. . . since it's obvious that the obliviots have still not got the idea.
The New York Times has published a front-page editorial for the first time since 1920, calling for stricter gun control. The New York Daily News repeated the lie that "80% of Americans want stricter gun control laws" (which is based on a single, cherry-picked, carefully targeted poll that made sure it got the answers its sponsors wanted, and is contradicted by every other authoritative, objective gun control poll out there), and accused Republican presidential candidates of being willing to pray about the problem, but not to do anything about it (i.e. call for, or help to pass, stricter gun control laws). President Obama himself used the San Bernardino terrorist attack to call for stricter gun control measures, particularly the (without-due-process and therefore unconstitutional) denial of the right to buy firearms to those on terror watch lists. His Attorney-General unforgivably called the tragedy "a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful moment to really make significant change". I'm sure the families of those murdered in cold blood were warmed by her characterization of their deaths as 'wonderful'.
There have been many comments in the blogosphere about the moonbattishness of these proposals and the lack of common sense among those behind them. See, for example, Never Yet Melted, New Jovian Thunderbolt, PawPaw's House, The Silicon Graybeard and - on the mainstream side - National Review. There are many more. Perhaps the best of all comes from my friend and fellow author Larry Correia. It's worth your time to go and read it in full, as well as his earlier smackdown of the most common gun control memes. Here he is discussing that earlier article on Fox News.
The real problem is, the gun control crowd are pursuing a false objective. It has no relation whatsoever to reality. You see, they're trying to regulate a thing, rather than the people misusing that thing. That's doomed to failure right from the start.
An object - any object - has no moral sense of its own. It can be used for its intended purpose, or for criminal purposes. Consider:
- A hammer is intended to drive a nail, or impart energy to a chisel, or something like that. However, a criminal can misuse it to smash someone's skull. Is the hammer guilty of that crime? No - the person wielding it is guilty.
- A motor vehicle is intended to provide transportation, or be used in sport, or any of a number of other lawful occupations. It can also be misused by a drunk driver to kill or injure innocent people. Is the vehicle guilty of that crime? No - we charge the driver, not the vehicle.
- A spreadsheet program is used to perform mathematical operations on rows and columns of figures. An accountant can use it to keep the books of a corporation; or a criminal can use it to add up the proceeds of his crimes, and organize the finances of his criminal enterprise. Is the spreadsheet guilty of the crimes committed by that criminal? No. He's guilty, not the tools he used.
- A firearm can be used to hunt, or shoot at targets, or kept in reserve for self-defense - all legitimate, legal, entirely moral and appropriate reasons. It can also be used by criminals or terrorists to injure or kill innocent people. Is the firearm guilty of the latter perpetrators' crimes? No - we charge them with the offense, not the guns in their hands.
In every case, and in any other you might care to mention, the object or tool or thing used by the criminal is innocent of any criminal intent or action. It's never held responsible or liable for what happens. Always, the perpetrator is the one charged with a crime.
To ban guns, or restrict their circulation, is to miss the point entirely. A gun has no moral sense. It can't choose whether or not it will be used for legal or illegal purposes. It's a thing. To ban the thing will do nothing to control the person who wants to misuse it. If he can't get a gun, he'll get something else. Consider the casualties that can be caused by, for example, firebombs - so-called 'Molotov cocktails' or something more sophisticated. You want to know how deadly those can be in confined spaces? Look at the carnage caused by nightclub fires. In that list, casualties ranged from a few dozen dead and injured, up to more than one and a half thousand. All a wannabe terrorist has to do is to recruit a few friends, go to a local nightspot, overcome any security outside the premises (and that only for a few moments - pepper spray would do it), and toss several firebombs through every door and window. The resultant casualties might dwarf those of the terror attacks in Paris last month. The same casualties can be inflicted by tossing firebombs into a crowded movie theater, or into a crowd at a shopping mall (kids queuing to visit Santa, perhaps?). No firearms would be needed . . . and there's no way to control empty bottles, gasoline and twisted rags to make fuses. Such weapons could not be banned or prevented from being made.
Some obliviots seem to think that if you take away the instrument (i.e. the gun), terror attacks and criminal violence would cease immediately. Nothing could be further from the truth. What do you think happened in the world before firearms were invented? Was it somehow magically preserved from crime and violence? Like hell it was! Swords, spears, sharpened scythes, sticks (see quarterstaff), bows and arrows, and an untold number of other weapons, manufactured as such or improvised, made those eras just as deadly as our own, proportionate to their population. The invention of firearms merely added a new element to an already violent world. To focus on the firearm as the cause of that violence is to completely misunderstand human nature. As the late, great Jeff Cooper pointed out:
The media ... generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.
That says it all. It's incontrovertibly true . . . yet the obliviots will not accept it. They're blind to reality. They must be stopped, for fear that they may remake society in their obliviot image - which will make it a society not worth living in for any of us.
Peter
EDITED TO ADD: Karl Denninger weighs in with his usual acerbic dose of common sense and reality. Unsurprisingly, I agree with him. Go read his whole article. It's worth it.
13 comments:
You're preaching to the choir, Peter.
And the first time TSHTF around these power elites, just watch how loudly they scream to be protected by men with GUNS!
Yeah, if atty genl Sapphire and Pres Rastus are so anti-gun how about equipping their bodyguards with Nerf guns??
Happy Land fire in the Bronx: Some clown, who was kicked out of a nightclub, returned and torched the place. Two bucks' worth of gas and a match- 87 people were killed.
Let's ban selling gasoline in portable containers!
The Rwandan genocide killed between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people. Most of the killing was done with machetes.
Molotov cocktails are already illegal in the US and are classified as a destructive device. Unfortunately the ATF would not prosecute the person I arrested who was in possession of 5 cocktails(two assembled and three without the rags- rags that were laying beside the full bottles ready to be manufactured into the destructive devices)setting against their right leg while in the vehicle this drunk person had stolen. The ATF just didn't want to because the individual had a criminal record and the other State charges were enough.
Does anyone have a link to video of her saying this? Shockingly, there's nothing on the CNN or MSNBC sites.
If it were actually true that 80% of us wanted more gun control, we would have it. It's that simple. We don't want it, so we don't have it.
Passed this along.
There is a thoughtful response on Rolling Stone dot com (yes, I know it is not a conservative website) regarding this subject. I am not saying I agree with it. But it is well written, unlike most of the articles out there; it does have several of the usual far left of center viewpoints, but I have yet to read anything that directly attempts to contradict the specific part of this topic that Bayou Renaissance Man was addressing in his blog post.
What the vast majority of folks want is to feel safe in their homes and while going about their legitimate business. Unfortunately, far too many have bought into the lie that controlling guns would have a prayer of doing that.
What I've been busily doing since Wednesday is responding to the clamor for gun control by merely pointing out that California already has just about every gun control measure they so desperately want to inflict on the rest of us.
Universal background checks, bans on assault weapons, ten day waiting periods, ten round limits on magazines, all these and more are law in Cali. And look how much good all that did.
I would however point out that it would be a mistake to assume that the liberal progressive goal has anything to do with gun safety. Nope, what they are and always have been after is power and control. And the two biggest stumbling blocks to the achievement of that goal are our first and second amendments. They would deny us free speech so as to prevent contrary opinions, and they would disarm us so as to restrict the means of lethal force to only those agents under their direction. So, perhaps I misspoke, it is after all about guns and safety. As long as we the people have guns the lib/prog crowd will never feel safe.
What Uncle Lar said. It's not about crime, safety, or terrorism. It's about finding a reason to disarm the citizenry so the politicians can do what they want with no fear of revolt. It's a necessary step to tyranny.
They can demand what they want; I WILL NOT COMPLY. The discussions been had, and THEY LOST. Back here the People's Dem. Rep. of MD. now wants my fingerprints to exercise my Right as a Free person to buy a handgun. (Thanks, O'Malley) that's my line. Won't do it. I can build an 80% 1911, or I'll be visiting my friendly neighborhood black marketeer before I go there, I don't live in Cuomo's New York, or Malloy's Connecticut, and that's all there is to say. (We can't legally private sell without going to a dealer for the paperwork, either. "Free State", my arse...)
It's interesting that you mention hammers here. Didn't the FBI recently report that more people are killed with hammers than guns? I've had gun haters come back with the argument, "but guns were designed to KILL," as if that has any relevance at all. However, I'm pretty sure the war hammer predates modern carpentry, nails, and hammers as innocuous tools. So, hammers, as designed to kill, are still used in more killings than guns, which were invented centuries later. Maybe we should ban hammers then. Taken to the ludicrous extreme of, "you don't need a gun, just call the police," you might say, "you don't need a hammer. Just call a handyman. They're the only ones with the proper training."
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