The thing that’s so powerful about students is that, when you haven’t had your idealism broken yet, you’re able to speak from a place that has no confusion, where there is a clear set of values.
Bill Murray March 22, 2018 Bill Murray Endorses Gun Control Movement, Compares Parkland Students to Vietnam War Protesters [This reminds me of something I saw on Facebook. A parent wrote about how proud they were that their children were being “leaders” in regards to gun control. This was a place were I couldn’t confront them, but I wanted to ask, “Would you want your kids being “leaders” on foreign policy too? If not, then why do you want them being “leaders” on domestic policy?
When the German National Socialists passed the Weapons Control Act of 1938 I’ll bet you could have found lots of people who said essentially the same thing as what Murray says about gun control. Idealism, check. No confusion, check. Clear set of values, check.
The same could be said for many those who supported the KKK, Jim Crow Laws, Westboro Baptist Church, and Marxists.
In most cases there are also succinct words for these type of people. “Ignorant”, “Prejudiced”, and “Bigoted”.—Joe]
American students deserve better than to be placed in “gun free” killing zones. They deserve better than to live in an authoritarian regime in which only the military, the police and criminals possess firearms.
And they deserve to live in a society in which all provisions of the Bill of Rights are respected, where those who claim to be law enforcement actually do their jobs, and where they are protected in fact from those who would do harm.
The people, among the most highly regulated on earth, told themselves that they were free because they retained the means of revolt. Just in case things ever got really bad. No one, however, seemed to have too clear an idea what “really bad” really meant. The people accepted the fact that their government no longer even remotely resembled the plan set forth in their original constitution. And the people’s values no longer remotely resembled those of their Founding Forebears. The people, in their naiveté, really believed that the means of revolt were to be found in a piece of inanimate metal! Really it was laughable. And pathetic.
No, the rulers knew that the people could safely be trusted with arms. The government educated their children, provided for their retirement in old age, bequeathed assistance if they lost their jobs, mandated that they receive health care, and even doled out food and shelter if they were poor.
I have Snyder’s Nation of Cowards which is a collection of his essays. Nearly every paragraph of every essays qualifies as QOTD material. And as Sean F. told me a few months ago, Snyder is just mind blowing with his views on the right to keep and bear arms. If I could get every anti-gun person to read just one simple book, this would be it. I’m tempted to buy a stack of them and hand them out to people. It is absolutely amazing stuff.—Joe]
The main reason pro-gun people and anti-gun people can’t talk to each other is that their respective rhetorics are based on two irreconcilable worldviews. The anti-gun people are essentially collectivist; the pro-gun people are essentially individualist.
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Individualists have a pretty good understanding of the collectivist worldview. It isn’t difficult for most pro-gun people to perform a convincing imitation of the anti-gun argument. Anti-gun people, on the other hand, seem genuinely incapable of understanding pro-gun arguments, and end up arguing against strawmen tainted by their own collectivist ideology. This leads me to believe that collectivism is an intellectual crutch for those who can’t make sense of individualism.
If only you 2A yahoos were being killed, there would be no need for Miss Gonzalez’s movement. Unfortunately, it’s innocents who are paying w/their lives.
JRG #NunesMustGo @SimonSaysBooHoo Tweeted on March 24, 2018
[This is what they think of you: If you are a Second Amendment supporter you are not innocent. Your death would make the world a better place.
We often see anti-gun people being immune to facts and running completely on emotions and beliefs that have no connection to reality. Here we see something different. Why?
I think When Prophecy Fails (see also my website about the book) gives us the answers. The following conditions are from the book. These are the conditions which must exist to create the condition for a “true believer” to “double down” and try to recruit more believers to their faulty belief system when confronted with disproof of their faulty belief system. All five of these conditions must exist in order for this to happen. Hence, if you can break just one of these conditions they will stop their journey down their delusional path:
A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he behaves.
The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual’s commitment to the belief.
The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.
Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.
The first two of these conditions specify the circumstances that will make the belief resistant to change. The third and fourth conditions together, on the other hand, point to factors that would exert powerful pressure on a believer to discard his belief. It is, of course, possible that an individual, even though deeply convinced of a belief, may discard it in the face of unequivocal disconfirmation. We must therefore, state a fifth condition specifying the circumstances under which the belief will be discarded and those under which it will be maintained with new fervor.
The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.
And this gives us the answer on how to change minds. We see it in the video above. They were not within their social support group. They are extremely social animals. We tend to be individualists. Anti-gun people tend to be herd animals. These people require social support. If you can isolate them, even for a very short time, and present facts then they are likely to break from their delusion.
Another thing that was important is these people read the facts out loud. They didn’t just hear someone tell them the facts. Visual is much better than audible. Having them saying the words is even better. That strikes much deeper than them skimming the words and saying they read it. It reaches the visual and auditory areas of their brains as well as the conscious thinking part of their brain (required for the translation from text to spoken words).
This was brilliant.
When your anti-gun friend or relative is separated from other anti-gun people hand them a piece of paper and ask them to read it out loud, “So we can talk about this together.”
The facts used in this video:
According to the CDC there were roughly 38,000 gun deaths in the 2016. 2/3 of them were suicides.
There are over 300,000,000 guns in the United States.
There are over 5x more murders by knives than rifles.
The U.S. has the highest gun ownership rate in the world. But ranks 28th in gun murders.
That is a rate of about 2.97 deaths per 100,000 people.
Handguns are responsible for more than 80% of total mass shootings.
Between 1993 and 2003 gun ownership increased by 56% while gun violence decreased by nearly half.
Since 1950 nearly all mass public shootings have occurred in gun free zones.
From 2013 to 2015 the six states that banned open carry, experienced higher rates of police deaths.
86.4% of 20,000 police chiefs and sheriffs support concealed carry and are overwhelming against further gun control.
Those that have concealed carry permits, on average, commit less crime than police.
There is a clear correlation between higher firearm ownership and reducing police killings.
Switzerland with a population of about eight million and armed with an estimated two million guns in circulation and limited gun regulation Switzerland’s overall gun homicide rate is practically zero.
Gun ownership rate does not correlate with the homicide rate.
Principles are vital for the long term. But principles require the thinking part of the brain to be engaged. You cannot have a principled discussion with a mob chanting for your death. This is how you get their mind reset to a point where principles have a chance of reaching them.
Demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.
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A constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.
The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.
Oh, and I think he is also unaware there is the small matter of 300 to 600 million firearms currently in circulation, extremely low compliance with existing requirements to register or turn in firearms, over 60% of the police say they will not enforce more restrictive gun laws, and the tens of billions of rounds of ammunition that will have to be “collected” before the guns are confiscated.—Joe]
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Mass murderer [scum bag] is getting stacks of fan mail and love letters sent to the Broward County jail, along with hundreds of dollars in contributions to his commissary account.
Teenage girls, women and even older men are writing to the Parkland school shooter and sending photographs – some suggestive – tucked inside cute greeting cards and attached to notebook paper with offers of friendship and encouragement. Groupies also are joining Facebook communities to talk about how to help the killer.
The murderer getting attention and fame is a big part of why we have copycats. Yes, we have a First Amendment that protects this publication, but an irresponsible media that publishes even the names of mass shooters bears far more responsibility for copycat murders than the NRA and all gun owner in the U.S. combined.
I have to believe they want more mass shootings. They cannot be that stupid. They cannot have such total crap for brains and still be able to breathe on their own.
There may be many different answers to school shootings and other massacres. There may be none. One thing that cannot be argued by rational people is that the answer to these realities cannot consist of advocating more violence against people, whether it be at the hands of deranged lunatics or the government. Disarming individuals has never, and cannot make those individuals safer.
Rich Burgess President of Connecticut Carry March 26, 2018 With Regards to the ‘March for our Lives’ Emotional Collectivism Makes You Vulnerable To Those With Bad Intentions [I have nothing to add.—Joe]
The entire reason we have 300+ million guns to defend against is because decades-long efforts to stop this proliferation (mostly by Democrats) have been defeated by public officials (mostly Republicans) insisting that these efforts conflict with the Second Amendment. In this way, the Second Amendment is being used to solve the very problem that it was instrumental in creating.
[Apparently Mr. Levy is unaware of a large number of facts that anyone with a firm grasp on reality knows, such as:
Violent crime preceded the invention of guns.
In the twenty century, tyrannical governments murdered tens of millions of their own citizens—who were first stripped of their right to keep and bear arms. And there was no country which respected the right to keep and bears arms and became a mortacracy.
We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. It used to be that smoking was a glamour symbol—cool, sexy, macho. Now it is dirty, deadly—and banned.
Mark Rosenberg Director for CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control October 16, 1994 New Tactics Urged in Fight Against Crime [Tell me why this shouldn’t be treated as a confession of guilt in a violation of 18 USC 241 and/or 18 USC 242.
The best defense against an “abusive government” lies with the rule of law, an independent judiciary and law enforcement, the free press, civil disobedience against injustice, voting by all members of our communities without voter suppression, religious freedom and tolerance, and respect for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all who make their home in our country.
The myth that a gun guarantees freedom has to be shattered once and for all.
Linda Allderdice Letter to the editor, Los Angles Times March 21, 2018 [The irony is almost painful.
The Bill of Rights is part of the highest law of the land and Allderdice, apparently wanting to ban guns protected by the Bill of Rights, claims adhering to the rule of law eliminates the need for gun ownership. So, which is it? Does she want to adhere to the rule of law or does she want to ban guns? Also, apparently Allderdice doesn’t recall that the great genocides of Europe in the last century were perform in full compliance with their laws at the time.
I’m tempted to say she has crap for brains, but I have to weigh that speculation against the very real data that public schools don’t teach just how murderous socialist governments can be.—Joe]
Yeah, because what you really want to do in a society is make 150M gun owners with 600M-1B guns and 1T rounds of ammo for them ostracized pariahs, with nothing to lose, no job, no life, and no prospects, and sit there on top of the shit heap with the other monkeys as Lords of the Flies, with nothing to protect you but an entitled smirk.
Because that will turn out so well for you and the other shitlords.
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Keep on telling gun owners they’re terrorists, and see what happens when they decide if they’re going to be hanged as a thief, they may as well steal.
It’s really a matter of putting public pressure on the president. This is where the Second Amendment comes in, quite frankly, because you know, what if the president was to ignore the courts? What would you do? What would we do?
If nothing else it demonstrates once again that they understand the constitution. They oppose it, not because they fail to understand it, but because they do understand it.
Brady Center Files Lawsuit Against Gun Manufacturer and Dealer For Parents of Boy Killed in Unintentional Shooting
Lawsuit Alleges Gun Did Not Include Safety Feature That Would Have Prevented Shooting
The parents of 13-year old J.R. Gustafson brought suit today against Springfield Arms and Saloom Department Store in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. J.R. was killed on March 20, 2016 in an unintentional shooting by a boy who thought the gun was unloaded after the gun’s magazine had been removed. The lawsuit alleges that the gun should have included safety features that would have prevented the shooting, and J.R.’s death.
It appears they are trying to sneak through a clause in the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The law gives qualified civil liability to manufacturers or distributors for the criminal acts of a third party. But it’s not clear to me (I am not a lawyer) that it extends to careless, negligent, and/or ignorant actors:
A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘qualified civil liability action’’ means a civil action or proceeding or an administrative proceeding brought by any person against a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product, or a trade association, for damages, punitive damages, injunctive or declaratory relief, abatement, restitution, fines, or penalties, or other relief, resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a qualified product by the person or a third party…
Are there any lawyers who want to comment on the viability of this lawsuit?
