* People posting in favor of gun ownership tend to be much less articulate than those posting against it. This is somewhat ironic, in that many of them explicitly or implicitly express a fear of minorities as their motivation for owning guns, because based only on their writing most people would assume many of them were members of the most illiterate, uneducated, and despised inner city minority populations. People who can only express themselves in broken pidgin English are products of some sort of cultural or intellectual degeneration and, whatever battle they are trying to win, they have already lost through their inability to clearly and fluently express themselves.
* People posting in favor of gun ownership are much quicker than others to engage in emotional violence, profanity, incoherent rants, explicit or implicit threats, WRITING IN ALL CAPS TO SIMULATE YELLING, and other forms of intimidation. Plus, they have guns, too, right? Hahaha! What a way to come off as a complete, dangerous nut and end any kind of meaningful discussion.
* People posting about gun ownership tend to have a very poor sense of what we used to call OPSEC, or "operational security," when I was in the military, and publicly disclose a lot of information about their personal arsenals. In that almost all of them express fear of something as a reason for owning guns -- blacks, liberals, the federal government, the President of the United States, "Mexicans," Russians, U.N. black helicopters, whatever -- this is all the more baffling, because they are giving all those enemy peoples great intelligence that could presumably be used against them. And, in that many have collections that are not altogether legal, they have presumably put themselves on the radar of the governmental agencies they least want to be known to.
Comments are welcome from anyone who is a follower of this site and who posted under a real name! Anonymity and cowardice are not acceptable here, whether you own a gun or not.
Posts
As a liberal, who believes in the Second Amendment, my comment has always been the same.
ReplyDelete"We don't need less guns. We need less guns in the hands of stupid people."
A lot of the problem comes from the typical person who rants and raves about their guns is they are also likely to support the dismantling of our public mental health system. When funded, and treated as a part of a greater health care system, public mental health facilities can do great work for a large number of people... but because the majority of those mentally ill people are poor, they are ignored and shunned. Every single person in recent memory who has done one of these mass shootings has had a string of problems in the past. Even in the latest shooting in CT we are finding out that the shooter killed his own mother first before heading off to his daughters school in fatigues and heavily armed.
That is mentally ill. That is what we need to focus on.
Very nice article, Mike. Thanks for posting.
Robert: I agree, to a point, that how we treat the mentally ill is part of the problem but it is only a small part. The larger part, in my opinion, is how society (as a whole) views violence.
ReplyDeleteIn our society violence is viewed as a form of entertainment yet we find ourselves shocked and stunned when things like this happen.
Why?
Why are we surprised when some 20 year old kid who, presumably, has been desensitized by years of violent video games and movies, acts upon that conditioning and goes out and kills for real?
@Robert: Cop out? so despite hundreds of pages of scientific documentation and studies, by people such as LTC Dave Grossman, showing that violence in movies and video games contributes to the desensitizing people (especially young children) to violence you state it is a cop out? Do you have evidence to support your theory or is it just your personal opinion?
ReplyDeleteAgain I agree to a point that it is too easy for the mentally ill to get access to firearms but that is part of the "culture" I was talking about; a refusal, on our part, that there are certain people in our communities that should not have access to firearms. A refusal, on our part, to address the issues contributing to criminal/violent behaviour and a refusal to hold those people accountable.
It is a refusal by both sides of the issue to actually address the disease. Instead they focus on the symptoms.
All I can say is, "It's complicated." There is no single rallying cry or touchstone that's going to bring us all together on this one.
ReplyDelete"Complicated"...That's an understatement! *wink*
DeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this blog post...says it all I'm afraid. What I don't understand is why these gun owners think that their guns are going to be taken away....regulating the sale of assault weapons...making sure that those purchasing them are "right in the head" is all that is being proposed. I wish that fear was not the driving factor in this country...but it seems to be just that.
ReplyDelete"Fear" to me is the key word here, Terri. In all times and places there have elements among the powers-that-be that wanted the general population to be scared. In our own era and country that began on September 11, the events of which have been capitalized on since. Americans have traditionally been a courageous people and it is very disturbing to me to see fear become a key factor in the decisions so many of them have made, or things they have accepted, over the past 12 years.
ReplyDeleteTerri, we fear our guns being taken away because it has happened in other countries and there is only the 2nd amendment that has kept them in our hands this long. When liberals compare our gun death rates with countries that outlaw guns it's pretty obvious they would like the same gun bans here.
ReplyDeleteI am a weapon. Disarm yourselves at your own peril.
ReplyDelete@Terri - With the previous "assault weapons" ban and the events surrounding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (not to mention the huge amounts of money that the NRA has poured into the effort of not letting people forget), is it any wonder why most gun owners are afraid?
ReplyDeleteCouple that with the general perception of most liberals, and the rhetoric they spew forth (concerning guns being "THE" problem) is it really that hard to understand why most gun owners are afraid?
Both sides of this issue are praying on fear; unreasoned fear in both cases. They take worst case "what if" scenarios, package them in attractive boxes, and sell them to their respective buyers.
due to the (long) developed, or developing, polarization of this Society neither one of them is open to compromise. They have adopted a "my way or the highway" mentality.
Punishing society, as a whole, for the acts of one deranged individual is NOT the answer. Allowing EVERYONE, regardless of (mental) status, to have access to a firearm isn't the answer either. Neither side is willing to budge on this issue.
We HAVE to have a Discussion on this. We HAVE to have action on this. But any discussion and any action we have HAS TO BE reasoned, proportional and based on REALITY and not some idealistic view of how life should be. It needs to be based off how life really IS.
Understanding that Adam Lanza's Mother was also a victim, it should be noted that she was also the owner of the weapons used to kill her and numerous other victims. While I believe in the right to gun ownership, I see no need for private citizens to own or have access to militarized assault weapons or high capacity magazines. Most civilians would be shocked to hear the statistics on military weapon training casualties...and they have stringent safety requirements. One thing that seems to not be clear to many weapons owners, that the ownership comes with responsibilities. Clearly in the case of the Lanza's, the son, who the Mother knew was unstable, somehow gained access to those weapons, indicating that she did not adequately secure those weapons so that she could control access to them. This has often been the case in recent mass murder incidents, that the weapons used did not even belong to the shooter.
ReplyDeleteA person’s greatest weapons are their mind and their body. I firmly trust in their assessment of themselves that they need firearms to make up for any inadequacies. I would never consider limiting their right to do so.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly looking at how frightfully frail and weak most humans are, I would in fact recommend most of them carry firearms, the larger the round and the greater the ammo capacity the better.
@Diane - While it is true that Adam's mother was the registered owner of those weapons, we have know knowledge of how he may have gotten access to those weapons.
ReplyDeleteThey could have been out in the open, allowing them free access OR they could have been locked up and she surrendered them under duress.
She's dead, He's dead and the authorities aren't talking. Yet.
We can speculate all we want but let's just make sure it remains speculation without judgement until we have the data to prove otherwise.
The average citizen does not need a militarized assault weapon...what would the need it for? Do they want to go out and shoot a whole herd of deer instead of one? It makes no sense to own them. I can understand protecting yourself and your property but one shot is usually all it takes. I am a Liberal..and most of you on here talk about me as if I am a leper. We are only asking that there be more stringent rules for acquiring such a weapon. If you have nothing to hide then there will be no problem.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.coffeepartyusa.com/progun_friends
ReplyDeleteIn a free society, citizens are not required to justify their lawful actions, their acquisitions, their collections, or their interests.
ReplyDeleteIn a free society, it is up to the government to justify the limitations, any and all limitations, it places upon its citizens.
These justifications must go beyond the simple emotional abhorrence to a horrible but rare random event.
Rick, I think you are exactly right about what can be expected of citizens in a free society and that it is indeed incumbent upon the government, for better or worse, to establish the limitations you allude to. It is unfortunate that over the past few years we have heard the phrase "personal responsibility" applied to people who through no fault of their own have ended up jobless, homeless, or uninsured -- but not once have I heard anyone who said it in those cases apply the same idea to that of firearm ownership. The fact that people have failed to apply that personal responsibility in just about every recent shooting incident is a pretty sure indicator that the government will end up tightening up the laws on gun ownership and that they will have ample justification for doing so.
ReplyDeleteI do think your statement that such "justifications must go beyond the simple emotional abhorrence" sounds somewhat callous, but will allow that writing does not always convey tone and that this was almost certainly not your intent. It is the body count and ages of the victims in this incident, not the abhorrence to them, that will provide these justifications.
As far as the Newtown massacre being a "rare random event," that sounds an awful lot like corporate spin, and I do always wonder why when individuals adopt the phraseology of institutions. I think it would be easy enough to show that such events have become much less rare recently and that sort of statement certainly is not going to ring true to many people.
Cerberus Capital Management, in any event, the parent corporation of Freedom Group, the company that produces the assault rifle used in the Newtown attack, sees the event as being significant, as a statement it just made indicates:
"It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level," Cerberus said in a statement about its intent to divest itself of the firearms manufacturer.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is that the incident and other similar incidents by themselves are not enough justification. That if obstacles and limitations are to be placed upon law abiding people that the limitations and obstacles must actually accomplish something. We had an assault weapons ban for ten years, very similar to what is being proposed now, with no appreciable difference in violent crime rates and the resulting injuries and fatalities. Therefore, tightening as is currently proposed is more of an emotional reaction not a reasoned attempt to prevent another incident.
As far as rare and random, the odds of a person finding themselves in and dying as a result of one of these tragic events is less likely than being struck by lightening, and is closer to the odds of winning a lottery or being hit by a meteorite. These mass shootings thankfully are an anomaly not the norm.