De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades.
What needs to happen before this change in mentality can occur? What must occur first – and this is where liberals are fighting the gun control issue from the wrong end – is a decrease in crime. So long as crime is ubiquitous, so long as Americans cannot entrust their personal safety to the authorities, they will never agree to disarm. There will be no gun control before there is real crime control.
Charles Krauthammer
April 5, 1996
Disarm the Citizenry. But not yet
Originally in The Washington Post on April 5. The above link is in the Seattle Times from April 8, 1996.
[See also the QOTD’s here, here and here.
While Krauthammer is thinking things through better than most anti-gun people he isn’t thinking far enough ahead. If crime is very low then anti-gun people will have no justification for infringing upon the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. You see a hint of that awareness already with anti-gun people attempting to use suicides as justification to infringe upon our rights.—Joe]
There have always been strong poll numbers for specific gun control proposals, and the NRA wins time and time again. Clearly, the polling data is not giving us the full picture.
Bill Scher
May 24, 2017
The Issue Democrats Wish Would Go Away
Can the Democratic Party retake Congress by giving up on gun control? Should it?
[The polling data doesn’t reflect a number of things:
Polls also indicate one of the most popular parts of ObamaCare is the elimination of restrictions regarding preexisting conditions. But things like someone buying insurance while on a stretcher after an auto accident in the emergency room (it used to happen in Washington State) prove the folly of government attempting to change the laws of economics or human nature.
Democrats should just keep on polling … and loosing.—Joe]
I’ve worked with and trained with law enforcement officers from all over the world (including British LEO’s), and inevitably we have discussed the realities of criminal violence in our respective jurisdictions and shared our exasperation with just how… misguided… most private citizens are regarding the realities of crime. A lot of people state they “never felt the need” to worry about their own protection or security, and sure, the odds that you’ll ever be accosted – even in the most crime-ridden societies – are relatively low. BUT… even the safest societies still have crime. Even the safest societies still have innocent people who get brutalized and murdered by criminals… and a lot of the victims of violent crime would NOT have been victimized if only they had taken even the most rudimentary steps to protect themselves.
6Gunner
April 27, 2017
Posted to the thread Gun control in the UK
[Self defense is more than just possessing a firearm and knowing when and how to use it. It requires awareness of your surroundings, the nature of people, and criminal methods.—Joe]
From Gun Background Check System Faces Big Challenges:
In 2015, NICS denied 106,556 background checks. In 3,625 cases, a denial was overturned on appeal. In October 2015, citing manpower shortages, NICS stopped accepting appeals altogether. The FBI didn’t restore the function until February of this year; examiners are still working on appeals submitted almost two years ago.
For those who have an interest in the facts:
Cleansing a sickness from our souls doesn’t come easy. It’s gruesome…
John Morse
Colorado Democratic Legislator
March 8, 2013
In the context of advocating for the passage of oppressive gun laws.
[This has been widely, and erroneously, quoted as:
People who own guns are essentially a “sickness on our souls” that must be “cleansed. … Cleansing a sickness from our souls doesn’t come easy. It’s gruesome…”
While that could seen to be a valid interpretation of his intent, that is not what he said. He claims,
“To insinuate that I referred to gun owners as a ‘sickness from our souls’ is obscene,” Morse said Tuesday, according to KDVR. “As a former police officer and a gun owner myself, I believe in the right to bear arms. And as a legislator, I am committed to making our whole society healthier and safer.”
The claim, “I believe in the right to bear arms” does not mean he respects the right. And from the context we know he is admitting that that he is intent on knowingly attempting to violate that right.
While we can’t definitely read his mind the erroneous version of the quote can’t be far from the truth of what he believes.—Joe]
If there were no guns then there would be few murders, right? How would people murder others if they didn’t have a gun, right?
A teenage boy has been stabbed to death in an east London high street, becoming the 11th person to die from knife crime on the capital’s streets in just two weeks.
Police and paramedics were scrambled to the High Street in Walthamstow late on Sunday night, where they found the 17-year-old suffering from a serious stab wound.
He was rushed to an east London hospital in critical condition where he died a short while later, Scotland Yard said.
…
The Walthamstow murder also came just hours after hundreds of protestors took to London’s streets for a peace rally on Sunday.
Demonstrators including families of knife murder victims held banners reading “enough is enough” as they marched from Islington to Hackney amid a growing outcry over knife and gun crime.
Scroll down to see the video of their knife crime protest march.
Remember this. Those who want “common sense gun laws” will never be satisfied. If they are successful banning guns they will come after knives, chemical sprays, sticks, and rocks. These people have mental issues.
Just say no and refer them to a mental health expert.
From the LA Times:
A coalition including the National Rifle Assn. on Thursday filed a second lawsuit challenging California’s new gun laws, this time arguing a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines is unconstitutional.
NRA attorneys representing the California Rifle and Pistol Assn., the group’s state affiliate, filed the lawsuit in federal court in San Diego, maintaining that the law banning possession of magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition violates the due process and takings clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
…
Last month, the NRA and affiliated groups filed a lawsuit challenging another new law that bans the sale of semiautomatic rifles with bullet buttons that allow, with a tool, the removal and replacement of the magazine.
I want those repressive laws overturned and, in California, it’s not going to happen legislatively. The Federal courts are probably the best hope to get rid of them. But I worry that the courts are not ready to accept the Second Amendment at face value.
I realize the lawsuit filed yesterday is based upon a due process argument but many judges have no problem ignoring such thing BECAUSE GUN!! I would feel better about this if we had a better set of judges on the Supreme Court as well as a lot more depth with originalists in the lower courts.
Even if they’re colorful and super cool, kids shouldn’t be playing with water guns because it normalizes the real thing.
Lauren Levy
May 17, 2017
Why Kids Should Never Play With Water Guns. Period.
[I find it very telling that Ms. Levy is strictly opposed to someone thinking exercising the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is normal.
In the comments I found this which pretty much sums it up:
More LEFT wing lunacy. These people are not rational. They strip every freedom we have either through non-stop new legislation (California) or through public shaming.
Time for regular common sense people to stand up and say, “F$#@ YOU!!!”
—Joe]
Soviet organisation has made possible the creation of armed forces of workers and peasants which are much more closely connected with the working and exploited people than before. If this had not been done it would have been impossible to achieve one of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism—the arming of the workers and the disarming of the bourgeoisie.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
1919 (see here)
The Basic Tasks Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat In Russia
[As many people have pointed out, Democrats/Socialists/Communists are not anti-gun. They just don’t want their political opponents to have guns. See also the Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars where they disarmed everyone except members of the Russian Communist Party.—Joe]
The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
March 1850
Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League
[Interesting reading.—Joe]
Most of the people who don’t like guns only don’t because they’ve developed a pathology of discomfort around the idea of them.
It seems to come down to their understanding [or lack thereof] of guns and comfort of being able to use them themselves. If they can’t conceive of someone using them responsibly, then they don’t want people to have access to them. Thus, because they aren’t competent enough with firearms themselves to understand them and their function, it is hard for them to understand how others could be competent with them as well without some kind of extensive training to prepare them [such as law enforcement].
This, combined with the sort of heard mentality of them and their peers, makes for a seemingly self evident understanding that no one should own guns accept law enforcement and such.
Every single person that I’ve taught to shoot, has become pro gun if they weren’t previously, just because of the realization that guns are tools that people can and need to understand just like any other tool. One can be irresponsible or responsible with any tool. Machete, chain saw, gun, knife, car, pen, hammer, saw, screwdriver, etc… Any tool can be dangerous or serve a positive purpose.
Bakwa
May 15, 2017
Post in the thread I may have found the answer to the gun control problem. Dead Serious.
[Take a new shooter to the range whenever you can.—Joe]
You have no basis for your claim except your nether region, but good for you, @Ducks_N_Bucks19 @Jeff257; isn’t #2A wonderful.
Still following @osteomath
Tweeted on December 1, 2016.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from American Hunter @Ducks_N_Bucks19.—Joe]
We believe that this is really not about the Second Amendment, it’s about public safety.
Patti Brigham
Co-chair of the Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence
Gun control groups claim victory in Florida – for now
[They claimed victory because no pro freedom bills were passed, not because they were able to pass one or more laws infringing upon our rights. They have to try and keep their morale up somehow.
Aside from blocking the bills which would have reduced the infringements upon the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment what annoys me is that Brigham thinks she can bypass the Second Amendment with an argument about “public safety”. Apparently she is ignorant of and/or disagrees with Ben Franklin on the tradeoffs involving safety and liberty. Even if I knew nothing of the issue I would be substantially more inclined to side with Franklin than with Brigham.
“Public safety” doesn’t outweigh individual rights. This is particularly true when it involves prior restraint. If it did one could make a winning case for banning speech and writing which advocates socialism. Far more people have lost their lives because of socialism in the last 120 years than have lost their lives because of private ownership of firearms.
And that doesn’t even touch upon the fact that the Second Amendment is about public safety.—Joe]
Instead of making it difficult for law-abiding gun shop owners, fully prosecute straw purchasers, felons in possession of a firearm and people who unlawfully use a weapon. Incarcerate more criminals, and you’ll get less crime. Make it harder for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, and you’ll get more crime. Which goal is Sen. Harmon trying to achieve?
Dan P. Eldridge
May 10, 2017
The gauzy misdirection and untrue smears of an anti-gun-rights activist
[It’s a rhetorical question but I’ll answer anyway. Senator Harmon, Democrat, has a vested interest in getting votes. As there are over twice as many Democrats in prison as all other political affiliations combined and convicted felons are not allowed to legally vote the senator wants fewer of his constituents sent to prison. Furthermore the more crime the easier it is for the senator to spin the story that he is needed to protect them from the crime. If people realize they can, and should, protect themselves from crime then they will have less, imaginary, need for him. He does not want this.
So, DUH! The senator wants to make it harder for citizen to protect themselves and fewer violent criminals going to prison.—Joe]
Interesting news from inside the belly of the beast (emphasis added):
Gun control activists who previously worked for Watts in various state organizations are said to be frustrated and feeling burned by her, according to one source.
“Staff who worked for Shannon quit or are fired faster than the organization can replace them. She’s a nightmare,” the source told TheDC.
Another source close to the organization said in a written statement, “Two beliefs unite nearly all gun control supporters: background checks save lives, and Shannon Watts is a self-promoting tyrant.”
In order to be a gun control supporter you have to have a very low opinion of individual rights and a high opinion of the use of government force to infringe upon those rights. That one of the most prominent promoters of rights infringement is also a tyrant is as one would expect.
I think we should get rid of waiting periods to buy guns. But… before you buy a gun, you have to prove that you had sexual intercourse with another person. Have you seen these shooter guys? Lonely looking bunch. If you can’t find someone to f— ya, then no gun! Guns don’t kill people — virgins do!
Jim Jefferies
May 2017
Jim Jefferies explains that ‘guns don’t kill people — virgins do’
[This got a smile out of me.
I suppose it makes as much sense as the waiting periods and background checks. Still, it is as pointless and unconstitutional as all of the other infringements they throw at us.—Joe]
These are people who literally decided that a room full of dead grade schoolers was less important than the possibility that they might have to fill out an extra piece of paper at a gun show.
They absolutely get it, and we need to remember that they’re just complete, farking dickwipes who don’t care.
skozlaw
May 10, 2017
Comment to Gun rights blogger becomes gun control statistic
[This is what they think of you.
The ignorance meter is pegged out, all input channels are blocked, and they are absolutely certain they can read our minds.
Don’t quit your day job skozlaw. You aren’t going to make a living as a psychic.—Joe]
Seattle voters overwhelmingly supported I-594, but refuse to recognize that it hasn’t worked, nor will they admit it will continue not working.
Dave Workman
April 26, 2017
‘Shoplift Shooting’ in Seattle Reveals Liberal Mindset
[But, of course, it depends upon your definition of “work”.
It fails to reduce violent crime. But Seattle voters are overwhelmingly Democrats and one should not expect them to have any interest in placing restrictions upon their constituents.—Joe]
