Both blogs have approved more comments. They only seem to be approving comments that they feel like responding to, so pretty clearly they aren’t willing to engage in unmoderated, or even reasonably moderated debate on the subject. One of my posts not approved questioned their statistics. I’ll give them credit, their moderating policy is smarter (from their point of view) than the Brady’s. Make it look like you have comments, and only let the people see the comments that make your argument look good. Let’s take a look at some of their claims:
Phelps, that’s actually not true. If you look at CDC data for 2005 and analyze the states by gun death rate per capita, the states with the highest per capita gun death rates are (in order): Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Tennessee, Alabama, Nevada, Arkansas, Arizona, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wyoming. There’s not a state in that group with tough gun laws. Interestingly, the bottom six states with the lowest gun death rates per capita are: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Hawaii (lowest). All states with tough, smart gun laws.
Except they are conflating gun deaths with gun violence again. What they are referring to is a VPC study using CDC data. The problem, again, is these statistics include suicide by gun, which is going to be higher in areas where guns are more common in homes. Would CSGV feel better if people threw themselves in front of trains instead? If you remove suicides, Alaska, Montana, West Virginia, and Wyoming all have homicide by gun rates lower than the national average, and in the case of Alaska, Montana and Wyoming, far lower than New Jersey or New York. And keep in mind this is just gun homicide, not overall violence.
There’s an old saying, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” There is a correlary here that should go “Beware of gun control groups bearing statistics.”
UPDATE: Sailorcurt shows some of the samples that haven’t been approved. Pretty clearly they aren’t going to let through any argument they can’t refute. At this point, I’ll go back to ignoring them, since pretty clearly before the pro-gun folks came along, they had no commenters.
i responded to their post about guns “in use” and the NRA guidelines… the very topic was brought up 2 weeks ago in my NRA instructors course… and since the course didnt focus on defensive use, but sporting use, it wasnt covered much… target guns would and should be locked up when not in use… but a defensive gun is in use when it is sitting next to its owners bed
of course, they didnt want to have a debate with an instructor, so they didnt approve my comments
Smoke and mirrors, misdirection and lies. Amazing how quickly it becomes apparent that their arguments cannot withstand rebuttal.
Debates allowing only positive reinforcement aren’t debates, they are mere stage shows, depending on the participation of the audience to further the plotline. I see no point in playing the part of the trained monkey in their carefully managed circus.
And Damn, I’m tired of being lied to.
I left comments regarding the fact that they only address one kind of violence, but have no plan, or even the faintest idea, about how to reduce violence overall, and that their solution will do nothing to reduce deaths or crime.
Wish I would have seen this before I commented. I don’t remember my exact words, but I mentioned that the “guns in the home increases murder” includes criminals illegally posessing guns, and the rate is much different if only lawfully posessed guns are included. Trigger locks shouldn’t be used on a loaded gun, and that two different NRA instructors said that “in use” includes a nightstand gun. My comments haven’t been approved yet.
BTW-A nearly identical article appeared on the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/the-matter-of-nonfuncti_b_92993.html#postComment
I left a comment pointing out that England – with a complete gun ban (Mr. and Mrs. British Subject, hand ’em all in) they still can’t keep guns out, and England is an island with no neighboring states with “weak gun laws” to blame. I also noted that Alexandria, VA – right next to DC, where there is a CCW law and open carry is legal – has a homicide rate a fraction of that of DC.
So, of course, that post was not approved.
“Reasoned Discourse,” like “gun control” only works in totalitarian regimes. That is: the terms get redefined to pretty much the exact opposite of the original meaning.
They actually approved my comment on the ‘The Matter Of Non-Functional Firearms’ post, but didn’t respond to it. Reprinted here:
“Justice Breyer’s comment would [have] merit if he were talking about an issue like smoking in public. But infringement upon constitutional rights deserve judicial review. I sincerely doubt Justice Breyer would hold such an attitude concerning something like free speech or abortion. Should we leave such issues merely to the city councils and legislatures and not get judges “all over the United States” involved?”
No doubt they are approving comments that give the illusion of civil discourse occurring on their blog, without actually approving anything that weakens their positions, or exposes their deceptions. In this case we should probably stop trying.
[…Sebastian notified us of a possible case of true Reasoned Discourse a couple of days ago.
It turns out it was a false alarm. I posted a couple of comments successfully, but then I guess my arguments got too hard for them to rebut so they stopped posting them….]
I submitted comments 24h ago and have not seen them on their site yet. Oh, well.
I’ll give them until tomorrow to approve the comment I left yesterday before I write them off …. but it ain’t lookin good.
My latest to Mondays with Mike
“As for cars, you’re right, we don’t ban them. But since the mid-20th century we’ve regulated them highly (along with our roads) in an effort to reduce automobile-related injuries and deaths. We have seen no similar effort in this country to date to reduce firearm injury and death.”
No effort to regulate firearms? Are you mad?! There are thousands of laws regarding firearms on the books? How are guns not adequately regulated? And regarding automobile regulation, how often do we hear of a person with multiple reckless driving or DUI convictions still being behind the wheel, even if their license was taken away?
Those of us for Gun Rights have pushed numerous safety and training campaigns over the years only to be shouted down by the gun control crowd for various reasons. We tried it your way, we tried to do near or total bans with no education and training, and what we get is violent inner cities. Your way is like abstinance sex ed, a great idea that fails to deal with the reality.
“fails to deal with the reality” pretty well sums up the anti’s position on firearms ownership.
They haven’t published the two things I’ve left. I didn’t save the exact text, but the first was along the lines of pointing out that trigger locks are a bad idea. The violate rule #3 (Keep your finger off the trigger) by their very design. I pointed to the pilot discharging his gun as an example and made a case for cable locks being a much better idea.
I guess that rained on their “trigger lock = good” parade a bit too much.
I later tried posting something in refutation that trigger locks somehow play a role in the theft of firearms. I used to pick locks as a hobby and your typical gun lock only takes 30 seconds, requires almost no skill, and a simple $15 pick kit.