Quote of the day—Roger Rosenblatt

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As for the Second Amendment, it may pose an inconvenience for gun-control advocates, but no more an inconvenience than the First Amendment…

Lasting social change usually occurs when people decide to do something they know they ought to have done long ago but have kept the knowledge private. This, I believe, is what happened with civil rights, and it is happening with guns. I doubt that it will be 25 years before we’re rid of the things. In 10 years, even five, we could be looking back on the past three decades of gun violence in America the way one once looked back upon 18th century madhouses. I think we are already doing so but not saying so.

Roger Rosenblatt
August 2, 1999
Get rid of the damned things
[An “inconvenience”? That should tell you all you need to know about these people. Specific enumerated rights are an “inconvenience” when they are “doing the right thing”. This wasn’t Pravda, Democratic Underground or some other openly communistic forum. This was in Time magazine.

This is from the dark ages when even at the high levels of professional gun rights advocates were telling me, “It will all be over in 10 years.” It’s now been nearly 15 years and we are in a much stronger position than we were in 1999. Public carry of a firearm is now legal in all 50 states with only D.C. still in the dark ages. 41 states have shall issue concealed carry and three states have constitutional carry.

What Rosenblatt didn’t and perhaps still doesn’t understand is that 100 million gun owners with 300 million guns buying 10 billion rounds of ammunition each year is going to be more “inconvenient” than words on a piece of paper written 200+ years ago when he sends someone by to “get rid of the damned things”.—Joe]

Criminal psychology

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I’m in the process of making a post on personality disorders, liberalism, and how to deal with them. I read a fascinating blog post about it. It is very long but awesome. I’ll get my synopsis out in a day or three.

In the mean time I engaged an anti-gun person on Twitter to do some testing. Here is the result:

@DanielHupke @_Garreth_ If only that BOOM was another #gunbully eating his gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Come on baby, suck that gun, pull that trigger.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Suck the bullets out!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

Eh. There wasn’t any bullying to be seen. There was only law-abiding citizens exercising their rights. @rosesindew @HelloPoodle

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew Funny how THAT got you needing to advertise your gun-gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been lawfully bearing arms for over a decade now. #assumption #fail @HelloPoodle @rosesindew

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew So what? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve got to point your guns at people?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew People that attempt to infringe our rights are either ignorant or criminals: http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You have every right to shoot yourselves. Stay in your own yard & play together.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew We do. Our yard is called the United States of America. If you don’t like it go someplace else.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc I love watching cunts like you get obsessed with me. Love it. Hilarious. Shows your true motives.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Nah, I got the anchor babies on ObamaCare now. Lots of free shit, ya know? Hoo hoo ha ha #RWNJ

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc it’s called exposing gun control advocates as the bullies they are, ur doing a great job helping me!

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Nah, you’re just a cunt who wanted attention & sympathy she didn’t get. A little ego maniacal.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Keep talking about your big guns & how nobody is gunna take ’em. Paranoid much?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Like your mom?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc again thanks for proving me right over and over

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc more like you

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Yes, we’ve proven you’re a cunt & this isn’t about guns at all. Just that you’re scum.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc My, aren’t you the attention whore. Do a cartwheel now!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc People who conspire to infringe the rights of others go to prison. You should find a good lawyer.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Oooohh you’re being conspired against now. Tin foil hat a little tight?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You have had EVERY opportunity to show responsibility in gun ownership. But what have you chosen to do?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m just gathering evidence to be submitted at your trial.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Public opinion is drastically rising against you. Again, it’s about the tea party crap, not guns.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m a certified firearms instructor. What have you done beside commit crimes against gun owners?

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You’re just too fucking stupid to realize you don’t point guns at soccer moms to get their support.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’ll alert the press. This should be good.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc What “crimes” are being done to you? Are you feeling unsafe again? They’re coming for you!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I hope your delusions are worth it. It must be lonely in your imaginary world: http://t.co/5xI0QbHMsF

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Well, you have your guns. For now.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc That sounds like a threat. It’s going into your file.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You really are fucking paranoid. Not sure you should have weapons. @NewYorkFBI

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Ooooooh, the teatard is scary!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Don’t you mean FOIL? They’re out there. Whop whop! Here come the black helicopters!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

So @HelloPoodle is back to wishing death on those she disagrees with? Must suck to be that consumed by hate. @rosesindew @JoeHuffman

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You wood think a poodle would be more laid back. Must be tough having a bark & no bite

— Hal (@Hal_Maine) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew @JoeHuffman Oh, look, you’re back for more. Actually, it’s fun hating scum suckers like you. Dumb pig.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Yeah, I better show everybody my gun so they’ll wonder if I might be dangerous.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Gotta make sure you let everybody know you’re carrying though, right? NRA bumper sticker?

Securing your arms

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It’s funny how the anti-rights cultists always have exceptions for governments and their minions. We peons are expected to just suck it up, because we are not as professional, as well trained in their use, and as well screened for psychological problems, and all the rest. Then we see cases like this, where the FBI SWAT team loses a couple of their rifles, and M16 and a “sniper rifle,” and they are considering if they should be charged with “improper storage.” Duh, ya’ think? This being Mass people freaked of course, and they also offered $20k for a reward for less than $5k worth of guns.It looks like the guns have been recovered, but the FBI isn’t saying anything, saying it’s because it’s an ongoing investigation, not just that it’s full-on CYA.

H/T to Paul.

Quote of the day—President Obama

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It ought to lead to some sort of transformation. That’s what happened in other countries when they experienced similar tragedies. In the United Kingdom, in Australia, when just a single mass shooting occurred in those countries, they understood that there was nothing ordinary about this kind of carnage. They endured great heartbreak, but they also mobilized and they changed, and mass shootings became a great rarity

…

The main difference that sets our nation apart, what makes us so susceptible to so many mass shootings, is that we don’t do enough — we don’t take the basic, common-sense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. What’s different in America is it’s easy to get your hands on gun — and a lot of us know this.

…

Well, I cannot accept that. I do not accept that we cannot find a common-sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms and the rights of law-abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.

President Obama
September 22, 2013
Remarks by the President at the Memorial Service for Victims of the Navy Yard Shooting
[H/T to Jay F. for the email.

Read that last paragraph carefully. He says we can “preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms”. That he added the word “basic” there is highly suspicious. Do you suppose he considers muzzle loading long guns as “basic” but not semi-autos firearms or handguns? That would be consistent with his admiration for Australia and England which banned extensive classes of firearms including semi-autos and handguns. And he did push hard for the latest “assault weapon” ban.

But I think I can rephrase his words just a bit to make his intent more clear:

Just like your health insurance, if you like your guns you can keep your guns.

Isn’t that better? What could be ambiguous about that? It’s good to have clarity.—Joe]

Psychology of mass shooters

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I took a lot of psychology classes in college and, IIRC, got straight A’s in them. I really enjoyed them. I thought it was fascinating.

So it isn’t surprising this article was of extreme interest to me:

Massacre killers are typically marked by what are considered personality disorders: grandiosity, resentment, self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement. They become, says Dr. Knoll, ” ‘collectors of injustice’ who nurture their wounded narcissism.” To preserve their egos, they exaggerate past humiliations and externalize their anger, blaming others for their frustrations. They develop violent fantasies of heroic revenge against an uncaring world.

…

Mass shooters aim to tell a story through their actions. They create a narrative about how the world has forced them to act, and then must persuade themselves to believe it. The final step is crafting the story for others and telling it through spoken warnings beforehand, taunting words to victims or manifestos created for public airing.

What these findings suggest is that mass shootings are a kind of theater. Their purpose is essentially terrorism—minus, in most cases, a political agenda. The public spectacle, the mass slaughter of mostly random victims, is meant to be seen as an attack against society itself. The typical consummation of the act in suicide denies the course of justice, giving the shooter ultimate and final control.

We call mass shootings senseless not only because of the gross disregard for life but because they defy the ordinary motives for violence—robbery, envy, personal grievance—reasons we can condemn but at least wrap our minds around. But mass killings seem like a plague dispatched from some inhuman realm. They don’t just ignore our most basic ideas of justice but assault them directly.

The perverse truth is that this senselessness is just the point of mass shootings: It is the means by which the perpetrator seeks to make us feel his hatred. Like terrorists, mass shooters can be seen, in a limited sense, as rational actors, who know that if they follow the right steps they will produce the desired effect in the public consciousness.

Part of this calculus of evil is competition. Dr. Mullen spoke to a perpetrator who “gleefully admitted that he was ‘going for the record.’ ” Investigators found that the Newtown shooter kept a “score sheet” of previous mass shootings. He may have deliberately calculated how to maximize the grotesqueness of his act.

The human mind is a marvelous and sometimes bizarre thing. I’ve seen some really strange behavior from people with personality disorders. Probably the best short story is that I know someone who convinced a judge that his being caught sitting on his ex-wife’s chest on the sidewalk punching her in the face was self-defense.

Stacy, my counselor, told me people with personality disorders cannot, or will not, admit there is a problem with themselves. It’s always someone else’s fault. Keep that in mind. It’s a huge telltale. Another one, also from Stacy, is that personality disorder symptoms are more prominent when they are interacting with people in close personal relationships with. Family members and spouses get the worst of it. Co-workers and strangers may think they are perfectly normal people.

Attempting to interact with them can be challenging. Having a “model” to help understand, identify, and predict their behavior is incredibly useful. We owe a big thanks to the author of this article and the researchers who investigated the psychology of these people.

H/T Say Uncle.

The problem is

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Via the NRA.

From Massachusetts:

Selectman Barry Greenfield introduced an enforcement discussion Wednesday that he hopes will lead to the safeguarding of guns in town…

The problem, he said, is that police do not have the authority, granted by a local ordinance, to enforce the law and inspect the safeguarding of guns at the homes of the 600 registered gun owners in town.

Fourth Amendment rights are apparently a mere discussion point because later he says, “There are civil liberty matters to consider”.

The real problem here is that they have a registry of a protected class of people. In this case it is gun owners but it doesn’t matter what the name of the minority or what the government justification for it is. Registries of Christians/Catholics/Muslims/Jews/Japanese/Germans/Italians have all been used for oppression someplace or sometime. A registry of a people exercising constitutionally protected right is a precursor to direct infringement of that right. Requiring the registration of those exercising their rights has a chilling effect on the free exercise of those rights and is unconstitutional.

In allowing himself to be quoted Barry Greenfield has admitted he is conspiring to commit felonies. He should review 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242, voluntarily surrender to authorities, and sign a written confession. If he does I could see making a case for a good plea deal. Otherwise someday those words could be used at his trial.

BarryGreenfield
Barry Greenfield

Sebastian recommends tar and feathers.

Thirdpower points out the slippery slope is real.

11th day of the 11th month

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It’s Veterans day, commemorating the end of world War One, The Great War. It’s good that it ended, but because the politicians didn’t know much about psychology or economics, they ended it badly, guaranteeing  a rematch. Ouch. In any case, just a few thoughts.

I volunteered and served in the Army Reserve. Drove boats for them – at the time is was MOS 12C (bridge crewman) a subcategory of combat engineer specializing in bridging. Also spent time packing an M60 around. I was in during the first Gulf War but not deployed. I did my six years and got out. My dad and his brother were both drafted around the Korean War, served their time, got out. My mom’s brother was career Air Force, and her dad was in during the 30’s (army, horse- and mule-back unit) and WW II (coastal patrol, kind of vague on navy vs coastguard). My brother in law is retired regular AF, now in the AF reserves as an E9, senior NCO on the airbase. A great uncle was in the Spanish American war. My wife’s “adoptive” dad was a gunner in WW II on a troop transport, saw kamikaze attacks landing troops on Okinawa. [Later edit: Oh, yes, I don’t want to forget the great aunt that was a WAAC. She wound up in North Africa in WW II]

I always thought it interesting that there was never much talk about “duty” and all, no strong service rivalry. It was just sort of a “respectable thing to do if it was a good fit” sort of thing, but it still rubbed off on me that it was more of a “very good thing to do unless it was a very bad fit.” I know it’s not for everyone. But it is done for everyone, even those that hate the military – and I think that’s one of those things that galls the peace-niks on the left most. They can’t stand the idea that maybe the military where they couldn’t or wouldn’t serve MIGHT be necessary, and really MIGHT be doing it for them as well, and that level of selflessness from people they despise and look down on just totally rubs them raw. On the other side of the coin, for all the inter-service rivalry, trash-talking and  competition, at the end of the day they all respect each others signing up and going through it.

But it seems like there are increasingly two Americas, one that doesn’t expect it deserves anything, and as a result it volunteers and serves (or at least supports and understands those that do), and those that expect to be given a lot, have a sense of entitlement, and at the some time don’t serve or honestly respect those that do. Not sure what it all means, or where that’ll lead, but it doesn’t strike me as a good thing.

Those those that served, cheers! To those that understand, thanks for your support.

Truth destroys their agenda

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The headline is 40 Armed Gun Advocates Intimidate Mothers Against Gun Violence In A Restaurant Parking Lot.

The picture is:

Viewpoint0

The text starts out as :

On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

The reality is:

Viewpoint1

Because the truth destroys their agenda.

H/T to Linoge.

Quote of the day—Smarter Than A Bullet

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I didn’t even need to read the article to absorb your so-called “opinion”. I can tell you need attention, and a gun to substitute for your underwhelming genitalia.

Smarter Than A Bullet
November 5, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—The Coquette
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

I was wondering. Since the name they are using is “Smarter Than a Bullet” and most bullets are made of lead are they trying to say they may be dense but not as dense as lead?—Joe]

Obama legacy of success

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President Obama has a large number of critics but he also has some astounding successes. These successes are unrivaled in magnitude by any other president and perhaps any other person who has ever lived.

He attempted to ban certain types of guns and became the greatest gun salesman of all time.

He made health insurance mandatory and millions of people became uninsured.

Bricks

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When I worked on Windows Phone 7 for Microsoft there sometimes a risk you could load a new version of the O/S you had just built on the phone and it would fail so catastrophically that it couldn’t even boot up enough to load a new O/S to replace the broken one. We called this “bricking your phone”. You had turned your smart phone into an object that was about as useful as a brick.

A few days ago Barb L. decided she needed to use the self-cleaning feature on her oven. The oven is fairly new and she had always cleaned it by hand and sometimes with oven cleaner spray. But this time she “dinked around” with the controls and got it to do a self-clean. After about two hours she decided it was probably done and turned it off. She went back to the oven a while later and the door was still locked. The display was off and all the controls were dead. She went to breaker box and cycled the power. It was still dead. She left the power off over night and turned it back on. It was still dead with the door locked.

Barb is the only person I have ever heard of that is able to brick an oven. That takes some special talent. She’s a keeper.

Quote of the day—Hystad and Peschin

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The sniper is a predictable consequence of a gun industry bent on marketing military and military-style weapons to consumers in an effort to revive sales. This mass marketing includes sniper rifles that are radically different from standard hunting rifles yet are easier to buy than handguns. Industry marketing also has fueled a sniper subculture that glorifies the “one shot, one kill” technique used over and over again by this sniper.

Most Americans are surprised to learn that firearms, one of the most lethal consumer products, are not regulated for health and safety. That means there’s no way to track manufacturers who distribute to unscrupulous dealers, no way to collect data on manufacture and use and no way to ban products that pose an unreasonable threat to public safety.

Cheryl Hystad and Susan Peschin
October 24, 2002
Sniper exposes a need for real gun regulation
Cheryl Hystad is executive director of the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition in Baltimore, and Susan Peschin is firearms project director for the Consumer Federation of America in Washington.
SusanPeschin 
Peschin lying again. Image and story from here.
[The ignorance, or willful lying, is strong with these two. You would think they should know that GC68 provides for a means to trace guns and the 4473 forms we fill out to buy new guns are used everyday for just that. That doesn’t even get into the ignorance or lying in the first paragraph with “sniper rifles” versus hunting rifles.

I know, and I strongly suspect they know, the only way they can win is through willful ignorance and/or lying. Shouldn’t we have some “common-sense” regulation that sends people to prison for attempting to violate someone else’s rights? Oh yeah! We already do.—Joe]

Automatic suspension of 2nd Amendment Rights

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Connecticut has made it less likely people will seek mental health treatment (emphasis added):

On October 1st the Connecticut State Legislature’s reactionary response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school went into effect. Public Act No. 13-3 requires all people that voluntarily admit to a hospital for mental health reasons (not solely for drug or alcohol treatment) have their names placed in a database administered by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services – for the purpose of automatic suspension of Second Amendment rights. This database will link with a database held by the state police that includes all gun permit holders, registered gun owners and anyone who has applied for a gun permit. If there is a “match” between the two databases a letter will go out informing the individual that their Second Amendment rights have been suspended (letter below). Although you will not receive a letter from the state police, if you are not a “match” you will be notified of your name being put in the database and of the suspension of Second Amendment rights sometime after voluntary admission. The law does not require notice be given to people prior to admitting themselves into a hospital.

Police-Letter-2_thumb.jpg

Second Amendment rights are not granted by the state of Connecticut. It is not within their enumerated power to suspend them without due process. They can no more legally suspend Second Amendment rights than they can First, Third, Fourth, or Fifth Amendment rights. These people should be prosecuted.

H/T To Andrew T. from the gun email list at work.

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Washington’s bureaucracy, at the behest of their master, has spoken: they see us as the enemy.  And we should not be at all surprised that their closest enemy is the House of Representatives, the single entity in the Federal government intended to represent The People.

Roberta X
October 7, 2013
Like An Occupying Army
[That is a very good point.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Good intentions are not a valid defense at most trials. They may help in the sentencing phase but not so much in the determining of innocence or guilt.

The creators of Obamacare and oppressive gun laws should take note.

Daniel Webster has some thoughts on good intentions as well.

No one wants to take your guns

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I was doing a little looking around on my blog for more posts to add to the “No one wants to take your guns” category and found links to these sites:

Handgun-Free America is down but Ban Handguns Now is still up.

Also this is a great quote from CSGV.

And if CSGV says they haven’t wanted to ban guns recently take a look at this post.

That’s not what I would call it

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I’m “reading” (listening to actually) Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours. Today I learned that after spending four months, numerous hours off work, and hundreds of dollars in fees trying to exercise her 2nd Amendment rights the District of D.C. required her to have a 10-day “cooling off period” before she could take possession of the firearm she had finally been allowed to purchase.

I wouldn’t be “cooling off” during that time. Miller reported she “stewed”. Right now I’m “stewing” over it and it didn’t happen to me. I’m not sure what my response would if it were to happen to me but it probably would more closely resemble a pressure cooker with the relief valves welded shut than a stew in a slow cooker.

D.C. law has to change. They do not recognize the 2nd Amendment and people should go to prison over that.

Gun Song- Don’t take your guns to town by Johnny Cash

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A classic.

Johnny Cash wrote and performed for a lot of songs over the years, and a lot have something to say. In spite of the title the moral in this one seems to be as much “avoid strong drink” as it is that on any given day you might meet the one guy faster than you. Leaving it behind means that it’s an option you don’t have.

I do like one of Heinlein’s ideas from “tunnel in the sky.” The idea of going unarmed means you think “hide!” and “run!” rather than “I’m a tough SOB,” and a more cautions attitude can be a great life-saver. I think better training is a better choice that actually being unarmed, but hey, whatever gets you to the right mental place.

Quote of the day—dustydog

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A lawyer telling you that ‘society needs gun insurance’ is like a frat telling you ‘society needs to lower the drinking age for hot co-eds.’

dustydog
November 7, 2013
Comment to Why ‘gun liability insurance’ is a bad idea
[I suspect being compared to a lawyer is libelous to “a frat” wanting a lower drinking age for hot coeds but I get the point.—Joe]

It’s the culture stupid

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I forget which book it was (I know Thomas Sowell has written about it some but I think there was someone else that did a better job) that I read a couple years back that talked about the culture of the southern United States and how it affected violence. Thanks to rhodeskc I have another, shorter, source for the equivalent information. I have some relatively minor disagreements with the author on some points but the following I have no quibbles about:

… immigrants, who populated what I call Greater Appalachia, came from “an economy based on herding,” which, as anthropologists have shown, predisposes people to belligerent stances because the animals on which their wealth depends are so vulnerable to theft. Drawing on the work of the historian David Hackett Fisher, Nisbett maintained that “southern” violence stems partly from a “culture-of-honor tradition,” in which males are raised to create reputations for ferocity—as a deterrent to rustling—rather than relying on official legal intervention.

More recently, researchers have begun to probe beyond state boundaries to distinguish among different cultural streams. Robert Baller of the University of Iowa and two colleagues looked at late-twentieth-century white male “argument-related” homicide rates, comparing those in counties that, in 1850, were dominated by Scots-Irish settlers with those in other parts of the “Old South.” In other words, they teased out the rates at which white men killed each other in feuds and compared those for Greater Appalachia with those for Deep South and Tidewater. The result: Appalachian areas had significantly higher homicide rates than their lowland neighbors—“findings [that] are supportive of theoretical claims about the role of herding as the ecological underpinning of a code of honor.”

Another researcher, Pauline Grosjean, an economist at Australia’s University of New South Wales, found strong statistical relationships between the presence of Scots-Irish settlers in the 1790 census and contemporary homicide rates, but only in “southern” areas “where the institutional environment was weak”—which is the case in almost the entirety of Greater Appalachia. She further noted that in areas where Scots-Irish were dominant, settlers of other ethnic origins—Dutch, French, and German—were also more violent, suggesting that they had acculturated to Appalachian norms.

But it’s not just herding that promoted a culture of violence. Scholars have long recognized that cultures organized around slavery rely on violence to control, punish, and terrorize—which no doubt helps explain the erstwhile prevalence of lynching deaths in Deep South and Tidewater.

Honor/shame based societies tend to be violent. Muslims will kill their own daughter/sister if they bring dishonor to the family. Certain African-American cultures will get violent if they are “dissed”. In the book I read it said they acquired it from the slave-holder culture they evolved from. The majority of the slave holding white culture dropped that attribute in the last 150 years but a large proportion of the former slaves have not. What clinched the argument for me was that certain language patterns related to the honor culture could be shown to exist in Scotland and Ireland then traced to the Southern slave owners and still exist in “black English” long after they had disappeared in the U.K. and whites in the U.S.

The anti-gun people like to point out the higher rates of violence in the south and claim it is higher rate of gun ownership that accounts for this. Of course they ignore the high rate of violence in places like “gun free zones” Chicago. The truth is that it’s the culture that creates the violence, not the guns. And as long as there are those that insist all culture is equal and that we respect diverse culture, as long as it isn’t that yucky gun culture, we will have violence cultures and have to deal with the problems.