Quote of the day—Bud Salyer

There is no simple solution, primarily because we cannot agree on a cause and we cannot agree on a cure. One side blames it on guns, while the other blames it on mental health and other issues. If the availability of firearms is not the cause of gun violence, then crippling prohibitions of ownership of firearms is meaningless. If there is no practical means to identify and predict the actions of a potential homicidal maniac, enhanced background checks are unlikely to reduce the violence. The problem is immensely complex, and there are no simple answers.

Bud Salyer
May 25, 2018
Guest Column: The Gun Debate—Part I: Gun Control Laws
[While this doesn’t completely describe either side it’s a fair start.

He goes on to say something that has been rolling around in my head for a while:

Why should we believe that passing a law against possessing a firearm would result in a significant number of guns being taken off the street?

Actually, such a law might cause a large number of people to give up their guns. Those who are inclined to be law-abiding citizens might grit their teeth and take their guns down to the police station. However, no criminally-inclined individual is going to give up the tool by which he commits his crimes. Then, the only people possessing guns would be the criminals, who know that their intended victims are unlikely to be armed for self-defense.

The way I have been thinking about it is slight different but along the same path. My phrasing would be something like this:

Every incremental increase in the difficult of obtaining and/or use of firearms for self defense is also an incremental increase in the value of firearms and other weapons to the criminal who preys upon the innocent. The complete removal of firearms from those who would use them for the defense of innocent life makes the criminal with a gun immensely powerful. Those who would ban guns are seeking to disempower good people. They therefore will empower, and even create, a multitude of violent criminals.

All in all it is a good article explaining the complexity of the issue without taking a strong position on either side.—Joe]

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4 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Bud Salyer

  1. But it’s not complex. There is evil in the world, and it wants the advantage. Therefor it wants the law-abiding disarmed. Is there really, truly anything more to it?

    Of course more gun control means a greater advantage for the law-breakers. That’s the only real motivation for it. It’s the one and only reason for it that ever made sense. It’s the one motivation that has been perfectly consistent throughout history. Pretty simple and straight-forward isn’t it?

    Certainly there are the rationalizations, yes yes yes, and therein you’ll find all the “complexity”, but the rationalizations have no connection with the truth. Liars love complexity. Complexity is the camouflage that wraps their lies up in pretty packages, even making evil seem good and good evil. As soon as you start trying to unravel the tangled web of lies, you’re going to get stuck in the web. Instead, cut straight back to the truth and let the truth do the cutting.

    “More gun control means a proportionally greater advantage for predators and a total ban on guns provides the maximum advantage to predators, which is why authoritarians overwhelmingly and predictably favor gun control.”

    If you can put the entire crux of the matter into one sentence, 32 words, then it isn’t all that terribly complicated. And that crux of the matter is utterly undeniable. Let them try to spin their webs over THAT and hide it. They will try of course, they have no choice, but the more direct the truth-telling, the bigger the problem for them, the more crazy and desperate they become, they’ll defile themselves in public.

    The trick of the liar is to GET YOU TO BELIEVE THAT IT’S COMPLICATED. That’s how they trip you up, get you lost in a fog. That’s how they’ve assimilated the entire Republican Party. That’s how they win– it’s purely through mind-intimidation.

    We could broaden the bold-typed sentence above and apply it to all things;

    “All restrictions against basic individual rights favor piracy.”

    Don’t pretend to be surprised or confused then, when our coercive policies and programs result in a society in decay, a society of pleasure-pirates, mental anguish, gang-against-gang violence and half of us on medication. And don’t act surprised as the whole world scoffs at our hypocrisy when they should be looking to us for answers. “Oh why oh why, how did it ever come to this?!?”

    WE ALL KNOW WHY, SO QUIT THE BULLSHIT

    Again, forget the predators’ rationalizations designed to separate you from the truth and it all comes down to very simple, self-evident truths and principles. It doesn’t take a genius to throw up a bunch of complexity to obscure the truth (little children often do that), nor does it take a genius to see through that fog of obscurity.

    If the Ten Commandments were generally understood and embraced, well, therein is your answer. It’s been right there this whole time, and we’ve been too proud to acknowledge it, thinking surely we are smart enough to come up with a better one. It’s called the “Perfect Law of Liberty” for good reason.

    “A knowledge of the truth depends not so much upon strength of intellect as upon pureness of purpose, the simplicity of an earnest, dependent faith.” — E. G. White

  2. This focuses entirely on one side of the puzzle: that of the criminal. It entirely ignores the equally important side, the victim. If you assume, as the author appears to, that of course the victim is defenseless, then the only question remaining is how to reduce the number or effectiveness of criminals. But if you recognize the basic natural right of self-defense, the picture changes dramatically. Now you get several new questions: (1) does the probability of the victim being armed deter violence? (2) if violence isn’t deterred, does a weapon in the hands of the intended victim reduce the harm?
    Of course the answer to these and similar questions is obvious and well proven: YES.
    At that point it becomes clear why gun bans are harmful: they predominantly impact the positive aspects of gun ownership (deterrence and harm-reduction) while having far less (if any) impact on the prevalence of criminal violence.

  3. One more thing. We have been talking about firearms in the hands of the criminals and how it adversely impacts decent citizens.

    The definition of criminals include both street thugs AND the government when it oversteps its authority into despotism.

    Frankly, the benefits for firearms against street thugs is nice, but ultimately, I am more worried about a government that turns genocidal. See Nazi Germany, the Ottoman Empire Turkey, the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cambodia, Venezuela, much of Africa, former Yugoslavia…and the list goes on.

  4. The arguments for the insanity of “gun control’ ” from the left is typical of what comes from the left. Lies and bullshit. Deliberate prevarication in service to an agenda. An agenda that serves THEM and costs everyone else.

    Those in power on the left know as well as we do that ‘gun control’ has nothing to do with guns, crime or safety. They don’t care about our safety. All they care about is control. And ANYTHING that gives them a shot at more control is GOOD….and anything that interferes with their ability to control is bad. And THAT is the extent of the lefts understanding of good versus bad. The concept of evil is foreign to most of them.

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