If the railing cry of the English Parliament was no “taxation without representation” today’s slogan ought to be “no representation without taxation” since it is the latter that best incentives participation.
Samuel P. Huntington
From The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama.
[I only have the one QOTD from this book. And then it was only when the author quoted someone else. But it is an excellent book. I found it fascinating.—Joe]
It is essential that we stop this sort of rampant assininity, and it proves the point that the neurotic gun haters will never be satisifed. Bans on full auto are not enough, bans on self-loading sporting rifles don’t sate them, bans on 1930s military collectibles are only a waystop. We’ve reached the point where a 19TH CENTURY RELIC is an “assault weapon.”
DC has already ruled that a lead muzzle loader projectile, with neither rifle nor powder, is a felonious weapon.
We must fight the war with reason, rhetoric and the law now, or we will most certainly have to fight it later in the streets.
Michael Z. Williamson
December 15, 2015
The Slippery Slope of Definitions
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Yeeehaw, can’t get it up? Yeeeeeehaw!!!! Just buy a gun to fight yo battles in the sack!!! Yeeeehaw!!!! #tinycockclub #bokbok #gunsense
Bacon @Baconmints
Tweeted on December 23, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a Tweet from BFD @BigFatDave.—Joe]
1) NO handguns. Handgun Control Inc., became the Brady Campaign.
2) NO rifles, and no hunting, as that’s the well-worn excuse for having the damned things.
People get their food from the grocery store, not the open range. The danger of these guns, which can all be traced to some current or long-ago military arm, is too great. Become a vegan, all animal-sourced foods are cruel.
3) NO shotguns.
The FBI crime lab can’t do a “ballistic fingerprint” of a shotgun. They’re outlawed by the Geneva Convention for use in war. They contribute lead contamination and undermine threatened and endangered species preservation efforts.
43north
July 23, 2012
Comment to The NRA claims 4.3 million members. The Brady Campaign might have under 29,000.
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns. ALL your guns.—Joe]
Ban guns. All guns. Get rid of guns in homes, and on the streets, and, as much as possible, on police. Not just because of San Bernardino, or whichever mass shooting may pop up next, but also not not because of those. Don’t sort the population into those who might do something evil or foolish or self-destructive with a gun and those who surely will not. As if this could be known—as if it could be assessed without massively violating civil liberties and stigmatizing the mentally ill. Ban guns! Not just gun violence. Not just certain guns. Not just already-technically-illegal guns. All of them.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy
December 10, 2015
It’s Time to Ban Guns. Yes, All of Them.
[Via email from Barron.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you than no one wants to take your guns.
There is no political hope for these anti-gun people to accomplish their goals. There is no culture support for their goals. In fact it is just the opposite. Support for the right to keep and bear arms has not been stronger in decades and these people know that. When certain conditions are all met people who are absolutely, without any doubt, proven wrong their reaction is to increase proselyting their failed beliefs. Those conditions have been met and we are now seeing that increased proselyting. Read the book.
See also my other posts on this topic.—Joe]
I have yet to see a gun-control proposal that persuasively purports to do this or even one that would have stopped any of the recent high-profile events.
…
Usually, policymakers prescribe proposals that apply to a recent policy failure, but in the case of gun control, the proposals don’t even address the margins.
Cynthia M. Allen
December 10, 2015
Please, please convince me gun control will work
[Yup. And the only answer I can come up with for this behavior is that they have some other motivation than stopping the high-profile events we are seeing.—Joe]
… the media have played right into Trump’s hand.
They constantly denounce him as grossly insensitive for what he has said about women, Mexicans, Muslims, McCain and a reporter with a disability. Such crimes against decency, says the press, disqualify Trump as a candidate for president.
Yet, when they demand he apologize, Trump doubles down. And when they demand that Republicans repudiate him, the GOP base replies:
“Who are you to tell us whom we may nominate? You are not friends. You are not going to vote for us. And the names you call Trump — bigot, racist, xenophobe, sexist — are the names you call us, nothing but cuss words that a corrupt establishment uses on those it most detests.”
What the Trump campaign reveals is that, to populists and Republicans, the political establishment and its media arm are looked upon the way the commons and peasantry of 1789 looked upon the ancient regime and the king’s courtiers at Versailles.
Patrick J. Buchanan
December 3, 2015
Why Liberal Media Hate Trump
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Republicans! Don’t get me started. You can’t sneer at constitutional rights for a decade and a half and then expect them to be a credible shield when you abruptly decide they matter again. With few exceptions, Republicans arguing about Second Amendment rights resemble a kid becoming a sudden rules-lawyer halfway through a game of Calvinball.
Ken White
December 7, 2015
Talking Productively About Guns
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Given that even micro gun control measures will be effectively blocked by the NRA and its allies, and that promoting mini measures as potentially effective is misleading, progressives may as well go for the big enchilada: Call for domestic disarmament.
One may say that the Supreme Court, after 250 years in which the Second Amendment was read as allowing only a well-regulated militia to have guns, recently reinterpreted it to mean that there is an individualized right to own guns. This suggests that we may have to get to domestic disarmament through the back door.
Make the gun manufacturers liable for harm done with their products. Ban the sale of ammunition. And vote for a president that will add to the Supreme Court those who will read the Second Amendment as written.
Above all, domestic disarmament is a true, compelling vision which cannot be said about the small gun control measures that are currently promoted by some of the most enlightened people among us.
Amitai Etzioni
December 7, 2015
Needed: Domestic Disarmament, Not ‘Gun Control’
[It’s amusing that someone so ignorant and naïve talks about knowing who is “enlightened”.
All nine SCOTUS justices agreed the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right. He thinks its plausible to replace five or more of them with people that will reverse that and ignore all the evidence going back hundreds of years? And then once you have a court that will allow such laws to stand does he can get the votes in congress?
And does he think making gun manufactures liable is going to pass muster in congress or the courts? We currently have a law specifically protecting them from liability.
And banning the sale of ammunition? That’s not only legally problematic but practically impossible. Recreational drugs are impossible to keep out of the hands of teenagers. Ammunition will be no different.
The most amusing is the part where he says “micro guns control measures will be effectively blocked” so they “may as well go for the big enchilada”? That’s like saying, “We can’t get away with robbing the local mini-mart so we might as well go for Fort Knox.
These people are apparently incapable of rational thought!
The one thing he has right is that he has a “compelling vision”. It’s compelling evidence that he is delusional and well as bordering on criminal behavior.
And if you remember anything from this it is that you should never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
@vincethetrucker, yeah I have no gun but well endowned down there, You have lots of guns and prob there is a reason why. stop chasing me.
Superguts™@superguts
Tweeted on October 14, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a tweet from Huntin/Shootin Nurse @Duck_Hunter7.—Joe]
Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.
NYT Editorial Board
December 4, 2015
End the Gun Epidemic in America
[Peter O suggests:
The NYT just published a front-page editorial (The first since 1920!) Advocating for the banning and confiscating of firearms.
You might just be able to drop the topic finally. 😉
The topic being “Don’t let anyone tell you they want to take your guns.” But that assumes there are enough people reading the New York Times for the word to get around.
My take on this editorial is this will further reduce their readership. More and more people realize that with the war with our current enemy for people to advocate gun control is an incredibly stupid idea. Even Chris Christie, who governs a state with incredible strict gun laws, called this editorial, “typical liberal claptrap from the New York Times”.
Yesterday Barb and I were at the range with a relatively new shooter and her husband. The check-in counter and gun store was packed with people. I supposedly had the training bay reserved for them but it was packed with a class. The range gave us a smaller bay and we got her shooting much better and far more comfortable with a gun. She is going to get a CPL.
My point is that rational people realize the answer to violent criminals is to respond with immediate protective violence and the best tool for that is a gun. People advocating removing the tools for delivering that immediate protective violence are being ignored and even anti-gun groups and President Obama recognize this:
President Barack Obama made a promise in October to use his bully pulpit to politicize gun control. But he hasn’t followed through — he hasn’t scheduled a single speech on the topic, instead simply reacting to shooting after mass shooting. And he’s stopped pushing for any real legislation with members of Congress.
Obama frequently repeats his promise to do something. But aides say he’s essentially given up on any significant gun control passing during his presidency.
…leaders of the groups grumble. They still get invited to intermittent brainstorming sessions at the White House where they hear talk about securing a legacy with some more moves, and then they wait as nothing real happens.
In a stopped clock is right twice a day type moment Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence President Dan Gross is right when he says:
We have seen over this past week how quickly an important social conversation can really change how we look at an issue.
The conversations I had at work, with friends wanting guns and training, and the packed gun ranges and stores over this past week we do see that, speaking literally, Gross is right. But not in the way he would like to believe. The anti-gun people are on a downward slope to oblivion and the NYT editorial is the shrieking as they approach the abyss.—Joe]
It’s just a labor camp, and work sets you free, so really they just want to set you free…
Lyle
December 2, 2015
Comment to Quote of the day—Comrade Enver Hoxha@ComradeEnver
[That is so twisted that it’s essentially true.—Joe]
#SanBernadino shooters reportedly used semi-automatic assault rifles, allowing them to kill so many, so quickly. Ban them, now! #gunsense
Bob Doherty @BobDohertyACP
Tweeted December 2, 2015
[Via a tweet from Linoge.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Less guns means less shootings. End of story. No statistic can circumvent this simple formula. We need less guns.
brookster1
December 2, 2015 1:30 PM PST.
Comment to Active shooter reported in San Bernardino, Calif.; authorities say multiple victims, as many as three attackers
[“End of story.” I presume thins means discussion needed or allowed. Just so ou know, this means they would eliminate the First Amendment as well as the Second.
Don’t ever let someone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Hey everybody, that guy you know who is super proud of his guns, ya, he’s impotent. #tinycockclub #bokbok #fuckthenra #gunsense
Bacon @Baconmints
Tweeted on December 23, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a Tweet from BFD @BigFatDave.—Joe]
Women think it’s not a world for them and I say the hell with that! It absolutely is. I believe if you can drive a car you can handle and shoot a gun.
Dana Loesch
April 18, 2015
Dana Loesch – Truly A Well Armed Woman
[Actually, in many circumstances, you can shoot a gun safely and effectively even when you can’t drive a car.—Joe]
With this enemy, we have to push aside arguments on law, morality and comparisons of security and the rights of the individual. That means to do what they did in World War II to Dresden. They wiped it off the map. That is what has to be done to all the territorial enclaves that ISIS is holding.
Shabtai Shavit
Former chief of Mossad
November 15, 2015
Experts Explain How Global Powers Can Smash ISIS
[Opinions vary. Read the article for other views.—Joe]
You want friendly, head to your local gun show and masturbate with the other gun cum guzzlers.
Aaron Duncan @AaronCDuncan
Tweeted on November 24, 2015
[Via a Tweet from Linoge.
This is what they think of those who exercise their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Just remember that we have SCOTUS decisions and they have childish insults.—Joe]