Joyce Foundation Reduced to Persuasion

They are trying to convince Chicagoans not to buy guns. This convinces me they don’t have much confidence they are going to be able to throw up much in the way of obstacles. But it’s a free country, and Joyce is free to mislead people about the dangers of guns. The real victory is that they would seem to no longer believe they can count on force of law to do this for them, and must now fall back to how we’re supposed to do things in a free society: persuasion.

20 thoughts on “Joyce Foundation Reduced to Persuasion”

  1. I’ll be even happier when they’re reduced to huffing chod like a side show sword swallower for beer money on the street corner.

  2. Well said. And I’m free to laugh at their hysterical ignorance. See how nice it is when we can’t get the government to oppress one another out of fear?

  3. ” The results were the same even when parents kept guns locked up and discussed gun safety with their children.”

    I would be interested in seeing the difference in “accident” or other shooting incidents of the two groups. I would strongly suspect that the ones who discussed gun safety (which *I* personally take to mean more than “Don’t EVER touch this!”) have a much much lower rate of incidents than the other group.

    I grew up in a house full of guns, and personally had a rifle and shotgun on my bedroom wall with ammo handy through all my high school years. And somehow, I never went and shot up my school. Wonder how I avoided that?

  4. I agree with James, hell I used to drive to school, park on the school lot with a shotgun or rifle racked in the gun rack in the truck, and leave it unlocked!!!

  5. They should partner with the NRA. “If you are going to purchase a dangerous new firearm, please seek out some competent training.”

  6. I just finished reading this Chicago Tribune, Joyce Foundation sponsored, opinion piece in the link above. It was just chock full of tired old anti-gun lies, some of them I can recall from as far back as thirty years ago, like, “a handgun in the home increases the chances of suicide x number of times.”

    What I prefer to read when I see anti-gun claptrap like this is to check the reader comments and ratings. They were over twenty comments from the readers, but only one reader was clearly anti-gun.

    This Joyce Foundation anti-gun opinion piece itself was also rated by the readers at only about one and a half stars out of five. Unlike back in the heyday of gun control thirty plus years ago, it seems that even Chicago area folks aren’t buying the anti-gun talking points from the likes of the Joyce Foundation any more.

  7. I agree with JamesLee: sometimes “studies” are just plain silly!

    I remember hearing about a study that concluded that children are immune to gun safety training. Those conducting the study gave one group of children the Eddie Eagle training, and a control group with no training at all. They then put the children in a setting where they had access to a real, unloaded pistol, and discovered that the children in the first group were just as likely to pick up the gun and try to shoot it as the children in the second group.

    While I would agree that this probably accurately illustrates the effects of a single Eddie Eagle session, it’s wrong to conclude that children cannot learn gun safety. That’s because it takes a long time, and a lot of effort, to properly train in the safety of anything! The Cornered Cat (http://www.corneredcat.com) has a very good section on how to properly train your children on gun safety (and a bit about gun use as well, which is actually an important part of teaching gun safety!).

  8. “But it’s a free country, and Joyce is free to mislead people about the dangers of guns.”

    Ummm, no, no one is free to conspire to violate the civil rights of the American people. They are commiting crimes by doing so.

    RICO them and put them under the Bureau of Prisons.

  9. Since when is free speech a crime? Conspiracy to violate civil rights doesn’t just mean advocating it. A conspiracy to violate civil rights is what officials in New Orleans did after Katrina. Otherwise it would be a crime to say something like “So and so should shut his mouth,” or say “We should kick all muslims out of the United States.”

  10. I have an idea for them…

    Instead of gun buybacks, be more preemptive: pay people money to not buy a(nother) gun.

    At this point I’d promise to not by another gun for a month if they gave me 50 bucks or so.

    Could buy a box or two of ammo with that.

    =)

  11. This should be a govermnent program.

    Pay people to opt out of their rights. Including voting. At, say, $50 per Constitutional right.

    This way we could make sure the most useless members of society don’t vote.

  12. They cite a CDC statistic that “more than 2,000 children in the U.S. were killed and another 12,371 were injured by gunfire” and they provide a link, but the link is fake – it doesn’t go to CDC.

    Going to CDC directly, and trying Wonder (http://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D43;jsessionid=71188C673D16361ADAD98C64A053E0DF), I get 1377 total deaths from firearms 1996-2006, with most (823) among 15-17 years. I’d like to see drug-related firearm deaths outside the home separated out from other firearms deaths.

  13. To be fair, the Trib automatically generates ‘links’ on many of their articles.

    But yeah, we all know the numbers are fudged.

  14. “Since when is free speech a crime? Conspiracy to violate civil rights doesn’t just mean advocating it.”

    Since the North won the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

    “Conspiracy to violate civil rights doesn’t just mean advocating it.”

    Incorrect, advocation is prima facie evidence of the conspiracy. Conspiracy requires two elements:

    1. An agreement, e.g. advocating gun control.
    2. A step in furtherance of the agreement, a city, e.g. Chicago, passing a gun control law.

    42 USC 14141, et al.

    I have seen prosecutions for far less. They are violating our civil rights and must be held accountable.

  15. My understanding is there can’t be a civil rights violation for passing a law, but there could be if it’s enforced. Maybe I’ll do more research on criminal civil rights law and do a post about it. I’m more familiar with the civil aspect than criminal aspect.

  16. Sebastian: Tell that to Arizona. They are being sued and their immigration law hasn’t even become effective yet. heck, Holder announced to day that if they lose the current lawsuit, the Feds are ready to file one for discrimination, claiming that the law that hasn’t gone into effect yet is profiling, even though it specifically prohibits profiling.

    Typical Fed tactic: They can print all the money they need, so they just keep brining you back to court until you rin out of money (unless you are a Black Panther). Just ask the Rodney King cops.

  17. The AZ immigration suit isn’t a federal civil rights suit, it’s a supremacy clause suit, by the United States against Arizona, claiming that Arizona is interfering with a federal prerogative.

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