisite of which is to fully understand the nature of the allegiance of the people you’re trying to convince, and to be able to fully and convincingly articulate their beliefs.
And by the way; the global, religious ecumenical movement (all the “Unity” horsecrap) which has the pope as is “spiritual head” and includes all of the world’s religions (save one, which you won’t guess and which you’ll have to stumble upon yourself) is exactly in line with the authoritarian assertions in America and abroad. You can find much at the a United Nations and the Catholic web sites (there’s no essential difference). The point here is that “the powers that be” are almost certainly not what we’ve thought, but are ALL organized at the global level regardless of how much they appear to oppose one another.
“The point of the authoritarian alliance is, “There wouldn’t be armed criminals if guns were banned and so your point is invalid, willfully ignorant and ridiculous (enter expletives and expressions of hatred).” Therefore we need more of an argument than that.”
I agree, but that is a very weak card for them to play. England is still beset by gun violence despite having draconian gun control laws and being an island. I’ve rubbed a number of people’s noses in that (with the expected result of being dog-cussed out; ah well).
Lyle is right. Ben is expressing frustration via a sweetly pithy straw man.
This ties into the topic Snyder opens ANoC with: The Instrumental Theory of Salvation, which is in play on both sides of this argument.
The adversary will point to the UK as being in the direction of Utopia, modulo that embarrassing Brexit thing. A disarmed population allows for a disarmed police. Societal violence de-escalates. Everything is more civilized and we can invest our civic energies on perfecting a technocracy that will correct the root causes violence. Etc.
What the British public is generally unaware of is that when a Bobbie carries a pistol, it is concealed. I think the only exception to this is the Gun Car officers, that are armed with carbines. They carry pistols openly, since the long gun is rather obvious.
As the violence has ramped up in Old Blighty, more officers are armed, and they are not happy about it. Dare an officer use his gun, he normally becomes an outcast in his dept. They are not well trained, either, due to their idiotic anti-self-defense culture.