Bill Clinton Warns Democrats Against Overreaching On Gun Debate
Bill Clinton has a warning for his fellow Democrats.
If there’s any Democrat in the United States who has experience in taking on America’s gun owners and the Second Amendment, it’s Bill Clinton. Mere weeks before the 1994 Presidential Election, the United States Congress passed, and Clinton signed, a controversial Assault Weapons Ban. Indeed, while the conventional wisdom continues to hold that the primary motivation behind the massive Republican victories in the 1994 Congressional Elections was due in large part to the President’s failed effort at health care reform, many political observers have contended for years that it was the Administration’s push on the Assault Weapons Ban, and the political backlash that it unleashed from the National Rifle Association and other groups, that played the most significant role in the tidal wave that handed control of both Houses of Congress to the Republican Party. Given that, it’s significant that President Clinton is now warning his fellow Democrats about overplaying their hand in the upcoming debate about gun control:
Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.
“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton said.
“Alot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said. “I know because I come from this world.”
Clinton dedicated a substantial portion of his 40-minute address before a joint meeting of the Obama National Finance Committee and a group of business leaders to the issue of guns and gun control, saying that it was a test-case for President Barack Obama’s grass-roots movements. (POLITICO was given a transferable ticket by an invited member of the committee.)
“The way the Obama campaign won Florida, won Ohio, won this election by more than projected was the combination of technology, social media and personal contact,” Clinton said. That’s “the only way that our side will ever be able to even up the votes in the midterms and as these issues come up, really touch people and talk to them about it.”
(…)
While some polls show that the public by-and-large supports several proposals for increased gun control, Clinton said that it’s not the public support that matters — it’s how strongly people feel about the issue.
“All these polls that you see saying the public is for us on all these issues — they are meaningless if they’re not voting issues,” Clinton said.
Clinton recalled Al Gore’s 2000 campaign against George W. Bush in Colorado, where a referendum designed to close the so-called gun show loophole shared the ballot with the presidential ticket. Gore publicly backed the proposal, while Bush opposed it.
Though the referendum passed with 70 percent of the vote, Gore lost the state. Clinton said that the reason was because a good chunk of the referendum’s opponents were single-issue voters who automatically rejected Gore as anti-gun.
And Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress.
“I’ve had many sleepless nights in the many years since,” Clinton said. One reason? “I never had any sessions with the House members who were vulnerable,” he explained — saying that he had assumed they already knew how to explain their vote for the ban to their constituents.
Clinton also recalled threatening to veto a bill as Arkansas governor that would have prevented the city of Little Rock from instituting an assault weapons ban.
Clinton said that an National Rifle Association lobbyist threatened him over his veto in the state house, saying that the group would cause problems for his upcoming presidential campaign in rural states like Texas.
“Right there in the lobby,” Clinton said. “They thought they could talk to governors that way.
“I knew I was getting older when I didn’t hit him,” Clinton said. Clinton recalls telling the NRA lobbyist, “If that’s the way you feel, you get your gun, I’ll get my gun and I’ll see you in Texas.”
But he said that he understands the culture that permeates a state like Arkansas — where guns are a longstanding part of local culture.
“A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing,” he told the Democratic financiers. “Or they’re living in a place where they don’t have much police presence. Or they’ve been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all.”
Clinton makes some very good points here that Democrats would be wise to listen to.
First of all, the horrible tragedy at Newtown notwithstanding, what some on the left now derisively call the “gun culture” is quite a big deal in many parts of this country. It’s considered a tradition handed down from father to son, and increasingly daughters as well, and it’s something that people consider an important part of their lives whether they are hunters, sport shooters, or simply people who wish to exercise their right to own a weapon to defend themselves. For this reason, it’s always struck me as odd and counterproductive that some of the most vehement supporters of gun control, including many of the people who have commented on the issue here in the comment threads at OTB, seem to have a particular degree of contempt for people who own guns and people who support the right to “keep and bear arms.” As a political matter, that strikes me as an odd way to approach things. Once you start attacking people instead of ideas, you’ve essentially guaranteed that whatever discussion will be had on an issue is going to be vitriolic on both sides, and that any kind of compromise will essentially impossible.
Secondly, Clinton injects a little bit of political reality into the post-Newtown gun control conversation. The “gun culture” of which many gun control activists so derisively speak isn’t just limited to the South. It’s a strong force in the Midwest, especially among hunters, and in the West. Indeed, even in California there are millions of people who own guns and who would resist any effort to take those guns away or restrict their rights under the Second Amendment. We live in a nation where there are nearly as many firearms in the open market as there are people. That suggests the very simply idea that draconian gun control laws are, for the most part, not going to succeed in taking significant action to restrict Second Amendment rights because of the legislative power that the so-called “gun lobby” can bring to bear. Results will vary from state to state, of course, but nationally it seems fairly clear to me that America’s gun owners and those of us, such as myself, who still support the right of American citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights, remain a force to be reckoned with. As Bill Clinton told his fellow Democrats, that’s something the advocates of further gun control ought to keep in mind.
Even Antonin Scalia says that the Second Amendment does not preclude reasonable regulation of guns
@al-Ameda:
And I don’t disagree with that. But there is a difference between “reasonable regulation” and ouright bans on ownership
I would love to see Doug’s examples of mainstream, elected Democrats proposing outright bans on gun ownership, in clear violation of the Constitution.
@Doug Mataconis:
Who is proposing that? And no, this is not snark about a typo. I want to know: who do you believe is proposing outright bans on gun ownership?
Just for the record, I expect to wait just as long as I have for Doug to address the fact that his post on a universal background check completely ignored the actual conclusions of the study he cited as basis for the entire post.
We are not talking about voters Dems can win over by going easy on gun-proliferation policy. I think Clinton somewhat mistakes his own winning coalition with the contemporary Dem one. Today’s Dem coalition doesn’t need the voters Clinton is talking about, and couldn’t get them anyway.
@Doug Mataconis:
I personally feel that the way to go in gun control is in the background check area – augment it, and extend the waiting period to get a check done.
On the other hand, I often wonder if there is ANY weapon that gun owners feel should not be sold to citizens?
@LC:
Andrew Cuomo
“Alot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said. “I know because I come from this world.”
——————————————————
There it is..
@LC:
http://youtu.be/ryUbJfg4tAo
https://www.facebook.com/SteveMcNY/posts/134119446748862
1. Confiscation of “assault weapons”
2. Confiscation o ten round clips
3. Statewide database for ALL Guns
4. Continue to allow pistol permit holder’s information to be replaced to the public
5. Label semiautomatic shotguns with more than 5 rounds or pistol grips as “assault weapons”
6. Limit the number of rounds in a magazine to 5 and confiscation and forfeiture of banned magazines
7. Limit possession to no more than two (2) magazines
8. Limit purchase of guns to one gun per person per month
9. Require re-licensing of all pistol permit owners
10. Require renewal of all pistol permits every five years
11. State issued pistol permits
12. Micro-stamping of all guns in New York State
13. Require licensing of all gun ammo dealers
14. Mandatory locking of guns at home
15. Fee for licensing, registering weapons
Doug wrote:
This is called a “straw man” argument. There was a time – back in the mid 90s – when some people would fall for these things. Today everyone knows it’s nothing more than a means of distraction from the impotence of one’s argument.
Do you mean the Governor who just signed gun legislation that did NOT take away anyone’s guns?
@Spartacus:
I didn’t say confiscation, I said ban.
@Jim Henley:
Excellent point.
@Doug Mataconis:
I’m sorry, I don’t know why I thought you meant confiscation when you wrote the following:
Nevertheless, Americans are already subject to a wide range of weapons bans. No one can own a fully automatic weapon. Californians (and I suppose citizens of some other states as well) cannot own assault weapons.
It really is great that you’ve written extensively on guns, but it seems the discussion would be enhanced if you were to tease out the pros and cons of the most widely considered legislative ideas.
Spartacus, your snarky remarky about Cuomo would almost work – almost – if there were a shred of evidence he would have vetoed a ban without grandfathering. So his new law doesn’t take anyone’s guns away. Neither did Clinton’s overreach in 1994, but fat a lot of good that did for the Congressmen it forced into early retirement. And that was before we even had a Second Amendment, or at least one in any danger of being enforced.
It’s true, the Democrats shouldn’t listen to Clinton. They should go whole hog for the guns. After all there are those polls.
One thing though, in a few weeks the Progs will be off rabbling over something else like saving the Pet Rock or protesting the US becoming a top petroleum producer. But in few weeks, months and in November of 2014, the gun owners and gun rights people will still be watching and voting against those who vote against the 2nd amendment or even to install creeping limitations. And it doesn’t have to happen in DC, gun owners are sympathetic to other owners who are being abused in the hostile states, such as NY.
Oh, and the number and types of people who are using guns these days is far greater than in 1994.
If you wonder about the impact. Well, many vendors including Cabela’s have pulled out of the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show because the company running it has banned the display or sell of the most popular rifle. The sporting goods companies know people in to shooting sports and hunting spend lots of cash and have very long memories.
Just so you know this is how wikipedia describes the show:
@Xrlq:
That’s true – a veto of such legislation would be stronger evidence, but Cuomo could have elected to veto the present legislation and say that it didn’t go far enough. He didn’t do that. It’s impossible to argue, as Doug seems to try, that there is a legitimate threat to the ownership or possession of guns by anyone anywhere in this country.
You could easily prove me wrong by pointing to a piece of legislation that would take someone’s guns away that has been passed by any legislative body anywhere in this country.
@LC: I would love to see Doug’s examples of mainstream, elected Democrats proposing outright bans on gun ownership, in clear violation of the Constitution.
In addition to The Honorable Mr. Cuomo, let’s also toss in those bastions of Democratic power: Chicago, New York, and DC. Chicago and DC’s bans went all the way to the Supreme Court before being struck down. And let’s also remember right after Katrina, when the NOLA police made their top priority confiscating guns. At the time, there was a Democratic mayor and governor (albeit incompetent and useless ones).
Given the relatively modest scope of the President’s proposals, we can say that he didn’t overreach. After all, the most controversial proposal is the possibility of banning weapons capable of firing 100 rounds into a crowd of people in 30 seconds. And that proposal, incredibly, will likely not pass because some people “need” to have such weapons.
As for giving such people respect, well, no, not really. I consider them spoiled children that put their convenience and their need to have unlimited access to their “man cards” over the good of society. But that’s just me.
Correction: a veto of such legislation – or a threat to veto such legislation if it passed – would be some evidence rather than none. That doesn’t mean prospective gun bans are not a legitimate threat to anyone’s gun ownership as you suggest. Chicago and DC’s outright handgun bans were prospective, too; that doesn’t mean they posed no threat to gun ownership in those cities.
Doug has to be a Redditor. This is about the 10th post of his the subject matter of which I saw on Reddit first.
@stonetools: After all, the most controversial proposal is the possibility of banning weapons capable of firing 100 rounds into a crowd of people in 30 seconds.
I’m no gun expert (I know a lot more than a lot of the commenters here, but that’s far more a statement about their ignorance than my knowledge), but just what currently-legal weapons fit that description?
@Jenos Idanian #13: You can get a 100-round drum magazine for the AR-15 for about $200.
It’s not hard to run the whole 100 rounds through in 30 seconds. Yeah, I know that’s three rounds a second. But it’s still not hard to do.
Utter crapola.
The gun cult begins from extremism: no regulation, no limits, no compromise, and anyone who disagrees is a jack-booted fascist thug.
But we’re supposed to mumble sotto voce. The same nonsense we heard about civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights and every other challenge to right wing stupidity. The right gets to shout and threaten and rage, and we’re supposed to whisper.
One more example, Doug, as if we didn’t already have dozens, of just how brain dead you are on this issue. No: we do not have to buy your predicates. No: we do not have to start from whatever lunatic extremist point you and your fellow cult-members dictate.
Guns in private hands are unnecessary. You’ve never offered a convincing argument to the contrary. So that’s the starting point. You and the other cultists have a weird quasi-sexual fetish that you’ve elevated into a cult. Your little toys are unnecessary and undeniably dangerous. You and your cult create threats to innocent people for no reason, none whatsoever, and get hysterical when we point out just how absurd you are.
Let me add this: We are not debating this as equals with you having some good points and us having some good points. What you have is vapor. You’ve got nothing. Not a single rational argument. Zero. Zip. I can crush your arguments without straining a synapse. We’ve had a month of the anti-gun crowd here intellectually humiliating you and the other cultists. You haven’t won a round. You haven’t even landed a punch.
What you have is the 2d amendment. That argues for your right. It doesn’t argue for your need, or for the advisability of your actions or position. You’re just a bunch of emotional, needy, insecure men desperately trying to convince yourself we’re still in some hunter-gatherer society. Jesus. If you had any self-awareness you’d be embarrassed for yourselves and the sad image you present of the male gender.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
An AR15 with a 100 round drum could do it. You might want to review this video of someone firing an AR 15. He is doing better than 100 rounds in 30 seconds in terms of rate of fire.
100 round drum here.
You’re welcome.
@Mikey: I thought the AR-15 might be the gun in question, but I was not familiar with the 100-round drum magazine. Thank you.
It still leaves the question, however, of just what good would this ban achieve? Rifles are rarely used in murders; handguns account for far, far more murders every year. Rifles are expensive, bulky, and clumsy compared to handguns, and that shows in the statistics.
I understand why AR-15s are so popular; it is closely related to the M-16/M-4, which have been the standard weapon of the US armed forces for over 40 years. In addition to the “cool factor,” it’s also the weapon that nearly all veterans are already familiar and comfortable with. That means that they tend to prefer it, and they prefer to recommend it to others and are more comfortable teaching others how to use it. Kind of like an automatic transmission in a car.
And I read something why semi-automatics are preferable to other types: it lets people practice shooting focus on actual marksmanship, instead of having to learn how to work a bolt. Also, larger-capacity magazines allow them to focus on learning to control the weapon without having to constantly reload. Again, like driving with an automatic; it’s one less element to have to pay attention to while you’re trying to be as safe as possible.
@michael reynolds:
Actually, they don’t even have that. Even Judge Scalia held in Heller that the government has a right to ban “dangerous and unusual weapons.” I’ve yet to see anyone argue convincingly that a semi-automatic assault rifle, or modern sporting rifle, or whatever isn’t ” dangerous and unusual” if fitted out with high capacity magazines.
@stonetools: That’s a very impressive video, but I think I caught a detail you overlooked — and it puts a bit of a hurting on your argument.
Count the number of shots he fires at a time, before he changes magazines:
10 shots.
He’s using 10-round magazines to get off 100 rounds in about 40 seconds. (There are some camera cuts, so it’s hard to be certain. Might be longer.) The very same 10-round magazines that would stay legal under Obama’s plans.
He’s also firing at the rate of “one round per finger pull.”
That guy shows some serious practice and dedication. I’m impressed. Thanks for the link.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Well, these weapons are apparently the favorites of mass killers. While that is the case, there will be pressure for the government to do something. Unless you think that we should just tolerate mass killers and slaughtered six year olds as just part of the price of liberty.
@stonetools: “dangerous and unusual weapons.”
I think I want to parse this a bit.
A weapon is inherently “dangerous.” If it wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t be a weapon. So it has to be both “dangerous” and “unusual.”
The AR-15 is extremely popular and common. “Common” is an antonym of “unusual,” so I’d say that AR-15 variants wouldn’t qualify.
On the other hand, an M41A Pulse Rifle would qualify as “unusual.” So would a Noisy Cricket or a Phased Plasma Gun or a DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol. Or a cannon, or a nuke.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
That guy is an expert. I’m worried about the mass killer with limited training.
Unless you are OK with making things as easy as possible for the mass killer.
@stonetools: Again, the fetishizing of objects — “if we just take away the tools bad people use, they’ll stop doing bad things.”
That worked so well with Prohibition of alcohol. It’s working so well with the prohibition of drugs. It worked wonders on abortion. It was awesome when we took away Hitler’s gas chambers and told him to not do that any more.
There’s a saying that “it’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools.” Well, this is just a variant on that theme.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Hey and your buddy Scalia can parse away. But clearly he’s thinking of some limits. My guess he’s probably not going be that interested in arguing the minutia of gun models and more interested in whether mass killers can use it to slaughter 26 people in 20 minutes.
I know true Second Amendment folks aren’t that interested in such matters, but the rest of us tend to be.
@stonetools: whether mass killers can use it to slaughter 26 people in 20 minutes.
That’s not that big a challenge. A home-made bomb. A revolver. A bolt-action rifle. A chainsaw. A sword. A car. A Molotov cocktail. A machete. A baseball bat. An airplane. All would do just fine.
The problem with rifles is, they’re clumsy in close quarters. They’re also heavier than handguns.Their advantages — accuracy at range and more penetrating power, just to name two — don’t really lend themselves to “mass slaughter.” “Penetration” isn’t really conducive to killing in general. It’s more effective to use a lower-powered round that will stay in the body and wreak havoc instead of just going through.
Gabrielle Giffords is a good example. She was relatively fortunate that her shooter used a high-powered round that went through her head. If he’d used a lower-powered gun, the bullet would have been more likely to NOT come out of her skull, but instead ricochet around in her brain, causing a hell of a lot more damage.
Sorry to be so graphic, but it’s true.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
They aren’t tools. They are weapons. You can’t build things or make things or grow things with them-they’re designed to kill living beings. If you are using them any other way, you’re using them wrong.
The 1934 Miller Act banned fully automatic weapons. That seems to have gone well.
I think its at least arguable that a semi-automatic assault rifle with a 100 round drum is in the same zone of lethality as the old Tommy gun.
Again, I’ve yet to see any gun rights advocate try to argue lethality.Essentially they concede that such a weapon is peculiarly lethal. They simply argue that, hey, its common and its fun to play with , so we should have an unlimited right to buy it, use it, and carry it around. And if its the favored weapon of mass killers, no big deal.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Adam Lanza found these weapons pretty easy to use. So did the Aurora theater killer. Mass killers sure seem to have no problems using them. They seem to prefer them , actually, to those other methods. Funny how reality kills a fanciful hypothetical.
Again, the courts will be looking at what mass killers actually do and how lethal the weapons actually are. Chatter about stopping power and what weapons mass killers COULD be using might work in Internet discussions: not in court.
I’m Curious, i wonder how many people who so strongly support the 2nd amendment are equally supportive of the other Amendments. Because that’s not the feeling I get.
How many 2nd Amendment defenders out there are ready to defend the 4th amendment just as strongly? Will 2nd Amendment defending gun owners argue that women have the right to abortions under the 4th Amendment? Like the Supreme Court says(Roe v. Wade). Without any restrictions?
America is not “ala carte”. It’s the Special. You get the whole plate, even if you don’t want to eat all that is on it. You accept it because that is what American’s do. Americans accept the freedoms of others to ensure freedom for themselves.
I am not a gun owner. Never have been. Guns in the family, didn’t interest me. But. I’m able to understand and accept the 2nd amendment. I think guns are evil and only meant to kill. I might not agree with the gun culture, I might think it is archaic and just another remnant of our slavery past (look it up for some illumination), but I accept it for what it is.
So, unless you are willing to stand up for the rights of everyone, on all the Amendments, you are a hypocrite and a fool and deserve all the scorn that is piled upon you.
@Cal American: Cal, you know that for some of the people of which you speak, the Bill of Rights contains only two amendments – the Second and the Tenth.
@Jim Henley: Last time I voted Republican was in the 90s. The stupidity of the AWB was a driving factor in those votes as at the time the Republican party was still fairly sane.
@stonetools: Anyone gun capable of firing 100 rounds in 30 seconds with anything resembling at least a small degree of accuracy is already banned or heavily restricted.
@michael reynolds:
Oh for god’s sake this again.. Dude I alone have presented paragraphs worth of reason as to why people would need guns in this country. At this point you’re being extremely deceitful and completely dishonest when it comes to this subject. It’s clear that you can’t get beyond pure emotion when it comes to this subject. I expect better from you.
@stonetools: First off I have to start with saying how impressed I am with this guy’s rate of fire. I don’t know a single AR owner in this area that can produce such a rate of fire (military personal). So bravo to that dude for being willing to commit to the excessive amount of training and practice required to achieve that. I can’t help but wonder how much he spends on ammo since he goes through thousands of rounds every couple weeks.
I think even you a non gun person can agree that this fellow is spending a large amount of his personal time training (every weekend and about 500-1000 rounds). He’s using .223 ammo which has a very gentle kick (some compare it to the .22LR kick in intensity). Despite him using small ammo, having obsessively trained and being only 25 yards from a stationary man sized target he’s still missing quite a bit. Now if you find him hitting moving man sized targets at various ranges while doing that I’d be completely amazed.
All that being said there is absolutely no way that everyone can do that rate of fire with his gun. I couldn’t even shoot his style of gun that fast and I’ve been shooting guns since I was a wee kid. I also know that if he tried to do that with my saiga he’d be shooting at the birds (7.62×39 makes it almost impossible).
Here’s a fellow shooting his new bolt action for the first time while aiming at a target at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC3zsPOIYag
Mossin nagants are notorious for having terrible actions and a sticky bolt. Inspite of the 90 degree bolt action they still manage to be accurate and fairly fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t7z6a9hA4M
Either of those guns fires a round that is in a class far beyond the .223 in lethality and effective range. Will those be next on your list of to be banned?
That’s about the same rate of fire as what I can get out of most “assault weapons” while being accurate. The semi-automatic AK is actually only rated at 40 rounds per minute which actually means it’s slower then the above bolt action.
So I guess in the end all “assault weapons” aren’t the same and operating training can make a tremendous difference.
@Jenos Idanian #13: Most of the popularity of AR-15s seem to stem from their “lego ability”. Meaning you can fire a very wide variety of round sizes and types with the AR platform. All you need is a good lower receiver (the only part that counts as the gun) and you can then buy whatever uppers you wish to use from .22 to .50 cal in size. They are reliable and overall fairly cheap considering.
BTW there are some camera cuts because of malfunctions of the weapon.
From the looks of it his AR has a short barrel which means he’s had some licensing done. That fits in with his obsessive level of practice. In my experience the shorter barrel ARs have a further reduced kick but are of course heavily regulated.
@michael reynolds:
I have the right to protect myself and my family with the most effective means legal and available.
I’m not some paranoid, sitting in fear of the next knock at the door. I understand the chances I will ever have to use the one little gun I own are very small. But the same is true of my house burning down, and I still have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and smoke detectors in the hallways.
I don’t buy the “we have them to prevent tyranny” nonsense. I don’t think the Canadians are going to invade anytime soon. I don’t carry concealed, and don’t plan to. But in my home, I have the right to defend myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-barreled_rifle
@Cal American: I fully support the rest of the amendments too. I believe the patriot act was an abomination that never should of been passed. I believe requiring warrants and other checks is integral to the founding of this nation. I’m also very pro-choice but I don’t believe I have a role outside of providing my opinion in a situation where I’m involved. Other then that I find abortion to be between the woman the man and their god. I knew a woman who had to carry to full term her dead baby because no doctor would risk breaking the laws in relation to late term abortions..
I believe that gays should be given the right to marriage. Actually I would prefer the government get out of the marriage business completely and stick to civil unions for all. Let people get married in church if they want after or before registering a civil union with the government.
I’m pro legalization of pot (with heavy taxes) and I would be willing to hear arguments on legalizing or decriminalizing all drugs. Some countries have gone with a general legalization or at least decriminalization and those same countries have seen a decline in drug use and addiction. The war on drugs is destroying communities and causing a horrendous death toll. The private prison industry is a problem too..
I believe we need to work to restore the fourth amendment as the government has gotten way overboard with illegal spying. I also believe that local law enforcement should be more respectful of the fourth amendment rights of individuals.
I believe it’s bullshit that women are STILL being paid less on average then men. We should of gotten past that crap decades ago.
I think it’s bullcrap that we work longer and sometimes harder in this country then other countries yet we can’t even have a public option. I believe more vacation time and maternal leave options would strengthen families and increase overall productivity.
@Jim Henley:
Great point. Remember, back in 1996, the last year Clinton ran, he won Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri and Arizona, all very pro-gun states which are solidly in the Republican column at present.
(And doesn’t the fact that those states went Democratic less than 20 years ago make you think how quickly things which seem like immutable facts of life at one moment can actually change?)
@Doug Mataconis:
No, you said confiscation. The exact wording you used was “take those guns away.” Perhaps you have some other meaning of that phrase with which we’re not aware?
@Jenos Idanian #13:
When we send soldiers, sailors and Marines into battle, do we equip them with assault rifles or with home-made bombs, revolvers, bolt-action rifles, chainsaws, swords, cars, Molotov cocktails, machetes, baseball bat, or airplanes?
If they all would do just as fine as assault rifles, why does our military seems to have this bizarre fixation on the former? We could probably equip our troops a lot cheaper with machetes, and those don’t ever have to be reloaded….
@Rafer Janders: We actually equip them with a wide variety of weapons including bolt action rifles, bayonets (machetes), airplanes and a variety of cars..
@Rafer Janders:
Well, doug is in a profession where careful choice of words is unimport… oh, wait
Must not be goaded into sneering, I very much agree.
When Biden spoke at the Convention of Mayors a couple days ago, he backed off the AR banning. Spoke of it as just another rifle (which it is) and banning it would do little if any good, but the magazine capacity should be restricted. He will be the point man for the administration on this, so it appears they “get it”, and Obama has given him room to deal.
Taking advantage of an opportunity to knock the NRA back a notch I believe is being silently applauded by many Republicans. There has been, I’m told, a silent resentment building to their heavy-handedness. It rubs people the wrong way when they are threatened to do something they might have done anyway if asked.
Strident advocacy certainly has a place, but the user must be skilled enough to know when to back off, which is before credibility is lost. In the hands of people who have fallen into the trap of believing their own BS, it can be more dangerous for the user than it is to the target. The NRA needs new management.
@Xrlq:
So let me make sure I follow your “thinking” here. As a rebuttal to my claim that there’s no legitimate threat to gun ownership or possession anywhere in the country, you offer the two cases where the United States Supreme Court affirmed everyone’s 2nd Amendment right to bear arms?
Brilliant.
@Dazedandconfused: The NRA definitely could use some new management..
Like it or not, “gun control” in 2013 is a different beast than it was in the past. The 2nd Amendment is in no danger of being repealed, blocked, chiseled at, or otherwise diminished.
It just means that the mentally ill, negligent, and criminally inclined may find it more difficult to get their hands on a weapon. Your objection is noted.
@Mikey:
I’m not being facetious, I’m actually curious: where do you find this right? I don’t see it in the Constitution. I think you may be assuming rights not in evidence. And of course, my definition of protecting my family would involve not having a society saturated with guns.
@michael reynolds: Are you asserting individuals do not have the right to protect themselves if it’s not specifically spelled out in the Constitution? I find that position rather incredible. I have the right because I’m a human being, it does not need to be spelled out in a document, and I’m pretty sure every human society has recognized the basic right to defend one’s own life.
I would much prefer a society not saturated with guns, but we’re already at that dance, and we have to dance with the one what brung us.
Let me try to repost this again.
In New Mexico a 15 year old teenager killed five members of his family with an AR 15 semi automatic assault rifle tonight . This is a fitting coda to Gun Appreciation Day yesterday, where 30 people were killed and 47 injured by guns in incidents around the country.
Maybe we do need to do some. “overreaching”.
@michael reynolds:
Ah, you are unfamiliar with the Constitution and the 10th amendment.
You may also want to read up on natural rights, those that are God-given or, if you prefer, belong to humans as a matter of existence.
Or just google Heller natural right, you find plenty of detailed discussion on the blawgs regarding the right to self defense.
You might want to read Heller, the Justices explain the natural right to self defense in their opinions.
In any case, if you have no right to self defense, then you have no rights at all.
That’s actually a pretty normal weekend for Chicago. You know, where guns are tightly controlled.
Plus, how many of those who killed or injured with guns were convicted felons, prohibited from gun or ammunition possession by law already?
Does that statistic include those killed or wounded in lawful police action?
@Stonetools: 2750 people died in car accidents yesterday.. Probably someone drowned or died falling off a ladder too.
Look this story falls under what I’ve been telling you about guns. Most murder victims were family or friends with their murderer. If you don’t want to risk your kid shooting you then either you practice safe gun control at home or you don’t have a gun in the first place.
@matt:
Dude, stop. Don’t make me quote Kanye.
PS to you and everyone else peddling the “self-defense” canard: Murder is not “self-defense.”
It’s noteworthy that Republicans, so hung up on the “natural right” to self-defense, work actively to deny gays and lesbians the right to be married to whom they choose, and to deny women the right to control their own bodies.
@Mikey:
No, I am asking why you believe you have that right. Are you generally of the opinion that we have unenumerated rights, for example the right to privacy? I am. But I don’t really know where I believe those rights came from.
No, we don’t. We can change society.
My definition of “protecting my family” demands disarming people. If you have a right to protect your family then I have the same. And my version is clearly more logical. Maybe not do-able, but self-evidently more logical. If no one has guns then there is zero chance one of my kids will be killed by a playmate grabbing their father’s gun, right? And there’s something just creepy about arguing that we need guns because we arm criminals. The obvious response to that is to suggest that we stop arming criminals, not that we engage in an arms race with criminals.
This is what I mean by not accepting the gun cult’s predicates. (Not that I’m putting you in that group.) I don’t accept that people should own guns. I think they should not. I think they are committing a dangerous anti-social act.
@JKB:
I appreciate your spirited defense of the right of privacy that ensures a woman’s right to choose, and the right of any two people to marry.
That is what you were talking about, right?
1) Americans have a legal right to own guns.
2) Those rights are subject to definition and regulation.
3) As is any “natural” right to self-defense.
4) My definition of “self-defense” is this: I’d like you people to stop saturating my society with guns. Because your frankly bizarre ideas on self-defense are a danger to my family. And you don’t have a right to “protect” your family by endangering mine.
@michael reynolds:
Indeed you are correct. Instead you would just have to worry about everything else that could kill your son including the things that currently stand a much higher chance of killing him.
So I’m curious as to how you would make every gun disappear.
@matt:
.
I do. All parents do. Do you have kids? Do you insist they buckle their seatbelts?
I don’t recall saying that I thought I could. But I’m an optimist. I don’t think stupidity is incurable. I like to think society will mature, men will get over their sad little penis fixations and begin to behave rationally.
@michael reynolds: I’m guessing by penis fixation you mean the stupid things like that man card stuff?
Have you completely missed all my anecdotal stories about having to use guns on the farm?
How about my story involving Canada some cars some people a picnic and a bear being shot?
BTW they are finally acknowledging that mountain lions are showing up in Illinois. Apparently there was one in Chicago not too long ago.
@matt:
See…this is what you don’t get.
Just because someone needs to use a gun on a farm or protect themselves from a mountain lion, doesn’t mean that these idiots need easy access to guns.
listen to your former prez, he’s just trying to explain to you that obama can’t do anything about it aside from maybe enforcing current laws, there’s the “gun culture” that lives within the law and the “illegal gun culture” that doesn’t. for some reason you folks think you should go after the former as it’s too hard to go after the latter? brilliant.
even “anonymous” is chastising obama about this idiocy, and they’re not known to champion conservative causes.
As a moderate I see a country with a fair degree of gun culture. Few are as absolutist than Doug Mataconis or Michael Reynolds. I mean, they can argue all day, and the result will still end up somewhere between them. We’ll get some more gun regulations, which is more than Dough wants, and less that Michael dreams.
I say that really knowing that the end result is likely to be more AR-15 friendly that I’d really prefer.
Seems to me Obama & Co. are quite concious of the danger of overreach. We’ll see what the end result is, but I have to assume the full package of proposals is an opening offer from which they will negotiate. And I think Obama has finally learned not to make pre-emptive concessions in negotiations. If that is so, then they’ll be prepared to drop some of it. We’ll see.
Our former Prez, right? Our.
Factoids:
America has 28 million self-described hunters.
America has 7 million self-described vegetarians.
So that’s a tilt.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
I was inspired by the D-Day invasion – seeing those guys storm those beaches at Normandy armed the best chain saw technology of the day was awe inspiring.
@matt:
I’m not sure why you’re citing this, as this actually lends weight to the fact that guns actually increase risk to gun-owners. If most people are shot by their family or friends, the simplest way to protect everyone is to get guns out of people’s homes. They’re not that often needed for protection against attack by a random stranger, but are far more likely to be used in the heat of a personal argument.
@matt:
Nonsense. Illinois doesn’t have any mountains.
As a gun owner I favor reasonable gun safety legislation. Then I see the NY proposal that includes confiscation. Exactly how do you do that? Then I’m reminded of Waco Texas where 20 children died over a squabble over illegal gun parts, a mess that has never been explained adequately. I’m reminded of militarized police officers pepper spraying the faces of young unarmed girls because they ‘might’ be a threat to order. I’m reminded of Rodney King. I’m reminded of a country that invaded a sovereign nation and started a ruinous murderous war over a lie that they ‘might’ have illegal weapon parts. I’m reminded of a poster of Emiliano Zapata holding a rifle I had on my wall as a teen that said “It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” And another poster on my college dorm wall of Mao stating “political power derives from the barrel of a gun.” As a strong leftie I’ve always been ambivalent about gun control. To me firearms have always been seen in a political context. Bambi hunting is irrelevant.
Like “collateral damage”, “Overreach” is a comforting word to hide a grimmer meaning. Words like tyranny and police state. The Republicans have it too with voter ID and emergency management laws. But Dems should admit they have undemocratic Robespierres among their numbers. Authoritarian Jacobins who would cheerfully behead their fellow citizens to get to their gunless utopia.
@Zo0tie:
Personally, I just say “NY is a small kingdom, far, far, away.”
Where do you live? Close enough to feel it’s affecting you?
@john personna:
To be clear, I’m not calling for regulation. I’m calling for a change of heart. I’m calling for maturity. I’m saying that people may have the right, but that exercising it is wrong.
@michael reynolds:
You are claiming moral authority, just like your mirror image.
You know, the reason I cite the hunting and vegetarian numbers is that if you are going to dive into the ethics, you have to come out endorsing one or the other.
The make believe that supermarket meat is without suffering, or that battery chickens have better lives than field-shot ducks, is avoidance more than reason.
(Similarly, that running cattle is good, shooting hogs or deer on the same land is bad.)
@michael reynolds:
I am, yes.
America’s founders recognized an inalienable right to one’s own life, and while the phrase does not appear in the Constitution, I think it is reasonable to assume they had it in mind when writing the Bill of Rights.
The right to defend one’s own life derives from the right to have it in the first place, and to do what is necessary to maintain it. One’s choice when thrust into a situation in which someone else threatens one’s life is entirely binary: defend to the extent possible, or passively accept death.
Of course, of course. My statement about the dance was specifically intended for the context of my choice in defending my family, not meant to assert that things will be this way forever.
I can’t really argue with any of that, but at the same time, I don’t think it is possible, at least in the short term, to eliminate the sheer number of guns in America. If there’s a way, it’s probably the “hearts and minds campaign” you’ve talked about, slowly whittling them down. But at the same time, if you put it out there as “gun owners are anti-social creeps,” you risk a backfire effect–people will take that as an insult and reinforce their existing position rather than being open to the possibility of change.
I’m sure there are many who would agree with you, but at the same time there are a lot of people for whom “gun culture” is a means of social bonding, and it’s them you’d have to convince.
@Spartacus:
On the subject of “gun bans”: Some recent gun legislation does confiscate accessories needed for certain guns to be operational, rendering certain guns useless paperweights.
According to John Rosenberg in National Review, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent gun legislation did effectively ban the use of certain popular handguns commonly purchased for self-defense — 9 mm and .40 caliber semi-automatic pistols — turning them into useless “paperweights” by confiscating the only available magazines compatible with them.
I should note that I am not an expert on guns (I don’t own a gun, and instinctively dislike them).
The New York gun legislation also contained hastily-drafted provisions that may backfire against school safety and the police, according to the New York Post and Allahpundit at Hot Air. (The legislation was enacted so quickly that most rank-and-file legislators probably did not even read it before voting on it).
@Hans Bader:
Surely a dealer network is already setting up to transfer any guns made illegal(?) from NY to any number of gun friendlier states.
For what it’s worth, the list of NY banned handguns is here (pdf). A very short list, and not what I’d call typical or traditional handguns.
NY’s list of “good” handguns is much, much, longer (pdf).
@Mikey:
I’m not meaning to pick on you but there’s no way a founder accepting capital punishment would recognize an inalienable right to life without head asplosions. The group was lousy with lawyers who knew how to draft clauses such as “congress shall make no laws” but left the one that said “congress shall make no laws infringing the right to life”.
@Mikey:
Maybe, yes, but sometimes you also have to stake out a position, offense be damned. Back in the Fifties and Sixties, there were many who counseled the black civil rights movement to go slow. “Don’t put it out there that segregationists are anti-social creeps, or it will backfire, and they’ll feel insulted and reinforce their existing bigotry.” And to some extent it did, but it still had to be done, the rest of the country had to be shown that the South was indeed run by bigoted creeps.
Some people will be persuaded by reasoned dialogue. And some, sadly, will be persuaded by insult and shame. Did all of the Southerners eventually drop their support for Jim Crow because they came to reason? No, many of them changed only because it became socially unacceptable to be an outspoken racist in American society.
@john personna:
Close is a relative term.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
@Rafer Janders:
A vegan might make the same argument, that “meat is murder” will win the day … any day now.
@Zo0tie:
So they took the Ingram M-11 and let you keep the Beretta M9?
Oh, the humanity.
Seriously, that NY ban is minor. It has plenty of options for gun owners and would-be gun owners. It is not at all “they came for the guns.”
… and of course it’s a regional decision. States’ rights.
@rudderpedals: They accepted an inalienable right to liberty while simultaneously practicing slavery.
The imperfect implementation of a principle does not invalidate the principle.
“head asplosions” LOL…one of my favorite internet-isms.
@Zo0tie:
Oh for chrissakes. The plight of the persecuted gun owner in America. Why oh why can’t we see that this is the first step on the road to fascist extermination camps?!
[note that this doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with the new NY law]
@Rafer Janders: Understood, sometimes we have to do what’s necessary, even if people get upset. I’m not dismissing that method as invalid.
I’m just saying that you’d have a much better chance of finding out who’s most open to the possibility of change if you avoid going adversarial at step one.
And you want to find them, because if you change their minds, you have an in with their more-skeptical friends.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
It takes both kinds, IMO. You need your fiery radicals and your squishy moderates.
@Mikey: I think you’re right to look to the liberty provision but it’s not as bulletproof as it needs to be to protect an inalienable right. Offer up enough of whatever process is due and poof – your liberty is gone.
@Mikey:
Is this really step one? We’ve been having this fight for decades by now. I think we have a pretty good idea of who’s open to change and who isn’t.
@Hans Bader:
@Rafer Janders: I’m not so sure, because people’s openness to change is not constant.
Only a few years ago I had an absolutist libertarian position on gun rights, but that’s certainly not true today. And a big part of that has happened very recently, because I came into these discussions much more open to the possibility an absolutist position wasn’t valid.
Also, for a lot of people–especially younger people who have grown up in the “gun culture”–it IS step one, because they probably haven’t heard any different their whole lives.
@rudderpedals: Well, that’s part of the framework necessary to live in civil society. In a state of nature, you only have “natural” rights and they aren’t circumscribed by any sort of social contract. And you’re basically subject to the “law” of the strongest. When you live within society, you accept that there are penalties that can be imposed, including forfeit of liberty, for violating the rights of others, but those penalties are only imposed after the application of due process.
Even a positivist view of rights acknowledges the right to self-defense.
@Stonetools: In New Mexico a 15 year old teenager killed five members of his family with an AR 15 semi automatic assault rifle tonight . This is a fitting coda to Gun Appreciation Day yesterday, where 30 people were killed and 47 injured by guns in incidents around the country.
Maybe we do need to do some. “overreaching”.
In other news, a 12-year-old girl also managed to get her hands on a firearm… and this happened.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb): Where have I advocated such a thing?
@Rafer Janders: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/08/02/mountain-lions-creeping-closer-to-chicago/
@Jenos Idanian Who Has No Pony Tail:
This begs the question: Why didn’t she use a steak knife, chain saw, or molotov cocktail?
@Rafer Janders: Rafer, the issue was “kill 26 people in 20 minutes.”
Which, since you’re nowhere near as stupid as wr is, you knew and chose to ignore.
@al-Ameda: Because of Samuel Colt, sir.
“God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal.”
I have to say, I have more trust in that girl having a gun than michael reynolds or most of the regular commentariat here having one…
@michael reynolds:
So, Mr. Reynolds based on your own statements, you espouse attacking people which is necessarily violent (whether verbal or physical), you state that there is no reason for any individual to own a firearm, and you haven’t provided one logical reason why individuals can’t responsibly own firearms.
Let’s start deconstructing your selfish, childish ideas about how violence works with evidence, even though I’m certain that logic, facts, and reason aren’t things you are at all concerned with.
FACT – Homicides of all kinds, to include homicides committed with firearms, have decreased for 20 years in a row.
FACT – Last year the FBI reported that more than 5 times as many people were killed with hammers, clubs, and baseball bats as rifles of any kind, to include the “fearsome” assault weapons.
FACT – All mass murders occur in “gun free” zones. There is not one example you can point to where more than 5 people were killed in any area where law abiding private citizens were permitted to carry a concealed firearm.
FACT – In the one county in the US where every home is required to have a functioning firearm and ammunition for the firearm by law, there have been just 4 firearm homicides and no mass murder events.
FACT – The government has not stopped a single mass murder incident “in-progress”. The government, of this country or any other, is impotent to “protect” any one individual. If you want to live, you’d better be willing to defend your own right to live. The fact that there are so many people who have lined up to defend you (police and military) should not be construed as any evidence as to the effectiveness of their attempt to do so. They will inevitably fail because they can’t be everywhere.
FACT – Gun Control proponents like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and others all went on to commit mass murder and inhibited other liberties that you enjoy like the freedom to disparage people you don’t agree with.
Now, on to my opinions.
If there was any group of people who benefited from the right to own a firearm, it would be minorities, gays and lesbians, and women. The idea of banning firearms for private citizens is inherently racist, sexist, and bigoted.
Unless you’re going to argue that a 5 foot tall 100 pound woman can easily physically overpower a 6 foot tall 200 pound rapist with her bare hands, then she would best be served by using a firearm for her own defense of her right to live. I can give a Glock 19 with a “high capacity” 15 round magazine to a woman and perhaps 20 hours of instruction in its use and she will be more able to defend herself against a heavier, stronger, faster adversary than she will with 3 years of continuous hand to hand combat training. I know this because I have taught women hand-to-hand combat and I have also taught them how to use firearms. I have yet to meet a 5 foot tall woman who is stronger and faster than I am, so I choose to teach them about firearms.
I don’t hunt, I don’t believe in the notion of any god or other mythical sky wizard, I could care less what our constitution says about the “right” of the people to defend their right to live, and I have no preconceived notions about what real street violence is like as I’ve had more than a few Mexican gang members teach “personalized” lessons to me while simply walking down the street in my own neighborhood. I don’t own a firearm for my ego, I own a firearm because I’m smart enough to realize that, from experience, it’s a little difficult to defend yourself with your hands if you’re attacked by three or four young men who don’t give a damn about whether you live or die.
Perhaps you’re not smart enough to realize that you stand a better chance against a group of gang members armed with a Glock 19 than you do without one, but I’m still here and I couldn’t care less if that upsets people like you. Perhaps you’re so smart that you’ve never run into anyone who wanted to do violence against you. I sincerely hope your luck holds out and you never have to meet someone who wants to hurt you. Perhaps I’m not smart enough to realize that I shouldn’t be permitted to walk down the street unmolested in my own neighborhood.
You can continue make all the crude insults, sex references, and insecurity references that you want to. It shows the character, or lack thereof, of people who want to take firearms away from people who use firearms to defend themselves. I’m a father of three children that I would very much like to continue to live free and without fear of criminals. I choose to defend them with firearms because of the effectiveness of firearms for killing people who would do them harm. As a parent, I don’t have the luxury of acting as if I’m better than anyone else because I choose to let other people kill criminals on my behalf.
If you can provide one logical argument why I should not be permitted to kill criminals with a firearm in defense of myself or my children, then I’d love to hear that argument.
@john personna:
No, I don’t. I eat meat. I’m pleased when it is done humanely, but I have no “moral” problem with hunting. Kill animals to your heart’s content. If someone wants to hunt with a bow or a spear, I say go to it.
My issue is with private ownership of guns. I think it presents a public health hazard. And it’s a health hazard people cling to for reasons they cannot articulate in any rational way.
@michael reynolds:
Isn’t that the same argument that social conservatives use against abortion? (It’s also the reason why Alexander Hamilton argued against having a Bill of Rights in general.)
Edit: I’m a filthy skimmer. I see this gets addressed further down the thread.
@Brian Keating:
Good grief. Here we go again.
True. Not relevant.
Cherry-picked stat. You use all firearms when it suits you then shift to assault weapons to manipulate data. I don’t have a problem with assault weapons. I have a problem with all guns. Furether, we have legitimate uses for hammers, and no legitimate need for private ownership of guns.
Irrelevant. So-called gun free zones are a silly symbolic gesture of no value in a society saturated with guns.
Again, dumb cherry-picked stat. No relevance.
Just asinine. Above you say we have fewer murders, no you say we can’t be safe. The rate of gun ownership (though not the number of guns) has been dropping, which would seem on its face to suggest that fewer people with guns makes us safer. If you were correct that we have to defend ourselves, then lower gun possession rates would mean a rising murder rate.
Hitler loosened gun laws, he did not tighten the. Weimar had more restrictive gun control laws. This is a-historical paranoid drivel.
So, that’s let’s see, all your “facts” blown apart in about five minutes.
As for your opinions, you are a perfect example of the paranoid, juvenile, hero-fantasist. Fortunately society is outgrowing people like you.
@Rob in CT:
Who needs an extermination camp? Just attack them with an armored swat team over some gun infraction while throwing a search warrant at them as you break down their door. And if they resist the ‘shock and awe’ just shoot them or burn them alive in their homes. Then delete the evidence and claim they were violent lunatics. Easy.
@Jenos Idanian Who Has No Pony Tail:
“While I now own more guns than the 82nd Airborne, my first gun is still the most important gun I’ve ever owned.” Ted Nugent, Professional Nutbag and has-been rock star
@michael reynolds:
Additionally, I’d really like to know how ownership of an inanimate object is a danger to your family or your children, anymore than say ownership of a car is a danger to you or your family.
Cars do kill more people than guns do, so why is there no outcry for the banning of cars?
You don’t really “need” a car, you can walk or use a bicycle. If you can’t walk, someone else can carry you.
As I’ve never personally killed or injured anyone with a car or weapon of any kind except for my hands and feet, why can you not trust me to carry a firearm and use force only when necessary? I drive a car every day. That’s far more dangerous than carrying the firearm, at least where I live. Why are the police and military more trustworthy? I spent six years in the military, but I don’t think having a uniform on makes anyone any more trustworthy or honorable.
Incidentally, I did have a “change of heart” with respect to carrying a firearm as you suggested. My “change of heart”, multiple attacks later, on the matter occurred when two Mexican gang members smashed me over the back of my head and left me bleeding on the sidewalk and ran off laughing about it. They didn’t bother to take anything, they didn’t kill me to put me out of my misery, and they didn’t say anything to me – they just wanted to watch me suffer for kicks. Apparently it was “funny” to just come up behind someone and knock the crap out of them while they were walking home from the bus stop.
That’s the “civilized society” that I live in. I’m not sure what fantasy world you live in where hoping for the best gets you by.
@Brian Keating:
Heh, almost every one of the “FACTS” is not a fact, but an NRA gun nut talking point.
I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of unarmed men and women living, unafraid, in those same neighborhoods among those same gang members. They go about their lives without bombast , without fuss, and without Glocks. Those to me are the heroes . You seem to be kind of a dick, protesting too much about your “courage” in going out in your neighborhood only if you have a gun.
Every single day there are millions of parents who safely and successfully raise their kids without guns and without those kids coming to any harm. Plenty of those parents lived in tough neighborhoods.Compared to them, you come across as something of a wuss. My parents raised four kids without guns, and we rarely, if ever, feared for our safety. It wasn’t a miracle either. It was standard in my neighborhood.
Guess what, NO ONE opposes your right to defend your home with a firearm, Mr. Destroyer of Straw Men. The argument is about what firearms you carry in the public and how you use them there. I don’t care what you do with a gun in your house. I do care what you do with a gun anywhere near ME.
@Brian Keating:
Every pro-gun argument you make works equally well for land mines. You can protect the hell out of your property with land mines. And they’d be much more effective at stopping the squad of UN troops you fantasize about fighting.
So, are you arguing for private ownership of land mines? And thus insane?
Or do you confine your self-defense paranoia to only one class of weapon? In which case you’re just an intellectual captive of tradition.
@Brian Keating:
Every pro-gun argument you make works equally well for land m!nes. You can protect the hell out of your property with land mines. And they’d be much more effective at stopping the squad of UN troops you fantasize about fighting.
So, are you arguing for private ownership of mines? And thus insane?
Or do you confine your self-defense paranoia to only one class of weapon? In which case you’re just an intellectual captive of tradition.
This is one of the dumber arguments out there. We regulate the sh*t out of cars for this very reason.
Interesting: moderation put me in the queue for using the proper spelling of land m!nes. When I altered spelling, it went through.
So, here’s my challenge for all the gun lovers, avoiding the offending phrase: why not dynamite? What’s the essential difference between handgun or rifle and dynamite? And don’t say you can’t hunt with dynamite: sure you can. You can defend your property with dynamite. You can explode skeet with dynamite.
So, ‘splain it to me: why are guns okay and not dynamite?
@Mikey: “America’s founders recognized an inalienable right to one’s own life, and while the phrase does not appear in the Constitution, I think it is reasonable to assume they had it in mind when writing the Bill of Rights.”
Hogwash. The founders specifically did not recognize an inalienable right to one’s own life. In fact, they specifically recognized that one’s own life could be the property of another person, who could sell it or end it at will. They declared that human beings could be bought and sold as slaves.
Maybe you should read the constitution, instead of inventing fantasy superhero founders who think exactly like you do.
@Brian Keating:
Well, if your argument is that guns should be regulated like cars, I agree with you. Let’s have universal registration of guns.
Let every gun owner be required to have liability insurance.
Let every one who carries a gun in public be licensed, including having to pass an operational test that shows that he knows how to maintain and use a gun safely and responsibly.
Let there be differential licensing, with stricter requirements for those who carry and use more dangerous firearms, just as those who drive semi-trailers have to have a different license from car owners.
Let the gun industry be subject to the same liability laws as any other industry, instead of having special immunity, thanks to the gun lobby.
Let government agencies have the same right to conduct safety studies on guns as it does on any other industry, rather than being censored.
In the same way you don’t need a car to travel, you don’t need a gun to defend yourselves, so there shouldn’t be a problem.
@michael reynolds:
If firearms homicides decreasing with an increasing number of firearms in society, then I guess no statistic is relevant.
I “cherry picked” the stat about rifles/shotguns and blunt objects because those are the weapons that Obama wants banned. Why not go after handguns? Handguns are responsible for many more homicides every year and there’s no talk about banning handguns? Why is that? Why not ban the firearms responsible for the most civilian deaths?
The “gun free” zones are entirely relevant to the problem of mass shootings. The mass shootings only occur in “gun free” zones. Why are there no mass shootings at NRA conventions? Is it because every body is armed there? Nah, can’t be. That’s crazy!
It must be equally crazy and irrelevant that the only place where firearms are mandated by law in the US has not had any mass shootings and a 40% drop in violent crime of all kinds. Since it doesn’t support your anti-logic, it must be crazy and irrelevant.
I’m not suggesting that we are “safe” or “unsafe”. Safety is a fictional notion, like god. I am suggesting that since the police and military are not omnipotent, the best way to defend yourself against violent crime is to resist it with violence.
Hitler did no such thing and you are either misinformed or a liar. The very first thing the Nazis did in their rise to power was to confiscate civilian-owned firearms. You don’t read much or perhaps your reading comprehension skills are lacking.
Society lives and dies by the teenagers who stand up in front of machine guns so cowards like you can survive in the fantasy land that people like me have created for you to exist in.
@wr: Maybe you should pay attention to what I write. I specifically noted the Founders’ conflict re: slavery. I understand quite well how abominably and awfully hypocritical they were, writing that statement into the Declaration while still owning slaves.
And again, imperfect implementation of a principle does not invalidate the principle.
@Rob in CT:
So you’re admitting that the regulations for motor vehicles aren’t helping to control the motor vehicle related fatalities and yet somehow guns, which cause fewer fatalities with far fewer regulations and restrictions are more of a problem than motor vehicles are and should therefore be banned. That’s spectacularly fallacious logic and you’re calling me stupid.
@Brian Keating:
There has been at least one mass shooting on a military base.
You can’t carry guns into NRA conventions
None of the places where mass shootings have happened are designated as “gun free zones” , with the exception of schools. Malls, theaters, and places of worship aren’t “gun free zones”. Also too,
@michael reynolds:
Mr. Reynolds, since you can’t hold a landmine or a stick of dynamite in your hands and kill an attacker with it without killing yourself or quite a few other people, that more or less demonstrates that it isn’t particularly well-suited to defending yourself with it.
In point of fact, private citizens are permitted to purchase and possess dynamite and other explosives here. I’ve never heard of a single case where dynamite was used to stop a mugger or rapist. Perhaps that why those of us who own guns use handguns instead of dynamite.
If you want to try using dynamite or a land mine for self-defense, you’re welcome to do so. As long as you hold it in your hands while you use it, you’ll get no objections from me.
Having a handgun with 15 bullets in it versus 10 does not mean I have paranoia or fantasies about taking on the UN or the government. The fact that there are people worried about those 5 extra bullets seems to suggest some paranoia and fear on their part.
Maybe next you’ll suggest that I think private citizens should be permitted to own nuclear weapons and make the argument that you can hold the trigger for the bomb in your hands.
@stonetools:
The mass shooting on the military base happened while everyone there was disarmed except, of course, the shooter. Since I’ve actually been in the military, I can relay to you that the military likes to keep its people disarmed, sometimes even in combat zones. This inevitably leads to the deaths of the disarmed personnel, but no one is ever held accountable for leading their charges to the slaughter.
Since the law is not a magical shield that prevents mass shootings, then perhaps there shouldn’t be a law that forbids people who are not criminals from carrying firearms into the places where the mass shootings happen. That was my point. The overwhelming majority of people who own firearms follow the law and don’t carry their firearms in places where they are forbidden from doing so. That inevitably leads to just one group of people having firearms in those places – criminals.
Why is it criminal to carry a firearm into a school if you’re not a police officer? Where I grew up, the kids in high school had guns in the trucks in the parking lot and there were no mass shootings or shootings of any kind at the school. Surely those kids were just looking for trouble and were most certainly criminals simply because they brought their firearms to school.
@stonetools:
You are exactly right about regulating guns like cars. I support this idea and think it is logical. I don’t think it is logical to ban cars and think it’s equally illogical to ban firearms.
@stonetools: There has been at least one mass shooting on a military base.
You can’t carry guns into NRA conventions
None of the places where mass shootings have happened are designated as “gun free zones” , with the exception of schools. Malls, theaters, and places of worship aren’t “gun free zones”.
The Fort Hood shooting took place in a “gun-free zone.” Note that not a single soldier shot back — that’s because they were unarmed, and the shooter knew that. Also note that it was civilian cops that took him down, not soldiers.
And you’re defining “gun-free zones” as those designated by law. Private owners can also declare “gun-free zones” that have the force of law, through their rights as property owners. Hence the NRA one you loved so much. And that’s where the shootings tend to happen.
Like Fort Hood.
@stonetools:
Regarding your statements about people living and raising their children without firearms in tough neighborhoods, I say great. More power to them. Hopefully they never encounter any criminals and aren’t put in a situation with someone who can’t be reasoned with. I guess I haven’t been that lucky. I’m not calling them or myself “courageous”. I am stating that my life experiences have obviously been a bit different and I came to different conclusions.
For me, fighting back has worked numerous times in the past. If running away or playing possum works for these other people, fantastic. I try to run away from every fight I see coming. That tactic has worked for me in two incidents. The other encounters I had with criminals didn’t turn out as well because I was not able to get away. I’m not telling other people how to live their lives and I appreciate it when they don’t try to tell me how to live mine.
If you truly believe you can live in freedom without firearms, then let’s have our military and police put their guns down and see how long the “civilized society” fantasy land lasts.
These are the “reasonable” firearms restrictions that I would like to see:
Mandating that anyone who carries a firearm in public be required to pass the same shooting course that the local police do, to include use of force curriculum and accuracy standards.
Mandating that anyone who owns any type of firearm be required to purchase a safe that has access control mechanisms that the government uses to secure its firearms. Any firearm that is not in the immediate control of its operator should be required to be locked, even if unloaded. No minors should have access to firearms of any kind if not supervised by an adult.
Mandating that all firearms purchases require a criminal history and mental illness check.
Mandating regular recertification of firearms proficiency just like the police and military have.
All previously convicted felons who are in possession of a firearm should be prosecuted by the federal government and given mandatory prison sentences.
No law should exist that permits private citizens to kill other people over property, except attempts to unlawfully obtain weapons. You should not be permitted to shoot someone over a television set. Any criminal who walks off with my TV or even my car can have it. I will let the police deal with them.
@michael reynolds:
I dislike “guns is guns” as a tactic. Both extremes use it. For pro-gun people, since guns is guns, a ban on assault rifles is a ban on all guns. For anti-gun people, since guns is guns, no gun is safer than another.
For what it’s worth, the US and Canada increasingly use “primitive hunting” seasons to include both bows and muzzle-loaders, or even specifying flintlocks. That’s because those primitive methods call for more skill by the hunter.
And, perhaps not coincidentally, those weapons are safer for the general public.
The Australian system goes beyond simple primitive-non. Their category system nicely identifies and groups guns by risk.
It is much better, and smarter, than “guns is guns.”
What on earth are you talking about? Great progress has been made in this area. Safety regs for cars has absolutely helped.
Or were you unaware of that particular trend?
By the way, your list of reasonable actions sounds good to me.
To follow up on motor vehicle deaths:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
The progress in that area really is stunning when you factor in population growth. That doesn’t mean we can’t still improve, of course! But look at it this way:
1970: 52,627 deaths. US population: 203,392,031 (I used the census figure, rather than the number in wiki, which is slightly higher).
2010: 32,885 deaths. US population: 308,745,538.
DUDE. That’s great.
Not just safety regs on the cars themselves, of course. Also the effort against drunk driving. Better trauma care is probably a factor too, but I’d expect less so than the others.
@michael reynolds:
BTW, you say you have no moral problem with hunting, but you did unleash this earlier in the thread:
Certainly not everyone is, or strives to be, an ethical hunter – but for many it is the goal.
Example.
@john personna:
I disagree. I think you’re looking at this as essentially a matter of regulation. I’m not. For me it is essentially a hearts and minds campaign. Propaganda, if you will. And for that clarity is needed, not nuance.
My approach is like MacArthur’s island hopping. I want to bypass and isolate the opposition while moving within striking distance of my true goal. I want to see the total number of weapons, and the total number of gun owners drop substantially, and I want for that movement to accelerate.
If 50 years from now we have no new regulation, but just, say, 5% of the population owns guns, I’ll be very happy. I’m not interested in legislating guns out of existence, I’m interested in isolating the disease, stopping the spread, and letting those already afflicted die out.
@Mikey: Aren’t we back whether these things can be considered inalienable when language and practice held them to be conditional? It was so conditional that the bill of rights didn’t apply to the states until the 14th amendment.
@john personna:
The reference to “hunter-gatherer” isn’t meant as a reference to hunting per se, but rather to a nostalgic and false paradigm of masculinity. We are a complex, urban civilization, we aren’t built around hunting wildebeest or fending off the tribe from the next village.
@michael reynolds:
This may be the case in urban areas, but as you push out into the rural areas of the United States, you will find that there are people who actual practice subsistence hunting and that taking down a deer or moose is an easy way to cheaply feed one’s family for the winter.
Again, that may sound strange to the suburban types here. But as I’ve posted before, I’ve met these people on a number of occasions. To pretend that they don’t exist or that they are doing it for some issue of “false masculinity” is BS.
And, as I’ve noted in the past, there are a number of legitimate pro-environmental reasons to encourage legal hunting — in part because in our quest for complex urban/sub-urbanization, we’ve absolutely screwed up the habitats of indigenous wildlife, killing/driving off predators, which leads to explosions in herd animals.
@michael reynolds 1:
I think you just reinforced your view that guns is guns. I don’t find that very convincing.
@michael reynolds 2:
I understand that you have your urban image in mind, but those ethical hunters at Fair Chase are still living in that other world, and trying to live it well.
All and all, Mr. Lefty, you are losing the Middle 😉
@Rob in CT:
Rob, the “great progress” that has been made in motor vehicle safety still amounts to more fatalities every year than firearms fatalities. Since we have such lax gun laws (there’s only 20,000 or so gun laws at last count) and our society is so awash in dangerous firearms, shouldn’t we see more fatalities with firearms?
Since American gun owners are so blood thirsty and there are so many firearms with such dangerous features like 30 round magazines, shouldn’t the streets be awash in the blood of Americans killed with firearms all day, every day in every city and town in America?
How has it come to pass that we haven’t killed everyone in our society with firearms, given that there’s about as many guns as people here?
Is it even possible that most gun owners are not the blood thirsty demons that some would suggest they are?
Is it possible that firearms are less of a risk to the average American than, say, heart disease, motor vehicles, and drugs and alcohol?
Obama plans on spending more money on “gun control” research than on heart disease research. I don’t have a problem with the federal government spending money on gun violence research, but given that 600,000 Americans die from heart disease a year and 11,000 die from firearms homicides, does it make sense to you to spend more money on violence research than heart disease research?
With respect to paranoia, does it make sense to you that our government spent 2-3 billion on heart disease research last year and between 150-200 billion to combat “terrorism”? About 3000 people the world over die annually from acts of terrorism.
Is there any sense of proportion for those arguing banning this or that weapon? Gun = bad. Scary looking gun = too bad for prime time.
Does it make sense to ban rifles or shotguns of any type when only a few hundred murders are committed every year with them versus the many thousands of murders with handguns?
Does it make sense that you can show people blown away on prime time television but mythical sky wizard forbid you show a woman’s tits on TV?
@matt bernius:
People within a half-day’s drive of michael hunt turkeys. They have a surplus of turkeys, actually, and have recently legalized air-gun hunting to make it safer at the fringes of cities.
Those airguns would be another “gun” lower in risk and regulation.
@Brian Keating:
This is where your side loses the middle.
Seriously, you are going to that kind of blood soaked rhetoric, just to keep 30 round magazines as your God given right?
Not very sane, from where I stand.
@Brian Keating: One major difference is that use of dynamite and other explosives falls under strict liability.
Something that I would bloody well like to see implemented for guns as well. You own a gun, you’re responsible for whatever damage it causes.
Host cities and convention venues are often posted to not allow lawful firearm carry.
In addition, the NRA convention is a very large event and must be held in cities, with hotels and convention facilities that can handle the influx of thousands of convention goers. They also try to not only rotate regionally every year but to hold the convention is different cities to facilitate travel convenience for members and to permit residents of cities that might restrict gun ownership/carry to meet and interact with NRA members and learn for themselves the falseness of the demonization in the media.
No doubt some nut might get the idea to attack an NRA convention but it would be foolish due to the local police presence at such large events in cities in which conventions are big business and the many law enforcement officer NRA members who are are exempt from many of the restrictions on carry even outside their jurisdiction.
@rudderpedals:
Well, yeah, it’s hard to get away from that. But that’s not really what I’m trying to say, which is that the basic principle preceded the imperfect implementation.
Governments can, and usually do, violate rights, but that doesn’t mean the right doesn’t exist, it just means we haven’t figured out how to get imperfect people to act perfectly. And in places like England, it has been seen that people who were defending their lives with firearms have themselves been prosecuted for doing so.
Perhaps the practical effect is so overwhelming that we might as well not even consider the right to be valid, but I’m not ready to go there yet. America’s founders wrote of an inalienable right to liberty even as they owned people as property, but it was their writing that eventually gave support to the movement toward racial equality.
And before anyone shows up and calls that “hogwash,” I quote the man whose holiday we celebrate today:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
@matt bernius:
My daughter is dating a young man who grew up in the poor Appalachian part of Virginia, and he says in that area it’s quite common for hunting to supplement, or even supply entirely, a family’s need for meat.
@john personna:
I don’t have a “side”, John Personna. I want to keep the most effective tools that I can for killing human predators. If I have a 30 round magazine, I’m not very likely to run out of bullets.
I don’t believe in the mythical sky wizard, which you’d know if you read any of my previous posts on this topic. The sky wizard doesn’t give me the “right” to live and neither does the all-powerful US government. I believe I have it, I don’t care if anyone disagrees with me, and I have the means to try to keep it. I know that really irks some people. I actually enjoy the fact that they get so worked up over it. It proves that they’re still children.
I may or may not succeed in defending my right to live, but having a 30 round magazine is evidence of me “trying”. Similarly, 18+ years of hand-to-hand combat training, 6 years in the military, a variety of survival courses, and not visiting places that attempt to restrict my “right” to live is amplifying evidence. Perhaps I’m trying too hard. Perhaps I should let armed criminals do what they want to me and my family. I think everything would be just peachy if our police and military personnel felt the same way and just watched while people were raped, robbed, and murdered.
If you can present evidence that my having a 30 round magazine versus 10 round magazine makes me a greater threat to society, then please do so.
Why the arbitrary restriction to 10 rounds? Where does that number come from? Who made that crap up? Nice round number…? What if I had 11 rounds? That would be completely over the top, wouldn’t it?
Seriously, if you’re not a convicted felon or mentally ill then what does it matter? Guns are not more “dangerous” with more bullets, they’re just more “effective”.
Why is it so hard to just accept that there really are criminals and criminally insane people who will, because of who they are, commit savage acts of violence that prove that we’re still just animals to all those people who think they are more evolved than the rest of us?
@Brian Keating:
Well, that’s weird. It’s almost as if the military, which has the most direct experience and familiarity with guns, somehow doesn’t think that guns are safe to have around. It’s almost as if they don’t think that the more guns, the safer everyone is.
And keep in mind, this is with a population of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who have all been trained in gun use and safety and who are all subject to more stringent legal and behavior codes than apply to civilians. And yet even with that, the military’s preferred solution is to disarm its people rather than to let them carry hot weapons around.
@Brian Keating:
Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. As in “deserving of ridicule.”
Ya think?
@grumpy realist:
I agree with you completely. This is already the case. If you do something foolish with a firearm, you can expect to be prosecuted for it. If you doubt that, test your theory out in a non-violent but foolish manner and see what happens.
People who are ignorant of the laws like to state that we don’t have them. If you do something foolish with dynamite or a firearm, you can expect to be arrested and prosecuted.
The real problem with our society is that we let violent felons out of their cages too often and too early. I’m also not real sure about the people we kill.
A violent rapist who murders a girl gets 5 or 10 years in prison and a mother who kills her own child before the child has a chance to be born is “asserting her right to choose”.
People are crying foul over 20 children killed by an armed mad man on drugs while babies are tossed into garbage cans by the dozen everyday.
Murdering a baby who is completely defenseless is just spiffy but killing a 1st grader who could, theoretically, run away is a senseless tragedy.
I’ll support your “right” to kill your own children if you’ll support my “right” to kill murderers and rapists with the most effective tool I can carry in my pocket.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
Ridicule away. I don’t think that I can try too hard. I just think there are people like you who are too afraid to broach scary subjects and like to make fun of other people who actually think about the scary subjects and try to take actions that mitigate the worst of the effects of criminal behavior.
@Brian Keating:
Not at all. Regulations for cars, including speed limits, seat belts, airbags, rear brake lights, licensing, traffic signals, etc. etc., have all GREATLY reduced fatalities from what we had before. The more regulations and safety features, the fewer deaths.
No, you are pretty stupid, and here’s way. Yes, more people are killed by cars than by guns. However, you’re not accounting for the fact that cars are used much, much more extensively than guns.
On any day, hundreds of millions of Americans are either driving or being driven in a car, bus or other vehicle, and even the millions who are not driving but are walking or on bikes are in close physical contact with hundreds of cars driving by them. So on any given day, Americans are exposed to multiple hundreds of millions (if not billions) of man-hours of contact with cars.
However, on any given day, hundreds of millions of Americans are not either shooting a gun or being shot at.
Since exposure to guns is far, far more limited than exposure to cars, of course the raw numbers for car deaths is going to be greater than gun deaths. But that’s a function of usage, not of lethality.
@Brian Keating:
Good point, Brian, I completely agree. We should ban handguns. If you need a weapon for home defense, a shotgun or rifle will do nicely. There’s no need for a handgun, and we should in fact severely restrict their availability. Most people have no legitimate need for a portable, concealable weapon.
@Brian Keating: Seriously, Brian…in most parts of this country one can live from birth to death without ever encountering a “human predator.” If it happens, either you keep bad company or you’re just unlucky. A gun with a 30 round mag isn’t really going to help you in either case.
I can’t speak about you specifically, but I’m pretty sure the easy availability of these magazines makes your dreaded human predators a greater threat to society.
In fact, I know it. I live in Aurora.
@Jenos Idanian Who Has No Pony Tail:
Tell you what, let’s make a bet. You try to kill 26 people in 20 minutes with a bat, I’ll try to do the same with an AK-47.
Something tells me that I’ll be resting comfortably and smoking a cigarette, my bloodlust fully sated, for about 19 minutes and 30 seconds while you’re still bludgeoning away at the one poor devil too fat and slow to run away from you.
@Brian Keating:
The fact that you cannot tell the difference between these two things is not exactly making me believe you should be trusted with anything deadlier than a crayon.
@Brian Keating:
This is what I think: I get paid to do something else.
Do what everyone else in this country does: Leave the human predators to the professionals. That’s what we pay them for.
@Rafer Janders:
Yes, the military doesn’t trust their own people with firearms. If you read a bit further, you’d see that that has lead to more than a few deaths of servicemen who were not carrying weapons, even in combat zones. All the protectionist drivel about “safety” won’t make up for the fact that many of those young men would still be alive today, versus being red smears on the ground, if they’d been permitted to carry the weapons they were trained to use.
Since those soldiers are dead now, I’m not sure it matters how “safe” or “unsafe” they are. Nothing about what happened to them should be construed as having anything to do with “safety”, which as I’ve previously stated is a mythical concept – like god or the tooth fairy. The disarmament “solution” serves only one group of people and I’m pretty sure that that’s not the group of people you want to have weapons of any kind.
It hadn’t occurred to me previously, but perhaps criminals are the group of people that the “gun control” crowd wants to have weapons. If that’s the case, then we just need to ban and confiscate all firearms and that way we can all experience the joys of interacting with armed criminals. I hear Britain even goes so far as to prosecute people who attempt to defend themselves. Perhaps that’s what we need here.
@Brian Keating:
Oy… First for all, imagining that a gun is “the most effective tool” for killing human predators in the average civilian self defense situation is absurd. There are cases where deploying a gun in self defense makes sense. But there are countless other ones where it doesn’t — in particular due to the inability to control where a bullet goes after it’s fired.
The fact is, that most of us, do not live in a day-to-day situation where gun as a primary self defense tool makes sense — let alone with a need for a 30 round magazine.
So unless you live in an extremely isolated area with lots of dangerous wild animals or lack of access to the police or an extremely bad neighborhood — the fact is that basic self defense training and a good fitness regime are going to be the most effective thing you can have for dealing with “human predators” (which, frankly, for far too many people is code for scary black folks).
@Brian Keating:
Has it occurred to you that the pro gun side who wants criminals to have weapons?
I mean, if criminals don’t have weapons, who are you gonna shoot?
Sorry, Brian, but you made more sense when you were talking about mandates you’d support. Let’s get back to that place and away from these super hero fantasies.
@Rafer Janders:
I can tell the difference between abortion and a child murderer just fine. One act of brutality is socially acceptable and the other is not. You are not intellectually honest enough to accept that murder is what it is and if you can justify murdering a baby then you can justify murdering anyone. I don’t trust anyone who can justify murdering a baby but can’t justify murdering a 1st grader to have the cognitive ability to distinguish between moral and immoral. I see murdering either one as an act of savagery, but apparently you condone certain acts of savagery where they are expedient or suit your agenda.
I think you shouldn’t be trusted to think and need the “thought police” to tell you what you may or may not think.
@Brian Keating:
BTW, the dumb thing about this argument is that it ignores the fact that most of those gun laws are tied to various localities. And so a lot of them are in total conflict — i.e. one’s states gun allowances might be far different than anothers.
In fact, if pro-gun people were truly that “up in arms” about the 20K plus patchwork of laws, they would push to move gun law battle from the state to the federal level (as most other nations have done). The up side would be national licenses and CCW permits.
@Brian Keating:
And why is that? Why, in your opinion, does the brass not want to let the troops walk around base with loaded weapons readily at hand at all moments?
And why, if the US Marine Corps doesn’t trust United States Marines to walk around a military base with a loaded rifle, should any of us trust you to walk around our families and children with your loaded weapon?
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
You keep insinuating that I have fantasies about violence or that I can’t tell what I should or should not do to try to maintain my right to live.
I’m happy that you have had such a great life. I hope life continues to work out so well for you. It didn’t work out that way for me.
If you have professional police services so available to you, then by all means use them. My next door neighbor had the police arrive in time to fill out the report for the home invasion and we’re 2 blocks from the police station.
Why do you dolts make so many excuses for why you won’t kill criminals?
Is it too scary to do your own fighting and killing?
Grow a pair and act like a man instead of a sniveling, whiny child.
@Brian Keating:
Meanwhile, in Britain:
Number of Murders, United States, 2009: 15,241
Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146
Number of Murders, Britain, 2008: 648 (since Britain’s population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,240 US murders)
Number of Murders by firearms, Britain, 2008: 39 (equivalent to 195 US murders)
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/over-9000-murders-by-gun-in-us-39-in-uk.html
@Brian Keating:
Look, between us, you’re the frightened, snivelling paranoid going on about “oh no! Human predators! I need a gun to save me!” I’m the one who’s never had to use a gun in any fight he’s been in in his life.
Man up, Nancy, and stop being so afraid all the time.
@Rafer Janders:
Fellow rocket scientist, just because the military does really stupid stuff doesn’t mean you have to be “dumb like us” and suffer the consequences.
Really, how can you people be so stupid as to think that nothing bad will ever happen to you and, when it inevitably does, that it’s someone else’s fault because you were too stupid, lazy, or cowardly to do anything to help yourself?
It’s someone else’s job to kill and die for you, right?
You’re too good to get your hands dirty and do any of that yourself. The dick jokes and put-downs are your response to doing your own dirty work.
You wash your own laundry or cut your own grass?
@Brian Keating:
False, false, false. You either don’t seem to read much, don’t understand what you read, or are actively lying. In fact, Hitler loosened Weimar-era restrictions on gun ownership in Germany, including:
*Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition.
* The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.
* Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.
* The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded.
* Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.
@Rafer Janders:
I’m smart enough to realize that when two two hundred pound six foot tall criminals want to use your skull as a pavement sander, you don’t fight fair.
If you’re not smart enough to fight dirty, then you’re a candidate for a Darwin award.
If I think it’s appropriate, I use my hands and feet. If I think it’s appropriate, I use a Glock 19. Anyone who feels differently is welcome to “do it your way”.
If I meet up with you one day and you’re attacked by a criminal, should I sit by and watch him or the group use you as a punching bag, or is it acceptable to use a Glock on them?
@Brian Keating:
Um, yes, indeed it is. That’s why we have a division of labor in this society. We don’t have have everyone do all jobs, because that’s incredibly inefficient. It’s also someone else’s job to run the sewers, regulate banks, fly airplanes, build cars, perform brain surgery, design skyscrapers, etc.
Well, I’m too highly paid and skilled in my own job to waste my time doing something that other people are better at and have more interest in doing, absolutely.
No, of course not, why would I? Other people are willing to do that job for money, which I am happy to pay them to free up my more valuable time. That’s how capitalism works. Now you, maybe you prefer to live on an anarcho-syndicalist hippie commune where everyone has to do all jobs, but I’m a capitalist and believe in the efficient division of labor.
@Rafer Janders:
Yes, Rafer, the firearms restrictions for the party faithful were lifted. However, the laws didn’t work quite the same way for the Jews. Go ask some of them who survived. I learned most everything I ever needed to know about firearms restrictions from a survivor. She had the damn number tattooed on her forearm, so I’m pretty sure she wasn’t just looking for sympathy in relaying her experiences to me.
@Rafer Janders:
Yes, now we arrive at the crux of the matter. You think you’re too good and too valuable to do the jobs that you dislike or might get hurt doing. You’re “special” and can’t be bothered with taking care of criminals so they don’t hurt other people.
I can’t believe I gave six years of my life to a nation that produces completely selfish adult children like you. What a waste of my time and energy. If only it were possible to convince all the police and military to find work elsewhere so you could experience the joys of doing for yourself what people like me do for you everyday whether you are aware of it or not.
I guess it’s a good thing not everyone believes they are as “special” as you are.
@Brian Keating:
Dude, unless you are a LEO, you have no business getting into the business of “taking care of criminals so they don’t hurt other people.” Period. End of story.
If you are arming yourself and going out looking for “bad guys” you are breaking the law. And as we have seen in Florida, this can have terrible and tragic effects for all involved.
I don’t give a rats ass about your service. You are not the punisher. And quite frankly, if your goal is to play that role (which typically is a fantasy of blowing away evil doers who just happen to have a darker skin tone than you), you have forfeited your right to have guns.
If you have such a hard on for punishing the guilty, go through the academy or become a prison guard. But don’t spend your time spouting this utter shit on internet discussion boards.
@Brian Keating:
WTF?! You’re suggesting that the police should stop policing so that people who aren’t police learn how hard it is to be a cop?
More broadly you’re advocating that people who are not police get involved in policing?
You’ve seriously gone of the deep end. I can tell you, from talking to a LOT of LEOs, that the last thing that they want is what you’re describing. Community assistance is one thing. Viligantism, which you seem to be arguing for, is something else entirely.
@Rafer Janders:
Reminds me of a joke:
Bob and Joe are on a walk through the forest, photographing some wildlife. Suddenly a huge, angry grizzly bear pops out from a dense grove and begins thundering toward them. Bob turns to Joe and yells, “I’m outta here!” as he starts running. Joe replies, “Why? There’s no way you’ll outrun a bear!”
To which Bob replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear…I just have to outrun YOU.”
@matt bernius:
I don’t go out looking for any criminals, but I am smart enough to not deal with them on their or your terms.
The fact that you won’t deal with them pretty much proves you’re still a child. Mommy and Daddy government will protect you. Lots of other victims thought the same thing. I don’t need Mommy and Daddy government’s permission to kill people who are trying to kill me or my children. If you feel you need permission from criminals to live, I think you should seek professional help.
Of course you don’t give a rat’s ass about service. That’s ok, at least one of us is charitable enough to consider other people before himself.
I’m not interested in punishing anyone, I’m interested in equal jeopardy for people who choose not to follow the law. That’s what firearms really are. You can be a five foot tall 100 pound woman and successfully defend yourself against a six foot tall 200 pound man. I know, it’s not fair to the criminal, but life’s not fair.
I’m not sure where you get the idea that any of what I said is racist. I’ve made no comments about the skin color of any particular criminal.
Human predators don’t have any one particular skin color that I’m aware of, but all the ones I’ve encountered bleed red.
You’ve evolved to using tools for transportation, medicine, and just about every other facet of your life. If you can do that, what type of quantum leap in logic is using a firearm as a defensive tool against criminals?
@Brian Keating:
To my knowledge, people do not purchase automobiles with the intent to use them to kill people.
Seriously, folks, I was expecting better arguments from all my “betters” on this forum.
So far I’ve had the following responses to why I can’t carry and use a firearm:
– My dick is small or doesn’t work
I guess my wife’s uterus didn’t get that memo
– I’m afraid or paranoid
Sometimes a little fear is a good thing. If having the means to kill people who try to kill me is being paranoid, then I guess everyone in the police and military are paranoid.
– I’m not professional enough, only the police and military know what they’re doing
Six years later with an honorable discharge, recommendation to reenlist me, and a number of commendations for job performance apparently mean squat. I guess the fact that I’ve shot better than some folks I’ve met in special forces with a pistol means bean dip, too. I’m just an amateur.
– It’s not my job
Of course, it always has to be someone else’s job to stand up for me. I shouldn’t be required to do that. That’s just crazy talk.
– I have better things to do with my time
Yeah, when someone’s punching me in the face it’s time for some Facebook.
– I’m stupid
I guess it is pretty dumb for me to ever attempt to stand up for myself or anyone else. I’m sure glad that there are people in our society who don’t think that way.
Those are some really strong arguments for not having a firearm to kill criminals with. No wonder you people have done such a good job of convincing people not to own and use firearms. I bet I could walk up to any Joe on the street and convince him not to own or use just about anything with those arguments. Personally, I’d expect to get punched in the mouth talking to people like that, but your arguments must be superior to mine in every way because you have better insults than I do.
@Brian Keating:
You can drop the pose, dude.
It’s pretty obvious that you’ve never fired a gun in self defense. You just want the opportunity.
Jesus dude, did they teach you to whine like this in the military?
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
James, you’re absolutely correct.
What I did in the military could not rightfully be considered self defense, as we had no business being in the places that we were in.
In civilian life, I’ve done quite a lot to avoid confrontation and run away from any and all fights that I can. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. If I have to use a firearm again, it will be for the right reason.
@stonetools:
Soldiers are prohibited from carrying weapons on base. So in essence fort Hood is a gun free zone. They do this in order to reduce casual violence amongst soldiers. The attacker chose the time of his attack quite well when he knew there would be a large number of unarmed people on base.
You can’t even use the range there without registering your weapon on base. There are severe restrictions as to where you can carry your weapon too.
@anjin-san:
If the troops ain’t whinin’, they ain’t happy. 🙂
@ Brian Keating
If the troops ain’t whinin’, they ain’t happy. 🙂
If you substituted “bitching” for “whining” you might have a point. Whining by grown men is always embarrasing for all parties involved.
@anjin-san:
I’m not sure what the forum rules are, so I try to avoid cursing and swearing. If you want to call what I said whining, you’re welcome to do so. If you have any logical arguments about what should be done about criminals in this country, I’d love to know what they are. You can criticize my character all day because you disagree with my ideas, or you can provide some constructive ideas of your own.
I keep posting here because I keep thinking that someone is going to provide a logical argument about why it is more dangerous for me to have a gun than it is for a police officer to have a gun.
So far, I’ve received lots of name calling and no logical arguments. I have responded in kind because I want to see how far you will go.
@Rafer Janders: They’ve lowered the standards for enlistment so much that they now have a lot of undesirables including blatant racists preparing for the race war. The military needed to do this though so they could meet enlistment requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan..
@Rafer Janders: Ak-47s are already heavily regulated and haven’t been used in a crime in decades.
@Brian Keating:
Please….you want to box with that straw man, knock yourself out.
What the hell are you doing where you are getting confronted all the time? Seriously.
@Brian Keating:
Someone is. His name is Brian Keating.
@Brian Keating:
It’s pretty simple. Polls show that …
So with talk like that, you’re scaring the straights (to use a Ghostbusters reference).
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
James, can you post a logical argument for why civilians have no need to own firearms but police officers and military personnel do?
Can you tell me why only police officers and military personnel are ever put in situations where having a firearm might be a useful tool to have?
Can you tell me why civilians should be forced to “duke it out” with criminals who don’t follow any laws to begin with, but police are entirely within their rights to shoot someone who attempts to shoot them?
Do you have any argument at all for why civilians are less trustworthy than the police or military?
Is there any possibility that you will post your own arguments about why criminals should have more privileges than citizens who are not criminals?
All you have done so far is engage in personal attacks against me. I’m still waiting for all of your logic and wisdom on the matter of civilian ownership of firearms.
@Brian Keating:
You can even be one single solitary adult man and successfully defend yourself against a combined 20 six-year old children and six fully grown adult women with a firearm. One against 26, and it’s even odds! Talk about force equalization!
@john personna:
If you really believe that, then let’s see who keeps and who loses their seat in Congress when they vote to restrict magazine capacities or so-called “assault weapons”.
Polls often seem to show what the people administering the polls want the statistics to show.
I have an uncle who has a PhD in statistics. He likes to call his profession “lying with numbers”. Funny that.
If magazine capacity is scary, then the number of gallons of gas in the truck I drive should be downright terrifying.
@Brian Keating:
I worry about you, man. It is way too early, after the whole “unskewed polls” fiasco, to be a poll denialist.
Basically you’re telling us that you haven’t been that politically aware over the last year or so.
@Brian Keating:
Tick tick tick tick….
@al-Ameda:
Never driven in Boston, have you?
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, you’re still comparing a mentally ill man on drugs to people who aren’t on any drugs and aren’t mentally ill.
I find what that man did to be repulsive and worthy of death, but he killed himself so none of us can make any further of a spectacle of him than he already made of himself.
If that happened every day, it wouldn’t be a quantum leap in logic that owning a firearm is more or less equivalent to owning the tools to eventually commit mass murder.
Obviously that is a rarity in our society where guns are so prevalent.
If the teachers had firearms, would the result have been any different?
If the police had been on campus in any number, would the result have been any different?
@Brian Keating:
Of course you have. That is completely believable.
On a separate topic, myself, I’ve also run faster than some Olympic sprinters I’ve met.
@matt:
Whaaa??? The military thinks that less guns means less casual violence??? But I thought that an armed military base was a polite military base?
@matt:
Well, thank god that we don’t let any of those people buy guns in civilian life!
Oh, wait. Yes. Yes we do. So we have a situation where the Army doesn’t trust soldiers to carry weapons on a military base, but we’re supposed to trust those same men as civilians to carry guns around our families and children.
@Rafer Janders:
Yes Raf, noting that all criminals, whatever their skin color may be, bleed red must be a sign of a “ticking time bomb”.
The fact that the argument insinuating that I was racist was shown to be utter BS is irrelevant.
Get ahold of yourself and give me some logic.
For someone who hurls so many insults, you sure have thin skin.
I’m still waiting for the logical arguments versus insults and insinuations.
I’ll keep posting here until you or someone else finally tells me why you want to disarm civilians who have committed no crimes and are not mentally ill. If you do that, you’re welcome to insult me or suggest that I’m crazy afterwards until the cows come home.
@matt:
By Samantha Tata and Robert Kovacik
| Wednesday, Jan 9, 2013 | Updated 9:22 AM
Two people are in custody Tuesday night after they were involved in a police chase through Compton while one of them allegedly fired what appeared to be an AK-47 assault rifle at pursuing deputies, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies heard shots from what sounded like an assault rifle at about 5:45 p.m. near Long Beach Boulevard and Oaks Street in Compton on the Lynwood border….An AK-47 suspected of being the one used in the chase was recovered.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Los-Angeles-County-Sheriffs-Department-AK-47-Police-Chase-Compton-186121572.html
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, if you doubt my marksmanship, you’re more than welcome to come shooting with me.
People routinely hand me their pistols on the range after watching me shoot.
There’s nothing magical about good marksmanship, although I will say that it is getting pretty expensive.
@this:
Someone was down-voting facts again:
@john personna:
I don’t care about “the middle.” I’m not interested in the left or right of it. I’m after the future. And one of the nice things about my job is that I get to speak directly to the future. i’m content to have an effect on voters 20 years down the line.
@Brian Keating:
Happy to do so. We need the police to be armed. We don’t need you to be. Just as we need the military to have missiles and we don’t need you armed with missiles.
You and your guns are unnecessary risks. Police and their guns are necessary risks.
Really not much of a challenge.
@Rafer Janders: What “appeared to be”. I’ve seen a dog labeled as a pit bull in a dog attack article when clearly the dog was a German Shepard..
Looking at the picture it is clearly not an AK-47.
Oh this is rich.
@michael reynolds:
Well, you notice that I’m a moderate who often agrees with you … and here your effort has me breaking with you.
None of us are unique, we always represent an electorate of some size.
“Bill Clinton Warns Democrats Against Overreaching On Gun Debate.”
Call it an example in microcosm.
200+ comments on gun control again, i think doug found something to keep us yapping!
@john personna: There have actually been deer culls here in Fairfax County recently. We have deer everywhere. (Not long ago I was out in front of my townhouse washing my car and two deer passed within 10 feet of me.)
The benefit for the rest of us is we can go to a local butcher and get an entire deer, dressed and butchered, for $100. That’s about $2 a pound for meat that takes up a sizable portion of our chest freezer.
@michael reynolds:
So, you’re willing to risk my life and your life because the police can be trusted with their firearms, but private citizens who have not committed any crimes and have not been found to be mentally ill are more of a threat that the police or military are.
How many civilians has the military killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? That latest estimates I’ve seen placed the figure at more than a million people. I guess they don’t count since they’re not Americans.
Given that I never suggested having civilians armed with missiles, mines, or machine guns, I find your argument of what to arm civilians with to be pretty silly.
You’re all for arming a government that dropped a nuclear weapon on a hospital in Japan, but civilians are an absolute menace to society.
You claim to be concerned with the future, so I ask you why there is a continual violent crime reduction every year with more and more firearms in the hands of civilians.
I realize numbers are anathema to your arguments about the potential “risk” that civilian firearms owners pose to their fellow citizens, but those numbers should be going up and not down if what you say is true.
@Brian Keating:
Let me ask you, at 2:29 above, when you mentioned supposedly being attacked by two gang members, why did you feel the need to mention that they were Mexican? (And since they attacked you from behind by surprise, I’m not sure how you were actually able to ascertain their nationality).
So, serious question: why’d you mention that they were Mexican? Was it to give artistic verismilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative? What would it have mattered if they were Mexican, Mexican-American, brown, black, yellow or white?
@matt:
It clearly is. You’re just lying because you’re embarrassed that your “has not been used in decades” turned out to be “has not been used in one week”
@Brian Keating:
I’m sure they do. I don’t know why you think I doubt you. As I said, I find this completely believable and not at all something that someone would make up just to impress random strangers on the Internet. I just said the exact same thing to my two 20 year old Brazilian twin sister girlfriends.
@Rafer Janders: Here’s I’ll explain to you an easy method of identifying that the gun isn’t an Ak-47. You see those round things on the side of the receiver? Those are rivets because that gun is made with a stamped receiver. Excluding a small batch of first run guns AK-47s have milled receivers. The plan was to mass produce AK-47s with a stamped receiver but they had problems with welding the rail guides so they switched to the heavier and more expensive milled receivers. An AK-47 is a +$25000 gun right now and no one who put down that kind of money would put such a shitty “thumbhole” stock on it..
I’m also pretty sure that every AK-47 came with a slant style muzzle break to combat the angled recoil felt when firing full auto. The FSB on that gun is completely wrong for an AK-47.
What’s kind of funny to me is that you can see that the receiver dust cover is missing. I’m not sure why or what happened with that.
The gas block is wrong as it’s a 45 degree angle block where as an AK-47 uses a 90 degree block.
If the police or military ever decide to turn their guns on the American people instead of criminals or foreign invaders, would anyone here ever rethink the notion that civilians with firearms are more of a threat than the police or military are, or is the protectionist mentality so ingrained that you would just watch your fellow Americans being slaughtered?
How many Americans would have to be murdered by criminals before the idea of having an armed society to deal with armed criminals was considered?
@matt:
AK-47-type guns turn up more often in U.S.
updated 3/26/2008 4:17:15 PM ET
….The Sept. 15 killing was remarkable in that it took place in the most innocent of settings — the fifth birthday of twin boys. But it was unremarkable in that one of the guns brandished was an AK-47-type rifle — a powerful, rapid-fire weapon that has long been used in Third World conflicts but is increasingly being used in American street fights.
Figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, show a marked increase in the number of AK-type weapons traced and entered into the agency’s computer database because they had been seized or connected to a crime.
Since 1993, the year before the ban took affect, ATF has recorded a more than sevenfold increase in 7.62x39mm guns — which includes the original Russian-made AK-47 and a variety of copycats from around the world. The number of AK-type guns rose from 1,140 in 1993 to 8,547 last year.
Since 2005, the first full year after the ban’s expiration, ATF has recorded an 11 percent increase in such tracings….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23813856/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/ak–type-guns-turn-more-often-us/
You can’t buy a new ak-47 without a high level firearms license. There are some pre-bans floating around but they are uber expensive and are not the guns you should be worried about.
The article is blatant fear mongering designed to trigger the fear of AK-47s when they aren’t even talking about AK-47s..
The gun in the picture is not an AK-47 either as witnessed by the rivets.
@john personna:
You should know that I have the greatest respect for your intellect and honesty. I’m sorry that we should disagree. But I consider the politics of the moment hopeless on this issue, so I’m looking to change hearts and minds, and specifically among people who are not yet committed on the matter.
@Rafer Janders:
I mentioned that the gang members were Mexican because they were. It really doesn’t matter what color their skin is or where they came from. It is a simple statement of fact and if you can’t accept that I really don’t care. It’s hard to believe that you’re insinuating that I’m racist because gang members (let’s call them raceless, colorless, non-denominational street criminals of similar dress and appearance) attacked me for no reason. I wasn’t aware that there was any artistic quality to any of that, but apparently a warped mind like yours believes that there is.
All the personal attacks and insults in the world aren’t going to change the fact that you have no logical arguments to present.
Everything that’s been said here about me pretty much leads me to believe that people who want to disarm civilians are nasty, sad little shells of men trying to justify their living and breathing.
Regarding the marksmanship comments, my offer still stands. Smack talk isn’t equivalent to skill. Put up or shut up.
@matt:
AK-47 attack latest crime to jar St. Cloud
December 25, 2011|By Henry Pierson Curtis, Orlando Sentinel
In the early-morning hours Nov. 21, Penney left his home in military-style camouflage clothing and walked more than a mile through darkened neighborhoods with two AK-47s and five or six 30-shot banana clips, according to police.
Shortly before 2a.m., he knocked on the door of a house on Alabama Avenue and called out, “Your son wrecked my car and ruined my life,” before firing at least 34 bullets into the cinder-block walls, according to police.
Walking slowly down the street, police say, Penney continued firing until a patrol car carrying officers Spencer Endsley and Clinton Wise came into view. That’s when he riddled the vehicle until Wise, hit once in a foot, returned fire as both officers dove for cover, according to authorities.
@matt:
In case you’re looking for those hard-to-find AK’s. I used this thing called “the Google” and found a bunch.
@matt:
Detroit AK-47 Robbery Could Be Linked To Previous Gas Station Hold-Ups
Posted: 12/05/2012 1:11 pm EST Updated: 12/05/2012 1:11 pm EST
A well-armed group of robbers hit two Detroit gas stations with assault rifles Tuesday in what may be part of a larger pattern of crimes.
Police say bandits were carrying AK-47s when they held up two East Side stations early that morning. During the first incident a man tried — unsuccessfully — to get into into a locked BP gas station located on Seven Mile near I-75 around 3:30 a.m., WXYZ reports.
@matt:
Illegal immigrant arrested in Dallas, accused of having 15 AK-47 rifles
th*****@da********.com
10:38 am on October 31, 2012
A San Antonio man who says he was being paid to drive to Dallas, pick up unknown cargo, and drive back to San Antonio was arrested last week after police found 15 AK-47-type firearms in his car.
Jesus Gonzales, 24, was stopped in Oak Cliff for not wearing a seat belt. During the traffic stop Gonzalez gave permission to search his vehicle where police found the guns in the trunk, almost all of which were shrink-wrapped.
Those are AK variants and in most cases were copied illegally from the design of the real ak-47. None of those guns are real AK-47s including the ones labeled as AK-47s.
This one for example.
http://www.gunsamerica.com/910701861/GSG_German_Sports_Guns_AK47_22_Caliber_Tactical_Rifle_with_10_Round_Magazin.htm
Ak-47s were never chambered in 22. Ak-47s were always chambered in 7.62. It’s actually a partial plastic replica made new in Germany with no authentic AK-47 related parts.
Meaning they look kind of the same.
Is this an AK47?
http://i45.tinypic.com/34gae06.jpg
Not a single real AK-47 for sale on that site.
@matt:
Matt, no one cares. Not being in the cult we really don’t want to obsess over the terminology like you do. In practical, day-to-day English usage AK or assault rifle are terms of convenience. It’s as if you said, “There’s problem with SUV’s running people over,” and I came back with, “Well, technically, many of those are not SUV’s but crossovers.” Or if you said, “Two guys were killed with arrows from a crossbow,” and I countered with, “Oh my God, they’re called bolts, not arrows.” See how no one would give a sh!t?
@michael reynolds: Your car SUV comparison isn’t even remotely close. At the last you are calling it by a generically appropriate term where as calling these guns AK-47s would be like calling a Geo metro a m1a2 Abrams….
Words matter when it comes to regulations and you should know this Michael..
I do love these gun nuts who assure us they need guns to protect us from Hitler’s brownshirts. And then go on to explain how they have the right to execute “bad guys” and “criminals,” are convinced that they know more about how to run the military than the brass, believe themselves smarter than all those people who are clearly more successful than them — at least successful enough not to live in crime-ridden neighborhoods — and can’t type a sentence without betraying a huge level of bitterness and persecution.
Is there any doubt that these are exactly the guys who first signed up with the brownshirts? You know, the ones who were going to rid society of all its evils by using their pure, manly force over the cowards and weaklings?
@matt:
How about we just outlaw any weapon of any name that is capable of housing more than, say, 6 bullets?
Seriously, since one of the policy objectives is to decrease the lethality of guns why would this not be a good idea?
@Spartacus: You haven’t reduced the lethality in such a situation. In all likelihood you’ve increased the lethality as the guns that meet that standard are usually high powered rifles.
Would 00 buckshot be effected by that ban? 00 buckshot has 8-9 bullet sized pellets per shell.
@matt:
Police: Gang member had an AK-47
BY HUNTER CLAUSS Staff Reporter/hc*****@su******.com September 1, 2012 10:26PM
A purported gang member convicted of at least two felonies in the past was arrested for a weapons charge Saturday after Cook County Sheriff’s police officers found an AK-47 near his trailer home in unincorporated Des Plaines.
@Rafer Janders: You’re still not getting anywhere. The only thing you’ve highlighted in the rampant ignorance of reporters. If anything you’re highlighting the importance of being educated about the subject you’re reporting on.
I don’t find any of this as surprise as I’ve watched people misidentify dogs as pit bulls for at least a decade now. Before that it was Rottweilers being misidentified and slandered in the news.
@matt:
Texas man opens fire with AK-47 during road rage incident
December 15, 2009
A 19 year old Texas man was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after police found him with an AK47 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his truck.
http://www2.counton2.com/news/2009/dec/15/texas-man-opens-fire-with-ak-47-during-r-24740-vi-41008/
@Rafer Janders: Hey at least they correctly identified the bullet used by Ak-47s. Now only if they could be bothered to properly identify the gun.
Here’s another one for you.http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/19417470/man-carrying-ak-47-arrested-in-downtown-dallas
The gun was actually a WASR-10 which is a poor copy of the AKM/Ak100 series of rifles. Other then furniture (which has to be modified to fit) there’s nothing interchangeable with a real AK-47.
Well I guess if your WASR-10 has a left hand threaded barrel then you could use an AK-47 slant brake.
@matt:
Are we drafting legislation?
@matt:
Man With AK-47 Arrested in Downtown Dallas, Ctd.
Posted on August 31st, 2012 9:44am by Jason Heid
Filed under Crime, Local News
Witnesses say Johnson Nguyen was arguing with some folks at the parking garage of the Davis Building at 1309 Main St. about 3 a.m. when he pulled the semi-automatic rifle out of a red four-door Toyota pickup.
Police say he then waved the rifle in the air “to intimidate the other persons involved in the argument.” The documents don’t say what the argument was about.
The witnesses fled the garage and called 911. When officers arrived, they searched the garage “from the top down” and found Nguyen sitting in the pickup with three other people.
@matt:
Men Packing AK-47s Kill Two In Drive-By In Miami Gardens
October 27, 2012 5:48 PM
MIAMI GARDENS (CBSMiami) — Two men using AK-47 high-power machine guns attacked and killed two people Saturday morning.
According to police, a third person is in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Police believe a fourth victim fled the scene, near the 1400 block of NW 176th Terrace.
@michael reynolds: So we should use the name of a selective fire military weapon that is highly regulated and incredibly expensive to refer to any gun that shares similar cosmetic looks?
You don’t think that might have some sort of effect on the conversation?
@matt:
* By JEANE MacINTOSH
* From With AP
* Last Updated: 12:33 PM, August 10, 2011
* Posted: 1:18 AM, August 9, 2011
A thrill-seeking Florida stripper and her AK-47-toting siblings on a multistate crime spree yesterday ignored their heartsick mother’s plea to give themselves up, authorities said….
The rampaging siblings have been on the lam since last Tuesday, when they allegedly opened fire on a Zephyrhills, Fla., cop who had been trying to chase down their white Subaru for speeding.
The cop wasn’t hurt, but one of the 20 bullets they unleashed on him flattened one of his tires and effectively ended the chase.
Later that day, the Doughertys turned up about 200 miles away at a Georgia bank.
All three, masked and armed with AK-47s, shot up the bank ceiling before making off with an undisclosed amount of money, police said.
@Rafer Janders:
The police don’t even know. Of course that doesn’t stop the reporters from reporting the guns as definitely positively AK-47s..
BTW the 7.62×39 is not a higher powered round. A 7.62×51 is a high powered round or the 7.62x54r but not the x39 round lol.. Unless you’re comparing it to a .22.
http://www.atf.gov/firearms/guides/identification-of-nfa-firearms.html
Forgot to link the more responsible reporting done the next day.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Two-Dead-One-Injured-in-Apparent-Miami-Gardens-Drive-By-Shooting-Cops-176115781.html
@Brian Keating:
If they were white guys, you never would have mentioned their race.
@michael reynolds:
I’ve come to realize that with Matt it’s not the gun cult — it’s his autism. He’s certainly on the autism spectrum, and one way that’s manifesting is his bizarre fixation on guns. Other guys get into astronomy, or model trains, or Farscape. With Matt, it’s guns. That’s why he prattles on and on about the very specific terminology that means so much to him but doesn’t matter at all to most people. It’s like talking light saber technology with a Star Wars geek — no one but him really cares.
@Rafer Janders: I fixate on everything I do. I could bore you to tears about old cars and how my 72 nova shared the same sub-frame as a 69 camaro. I can do it to you across a variety of subjects. When I talk about something or engage in an activity I make it a point to be educated about it.
As I said earlier words matter and you’re using AK-47 incorrectly in the hopes of eliciting an emotional response along the lines of “OMG THAT”s the TERRORIST AUTOMATIC WEAPON”. Your goal is confusion so that readers will think real selective fire AK-47s are flooding this country. Where as the guns you are calling AK-47s are just semi-automatic rifles that share some cosmetic or vague functional similarities.
@matt:
Are you suggesting that rifles that aren’t “high-powered” (whatever that means) are not capable of killing someone with a single shot?
Unless that’s your argument, then by definition, a gun that can only shoot 6 bullets is necessarily less lethal than a gun that can shoot more than 6 bullets.
@Rafer Janders:
Very funny:)
@Spartacus: The wound ballistics of the x51 or x54r are devastating in comparison to a x39 round (which is no slouch itself being on par with a 30-30 at under 200 yards). That inherently means a rifle firing a 7.62×51 round is more lethal then a gun firing a 7.62×39 round. So basically if you magically made all the x39 evil looking guns disappear you would see an increase in usage of the more powerful guns. So as I asked earlier would the next step be the banning of those guns too?
A sling shot is capable of killing someone in a single shot.
Well guns exist and there’s no doubt that a fully automatic weapon behaves different from a semiautomatic weapon. There’s no real parallel in the star war universe for lightsabers.
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, if I ever run into any Aryan Brotherhood gang members, I’ll be sure to mention that they’re white.
Incidentally, I was once punched in the head and several times in my ribs in the military by a fellow service member while I was asleep. I know this because I was inches away from him and he told me he wanted a fight while he was punching me. I left my bunk, told him I didn’t want to fight with him, and then he proceeded to follow me into the latrine. I knocked him on his rear once, but that didn’t dissuade him in the least. It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that and apparently he liked to show up for duty drunk, which was why they ultimately kicked him out. He happened to be a white man from Georgia named Duke- kinda appropriate given his propensity to get drunk and start punching people who were asleep in their racks. Did I mention that he was white? Well, in case you missed it he was white. Good to see that you pick up all the important points regarding criminal behavior.
I also knew a couple of guys who were best friends who would routinely get drunk and then wake the other from his rack while the other was on duty and then proceed to have a two or three minute fist fight followed by some amateur wrestling. If it matters all that much to you, they were both white.
@Rafer Janders: It’s not even terminology it’s actual hardware differences…
I’m having flashbacks to high-school when the jocks would resort to threats of violence and/or mockery because they couldn’t handle the intellectual aspect of the discussion…
@matt:
Matt, don’t let the Raf get you down. He’s intimidated by the hardware and doesn’t know how to handle it. That’s why he likes to insult all the other people who know how to use the hardware. Bullies don’t like it when the little kids fight back. The smaller kiddies should know their place and not upset the social order of the bullying hierarchy, which he places himself at the top of. That’s what really gets his goat.
@Brian Keating:
That comment is so much more revealing than you intended.
@matt:
You didn’t answer my question so I’ll try one more time:
Are you suggesting that rifles that aren’t “high-powered” (whatever that means) are not capable of killing someone with a single shot?
Unless that’s your argument, then by definition, a gun that can only shoot 6 bullets is necessarily less lethal than a gun that can shoot more than 6 bullets.
@Spartacus:
That’s a very low threshold. As observed earlier even a rock could kill someone in one shot.. Rock throwers could be devastating as skirmishers back in the day!
Now that I think about it when I was a kid I fell once on rocks while running. tore my poor knees apart..
In grade schools bullies would sometimes throw rocks at me 🙁 I tried throwing one back once but I missed by a mile so every one just laughed at me..
BAN ROCKS!!!!
@michael reynolds:
Yes, Mr. Reynolds, it reveals the true nature of people like you who simply deplore the ability of law abiding citizens to defend themselves against criminals using the best tools available for the job because you’re too terrified to trust anyone with inanimate objects that you think are scary or dangerous.
@Spartacus: Okay back to being serious.
All rifles can be considered “high-powered” but not all rifles are “high-powered rifles”.
@matt:
Matt, you’re arguing ballistics with someone who would argue that you can’t be trusted with a knife because you’re not a chef or a brain surgeon.
I don’t have a dog in the gun control fight–other than I like to see people make ideologically consistent arguments. i.e. If its o.k. for adults to do they see is best for their own bodies its also o.k. for them to do what’s best within their own homes. If that involves having a gun–with all the risks that involves–so be it. Medical procedures also have risks and as long as the patient knows the risk–they should be allowed to go ahead with it. That said–we do have regulations for what people can do to their bodies medically and so it is with weapons. That is the crux of the conversation–where the line should be drawn. Frankly, I see the leftys behaving similarly to the righty in feigning their agenda as a reaction to crisis events when the reality is those events have nothing to do with the policy outcomes they envision. In other words–the right is going to want smaller government whether a larger government is working or not and solvent or not. On gun control, the hard left wants no guns whether .01% of our citizens are killed per year (like they are now) or .001% are killed. And otherwise reasonable people will bend the silliest of arguments to match their narratives–like the military base argument. Very few people in the military actually pull a trigger as their primary duty (even in the Marine Corps.) The support personnel to trigger-puller ratio is about 12/1. Non trigger-pullers do light qualification training yearly or every 2 years but for the most part have very little interaction with weapons. Therefore they wouldn’t be walking around base armed because it has very nothing to do with their jobs (that’s not a commentary on safety or non-safety). An admin troop walking around with an M-16 on her back or in the office would be dumb–even for the military. Trigger-pullers train with their weapons then store them away at the armory (for security as these are weapons of war) and go home for the day. No reason for them to have their weapons with them when they aren’t training. Subsequently, the only people on any base that have weapons with them everywhere on base are the base police–because it’s their job. In combat zones–Brian Keating was right–you’d better not have a magazine in the weapon if you aren’t outside of the wire. One reason is because non-support personnel don’t need to walk around locked and loaded unless the base is under threat of attack or under attack and the second reason is guys in combat can get spun up real fast or get drunk and want to get rowdy. Guns and PTSD/Alcohol/Anger Management issues don’t mix (which is why you have a lot of stabbings/beatings).
Bill’s Clinton is right–a large portion of people use guns in this country. A smaller portion of that number actually need them as tools of their livelihood no different than a tractor or trailer. That group ain’t going to take it lightly that their lifestyles are being infringed upon (whether guns are necessary or not) when the vast majority (to the 99.8 percentile) of human interaction involving firearms doesn’t involve violence or death. Now if 300K people were killed people might we have to do something. But the bottom line is gun violence is rare, gun deaths are even rarer and virtually confined to metropolitan area. I dare say if we went on the rural gun death numbers the country would be well into the single digits.
We’ve got a good head of steam going with building a very powerful center-center/left voting block in this country and the Starbucks democrats are going to pi$$ it away over guns because they don’t fit into their cocoon’d lifestyle so obviously it shouldn’t fit anyone else’s. Newsflash, not every rabid gun lover in the country is right-wing conservative (which is weird because righty seem to believe the same thing.) Liberals and Centrists own guns gentlemen…and lots of them. A good portion those like them enough to be single issue voters about them. Don’t need em you say? Well that’s what I despise about the Republican party–they don’t even try to court black and brown voters anymore…not that they ever tried to court blacks. No political party should write off a voting block but that’s beyond the point. If you want to follow Micheal Reynolds lead and change hearts and minds have at it. That approach, if it works, will pay higher dividends than legislation. Legislation of what has become a national pastime is going to set the karma wheel in motion again whatever party attempts it. Beyond magazine limitation and background checks there isn’t much wiggle room here. We need 20 years to undo the crap done to this country since Regan. Don’t blow this over a fetish.
@Brian Keating: Funnily enough I tried that argument with the GF and she had none of it =/
I hate onions.
@Sparticus
Lethality is gauged though probability of kill after a hit. More or less ammo doesn’t speak to lethality but to probability of hitting the target. In other words how would you like your chances with 6 rounds of .22 shot at you vs 2 rounds of .50?
@matt: Your insistence that AK-47s don’t exist in the wild and are nothing to worry about is coming dangerously close to making the argument that gun control works.
And @Brian Keating: You continue to not get it. Your need to defend yourself is ameliorated by the nature of our society (crime is way down, and rare to begin with) and the fact that we have a professional police force who is better equipped and legally obligated to keep the peace. You are not Spiderman, dude. This is the real world.
In almost every situation you will encounter for the rest of your life, you will not need a gun. You just want one. Learn to distinguish your needs from your wants.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
You could also acknowledge that migration occurs.
Quite a lot of AK47s came back from Vietnam..
@Pharoah Narim:
Wow, opinions not involving dick references! What a novelty!
Pharoah, I attempted to suggest that in combat zones you kinda need a “locked and loaded” rifle as you put it or a condition one weapon as we called it, irrespective of where you are. It doesn’t really matter who you are or what your job title is. The enemy doesn’t say, “hold up Abdul, we can’t shoot that infidel because he’s just an admin puke”.
The enemy rarely telegraphs assaults. You find out that you’re in combat after they start shooting at you or after an IED goes off, not before. I meant to suggest that wandering around any combat zone, on or off base, with no weapon is generally a bad idea, even if the base commander mandates that you return your weapon to the armory “out of concern for good order and discipline”. I’m not sure why men become more or less disciplined when on or off base, but apparently they do. The base commander said so.
I then further suggested that higher ranking people deciding when and where you could have a weapon was also generally a bad idea. The rank of a serviceman is generally inversely proportional to their proximity to things that may get them killed. This maxim doesn’t seem to apply to the Corps, though, which sends full bird Colonels to the field with rifles. That said, you won’t see too many generals wandering around a combat zone without a weapon and bodyguards with more weapons.
Having lower rank, or no rank at all in my case because I was enlisted, does not reduce your exposure to things that can get you killed.
@James Pierce (Formerly Known as Herb)
That would be a stretch–as those who would have used the AK-47 had it been available simply chose to use a different weapon.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
Yes, James, I just want a gun. I could care less if I “need” it all day, every day or not. 99.9% of the time I spent in the military I didn’t “need” a gun. It’s that .1% of the time where it didn’t matter if you were armed or not when there was simply someone there who meant to do you harm that you had a “need” for a gun. Since I can’t accurately guess at when or where I might “need” a gun, I carry one with me wherever I’m legally permitted to do so.
Since crime is way down, and I’ve not committed any crimes apart from having the gall to think that I can defend myself and not endanger others in so doing, how will my carrying a gun lead to more crimes?
Do you honestly believe that everyone who carries a firearm goes around waving and shooting it like Yosemite Sam?
I don’t need a car to drive to most of the restaurants or stores where I live, I just want one.
The gun is like my truck, to me. I can live without it most of the time, but having it makes life so much easier.
Walking or running damn near everywhere for six years of my life made me appreciate contrivances like cars.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
If memory serves, a friend of mine who is currently a police officer in the city I live in, stated that he believed that his job was to arrest people who he believed committed crimes and gather evidence to prosecute them with. There wasn’t any discussion about “keeping the peace” or protecting any one person that I recall. Maybe he needs someone like you to tell him what his job really is.
I know why we have police and I appreciate what they do. Sadly, they rarely have the opportunity to stop criminals from committing their crimes because most criminals don’t wait for the police to show up before attempting to commit a crime.
@Brian Keating:
Yeah, I’m sure.
Don’t feel bad about your MOS, man. Just because you didn’t get a slow clap at the airport doesn’t mean you didn’t do your part. You should be proud. But also, less obnoxious about it.
You won’t ever “need” it, Batman.
@Brian Keating:
Did he thank you for your vigilance? “I couldn’t do it without you, man.”
Ask him what he’d do if he saw you brandishing your weapon on the street. If he doesn’t say, “Shoot first, ask questions later,” he’s lying.
@Brian Keating:
Burleson sisters mourn after husbands’ fatal argument
Posted on July 22, 2012 at 4:44 PM
Updated Monday, Jul 23 at 8:42 AM
BURLESON — Although she’s surrounded by family outside her Burleson home, all Arlene Perry can do is cry. She and her sister are distraught over a bad decision their spouses made.
Perry’s husband was shot and killed; her sister’s husband is the accused gunman.
Still, the bond between the sisters is strong. “She’s not responsible for anyone’s action,” Perry said.
Early Sunday morning, outside a construction zone in Fort Worth, police said Eric Perry and his brother-in-law Kevin Wolfe got into an argument. Tempers flared and Wolfe fired his weapon, killing brother-in-law instantly. Family members said the two were were good friends who were partying together overnight.
“I have never been a fan of guns,” said family member Analicia Rose. “I’m not a gun fan, and alcohol and guns just don’t mix.”
@Brian Keating:
One day you’ll show me, huh, Brian? Yeah, one day, just I wait, I and others like me will get what’s coming to us….
The fact that you’re a seething mass of resentment and bitterness really, really isn’t making the argument that you should be trusted with a gun.
@michael reynolds:
Thank you, michael. I can relate a bit to what you are trying to do, but as I say, I see it as a long stretch. Is there a country which does not allow legal hunting with guns? Maybe someplace fully urban, where they have no animals … Singapore?
The Japanese have a very safe and sane system:
I like 10 years on shotgun before you get a rifle … that shows patience.
@matt:
The pit bull thing is similar though, in that people who acquire them are often the ones who least understand the risks.
If you meet someone who owns pitt bulls and guns …. politely excuse yourself and walk, don’t run, to the nearest exit.
@john personna:
Sigh… @JP I dig you, but please don’t write stuff like that as it really reenforces way too many stereotypes.
It’s not pit bulls or guns that are the problem. It’s the people. And, seriously, I’ve gotten to know a lot of people with pit bulls and guns who are safe with both. Likewise I’ve known people with other breeds of dogs and guns who shouldn’t have either.
The expert knows where to look — i.e. does that dog still have his junk? The fact is that intact male dogs (of any breed) are the ones statistically most likely to attack someone. It’s one of the reasons that if your dog is picked up on the street, typically the only way to get it back is to have it neutered.
To some degree this is the issue of knowledge that causes some of the friction with @Matt. He’s right that pretty much any assault rifle with a banana clip is identified as an AK-47, in much the same any mutt with a hint of pit bull is a “pit bull” mix.
That said, while @Matt is technically right in that most of those guns are not AK-47s, he’s missing the bigger picture.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
I don’t think @Matt would disagree with that statement — provided the gun control is enacted soon enough to make a difference. As I’ve kept writing, the ban of fully automatic weapons took place early enough that it kept that genie in the bottle.
The assault weapons genie has been out for years. Which means achieving a *meaningful* ban isn’t going to happen any time soon. In part this is because the structure of the federal government gives too much power to minority voices in these matters.
This is also why myself, Mikey, Matt, and the other more social liberal gun rights folks here, keep suggesting that the best way to achieve intelligent regulation is via a push towards a progressive licensing system.
The best case scenario would be to move away from state licensing towards federal licensing (as most other modern countries do).
Again (from another thread) here’s the general framework:
Fixed magazine long guns (including semi automatics), air guns, and shotguns would still be available with only a background check.
– Handguns would require a separate license
– Detachable magazine “assault” rifles would require a separate license (note the entire feature rules would be done away with)
– CCW would require a separate license/permit
Each of these licenses would have particular requirements (including platform specific training and pass/fail tests).
The net result would (a) preserve a general right anyone to own certain hunting guns and (b) preserve the rights to own other sorts of weapons *provided* that one can pass the necessary tests. Basically, if you just *have* to have X gun, you need to do the work to earn it.
It would help cut down on straw buying — especially of assault weapons. And, combined with requiring all gun transfers to be logged and use the NICS database, would hopefully stem a bit of the tide of legal guns flowing into the black market.
@matt bernius (formerly MattB):
That denies that dogs can and have been bred for aggression.
Related:
@Brian Keating:
Seriously… what the hell does this word-salad mean?
And seriously, how many criminals do you encounter in your day to day life that you need to “deal with”? If it’s more than one on a regular basis, please let me know where you live so I can be sure not to visit there.
I don’t think I’ve ever advocated asking a criminal’s permission for anything. In fact, I often said that everyone should take a good self defense class in order to help them understand a conflict situation.
But the fact is that most people will never be involved in a “criminal” situation. And after a certain age, the fact is that most people who we would get into a fight with are most likely people having a bad day.
Beyond that, for those who really want to do us and ours harm, statistically speaking they’re more likely to be a family member or acquaintance than some scary tweaker or master criminal off the street.
However, most of us have become so conditioned by certain images of the scary mugger around every corner that they live in perpetual fear.
The only people who should be really worried are people who live in a bad neighborhood. And even then, the sad fact is, if someone wants you dead, chances are you’re going to get dead.
Shorter: if behavior is in the genes, and we know it is, it can be selected
Also related, Geoffrey Miller’s answer to the 2013 Edge Question, what should we be worried about? is Chinese Eugenics.
I guess edge’s strategy is to _not_ make individual answers linkable, but his is the top on the page.
@matt bernius (formerly MattB):
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that Matt, like most gun enthusiasts, is far more concerned with establishing what these weapons are called than making sure these weapons aren’t used in mass murders.
Such folks don’t realize how creepy they actually sound. Its like the WW2 geeks who insist that the poison gas used at Auschwitz wasn’t actually the original Zyklon B, but really a Zyklon B variant. They may be right about that, but its creepy that they actually think that’s so important.
In the same way, I’ve seen gun enthusiasts derail threads on Sandy hook with long digressions on the “stopping power” of 7.62mm ammunition, insisting that such ammunition wasn’t really “high powered ammunition”. You would think that what mattered was that it worked well enough to shatter skulls of six year olds, but not to the gun cultists. That’s merely an inconvenient fact.
@john personna:
There’s no question that breeds have been bred for aggression among other features. But it also puts far too much stock into the nature side of the equation (which is also something that Pinker does). Also note that even when a dog was bred for aggression, there typically was a specific target for that aggression. Pit’s, developed for dog fighting, were bred to react more aggressively to other dogs. And despite what people think, dogs do in fact, differentiate between dogs and humans (despite all the alpha dog crap you read, understand that your dog doesn’t think you’re some strange hairless standing on two legs dog).
That said, there is not a significant amount of evidence that said breeding makes all that big of a difference.
In fact, in temperament testing Pits score as less aggressive than other breeds (including many non-dangerous dogs like beagles and golden retrievers) –
http://einhorninsurance.com/california-insurance/pit-bulls-pass-atts-temperament-test/
Additionally, its important to note that most Pits are not even pure bred, meaning that the “nature” side of their personality is being tempered by breed traits from numerous other dogs.
@matt bernius:
That isn’t a very good test, is it? A “snap” is a failure. There were no “mauling” percentages.
No. It is a lot like guns. Men started buying pits because they were tough and aggressive, and that transferred aura to the owner. Girls started swearing up and down that the pits were sweet, because (a) they love animals, and (b) they stand by their man.
Typically later, after the breakup, they’ll admit a pit is harder to control and needs a lot more vigilance than a traditional family dog.
Of course, right? Consider the lab, bred for generations to gently hold a bird in its mouth, and carry it back to master.
@john personna:
I can’t tell you how much this particular line of thought is problematic to me on SO many levels. In particular because it starts out with stuff like dog breeds and makes the jump to humans.
Additionally, as research shows, once you get into mutts, visual identification of breed makeup is notoriously unreliable (every dog becomes a pit bull).
http://www.nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/breed-identification-1/
@john personna:
Sorry @JP, but you don’t know what you’re talking about on this issue. Or you don’t have all the facts and are relying on anecdotal evidence. If I have time later today, I’ll try to follow up with actual hard evidence.
And your argument about Lab’s being *safer* is getting dangerously close to @Matts “no AK-47’s are used in crimes.” Labs/lab mixes are responsible for yearly fatal maulings and dog attacks. And if we control for their number in the population, they’re not all that far behind dangerous breeds.
But in both cases, the far bigger problem isn’t the breed, it’s the fact that the dog wasn’t neutered. Approximately 97% of fatal dog attacks involved a non-neutered animal. And some 70% of dog bites involved a non-neutered animal.
@Brian Keating:
I am ambivalent about you having a gun, Mr. Keating, because you sound a lot like Bernard Goetz. You were attacked by minority thugs so you got a gun hoping to act out a Death Wish type fantasy by blowing away any minority youths who dare to confront you again. Unfortunately, the Bernard Goetz case shows that things don’t work out so well in real life. Also too, George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.
Still, if you want to have a gun, have it at it, hoss. Just don’t expect this African American male to feel safe around a gun toting white male who is angry that he was attacked by minority youths and who wants to “even the score” the next time the runs into a disagreeable minority person.
@matt bernius:
Wow, when did a gun thread become a dog breeding thread :-).
Oh well, go at it. I might learn something. I’m looking to get a rescue dog.
@stonetools:
The problem is in part the typical “expert” issue. I.e. that they focus on the wrong aspect of a problem (i.e. the minute details). This only gets worse when non experts are involved.
The other part is that for the expert, there are only a couple possible solutions, and some of them are completely antithetical to their beliefs. And in some cases they see where they don’t work.
Here’s their thinking (which I don’t necessarily agree with)
Solution 1 – Forrealz ban on all “assault weapons” including confiscation of all existing weapons – Would have, in theory, stopped shooting if the Government knew the Lanza’s had guns. But this includes taking guns away from responsible people and giving them no way to regain them. -> #fail
Solution 2 – Re-enact 1996 assault weapons ban – but that still allowed people to buy AR-15 platform weapons without a license. Nothing really changes and it makes it harder to legally own guns. -> #fail
Solution 3 – Ban high capacity magazines – Might do something, but not much if it doesn’t have a grand-father clause. Reasonable gun owners admit these are largely available for convenience at the range. -> Unreasonable response: #fail. Reasonable response: #meh
After that, things start spinning off in all sorts of weird directions with people accusing them of having small penises, that they’re crazy, that they hate society, that they want all regulation to go away, and/or that you can’t be a moral person and have a gun.
The easiest thing to do at that point is then to retreat back into details (and occasionally remind people of the things they actually support).
@stonetools:
Well it is OTB.
I definitely recommend getting a rescue dog. Nothing against breeder, and there are many very good small scale breeders, but the situation at most shelters is always overflowing. And note, that even if you want a purebred there are tons of purebred rescue services.
The key thing is finding the right dog (or cat) to match your lifestyle. Older dogs are great, btw, and can definitely be taught new tricks.
Here’s a great set of q&a’s about rescue animals:
http://www.4keepsanimalrescue.org/myths-about-rescue-dogs.html
If you’re considering a pit mix, here’s a good resource:
http://www.bulladelphia.org/understandabull_mythvsfact.aspx
Btw: We have two permanent mix breed rescues and typically are fostering a third, typically some type of pit mix (how I came to learn so much about pit bulls).
@matt bernius:
One of the problems is that the “experts” typically do oppose any further regulation by harping on these minute details, and then the experts go on to prioritize the convenience of lawful gun owners above all.
Universal background checks? That’s too inconvenient for the private buyer and that won’t completely solve the problem. Lets not inconvenience the gun owners.
Add mental history checks to background checks? Again, inconveniences lawful gun owners. Let’s lock up all mentally ill people instead.
Differential licensing of guns, based on their lethality? Oh no, that inconveniences the gun owners. Besides guns is guns, and an AR15 with a 30 round magazine is exactly like grandpappy’s old deer hunting rifle .
Limitations on magazines? Again, inconveniences lawful gun owners, and that’s all that matters. If it makes it easier for mass killers, based on what mass killers actually do, well that you shouldn’t balance that against the inconvenience of gun owners…
See a pattern?
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
James, so far you’ve called me both Spiderman and Batman, which I find particularly amusing since both of your favorite super heroes don’t carry or use firearms. Carrying a gun is equivalent to dressing in skin tight clothing and not carrying a gun. That makes perfect sense.
I’ve never received any applause for what I did, but one nice lady in Hawaii did call us baby killers. At least she didn’t spit on us.
My police officer friend seems to agree with me about civilians owning and carrying firearms, but he’s an adult, unlike you, and doesn’t waste his time calling people names when he doesn’t agree with them. I know it upsets you, but carrying a firearm isn’t yet equivalent to being a criminal in the eyes of the law.
Growing up and taking care of yourself instead of relying on others to do the things you should be willing to do for yourself is, quite obviously, too much to ask of people like you.
No matter how much evidence is presented to the contrary, you’ll continue to believe the fantasy and lies your “betters” feed you all the way to your grave. Since you’ve been told that you are not responsible, can’t be trusted with a weapon, and have been taught to be fearful of weapons, you will attack anyone who dares to use a weapon, even if they use it in your defense.
Thankfully for people like you, people like me don’t distinguish between sex, race, color, belief in sky wizards, political affiliation, or philosophical schools of thought when it comes to dealing with criminals who attempt to attack other people. I do not personally give a hoot how obnoxious or condescending a person is, I only care about whether or not they physically attack other people. I think it’s great that you’ve been so lucky and have never run across a criminal intent on hurting you. Everyone else is not necessarily (completely impossible for you to believe, but reality nonetheless) as lucky as you have been.
You haven’t called me Rambo or Terminator yet, so I think you need to counter with those two Hollywood characters next, given that both actually carried and used firearms.
I would also like you to present an argument about how I don’t need a chainsaw because 99.99% of the time I don’t have to cut down any trees in my yard. In fact, I just want a chainsaw. It makes cutting down trees so much easier and needs to be banned for the safety of the trees.
I have extra water and flashlights at my house for those times when the power and/or water stops working. Since 99.99% of the time the power and water work, I don’t really need the extra water or flashlights. The fact that I lived through a hurricane and went without power in the summer for more than a month isn’t proof that I need a flashlight or water. In point of fact, I need some tool like you to explain to me how stupid I am or that I’m not FEMA and can’t be trusted with the water or flashlights and should have those items confiscated.
@matt bernius:
Thanks for the dog tips. I’m open to getting a pit bull mix, but my wife has drunk the pit bull Kool aid, so that won’t happen, which is too bad because that seems to be the majority available at the shelters.
I’ll take a look at the resources you referred, then look again at what’s out there.
@Brian Keating:
Let me ask you, do you grow all your own crops (corn, potatoes, squash, etc.) to produce the food you eat? Do you raise and butcher all the cattle, pigs, lambs and chicken that produce the meat you eat? Do you go high-seas fishing to catch all the fish you eat? What about the cotton clothes you wear: you grow and pick your own cotton? Wool sweaters: you raise and shear the lambs and then knit the sweaters yourself?
The gasoline you use in your car: do you sink the oil wells and then refine the gas yourself? What about the electricity, running water and heat supplied to your home? Do you run your own electricity generation plan, sewage system and fuel oil delivery system or do you rely on others to do that for you?
Shoes you wear: do you tan your own leather and then cobble together shoes on your own, or do you let others take care of that unpleasant task for you? Furniture: all completely self-made, or do you rely on others to make your couch and chairs and desk and tables? Sew the drapes yourself? Weave your own carpet? Glaze your own windows and mirrors? What about the lamps: how do you make the lightbulbs and then wire the lamps? How about in the kitchen: is your refrigerator completely self-designed and self-manufactured? Dishes, glasses and plates are all homemade, too? Or are you really buying all these things at the store?
And if you don’t do all these things yourself, why? Do you think you’re somehow better than the farmers, ranchers, fishermen, sewer workers, utility workers, tanners, cobblers, etc. who do all this stuff for you? What, you can’t be bothered to learn how to do it all? Got more valuable uses for your time?
Let me tell you something, pal, you should grow up and stop letting all these thousands of people provide every little thing you eat and drink and wear on your body and use in your home.
@matt bernius:
My position has the advantage of being concise and consistent: If animal behavior is heritable, then it must be selectable. It is as simple as that.
You’ve given me diverse answers, that dogs aren’t people, that even if dogs were bred for dog-on-dog violence, that might not translate 100% to dog-on people, and that filters for *any* aggression mean that there all aggression is the same (“dogs is dogs”).
Handwaving.
And really your position rests on an ultimate contradiction. If you accept that dogs can be bred for aggression, then the resulting dogs have it. If it couldn’t be done, there would not be fighting breeds.
Now, it can be bred back out again, given time. Great Danes were war dogs centuries ago. Now they’re big kittens. But that took time and culling of aggressive individuals, something that is not done systematically or effectively with pits now.
@stonetools:
Why on earth would you want to be a test case? A lab will love you to death.
@Brian Keating:
But they fight crime. Just like you.
Sorry, man….just having a hard time taking you seriously.
Case in point:
If you don’t want to be ridiculed, don’t be ridiculous.
@matt bernius:
Matt, the “word salad” that I posted means that if a criminal attempts to kill you, you should attempt to kill the criminal before he (or she- equal opportunity and all that) kills you.
From having actually taught self-defense classes for a number of years, I can relay this tiny tidbit of wisdom to you. While it is possible to use your hands and feet to defend your right to continue living and breathing, having useful tools like a handgun make the task much easier and increase your odds of survival greatly. This presumes that you will take the time to train with your tools and practice with them enough to be proficient in their use.
The simple reality is that the amount of time it takes to become proficient with a handgun is far less (days not years) than the time it takes to become proficient with your hands and feet. The average woman is never going to be as strong or as fast as a man who outweighs her by 50+ pounds. For that matter, the average citizen is not going to be as strong or as fast as the average criminal. So, your average citizen can spend years learning how to use his or her hands and feet along with an intense exercise regimen, or that citizen can learn how to use a handgun so he or she doesn’t have to find out just how strong, fast, and coordinated he or she really is in a physical confrontation.
From having actually lived through more than a few physical confrontations as an adolescent and young adult, I can tell you that street fights and bar fights are fast, ugly, often happen with little warning about what’s coming your way, and the outcomes are generally not good.
I’m not stating that you can’t survive a physical confrontation without tools, as I am obviously still here, but there’s this little matter of quality of life afterwards. Going to the ER after you’ve had your face smashed isn’t fun and, if you are willing to use tools like knives and handguns, there is the possibility of going home without having your face smashed and without smashing in anyone else’s face. Even if you never get hit in the fight (that’s never happened in my case but maybe if you’re Bruce Lee you’ll never get hit), busting your knuckle on someone’s jaw isn’t fun, either.
So, the tool that everyone is so afraid of using can, if employed properly, improve the quality of life for you and the criminal that was going to use you as a punching bag. Yes, it’s possible you may have to shoot someone. Strangely, even most drunks and gang members understand that getting cut or getting shot hurts and isn’t something they want to stick around for.
I’ve never heard the argument made that having a handgun makes you more violent than someone who does not have a handgun.
Just because you carry a handgun doesn’t mean you have to whip it out at the first sign of trouble or even if you are involved in a physical altercation. If you don’t think you need to use a handgun, then leave it in the holster. I live in a city where people drive quite a bit faster than I do. Some of them become quite impatient with me and some of them can be rather rude. I wave them on by and let them speed past me. Their behavior is obnoxious, but it isn’t criminal. Even if it were criminal, I’m not bothering to do anything about it apart from getting out of their way because it isn’t a physical attack on me.
So, my takeaway from having my head pounded on and pounding on other people’s heads was don’t try to duke it out with four or five guys because the odds are not in your favor and even if you win your quality of life afterwards isn’t what it was before. Instead, be a smart human- use tools, don’t fight fair, and do whatever it takes to win. If you can run away from a fight, by all means do so. If you can’t run away, realize that there are no rules and criminals don’t care about what they do to you or themselves.
(The thing that drives me most nuts is contradiction or cognitive dissonance. It is both to say that pits have been bred for fighting, but don’t have fighting in their make-up. Either all breeders were wrong, and they should have been fighting labs, or you should stay the hell away from a pit.)
stonetools,
I’ve adopted two dogs (both black labs, or at least mostly labs). We went through Labs4Rescue.
It’s generally been a good experience, but I’ll give you the no-BS take: you can end up dealing with issues. Our older dog has pretty serious leash aggression/barrier frustration issues (note: yes, he’s neutered). As far as I can tell, it’s really driven by anxiety. He’s a nervous doggie. It’s like a threat response thing. And when he’s leashed or contained, freaking everything (from toy-sized dogs to people) is a threat which must be countered with DEFCON1. He does an excellent impression of “psychotic killer dog.” And yet, he’s totally not. If you come up to our house, he’ll be going totally ballistic. Get inside, and you will be sniffed, he’ll bounce a bit, and that’s that. It’s over, like a switch was thrown in his brain.
We’ve taken him to trainers. We’ve put in a lot of work ourselves. But in the end, we simply did not have the time and/or ability to train it out of him. Now that we live in the boonies with a fenced yard, it just isn’t an issue anymore. But man, there was a ~3 year period where things were tough. Of course, we could have sent him back, and chose against that. It’s funny what you find you’ll put up with…
Our second dog has lesser issues, but still, he came with some traits that are less than idea (Dominant little punk. Humps other dogs incorrigibly)
I think after they pass, we’ll adopt a pup and see if we can’t manage to produce a better-adjusted pet if we’re working from scratch. We love our dogs, but seriously, you don’t really know what you’re going to get. The folks that take care of them while they await adoption try, certainly, but they miss stuff. Our older dog was “fostered” on a 100-acre horse farm, and could run loose. Nobody ever saw him have issues with other dogs because he wasn’t leashed. They simply didn’t know.
@stonetools:
Yes, apparently using a tool to increase your chances of winning a fight means that you have a death wish or are out looking for trouble. Go drink some more of the protectionist Kool-Aid.
Regarding your comments about African Americans, I’ve never had a physical altercation with any Americans from Africa.
If a man with a darker skin color than mine feels uncomfortable with me carrying a firearm, then I suppose he should seek professional help to determine why my lighter skin color is cause for concern when I carry a firearm.
Given that some of my friends with darker skin colors than mine also carry firearms and have never voiced any concern about me carrying a firearm, I’m not going to lose too much sleep over the issue, or non-issue, as the case may be.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
You know, you could just choose not to ridicule other people who don’t make the same life choices that you do but I’m sure that thought never crossed your mind.
If something is unfamiliar or scary to you, mock it. That’ll make the unfamiliar or scary thing go away.
@Brian Keating: You’ve certainly convinced me that you oppose legal efforts at gun de-proliferation, and also that you’re not going to change your mind. So we’re just going to try to go over you, democratically speaking.
Also, too: JP you’re overselling labs. I LOVE labs, but dude, you’re overdoing it.
ESPECIALLY if you’re talking rescue of an adult dog. How the dog is treated overwhelms breeding.
If we’re talking about raise-from-pup, well then the nature side is obviously more important than otherwise.
@Brian Keating:
It’s not about life choices. It’s about guns in the hands of people who use them irresponsibly.
Oh, look…..another shooting. Actually, not just a shooting. A shoot out.
Wonder who the bad guy was. Bet he was wearing a black hat.
@Rafer Janders:
Hey, Raf, nice to get another round of insults from you. I was starting to feel unloved.
I guess I’ll just have to say that I’m not as self-reliant as I’d like to be because I don’t have the tens of millions of dollars to shell out for my own oil refinery or textile factory.
However, a Glock 19 cost approximately $550 and was more affordable than a clothing mill or oil refinery.
Not that it matters to someone like you, but self-reliance was more of a question of capability for me than possibility. I don’t have millions of dollars or an advanced chemical engineering degree, but somehow I still managed to make enough money to buy useful tools like a truck, handgun, knife, and a flashlight.
I’m sure that if I worked at it I could eventually make my own clothes, but the job that I have provided enough money to purchase them, so I did.
That same job provided a means to purchase tools to defend myself with, so I did.
Additionally, the job provided the means to purchase time from professional handgun instructors, so I took the instruction.
I guess if I were like you I could have spent the money on a really nice flat screen TV and video games to dull my senses with, but I didn’t.
Life’s full of choices and apparently you use your time and money to entertain yourself and tell everyone else how stupid they are for thinking that they could ever use their time and money to teach themselves self-defense.
@Brian Keating:
Mr. Keating continues to play the world’s saddest song on the world’s smallest violin…
He seems to have found the only police officer who thinks that civilians with guns should go around freelancing as law enforcement officers. In reality, most police officers oppose vigilantism.
You want safer streets, as opposed to pretending to be in a Charles Bronson movie?
Practice democracy. Advocate for, and vote for, more cops and better policing. That helps both you and your unarmed neighbors, most of whom don’t want you acting out your Punisher fantasies (speaking of superheroes).
Advocate for, and vote for , lead abatement in school. Kevin Drum argues that lead abatement is the biggest reason for the drop in crime over the past 20 years.
Advocate for, and vote for, reproductive rights. Economists Donovan and Leavitt propose that the biggest reason for the drop in crime was the dearth of unwanted anti-social children due to availability of abortion and contraception since the 1970s.
Now all of this is bit less heroic than walking around thinking, “Iron on my hip, don’t take no lip!” But it has the inestimable benefit of actually being based on science and rationality.
@Rob in CT:
Thanks for the tips. You see I want to avoid the whole house training thing. I’m thinking greyhounds, rather than Labs.I understand that they have problems, too, just like Labs and pit bulls. I think ANY rescue dog is a risk, regardless of breed.
@James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):
James, I can’t say for certain but I believe that your definition of responsible means not owning or using a firearm. Responsibility is a behavior, to me, not the presence or absence of an inanimate object. Having a firearm or not having a firearm doesn’t equate to responsibility, to me. If you have and carry a firearm, then you’re armed with a firearm. If you choose not to carry a firearm, then it means you’re not armed with a firearm.
If you want to rely on other people attempting to protect you, that’s fine with me. I think it’s a little naive, but it doesn’t bother me in the least bit and I don’t feel at all threatened by your choice to carry or not carry a firearm.
You come across as feeling very threatened by other people owning firearms. Have you been shot? Did someone shoot at you? Did someone shoot at or threaten one of your family members?
If you answer in the affirmative to any of those questions, then I would understand why you feel personally threatened by someone else who you have never met owning a firearm. If not, then why are you afraid of what might happen? I don’t worry about what might happen when I drive my car and I don’t worry about what might happen when I carry a firearm or what might happen when I don’t carry a firearm.
@stonetools:
So, killing someone who is trying to kill you is equivalent to being a vigilante?
Carrying a firearm means you’ve watched too many Charles Bronson movies?
Seriously, how do morons like you read so much into so little?
Did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby?
Did someone piss in your corn pops today?
@Brian Keating:
I haven’t played a video game since I was 19 years old. I do, however, have a flat screen, as does everyone else.
As I’ve mentioned before on this site, I practiced martial arts from high school through grad school, and also taught self-defense classes to college students for several years. I still box, lift weights, triathlete, and I’ve even been in a multiple fights over the years when I was younger. As to guns, I’ve shot everything from an antique dueling pistol to a belt fed M60 machine gun (thank you, Army of the Kingdom of Cambodia).
But, you know, I’m all grownsed up now. I’m a busy middle-aged man running my own business, and I don’t have time for that nonsense anymore. I lift and box to stay in shape and stave off the Reaper, not because I have fantasies that I’m ever going to get into a fist or gunfight with real crooks on the streets of New York. That’s what the 40,000 well-trained, armed men and women of the NYPD have signed up for and are paid to do.
And that’s the difference between us. I’m trying to live an adult, responsible life, and you’re still stuck in childish fantasies of vigilantism. The only one who’s thinking in video games is you.
@stonetools:
We went the adopt-an-adult route for the same reason. We both worked full time and didn’t have time to housetrain. We still both work, so this idea of going the puppy route next time will be a logistical challenge.
Good luck. You seem to have a realistic outlook, which is good. Most of the problem with dog ownership is people having no friggin’ clue what they’re getting into and being surprised that owning a dog is, like, work and stuff. 😉
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, you’re still stuck on the vigilante BS. I never realized that violent criminals were just a TV or movie fantasy that I don’t have to contend with. I’ll try to track down the people who have attacked me over the course of my life and remind them that they don’t exist.
I’m happy that you are so “protected” in your beloved city.
Our city doesn’t have quite the number of armed guards that New York does and response times are not good.
I’m happy that you are so mature and grown up that it is no longer your responsibility to defend yourself. I guess I’ll have to disagree with you on that point.
Since you’re so mature and grown up, I guess you don’t feel the need to belittle other people who merely attempt, whether successful or not, to defend themselves against criminal assaults. Oh wait, that’s right, you’ve spent the past two days mocking me and telling me how dumb I am. That makes you a real man and mature adult.
@Brian Keating:
Wow, from a guy who complains about personal insults. Guess I hit a nerve talking about Charles Bronson fantasies.
Well, I do read the news, watch TV, and surf the Internet. You must not do any of these things, since you missed the Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis cases. You should check with your Negro friends and see if they are OK with those examples of “standing your ground” and “self defense”. Their reaction may surprise you.
@michael reynolds:
Show me where it says “Need” in the Bill of Rights.
I’d be more impressed if you could do so without sounding like a pompous, egotistical a$$.
It appears you lack a fundamental understanding as to the nature of the Bill of Rights, and specifically, the 2nd Amendment.
I, and others like me, swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Key word there, “domestic”. Do you understand what that statement implies? Have you read the founding fathers intent behind the wording of the 2nd Amendment? Have you read the comments made by those who’ve seen first hand what a “domestic enemy” is? Go read what Ghandi had to say about the British disarming the Indian population.
It matters little why people say they like owning guns. It is completely irrelevant. The reason we have the right, is to protect ourselves from foreign invaders and a tyrannical government.
It’s almost a laughable thought, our government truly becoming a Tyrannical one. So unlikely to happen in my lifetime. But the fact remains, and history proves, that governments do turn on their people, and that in the event a government does become tyrannical, an unarmed population is completely at their mercy.
I’m not fighting for gun rights because I think the government is going to go Pol Pot on us — I’m doing so, so that the grandchildren of my children won’t be unarmed, should it happen in the distant future.
You say we have no need of guns. Why? What is your reasoning? I’m curious to know why you have this opinon.
-SFC (Ret.)
US Army
@stonetools:
Perhaps it was before my time but what is a Charles Bronson movie, anyway?
Also, what do Trayvon Martin or Jordan Davis have to do with carrying a firearm?
I’ve never met either man, but I presume they were carrying firearms and/or acted like vigilantes or someone in a Charles Bronson movie.
@stonetools:
Educate yourself, and stop perpetrating misinformation.
His rifle was not used in the shootings, only pistols. Probably because he realized it would be too bulky and unwieldy in close quarters.
@Brian Keating:
Brian Keating at 15:23 PM: Seriously, how do morons like you read so much into so little? Did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby? Did someone piss in your corn pops today?
Brian Keating at 15:36 PM: Oh wait, that’s right, you’ve spent the past two days mocking me and telling me how dumb I am. That makes you a real man and mature adult.
So, wait, I’m confused. Mocking people and teling them they’re dumb, is that good or bad? Because you seem to be switching positions on those pretty rapidly. Were you a real man and a mature adult at 15:23 when you called stonetools a moron?
@stonetools:
Nevermind, I googled Charles Bronson.
@matt:
If every rifle is capable of killing a person with a single shot, then when trying to reduce the lethality of a weapon it matters not that some rifles are more powerful than other rifles. They all can kill with a single shot. Therefore, one way of substantially reducing the lethality of all guns is to dramatically reduce the number of bullets they can hold.
Now, I suspect you know that I’m right, but you simply don’t want to admit that limiting a gun to just a few bullets is nothing more than an “inconvenience” that is clearly outweighed by the safety benefits.
@Brian Keating:
Hey, I’ve been attacked too, even in New York. Multiple times back in the day. But in none of those situations would a gun have helped, and would only have made things worse. Either I would have shot them, which would have been awful, or they would have taken my gun and shot me, which would have been even worse. As it was, everyone walked or limped away with bruises and hurt feelings.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
As far as I can tell, this is false. He used the rifle to murder the teachers & kids. He then shot himself with the handgun. He left a shotgun in the car.
Where are you getting this from?
http://www.redstate.com/2012/12/27/setting-the-record-straight-adam-lanza-did-use-the-bushmaster-ar-15/
@Rafer Janders:
No, we’re equipped with assault rifles AND government made bombs, revolvers (I carried a snub .38 when I was doing LLSOs in afghanistan), bolt-action rilfes, tomahawks (the axe, not the missile), cars/trucks, machetes… suppose if you had an loose TOE, you could carry a baseball bat and chainsaw, if you wanted…
Physician, heal thyself.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
SFC, it’s nice to see that there are some forward thinking people here who understand that just because everything is peachy today doesn’t mean tomorrow isn’t a new day.
I was beginning to think that I was the only one here who advocated giving civilians similar tools to military and law enforcement so that the burden of defending the people was not entirely placed on the police and military.
Apparently the idea of killing a criminal who is trying to kill you means you’re a vigilante, are Spiderman or Batman (neither of which carried or used firearms), or watched too many Charles Bronson (apparently before my time) movies.
Thank you for what you have done for us. Some of us really do appreciate it.
@Spartacus:
So, if someone is shooting at you, as long as they keep missing, you’re not under any threat?
Brilliant.
@Rafer Janders:
Indeed. The folks who are really concerned with safer streets are arguing for more and better policing and more services. NYC tried many things to reduce its crime rate(not of all which I agreed with). One thing they did NOT do is put a gun in the hand of every New Yorker (thank Gawd!). Generally, the focus was on more police and better policing-which I think did help (although, again, I’m not a stop-and-frisk enthusiast).
Whatever lowered NYC’s crime rate, arming lots of angry white males with semi-automatic pistols was not tried, thankfully. Don’t think that has worked anywhere. But it sure is a popular option among a certain population.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
Since you claim to have been in the Army, you have some understanding, don’t you, of the sheer destructive capacity of the modern missiles, artillery, fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, etc. etc. when compared to an AR-15? So how exactly would your rifle defend you against, say, a Stryker Brigade Combat Team? Between you and them, who’s left standing?
Not to mention that when your granchildren are around, we’ll have remote controlled drone soldier, jets, helicopters, and tanks, we’ll have tiny wasp-size explosive drones that can be targeted to you specifically via facial recognition, we’ll have sonic weapons, lasers, burning heat weapons, we’ll have destructive capability that no one now is even dreaming of. No little rifle is going to protect you from those.
@Brian Keating:
You should go all the way and google Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis too. Also Bernard Goetz.
The Internet is wonderful for finding out stuff.
@stonetools:
How do you correlate my carrying a pistol to being angry? Did I ever say that I was angry?
I’m a human and humans use tools. A firearm can be a useful tool and I like to carry one with me. Nothing about carrying it with me equates to anger, in my mind.
I’m happy you walked away from all your fist fights. Getting busted in the chops sucks. If you felt that you would have made the situation worse by shooting your attacker or attackers, then I’m glad that you didn’t.
One of the solutions to your crime problem in New York was to randomly stop people on the street and search them? I guess since the second ammendment doesn’t matter, none of the other ammendments matter, either. Do you still have the right to get up on your soap box in New York, or is there no longer freedom of speech there, either?
It’s kinda funny how all the other freedoms are lost after the freedom to defend yourself is lost. I hope that works out for you guys up there.
@michael reynolds:
It’s hard to believe you aren’t being facetious, really.
Expand your reading material. Specifically, the Declaration of Independence. Somewhat important document, maybe you’re heard of it? I’ll quote the relevant bit for you:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”
Having a “Right to Life”, by nature, means having the Right to protect said Life.
Move there, then. This country was founded on gun ownership, and having that power in the hands of the people. No own is forcing you to stay here, if our society that allows gun ownership is so intolerable.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Where do you get this nonsense from?
(CNN) — Adam Lanza brought three weapons inside Sandy Hook Elementary school on December 14 and left a fourth in his car, police said. Those weapons were a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle and two handguns — a Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9 mm.
….The primary weapon used in the attack was a “Bushmaster AR-15 assault-type weapon,” said Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/18/us/connecticut-lanza-guns/index.html
The problem is overwhelmingly handgun violence. That’s why I’m not hot to trot on an assault weapon ban. I think regulations aimed at reducing rate of fire (whether that’s mag size restriction or something else) would be nice, but consider that to be not worth the fight.
I remain interested in trying to close whatever loopholes exist that are helping supply large numbers of handguns to gang members and such. If we do a better job of tracking the supply, we might be able to make it harder for the average thug wannabe to get guns.
If that sort of thing is an interolerable infringement on the right to keep and bear arms… well, we’re gonna just have to agree to disagree on that one. My understanding is that the USSC, in Heller, affirmed both an individual right to bear arms and the ability of the government to regulate them.
@Brian Keating:
Not coming right out and saying it, no, but pretty much every post of yours telegraphs a whiny self-pity, bitterness, and aggrieved sense of resentment. I’d say that could tip into anger pretty quickly.
@michael reynolds:
And you don’t have a right to “protect” your family, by disarming mine.
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, having a little rifle isn’t about protecting yourself from Predator drones launching Hellfire missiles or an alien invasion- it’s about protecting your home from a group of street criminals.
Having an AR-15 gives you the ability to defend yourself against multiple criminals in your own home.
The commonly available cartridges that the rifle uses fragment when they hit something solid, reducing the chances of accidentally shooting someone through a wall.
The commonly available pistol and heavier shotgun ammunition goes through walls with ease and poses a significant threat to someone on the other side of the wall.
@Brian Keating:
Wait, I missed this before, but you advocate giving civilians similar tools to the military? So you advocate giving them grenades, missiles, mortars, grenade launchers, mines, chain guns, heavy machine guns, full auto assault rifles, fighter jets, ground to air missiles, air to ground missiles, cannon, APCs, and tanks?
And, of course, if you actually were in the military as you claim, you know that weapons are pretty much useless without constant training, both by yourself and with others, and that any military force which wants to last more than five minutes needs a dedicated logistics, transport, and supply chain and recruitment.
Basically, if you advocate letting civilians fight it out on equal terms with the United States Army, you are advocating for letting them form private armies. Warlord militias, basically.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
So let me ask you, when you were sent to Afghanistan, if the Army had told you “we’re not going to issue you an assault rifle, so all you get is a sword, a baseball bat, and some matches to make a Molotov cocktail”, would you have been OK and thought that was the functional equivalent of the rifle as Jenos claimed?
Brian, seriously, your posts repeatedly discuss killing “human predators.” You’ve said it over and over, as a justification for owning & carring a gun. This is why people think you’re a potential vigilante/superhero wannabe. You sound like you’re fantasizing about it – a bit like “preppers” who pretty clearly *want* something apocalyptic to happen.
@Brian Keating:
Then why did you write it was about protecting yourself from a tyrannical government? Those were your words, not mine.
See, it’s easy to type this stuff, but when I point out what protecting yourself from a tyrannical US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps would actually entail, you quickly realize that having a rifle would do absolutely nothing.
@Rob in CT:
Hey, he is retired US Army. He doesn’t need facts. They just confuse things.
Still this is what Colin Powell ( US Army, retired, General had to say:
Also too Stanley McChrystal ( Us Army, SpecialOps, retired, General)
Why, its almost like some of the most respected leaders and thinkers of the US military favor more gun safety measures, even if they own guns themselves.
@Spartacus: @Rafer Janders:
Me, against the average 11B (Infantryman) in a BCT? Most likely me. I’ll let your eye rolling finish before I continue…
Me, against a BCT? I wouldn’t, because that’s stupid. Me, and dozens of people like me? I know first hand how hard it is to defend against a 3rd world guerrilla force. A “1st world” guerrilla force, with identical training to the OPFOR we are aggressing against? I’d put money on us.
For one, you won’t get the Military to obey orders to assault it’s own population. It’s not going to happen. Period. Odds are, the vast majority of us will be with on the side of the population.
Says the person who’s never seen combat. I assume this, simply because of the nature of your statements.
All those items you listed are operated by people. People who are going to have problems if that “little rifle” starts poking holes in them.
The amazing part, Brian, is that your post of Monday, January 21, 2013 at 16:04 was perfectly sane and reasonable (and matches reasonably well, I think, with what we will see happen. The AWB almost certainly won’t be passed).
But then you got all hot & bothered talking about your right to kill human predators and such.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
How exactly is your little rifle going to poke holes in the remote controlled drone operator sitting in his air-conditioned office at an air base in Nevada?
The Taliban have rifles. How well are their rifles protecting them against the drones?
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, we’re still going strong with the insults and still providing no evidence, just reading way, way too heavily into everything that I say, about why it’s so dangerous for civilians to own firearms.
On the other hand, our government, which has given guns to drug cartels, weapons of every kind to nations we ultimately end up going to war with, and has smuggled dope into the country using the CIA is to be trusted without question with their firearms.
The same government that dropped a nuclear weapon on a hospital in Japan is telling me how dangerous it is for me to have an AR-15 or Glock 19. Yeah, I trust them completely. It isn’t as if they’ve ever done anything wrong right?
They’d never permit slavery, right? Oh yeah, they did that.
They’d never put people in concentration camps? Oh wait, there was that whole matter of the Japanese internment in WWII.
They’d never test biological weapons on Americans, right? Oops, I seem to remember them injecting members of the Tuskegee Airmen with Syphilis.
Surely they’d never dump nuclear waste into the environment, right? Oh, yeah we have those areas in the southwest where the radiation meters go buck wild.
They’d never use a false flag ploy to start a war, huh? Yep, they admitted to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, too.
They’d never kill an American with a Hellfire missile from a Predator, would they? Yeah, they’ve assassinated Americans that way, too.
I could keep going on, but I’d be writing for several days.
The point is, the government and police are completely trustworthy and should never be questioned. On the other hand, I’m far too dangerous to be trusted with a silly little pea shooter.
You want to trust a tiny group of people with all the firearms, you go right ahead. Hopefully that group of people won’t make the determination that you are the “enemy” or that you are less than human.
Personally, I like having my freedoms and if you don’t have the right to live without being nuked, poisoned, or the right to not be locked away with no charges and no trial, then I find it really hard to believe that you can consider that freedom.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
OK, so now you’re saying that the military wouldn’t attack Americans — “Period.” Well, if they won’t, “period”, and if the military will always side with the people, then the people have no need of weapons of their own, then do they? You’ve just argued yourself out of the position that you need a rifle for defense against the government if the military is always going to be on your side.
@Rafer Janders:
I can tell you this: If that’s all they said they had for us to fight with, we’d still fight.
Further, I wasn’t “sent”. I was deployed. I volunteered for my service, and “sent” has the wrong connotation, I feel.
Instead of trying to sandbag me into giving you an answer you want, so you can use it against Jenos and I, why not just tell me what you want me to say, so we can cut out the passive bull$%!t.
In other words, get to the point.
And this is the primary reason why “we need guns to fight off the evil government” is silly. IF the armed forces actually fought against a popular uprising, the civilians with rifles and homemade bombs would be in serious trouble (no doubt they would cause some damage – of course. But in the bizzare scenario where the full might of the US Military was brought to bear? Come on). But they wouldn’t.
As far as I can tell, the original intent of the 2nd was to provide for a well-armed populace that could be called up as militia to defend the state, because the Founders didn’t want a standing army. Well, that horse left the barn some time ago. So did regulating firearms (full-auto ban). The debate isn’t about regulating or not regulating. It’s about what regs are reasonable and likely to help.
@Brian Keating:
Holy crap. So now an AR15 is the optimal home defense weapon. Even I know that’s bulls@#t. Brian has officially jumped the shark.
@Rafer Janders:
Because it’s a pointless “what if”. Posse Comitatus aside, the US Military will never aggress against US Citizens. They might be ordered to do it by the brass/POTUS, but there’s no way in hell any sNCO, NCO, or junior enlisted would obey that order.
You’d be better served saying “Protecting yourself from a tyrannical FBI, NSA, LEO, etc”. They have armored vehicles, too, you know.
@Rafer Janders:
Raf, I never suggested that I was protecting myself against the government.
You can’t seem to make the distinction between criminals (people who attack other people), the general citizenry who are no criminals (people who do not attack other people), and the employees of the government (people who are more or less in place to attempt to “protect” the general citizenry).
If you don’t have a right to kill armed criminals who are trying to kill you with arms of your own, then you have no rights at all and you can expect to be treated worse than an animal being lead to the slaughter.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
Excuse me while I stop laughing….
You know why it’s hard to subdue a third-world guerilla force? Because they’re fighting to defend their own country from a foreign invader such as you, and the foreign invader doesn’t speak the language or know the customs or the country. The guerillas can always outlast the invader, because at a certain point the invader wants to go home, but the guerilla is home.
But in this case, both the government forces and the guerillas would be at home. The government forces would speak the same language, know the same communities, have the same intelligence. They’re not going anywhere.
I suppose it’s nice for you that you have these childish fantasies, it lets you while away some time. But for god’s sake, come back to the real world.
@Brian Keating:
The solution is to PRACTICE DEMOCRACY-to vote, petition the government, run for office, support freedom loving candidates. Its not to run around with your little M-16 knockoff rifles playing weekend warrior and acting like you are in the movie “Red Dawn”.
That’s the grown up solution, and it actually works, even if doesn’t fit your yen for action-herohood.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
Oh my god, you’re in cloud cuckoo land.
Off to the gym for my boxing. So I can better learn to defend myself against human predators. They bleed red, so I’m told.
Retired, one more thing: care to acknowledge your mistake about Adam Lanza’s weapons?
@stonetools:
Yes, stoner, the AR-15 is an ideal home defense weapon.
Just because you’ve seen an AR-15 on TV doesn’t mean you know everything about them.
When our oldest son was learning to drive, he told me that he knew all about driving and didn’t need to be told the things I was telling him. This of course, before he promptly drove the family car into the curb.
Good grief, educate yourself. Stop posting mindless emotional blather and just make the attempt to construct a logical argument to support your point. If you’re too ignorant to speak intelligently on the subject, then give the boys and girls who know something about the subject a chance to present their arguments without getting your panties in a knot.
I keep coming at you people with cause/effect and logic and you keep responding with emotion, insults, and irrelevant references to movie characters. If you tell me I can’t have a gun because I fantasize about being a movie character from a movie I’ve never seen, have a small dick, or people with a different skin color might be scared, I’m going to tell you that you are dumb because you are.
@RetiredUSArmySFC:
What does this even mean? Seriously, I don’t have a clue what you’re trying to say.
@Rob in CT:
Actually, the Second Amendment was likely put in to placate the minority of the Founding Fathers who didn’t want a standing army. The majority favored a standing army and had already given the federal government the power to raise and maintain a standing army-a power put in the original US Constitution. Unfortunately, what was originally a sop to the losers on the standing army question is now being touted as a right to enable treason that the founders for some reason put in the Bill of Rights. George Washington( suppressor of the Whiskey Rebellion) must be rolling in his grave.
@Rafer Janders:
No, please. I have no idea what that’s like. Why don’t you explain it to me, from your vast stores of firsthand experience…
Oh wait. You don’t have any.
The main reason its hard to defend against guerrilla war, is that they can blend in effectively with the non-combatant population.
Which “real world”? The “Real World” you see, in the comfort of your own home, or the ACTUAL real world, outside your narrow and sheltered field of view?
@stonetools:
I know this may come as shock to you, but those freedom loving candidates all seem to support the right of the common man to own and use firearms to defend themselves against criminals.
If someone tells you that you can have this tool but not that tool, they aren’t interested in your freedom, they’re interested in “controlling” which tools you can and can’t have. I’ve never met anyone interested in “controlling” (fictional concept but apparently very real to some people) other people who gave a good damn about their freedom.
The government cares about what you think in the same sense that it cares about the results of the tax money that they’ve invested in researching cow farts, which is to say that what you think falls between how cow farts smell and going to Pluto.
I guess as long as you get a dictatorship that you agree with, you think that that’s proof that the government is serving you best.
@Brian Keating:
Well, my wife (staff sergeant, USMC, retired, certified “Expert” on the M-16) doesn’t think that the AR15 is useful for home defense. I think I’ll take her opinion over some guy on the Internet.
Indeed, she doesn’t even think its necessary to own or carry around a firearm for self defense-despite being an older woman.
You may think you are coming at us with logic, but you are wrong about that. Did you see the quotes from Gens. Powell and McChrystal? Are you saying they are irrational?
@Brian Keating:
I’m afraid that ship has sailed, buddy. Want to use claymore mines to defend your house? They would work really well to keep out intruders. Can’t do it, though. Forbidden by law.
Other law forbids you from using RPGs, sub machine guns, Squad Automatic Weapons, mortars, howitzers,C-4 explosives, and flamethrowers.
What we are arguing about here are wider background checks for non-prohibited weapons and maybe restrictions on certain semi-automatic weapons and magazines. NO ONE, not even Justice Scalia, thinks you have a right to own and use any weapon you want. If you think this means you are living in tyranny, and that people are “controlling” you, then I submit you aren’t thinking logically.
@stonetools:
Well, I guess you can take the opinion of your wife and I’ll be content with my own opinion of the AR-15.
My AR-15 doesn’t fire at a rate of 700+ rounds per minute like your wife’s M-16, but that’s not a detail that’s important to you. It looks similar and therefore is the same.
Anyone who is fearful of a certain type of weapon because it looks scary or they don’t personally want to use it is not using logic, they’re using emotion.
The opinion of this general or that general about what weapons a civilian should or should not own doesn’t affect my opinion. One thing I’ve learned about officers in the military is that they are very interested in control- and they’re willing to kill other people to assert it.
Anyone who wants to go through life unarmed is welcome to do so. The difference between you and I is that I state that you have the right to be armed or unarmed and I don’t want to control when and where someone who is not a criminal or mentally ill can carry a firearm. Clearly that policy doesn’t work now and only the people who do follow the law are invariably killed and injured for following the such inane laws about where you can and can’t carry a firearm.
I actually believe in the notion of freedom that you say that you support but in point of fact do not. You want control. I don’t feel the need to control other people, whether some of them prove to be dangerous or not.
I’m sure this will really upset you, but machine guns are legal to own where I live. I don’t own one because I don’t think they’re useful for personal defense.
I have no idea whether or not land mines or rocket launchers are legal for personal defense, but then again I don’t own any of those items and never advocated using them for personal defense.
A semi-automatic carbine and a semi-automatic pistol are useful, to me, for personal defense. You feel differently. Go convince your senators and congressmen that you are right and I am not. In the coming months, we’ll see who these elected representatives agree with.
@Brian Keating: “I keep coming at you people with cause/effect and logic and you keep responding with emotion, insults, and irrelevant references to movie characters.”
That’s because he thinks you’re a ludicrous clown with vigilante fantasies and only the tiniest connection to reality. Since there’s no point in arguing with a crazy person, he’s really just poking you with a stick to see if you’ll continue to respond.
Hope I’ve cleared that up for you.
@RetiredUSArmySFC: Oh, God, here we go. You’re up there on the wall keeping our pansy asses safe and we should all be kissing your feet for your wonderfulness.
I wonder how many of these supersoldiers were able to figure out that Col. Jessup is actually the bad guy in A Few Good Men.
@wr:
That rather funny, wr, because I feel the exact same way about people who are scared of inanimate objects. I more or less think you’re all a bunch of hyperactive children with more emotion than brains. You constantly prove that you’re terrified of other people with firearms because the only arguments against someone who has a rifle or handgun is that they must be a crazy small dick vigilante with a superman/spiderman/batman/punisher complex. Where can you really go from there in a debate with someone?
The really laughable part is that people who think like that think that they are the sane ones.
Want to completely trust other people with your personal safety? Go right ahead. You’ll get no argument from me. I hope that works out for you. If not, oh well, I tried to show you the error of your ways and failed. Ostensibly, you are all too good, too smart, and too valuable to even make the attempt to defend your right to live. Apparently, that’s what other people are for. Well, I’m that “other” person telling you you’re dumb and/or crazy because you are.
@Rob in CT:
You aren’t going to get pistol restrictions before magazine restrictions.
The magazine restriction is “easier,” and a milder both in impact for legal user as well as for bad actors. That’s why there is a great effort to block it. Doing nothing easy also means doing nothing harder.
It is the fight to preserve the status quo.
@Brian Keating: “I keep coming at you people with cause/effect and logic and you keep responding with emotion, insults, and irrelevant references to movie characters.”
And yet, you are so desperate for our approval that you keep coming back to this site that you have apparently never visited before, trying time and again to convince us that you are not a nut. If we’re so insignificant to you, why the hundreds of messages? No one here is in the legislature — we’re not passing bills. So what’s the point?
Or is this just some kind of weird tribute to Michael Winner on the week of his death?
(Yeah, you can Google him, too…)
@john personna:
Indeed. I think the main thing to do is not to start with the magical complete legislative solution but to get the ball rolling downhill.
You start with universal background checks. Who can be against that? I note even Doug doesn’t question that. Its a no brainer, even for gun owners.
Background checks to include the mentally ill? A bigger lift, but in today’s climate, there will be almost no opposition.
High capacity magazine bans? No matter what the gun nuts say, its going to be obvious that high capacity mags make committing mass murders easier, and makes it more difficult for people to stop the mass murderers. In the end, gun enthusiasts arguing that they ” need” to have 30 round mags instead of just 7 or 10 round mags are going to end up looking too petty.
What’s interesting about the OP is that Doug, and many gun enthusiasts that followed him, never sat down and discussed the various provisions. They just wrung their hands and foamed at the mouth about “bans”.
We may not get significant action restricting handguns or assault weapons this time, but if we can get everything else, its a good start and sets the table for the next opportunity
@john personna:
I own some guns and a pit bull mix. She was a stray on the street and her temperament was utterly amazing. She exhibits the usual terrier tendencies and has a vague pit-bull build to her (along with what appears to be some greyhound). I had the vet list her as a terrier mix because of the misconceptions of pit bulls that exist. I also had her fixed because I don’t need that crap.
@john personna:
Pit bulls were traditionally bred for aggression against small animals. They were originally used for hunting and for killing rats in competitions. It wasn’t until later that they moved up to bull baiting and then finally dog fighting. Any dog that exhibited aggression towards humans was immediately put down as no one wanted to deal with a dog like that. Even dog fighters will put down human aggressive dogs because they become impossible to use in dog fights. Anymore most pit bulls are bred for physical appearances and temperament.
Aggression towards other animals and humans is something that is trained into them by people abusing the pit bulls natural tendency to want to please their master. Pit bulls are high energy and very treat oriented dogs along with their high drive to please the pack leader.
Mostly it was training not breeding. You don’t want a dog that attacks people randomly. You want a dog with a high degree of ability for control. There’s a reason militaries world wide don’t breed their war dogs for human aggression
@stonetools: I’m concerned about how to regulate these weapons without inadvertently regulating traditional hunting rifles. When the AWB was passed it actually accidentally banned some hunting shotguns. While the AWB was a great feel good measure it actually had no effect on crime or really what guns were available. Details matter when it comes to laws. You can’t call an Ak100 series semiautomatic an AK-47 when the AK-47 is already directly referenced in the NFA. You’re relying purely upon cosmetics to define a gun when the law requires the technical to regulate. I’m trying to inform you of the differences inherent in the guns but for that I’m being mocked.
I did no such thing. I have said that 7.62×39 is not high powered as a rifle round. That’s a fact as a 7.62×51 (NATO .308) is far more powerful and lethal. If you want to claim all rifles are “high powered” then fine but don’t claim that a 7.62×39 is a high powered rifle because it isn’t.
Straight from ignorance to emotional appeal in one post.
@stonetools: My dog is a rescue dog and she’s the sweetest cutest thing you could ever imagine.. Unless you don’t know her and you’re trying to enter the house without one of us. Then she sounds like she’s 100lbs and going to eat you. My worthless neighbors are still afraid of her (they are the ones that killed a dog by leaving it outside in the sun during extreme heat). I’m currently arguing with animal control over the new puppy they got that they’ve been leaving out in 40 degree weather with rain. Seriously the dog sounds like it’s being murdered and animal control won’t respond.
I will warn you that pit mixes tend to be smarter and more active then a lot of dogs. THey require more stimulation or they will resort to destructive tendencies (your couch etc). You need to walk and exercise them on a daily basis. THey are kind of needy emotionally as for dogs. I definitely wouldn’t recommend them for complete newbies. I take my mixed pit to the local playground when the kids are away for some crude attempts at schutzhund. She’s good at following my commands up and under things for the most part.
@stonetools:
That’s highly incorrect as my suggestions are along the lines of what you typed. I just don’t see attempts at magazine capacity limitations as being effective.
Here’s my exact list of suggestions one more time.
We need a public option with strong treatment options for mentally ill people (especially for the poor).
We as a society need to stop glorifying violence and insisting on using it to solve our problems (Iraq the drumbeat for war with Iran etc).
We need to stop glorifying everything military even when clearly we shouldn’t be.
We need to close any NICS related loopholes and provide for a free easy way for private sales to involve a NICS. That will fix the gun show loopholes that do exist.
We need for some tightening in CCW requirements with training and background checks as a minimum requirement.
We need to stop militarizing the police and focus on community outreach. Removing the stigma of snitching will increase the chances of discovering a shooting plot before it happens.
We need to look at our culture and ourselves in an honest light.
We should consider if not outright require gun owners to carry insurance to cover accidents with their firearms.
We should implement a national FOID card like system with required training classes. I’m worried about this bit because we cannot even get a national ID passed. There’s also the problem that such a requirement could become a method for the government to restrict ownership solely by passing ever ridiculous fees. There’s also the unintended consequences of such a precedent.
Notice that we agree on some of these?
Rest of my post is caught in moderation hell.
Here’s a recent picture of my dog. She’s got a full length tail which is about 12 inches long.
http://i49.tinypic.com/ayx2u0.jpg
@Brian Keating:
Hey, there’s an article about you but using your real name:
@Brian Keating:
Oh man…….
I mean, Bronson may be “before your time” but sheesh, man, but you should familiarize yourself with your own culture. Not gun culture, American culture. You’ve heard about Elvis, right? John Wayne?
@matt:
The dog thing might speak well for your humanity if not your reason.
One of the drivers of pit defense is that people want to think that everyone (and everydog) is redeemable, that love conquers all. People want to believe that a tendency towards violence can be cured.
… and it can. On the other hand, it becomes a bit of a negative feedback cycle when, in the case of dogs, you have an animal bred for aggression, further bred, out of this sort of compassion. If shelters were filled with labs and setters we would have less of a problem.
… and perhaps if shelters were filled with labs and setters adopters would not feel they were making such a contribution.
Unintended consequences.
(For those who object that not EVERY lab is a doll, even you just imagine two labs put in a ring. They are going to play. You know it. You know it takes work to break lab socialization, by mistreatment … just as it takes work to create pit socialization.)
JP – you’re argument is reasonable, but you keep sprinkingly it with dumb absolute comments like:
No, actually, I do not. One of my labs is a dominant little punk who has started fights and drawn blood (and had blood drawn). I’ve actually worked on that, but with minimal success. We adopted him when he was ~3 years old, so I don’t know how he was socialized, but actually if you met him you’d assume he was your stereotypical sweet labby. He has a Alpha tendency that was obviously not trained out of him as a pup. Since many (most, I’d say) dog owners are not very good dog trainers, it’s likely that our Max would have been this way even if he wasn’t passed around a bit in his life.
The overall point that labs are generally less aggressive than pits? Fine and dandy. You can screw up a pit easier. And there are still lots of folks who get pits precisely because they’re more aggressive (to look badass or whatever), which doesn’t help. If you stuck to this, you’d be on my solid ground. The average lab + the average owner is a better match than the average pit + the average owner.
Sonofabitch, I HATE that. Your, not you’re. Damnit.
One more thing, btw:
There are actually a sh*tload of labs & lab mixes available for adoption. It’s function of the breed’s overall popularity. Labs4Rescue’s operation is almost entirely bringing labs up from Down South (hunting dog washouts, oftentimes) to bleeding heart Northerners.
Shelters do seem to be dominated by pits & pit mixes, though.
@john personna: What do you mean by bred for aggression? All the pits I handle are no more aggressive then your average terrier. Terriers in general have a high prey drive when it comes to small animals.
As noted before I’ve also seen aggressive domineering labs that will pick fights with anything that doesn’t “respect” it’s authority.
Pits are chosen because they have a natural desire to please their master. That natural drive is then exploited to teach them bad things. That drive is why pits make excellent working dogs.
Like I said earlier though the intelligence combined with the tendency to be highly active dogs makes pits a bad match for newbie dog owners. Experienced owners on the other hand will love the loyalty, the intelligence and the temperament of the breed.
Since the first day I picked up my dog I’ve worked on her to increase her natural temperament. The only thing she gives me problems with is if I’m trying to inspect her tail. She’s never bit or snipped at me but she’ll do about everything else she can to hide her butt/tail from me.
I had a lady who we were trying to rent from go into a full out spasm when she met my dog. “SHE MIGHT SEEM NICE BUT ONE DAY SHE”LL EAT YOU!!!!1”..
Okay we’re done here have a good day..
Couldn’t really think of anything else to say when the lady is spazzing and my dog is sitting next to me with a confused look on her face.
Right, not necessarily a good choice for a newbie/low-effort dog owner. But then that’s true of a number of breeds. It might be true of rescuing (adult) dogs too, since it helps to have some experience when you do that.
Pits do, IIRC, have the added danger of having a particularly strong bite, so if they *do* attack, the results can be worse than otherwise. But serious, you don’t wanna get bit by a 75lb lab either.
There are differences between breeds, but they’re often oversold. Way oversold.
JP:
Here’s the long response I promised. First for a good (academically cited) primer on what is known and not known about Canine Aggression, I suggest reading:
http://pinkdog.com.au/resources/articles/canine-aggression/
The fact is that, despite our long co-history with dogs, the fact is that we still don’t have a strong, scientifically based understanding of this topic.
Here’s some of what we do know —
First when we’re talking about genetic aggression, we are broadly specifically talking about how quickly and significantly a dog becomes aroused when faced with an external stimulus that is perceived as a threat.
There is mountains of evidence that aggression qua arousal can be cultivated through selective breeding. That said, its best maximized by *selective breeding* and the maintenance of pure breeds. Most dogs produced in the US are not pure breeds. And so, just as things can be bred into dogs through careful breeding, they can also be lost/replaced through careless breeding.
Second, while aggression qua arousal is breedable, it’s clear that reactions to that aggression must be taught and cultivated (see Scott and Fuller’a “Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog” for what is considered one of the key treaties on this issue). While dogs all play, and if threaten may attack, the “killer nature” needs to be trained into most dogs irrespective of breed. Hence why dog fighters have to spend a lot of time training their dogs to fight.
Now, environmental conditions (including poor handling) can unfortunately cultivate violent aggression in dogs. Tying any dog out is a great way to make it more reactive. Likewise not socializing a dog can create problems as well. As can — most importantly — not neutering a dog (which, is really the biggest factor in dog attacks). And most dog attacks have far more to do with the owners than they do with the dogs. And this is true of any dog, respective of breed.
Third, accepting that certain breeds have a higher level of aggressiveness, it makes no sense to single out pit bulls as being overly dangerous. Unlike pits, which were bred to be aggressive to other dogs, numerous breeds include Dobermanns, Rottweilers, German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois were initially bred to specifically attack humans. However many of these dogs, German Shepherds in particular, are considered to be acceptable family dogs.
Fourth, even if you accept the idea that Pit Bulls are dangerous to dogs because of their history of being bred for dog fighting, then you also need to acknowledge that they were also bred to be *accepting of humans.* To that point, in traditional pit fighting, there were two handlers in the ring with the dogs. And, since fights were not necessarily to the death, handlers had to intercede and separate dogs without being mauled themselves. Likewise, injured dogs were often treated ringside by doctors who were strangers to the dogs. Historically any fighting dog that attacked a handler or doctor would be culled, removing that genetic imperative from the breeding line.
All of these points get’s to a larger issue: “aggressiveness” is entirely something different than “dangerous.” As the author of the article I linked to above notes:
As I noted in earlier posts, the problem is that identifying mixed breed dogs is notoriously difficult. And more often than not they are identified by the most visually prominent features mixed with the most dangerous suspected breed — i.e. every mutt becomes a pit bull just as every rifle seems to become an AK-47. So right now, getting hard statistics is very difficult. A number of people have attempted, with varying success. Most of these attempts suggest that when you look at attacks/population, pit bulls and pit mixes have a lower attack % than other “fighting/guarding” breeds.
So what’s my point… I agree that Pits an other fighting dogs, especially pure breeds, are more genetically predisposed to aggression (as defined above) than other breeds. But to overemphasize this predisposition (especially for one specific breed versus another) leaves out addressing important environmental/nurture factors that are shown to cultivate dangerous aggressiveness across all breeds. Further to assume that any specific dog is incapable of dangerous aggression due to it’s breed (or worse its size), is the sort of thing that ends up getting people into a LOT of trouble.
@Rob in CT:
They’re dominated by pit mixes because:
(a) Breed stigma. Other dogs that come in typically get adopted quickly — within a week of being put up for adoption.
(b) Mislabeling. This ties back to A. Research has shown that identifying dog breeds is extremely difficult. And so, the move “obvious” and typically most “dangerous” breed is chosen. Just like every gun becomes an AK-47, every stray becomes a pit bull. See: http://www.nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/breed-identification-1/
@Rob in CT:
This is a critical point. People tend to mix up “aggressiveness” with “dangerousness” (see the long post I made above). Small, hunting dogs, tend to be far more aggressive than pits or larger dogs. But people assume — because of their size — they can be easily controlled.
What makes that even more dangerous, is that people then don’t do enough training work with the smaller dogs. And often assume that they are good with kids.
This is a fair point — accepting we’re talking about “bred aggression” in terms of “arousal to perceived external negative stimulus.”
That said, if an owner fails to neuter that lab and leaves them tied out for most of the time, they’re taking a low arousal dog and maximizing it’s genetic potential for arousal. And as you wrote above, given a labs size, its not going to be a safe dog.
Oh, one last thing:
That’s actually more a function of size than anything else, and is typically overstated (along with BS about “locking jaws”).
Generally speaking, there’s no particularly good way to truly test the actual PSI of a bite. The one of the few credible attempts at comparative work was conducted by Dr. Brady Barr of National Geographic (Dangerous Encounters: Bite Force, 8pm est 8/18/2005).
In that test, the highest pressure recorded from the Pit Bull was 235 lbs PSI. That was a lower level of force that the German Shepard (238) or the Rottweiler(328). Dr. Barr states that as far as he knows, the PSI tested in the Rott is the highest on record for any domestic canine.
On the more scientific side, there have been some recent attempts to get at a more scientific understanding. The key person working on this is Jennifer Lynn Ellis of Guelph University in Canada. Dr. Ellis and her team have found that the size of the animal and the shape of its jaw predicted bite strength. Basically, the larger the dog and the dog’s head, and the wider the jaw, the higher the bite force turned out to be.
That said, a small dog can still have one hell of a bite — as anyone who’s ever lifted a dog off the floor by picking up the chew toy it’s attached to can verify.
Ok, from dogs to guns.
On the topic of an AR-15 as a home defense weapon — it actually has a lot of features that make it good for home defense (more so than other rifles). I’ve mentioned some on other threads (pistol grip for control while maintaining the shoulder stability for steadying shot, ability to take rounds that stop inside bodies and don’t penetrate as many walls, etc.). The sadly ironic point is that this is also why it’s been a platform that’s worked inside closed environments for mass shootings.
Onto a few other things in Brian’s response to me…
@Brian Keating wrote:
Actually, I also train and teach self defense too…
I agree with this statement. But I tend to find that most people who advocate carrying guns in order to even the playing field don’t emphasize the second sentence enough. If you don’t regularly train deploying the weapon, then carrying it isn’t likely to do any good.
This is also true about any self defense training. A black belt earned 20 years ago doesn’t mean crap unless you’ve kept training, which gets to:
But if that same person doesn’t regularly train with the weapon she carries, then, frankly, she shouldn’t be carrying that weapon. And that’s the key point that gets glossed over.
And she (or he) also needs to understand that range work isn’t training you to use the weapon in a self defense situation. Just like target shooting with your AR-15 at the range isn’t training you for a home invasion (and family dojo/dojang style point sparring isn’t training you for a fist fight).
Making the decision to carry a weapon is a commitment.
But all of this is missing a larger point — why should a middle aged, white (I’m assuming) professional (far outside of the demographics of someone who is going to encounter random or not-so-random violence) constantly carry in the first place an be so worried about criminals?
You constantly harp on about needing to “take care of criminals.” I get the notion of “not being a statistic.” But the actual statistics demonstrate that you are not particularly in danger of being a statistic in the first place. And if you’ve done all of that training, then, as you point out, you know there are 100 different ways to avoid the confrontation (or defuse it) before it happens.
This, btw, is my huge problem with Women’s and Children’s self defense training. Too much of it tends to focus on stranger danger, when statistically speaking, people are far more likely to be attacked/abducted by people they know. And, frankly, most people could benefit far more from learning how to safely fall, than learning how to fight off (empty hand or with a gun a marauding group of mass attackers).
That’s not really honest, is it?
Pits only have to be controllable by brutal keepers. Fighting dogs are not sleeping with the kids between bouts.
Really this is pretty sad, downvotes and misdirection, none of which really deny that dogs bred for strength and violence are dangerous …. just that it’s possible some other dog under certain conditions could be as bad.
We actually had the answer a day back, when we admitted that behavior is heritable, and fighting dogs are bred to fight.
Gotta admit, Rotties do scare me some. I’ve had some run-ins. They’re effing big, powerful dogs.
…
There are few things more aggressive than a terrier but lots of them are small enough that yer average suburbanite dog owner can hang on to the leash and prevent actual damage to anyone. I did have an amusing incident once where a small dog (not sure it was actually a terrier, mind you) ran across a busy road, dodging traffic to pick a fight with my lab. The thing was the size of his head. Toby didn’t find it amusing, though, and got read to rumble. I *barely* kept them apart.
Holding on to a 75-lb lab (or a 100+lb Rotty) is not that easy. One of our labs yanked my wife clear off her feet and through a hedge once, because he caught her off-guard. He saw the rabbit first. 🙂
@john personna:
You’ve made some overbroad statements that received pushback. A simple acceptance that you pushed it a little would be nice, because ultimately there isn’t a large disagreement here.
Hmm. I’ve met a lot of Rottweilers and most of them have been 50 kg lapdogs. Here’s the German breed standard on temperament:
and the American:
That doesn’t sound as though they’re being bred for aggression to me. For AmStaffs and APBTs aggression to people is a disqualifying fault. Translation: if you’re breeding for aggression, you’re not breeding pit bulls. Yes, there are foolish, stupid, and unscrupulous breeders out there.
Another thing: most people couldn’t pull a pit bull out of a lineup. There are a lot of similar bully breeds.
The only breed of dog I’ve ever encountered personally of which I thought all the members were nuts were cane corsos, despite what’s in their breed standard. I’ve known any number that turned on their owners.
@Rob in CT: “Gotta admit, Rotties do scare me some. I’ve had some run-ins. They’re effing big, powerful dogs. ”
My wife and I honeymooned in a villa in Tuscany. (Well, an apartment therein.) The first night we pulled into the grounds, got out of the car… and heard giant footsteps. It was pretty clearly the hound of the baskervilles. We ran into our room and slammed the giant wooden door and the slider just as the barking started.
The next morning we opened to wooden door to find the biggest Rottweiler in the history of creation standing outside the glass, just waiting for us to slide it open so it could open.
We cowered in our room until the housekeepr showed up an hour later. She came in through the villa, saw the dog at the glass door and laughed. Because this giant hellhound had been waiting there all night… so she could show us her puppies.
That Rottweiler turned out to be the sweetest dog I’ve ever met.
@matt bernius: BTW I’ve easily unlocked the jaws of 100 lb male with my bare hands while he was locked on a rope. All you have to do is hit them in the right spot of their mouth and they’ll drop anything instantly.. Now if I didn’t trust the dog I would of used a stick instead.
@Dave Schuler: It’s funny but I actually did a presentation on dog breed specific bans for an English class last year. Part of the presentation was what I called “spot the pit bull”. I took a large batch of similar looking dogs and arranged them with numbers much like this link.
http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html
Out of the 32 people that tried to spot the pit bull only one got it on the second try (she was involved with dog shows). Most people took at least six attempts before spotting the pit bull.
That exercise did an excellent job of showing people how hard it is to properly identify dog breeds.
So like every post of mine is getting caught by the spam thing..
Update (Dave Schuler)
One of your comments got tagged for including too many links. After that you’ve apparently been scored down. Maybe my rescuing them will straight things out.
So … Should I push my wife to adopt a pit bull type dog? Or just concede the point? ( Domestic tranquillity may be at stake!)
There are a lot more pits and pit mixes to pick from.
@Stonetools If you find an exceptional pit bull and you think you can handle it then yes. Otherwise it might not be worth the hassle if you’;re not experienced with dogs.
http://www.pitbullforum.com/index.php
If you get a pit bull mix try to get it listed as a terrier mix. There’s a lot of communities with breed specific laws make sure you are aware of them. If you get a pit bull or mix you need to make sure to extra train them. There will be an occasional moron but if you train your dog very well most people will be won over.
@Stonetools:
You need to find the dog to match your home. First the two of you need to figure out how much training you want to do (and a basic obedience course with the dog is a MUST), how much time you have for things like walks, and what type of relationship you want with your dog (i.e. a chill dog, a playful dog, etc). High energy, regardless of breed means high energy. And the “smarter” the dog, the more time they require to keep them from getting bored.
That said, I wouldn’t rule out a pit mix. And if you want someone to talk to your wife about the pluses and minuses of pit mixes, feel free to drop me a note: mbernius [at] gmail
And if you’re in the market for a goofy and sweet pit/shepherd mix (with an out of control overbite), check out the guy we’re currently fostering – http://www.petango.com/webservices/adoptablesearch/wsAdoptableAnimalDetails.aspx?id=17959206&css=http://test.petpoint.com/WebServices/adoptablesearch/css/styles.css
(though we’re a little far off for you guys… help out someone at your local shelter… I was really just looking for an excuse to post a picture of Tanner).
@john personna:
We’re going to have to disagree. I really urge you to read the lit review I posted, as you are really not arguing from fact (though you seem convinced that you are).
The bottom line is ANY dog can be dangerous. And so called “safe dogs” maul a lot of people each year.
Here’s the thing — no dogs should be sleeping with young kids. No dogs should ever be left along with a young child/toddler… period. I don’t care if it’s a pit or a golden retriever.
The fact is, while dogs are wonderful companions, they always need to be respected (just like guns). To many people assume “domesticated” means “tame” or “safe.” And most people really don’t unedrstand how to act around dogs (this is doubly true for toddlers, though they frankly really don’t know any better).
@matt bernius:
Mr. Bernius, I agree with your comments about emphasizing continual training to students who choose to carry a firearm, or students who choose to carry nothing at all for that matter, and I know from having watched a lot of people shoot pistols over the years, that very few of them achieve what I would call basic marksmanship proficiency on a one way range with no pressure to perform and certainly nothing approaching an imminent threat.
None of that dissuades me from attempting to teach them or encouraging them to seek schooling from shooting instructors who teach realistic use of a handgun for self defense. There are only two schools in the country that I know of that teach curriculum involving any sort of realism. Sadly, the average paintball game is a more realistic employment of a handgun than most of the shooting schools I’ve attended, wherein you’re taught to shoot paper targets that don’t move or shoot back. Most of the schools only teach fundamentals because so many people lack the fundamentals.
I do not advocate only training with and carrying a handgun or only knowing how to use your hands and feet, because having options gives you more choices. Regardless of how other people feel, I don’t think trying to get close enough to someone to hit them is an appropriate response to someone shooting at you or other people. Apparently the police feel the same way because there aren’t a lot of stories on the evening news about how they employed their ninja skills to stop someone from shooting at them.
Obviously other people here do not feel the same way, but I think it is the responsibility of all adults, in or out of uniform, who are able to do so to not permit violent criminals to attack any more people than they already have. I think it is morally reprehensible to permit criminals to continue attacking people when you have the ability to stop them. Even if it leads to my death, I think resisting criminals who attack other people, or me, without cause is a personal responsibility that cannot be delegated to anyone else. Will the world be a better place if we permit violent criminals to commit every conceivable act of savagery against their fellow man, or will it be a better place without them?
There is no correlation to the likelihood of an attack with respect to the severity of the outcome. The students who were shot by Mr. Lanza were unlikely to have a mad man with a gun show up and kill an entire class of 1st graders, but that did not prevent it from happening. The police clearly did not stop him, so if the police aren’t there should he just be free to kill as many people as he pleases or should someone who is not a police officer make the attempt to stop him? If someone who is not a police officer attempted to stop him, would it have been appropriate to try to smack him around while he was busy shooting people or should Mr. Lanza have been shot?
I think about carrying a handgun in the same way that I think about always putting my seatbelt on. I have been in just two motor vehicle accidents in my life and I was not driving in either accident. Even though I have not personally been in an accident where I was driving, I still put my seatbelt on every time I get in the car and insist that anyone in the car with me do the same. I could care less if there was a law mandating it. I’ve seen enough evidence of what happens in hospitals to know that not putting a seatbelt on is a really dumb idea. I’m going to wear my seatbelt because the consequences of not wearing it are severe, however unlikely it is for me to need it. The likelihood of my being attacked may be low, even with the number of times it has happened in the past, but the consequences can be severe.
@matt: Thanks Dave I’m guessing it was the post here that got me into trouble.
@matt:
I’ve been having to post a lot of links in my comments lately so I’m not surprised something flagged me 🙁
@Brian Keating: Well, you certainly SOUND angry.
I’d just rather not allow firearms into the hands of anyone who hasn’t shown an ability to contain his temper. We’ve got enough angry idiots out there. Adding guns to the mix just raises the risk for everyone.
Especially if one jerk sees another jerk carrying or waving a gun and shoots him in self-defense. Fewer guns around, fewer people able to use that excuse.
@Stonetools:
BTW… my wife said she’d be happy to talk with your wife about it. So feel free to ping
mbernius [at] gmail
@ WR
My late sister in law had a Rott that was absolutely the sweetest dog I have ever encountered. At the same time, he was a trained attack dog that would have slaughtered anyone who tried to harm my sister in law, who was severely disabled. I miss them both quite a bit.