Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Chuck Schumer seems resigned to the fact that he won’t get to pass more gun control in the wake of the Arizona shootings.

New Trajectory asks:

In your comment, please suggest an issue that YOU feel both sides can agree (like that too many criminals get guns), and what you would do to help that issue.  As Obama said, keep it civil and honest.  Links to positive articles are welcome.  Please don’t write a book, and please keep it to one suggestion and solution, in the interest of space and simplifying the conversation.  This should get us talking.

I agree too many criminals get guns, but the argument is over, at root, what can be done about it. I will say this categorically: there is no gun control I believe that works effectively at reducing criminal access to guns. At best, our existing laws have only a marginal effect.

Even if you assume a starting state of no guns, which is a fantasy, the only way you can reduce availability to criminals is to reduce availability to the law abiding. And note the word reduce. You will never eliminate criminal gun possession, even if your starting point is a society without guns.

But we’re not a society without guns, and therefore even total prohibition would still mean a very high availability of guns for criminals, with no concurrent availability to the law abiding for defense against those criminals. The end result will be that many otherwise law abiding people will keep guns illegally, which will continue to feed another violent black market, in the same manner that’s happened because of drug prohibition. Not to mention such laws would turn ordinary people into criminals themselves for no greater crime than wanting to protect themselves and their families.

So I don’t think there is common understanding, because you’re starting from the premise that gun control can be effective. I don’t think it can be. So it really comes down to, what set of useless laws am I willing to live with in order to make enough people who are wary of guns comfortable enough to not spend their time and money trying to pass more and more regulations. That’s the better question.

A New Trajectory. Looks to be a project of CeaseFire Oregon. We can see it starts out with some interesting statistics. Not sure what value you can draw by correlating generic death with gun ownership. Is it reasonable to even assume someone who died of cancer, stroke, or heart disease had any reasonable relationship to gun laws? It’s starting with a nonsensical premise. The next graph is at least based on a reasonable premise, but it’s very similar to the analysis I did here, here, and here, which showed absolutely no correlation to crime rates and gun control laws, and a very mild inverse correlation between gun ownership rates and violent crime. The correlation seen by New Trajectory appears because “gun deaths” include suicide by gun, which I speculated probably does, unsurprisingly, correlate with gun ownership, much like tall buildings likely correlates to jumping suicides.

But I applaud our New Trajectory blogger for trying to speak to the issue with more than just emotions.

You can stop the blood dance now. It ain’t happening. Give up. You have lost.

Hat Tip, Instapundit.

Joan Peterson wants to know. If the shooter had been African-American, would you ask where the NAACP is? If he had been gay, would you ask where the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is? If he had been Jewish, where B’nai B’rith is? Would Exxon Mobil have to explain themselves if he had filled a super soaker full of gasoline and burned 5 people to death? Would Ford have to explain if he drove his car into the crowd? Would you demand the ACLU make a statement explaining their role in defending the disgusting speech of Fred Phelps?

Why does the NRA need to have something to say about a whack job murdering people? Why isn’t “Anything other than prayers for the victims and their families at this time would be inappropriate,” appropriate in this situation? Careful. Your bigotry is showing. We don’t owe you a debate. Introduce your bills in Congress, and watch us make sure they go nowhere.

Strike while the iron is hot:

“In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, one of the gun control groups working with McCarthy’s office.

Never let a crisis go to waste. These people are unbelievable.

Thanks to Todd Vandermyde for pointing this out, but it would seem our friends at the Brady Campaign have used violent target images themselves:

Remember, this is the same organization who’s President just said, “Sarah Palin used gun “target” metaphors encouraging voters to defeat Rep. Giffords and others.” Pot, meet Kettle.

Hat tip to Carl from Chicago for helping put together this post.

UPDATE: You can find the full Brady mailing here.

So says Josh Horwitz, for the Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership:

This embrace of political violence has been part of far right wing ideology for decades, but was tamped down after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It began to reemerge in 2008 with the Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment decision in D.C. v. Heller. In that 5-4 ruling, Justice Scalia overturned 200+ years of jurisprudence and parroted the National Rifle Association’s radical view of the Second Amendment, writing, “If… the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia… if, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee — it does not assure the existence of a ‘citizens’ militia’ as a safeguard against tyranny.”

This radical idea — which completely ignores our Founders’ tough response to armed insurrectionists during Shays’ Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion — flowered even further after the election of our first African American president in November 2008.

It was Heller, obviously, that motivated we violent, racist gun owners. It amazes me how little they realize how deeply insulting this stuff is to a large segment of American society. And they wonder why they have no relevance in the debate. But as they say, never interrupt your enemy when they are in the process of making a mistake. Ooops, did I say enemy? I guess even I can’t help the eliminationist rhetoric can I?

Thirdpower is skeptical of one Illinois gun control advocates attempt to get some real grassroots. Eventually this will switch from sodding to astroturfing. They’ve always been better at that anyway.

Of course, given who Colin Goddard is working for these days, that this is a misunderstanding is probably offering a lot more credit that is deserved. The reality is, they know exactly what they are doing:

The gun lobby claims there is no “gun show loophole”. The law governing the sale of guns by licensed dealers and private sellers was crafted so that dealers are required to perform background checks and private sellers are not. Some gun rights advocates argue that if something is intentional, it can’t be called a loophole.

But the exemption for private sellers was intended to cover occasional sales from personal gun collections, a father selling a gun to his son-in-law, for example, not regular sales that supplement income. Virginia law uses the language, “occasional sales of curios and relics.” Many of the private sellers sold new, or very recently manufactured, guns — hardly curios or relics.

No, what we argue is that if something is legal, and you don’t like it, that doesn’t automatically make it a “loophole.” If someone is selling a guns to supplement their income, and they don’t hold an FFL, that person is already breaking federal law. Many of the people appearing in various videos selling guns at tables at gun shows would be relatively easy to prosecute, except that ATF has a nasty habit of botching this kind of operation, and US Attorney’s offices can’t be expected to exercise reasonable discretion about whether to prosecute a collector, who is legitimately liquidating a collection, or going after someone who really is making a living at selling guns without an FFL.

It’s worth noting that in Pennsylvania, there hasn’t been any private transfers for handguns since the 1930s, and yet we still have papers editorializing for more control because “gun crime” is too high, and criminals are straw purchasing and stealing their guns. So now, obviously, we need to ration purchases, and institute a lost and stolen reporting mandate that, to date, not a single person has been prosecuted under.

This nonsense might make you guys feel better, but it doesn’t work, and the world was a safer place when you could go to any local hardware store and buy a pistol or a stick of dynamite, cash and carry, no paperwork or background check.