Quote of the Day
The far right’s response to the murders of children and law-abiding citizens is somewhere between sociopathy and psychopathy. Republicans in Washington are wearing miniature AR-15s on their lapels. This week, one day after a shooter used an AR-15 to kill five people, including a 9-year-old in Texas, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) posed smiling with a T-shirt showing an AR-15 and a caption that called it a “cordless hole puncher.”
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s response to school shootings is to put more guns in schools, which is akin to believing the way to end fatal car crashes is to repeal all road rules and put more cars on the road. Instead, Congress’s next steps should be to renew the ban on assault weapons for anyone below age 21 and hold parents accountable for the misuse of firearms by their minor children.
William S. Becker
May 5, 2023
America the terrorized: The death grip of gun rights in the United States
Representative Boebert did not pose smiling with an AR-15 T-Shirt in response to the murder of the five people. But Becker wants you to believe that. This is deliberate deception.
He claims that if people are allowed to defend themselves and other innocent life it is
akin to believing the way to end fatal car crashes is to repeal all road rules and put more cars on the road.
Really? I don’t believe he really thinks that. I believe he is deliberately telling a huge lie in attempt to further his evil goals.
Those aren’t the only blatant lies and deliberate deceptions. Here is another from the same opinion piece:
A Gallup poll in February showed 63 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with current gun laws, the highest in 23 years of tracking. Most Americans have favored stricter laws since the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.
Yeah, I can believe 63 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with current gun laws. I am EXTREMLY dissatisfied with them. Notice how he implies those 63 percent are in favor of stricter laws without saying it. He changes from 63 percent to “most Americans” when it comes to support for stricter laws. If you look at the actual data in 2019 it did hit a peak of 63 percent who support stricter gun laws. It is currently about 57 percent and was just 52 percent last year. And in 2011, it was 43 percent. And, what he hid by cherry picking the data is that in 1990 it was 78 percent that wanted stricter gun laws. In the big picture this guy is losing and he knows it.
These are deliberate lies and active deception. These are some of your best indicators of evil intent. Prepare and respond appropriately.
One thing not mentioned in all those polls that say a majority support stricter laws:
A goodly number of the people who want stricter laws don’t know what the current laws are. When asked specifically which things should be done, they very often name things that are already law.
If they knew that the things they support are already done, would they still support stricter laws? In many cases, I’d bet no.
At any rate, polls are garbage anyway. They are way too easy to manipulate to get a desired result rather than an objective measure of opinions.
“The death grip of gun rights in America” ????!?!?!?!?
Communists are mental nut-jobs.
How does someone’s RIGHTS kill someone else? Like the phrase gun-violence.
Guns don’t kill anyone. And never have. My right to bear arms abuses no one.
And since he’s the one analogizing cars. More cars don’t kill anyone. But taking them all away will kill millions, as we cannot sustain the population without them.
Guns and cars don’t kill people, people kill people.
And for everyone that voted twice in your ignorant pole. How many people went and bought a gun for the first time?
Maybe we should take a pole at Boomershoot to see if Mr. Becker should have his right to breath restricted?
I mean, if no right is absolute and all? And we can just vote them away?
Oh, and I forgot to tell Mr. Becker this; Stack-up, or shup-up, bitches.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s response to school shootings is to put more guns in schools, which is akin to believing the way to end fatal car crashes is to repeal all road rules and put more cars on the road.
Well… that depends on the road rules* (which are not “rules”, they are LAWS), doesn’t it?
Look up the statistics on red-light cameras. Constitutional issues (among others, you don’t get to face your accuser in court) and ethical/moral issues (the local PD and the camera company often split the proceeds from the fines, which presents a conflict of interests) aside, every intersection in which these things are installed — for safety, you know — sees an immediate and sharp increase in accidents and injuries. Where drivers would run the last seconds of a yellow light and occasionally catch the red, drivers are now slamming on their brakes on yellow lights to keep from getting caught, which results in more rear-end collisions. And pedestrians are lulled into a false sense of security and start crossing before they should, resulting in more “car vs. human” collisions. Over time, the numbers come down but never fully return to pre-camera numbers.
Remove the cameras, revert to the “cop has to see it” model, and the artificially-increased problem goes back to a manageable level. (It’ll never happen; the red-light cameras make way too much money in fines from people who don’t fight the tickets on Constitutional grounds — see “ethical/moral issues” above — so they’re almost never removed.)
Speed limits are also on my list, especially those on back-country roads. There’s no reason for a 55 mph limit on a 10-mile, arrow-straight section of road with zero visibility issues, except to make money with speed traps. Also, sudden changes in speed limits (example: there’s a spot near my AO where the state highway has a 65 mph limit, until you round a bend and there’s a 35 mph sign) result in the same brake-slamming problems as red-light cameras.
It’s the same with many-if-not-most gun laws. Going after the guns and the lawful owners is the wrong approach; it emboldens criminals, leading to an increase in violent crime. Repeal the gun laws, empower the lawful citizens, and go after criminals, and the problem goes back to reasonable levels. It will never get to zero no matter how many laws they pass or repeal, but if the goal is to reduce crime, empowering criminals and hamstringing peaceable citizens will NOT do it.
———
* – I choose to view driving laws the same way you view gun laws. To whit: I’m not against driving laws; I’m against stupid and useless driving laws.
What the .govs own data show is that when the ticket book toting cops stop patrolling the roads, those roads get SAFER.
This situation has been tracked for as long as data has been collected.
The last episode I’m aware of was in NJ in ’05. The NJ State Police went on “strike” for about six months. Two results: Roads safer, and most of the cities and towns nearly went bankrupt, as it turns out that ticket revenue sharing was a huge portion of their funding.
Fair point, and that would be the next step beyond getting rid of the red-light cameras.
When I was learning to drive, the concept they taught everyone was to always drive at a speed that is safe given the conditions at the time. Now that obviously varies based on weather, traffic, construction, obstacles, etc., AND leaves quite a bit of room for subjectivity and individual judgment.
However, it’s amazing — but should be no real surprise to anyone here — that if the artificial limits and one-size-fits-all regulations are removed (or not enforced), people will drive a variety of speeds, but the roads will overall become safer.
Why, it’s almost like looking for signs and watching out for cops means you’re spending less time looking at the road and watching out for pedestrians and other drivers! Or something! Who’d’ve thought!
Absolutely. When I was young. The speed limit in Nevada was, “whatever was safe.”
Most people that had equipment and the desire to drive over a 100 MPH, were very aware of what could happen at those speeds also. It made everyone better drivers.
Thus, safer highways. But hysteria and Jimmy Carter f–ked all that up.
The speed limit in Germany is, “Whatever is safe” as well, and judges have said that they cannot say what the safe speed is, as they aren’t there. Of course that was forty years ago, so they may have changed their minds in the interim.
Pingback: The Wrong Approach | The View From North Central Idaho