debate – Page 2 – The Smallest Minority

Freedom of from Religion

March 22, 2015 KevinLeave a comment

Still playing over at Quora.com. Here’s a recent question:

Why, despite its clear violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, is there still “In God we trust” on US currency and in courtrooms?

The Free exercise Clause:
‘GOVERNMENT shall make no law respecting any organization of religion or prohibit the free exercise there of.’

AND The CONGRESS ACTION THAT WAS PASSED UNCONSTITUTIONALLY AND IN BLATANT VIOLATION OF OUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS:!!!

As a result, the 84th Congress passed a joint resolution “declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States.” The law was signed by President Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, and the motto was progressively added to paper money over a period from 1957 to 1966.

Federal endorsement of a deity or religion violates THE US CONSTITUTION.
So, in light of this should be removed asap.

I replied:

You are aware that from the founding of the nation the Senate and the House of Representatives have each had, at government expense, a chaplain? And one of the duties of that chaplain is to open each session of each legislative body with a prayer?

Are you familiar with the “Original Public Understanding” theory of Constitutional law? I suggest you look it up. Your understanding of the First Amendment is flawed.

A reader took exception:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

No Kevin, ACTUALLY having a chaplain say a prayer in a secular government body is also severly unconstitutional you history oblivious fool.
My understanding of the first Amendment is based entirely on the words contained within it cûlt boy.
You are competely entitled to your opinions which are not supported by evidence.
But the moment you spread that opinion as fact you are a liar.
And if you spread it as fact knowing well it is an opinion you are both a liar and a fraud.

Government shall make no law respecting any organization of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.

Can you read?
It isn’t a bible you can just be an apologist for later and say is metaphor Ya non- reasoning dolt it’s an INALIENABLE RIGHT-not subject to your falsifiable and cûlt deluded opinion.

Well! As Randall Munroe observed: I can’t go to bed, someone is wrong on the internet! So of course I had to respond:

Well, so much for Be Nice, Be Respectful.

Apparently you’re under the impression that I belong to a “cûlt.” I assume from this (having had some experience in this arena) that you mean I’m religious, probably some form of Christian. However, I assure you I am an atheist, but apparently not of the same sect as you. My beliefs are obviously heretical to yours, thus your need to verbally burn me at the stake for denying your TRUTH.

So your understanding of the First Amendment is based entirely on the words contained in it? How nice. You’re not a lawyer, then? Well, neither am I, but I’ve studied American Constitutional law on my own for about the last twenty years. I’ve read enough court decisions to make one’s eyes bleed, and I’ve read the non-judicial statements of judges and Justices in great stacks.

And you propose to stand here and tell me that you would argue to James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” that the First Amendment prohibits the offices of Chaplain of the House and the Senate, and he’d agree with you?

Sorry. Not buying. Not even close.

The law is NEVER based exclusively on the text. That invites “reinterpretation” over time – the so-called “living Constitution” theory. Let me throw some quotes out to you:

“Our Revolution commenced on more favorable ground. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced to assume it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and forms had entered little into our former education. We established however some, although not all its important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.” — Thomas Jefferson pp.46 – 47, The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, presenter.

—

“On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322 Paul K. Sadover

—

“It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism…. If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.” – George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

—

“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.” – James Madison

—

“The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.” — South Carolina v. US, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)

And finally, Antonin Scalia:

“It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution.

“What ‘we the people’ want most of all is someone who will agree with us as to what the evolving constitution says.

“We are free at last, free at last. There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands.

“What in the world is a ‘moderate interpretation’ of the text? Halfway between what it really says and what you want it to say?” – Antonin Scalia, excerpts from a speech quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 3/10/04

I’ve engaged on several occasions with what I like to term the acolytes of Dawkins – the radical anti-theists who hate all religion, but most especially Christianity – and the place at which we clash most often is with respect to Constitutional law. They seem to feel that judges in black robes sitting at benches can unilaterally dispense TRUTH upon the masses – in short, that the Court system acts as the clergy of the Church of State, solely responsible for the well-being of our – for lack of a better word – souls.

Columnist George Will gave a speech a few years ago that hit upon this. Let me quote:

“Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from nature, from human nature and the natural rights with which we are endowed that pre-exist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the nineteenth century discovery (or so they thought) that History is a proper noun with a capital ‘H,’ that history has a mind and life of its own, he argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it is the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature, and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that in his view dispensed rights.

“Heraclitus famously said ‘You cannot step into the same river twice,’ meaning that the river would change. The modern progressive believes that you can’t step into the same river twice because you change constantly. Well those of us of the Madisonian persuasion believe that we take our bearings from a certain constancy. Not from, well to coin a phrase ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’

“That has become, that phrase from Justice Brennan, has become the standard by which the constitution is turned into a ‘living document.’ A constitution that no longer can constitute. A constitution has, as Justice Scalia said, an anti-evolution purpose. The very virtue of a constitution is that it is not changeable. It exists to prevent change, to embed certain rights so that they cannot easily be taken away.

“Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate or attenuate or dilute those others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those that are necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you and spare you the strain and terror of striving.

“The result of this is now clear. We see in the rampant indebtedness of our country and the European countries what someone has called ‘a gluttonous feast on the flesh of the future.’ We see the infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for the state to take care of them.“

So no, cûlt-girl, the mere words of the text are not all that matters, no matter how strongly you believe.

Curios to see if he/she/it responds further.

UPDATE: Yup:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

Religions are all cults by design definition- Just large ones. INFACT that’s what a religion is technically- when a cult gets too big to contain by authorities it gets relabeled as a religion- Pickup a dictionary or look at how any religion forms. What is it that you think these organizations provide to make such huge dividends? Needless fear.
Not to burst your bubble- but this has nothing to do with me you and my perceived ego- it has to do with accuracy and honesty and a blatantly disregarded HUMAN RIGHT.
I could care less what you delude- about your percieved sect of atheism- right there you show yo don’t know what atheism is but at least you figured out part of the truth.
I didn’t have a bad experience with cults- I have to read, participate and basically evangelize about a deity being trusted everyday- understand how that is unconstitutional?

My response:

No, I don’t. We’re discussing Constitutional law as it applies to religion here in the U.S. Your argument is that the government cannot even mention anything religious, but from the founding of the nation we’ve opened sessions of Congress with state-paid clergymen offering prayer to a Big Invisible Friend.

Your argument is invalid. The “original public understanding” of the First Amendment’s defense of freedom of religion is not equal to your conception that it protects a freedom from religion.

You live in a society where a significant majority believe in a god or gods. The First Amendment protects their belief.

So suck it up, buttercup. Grow a thicker skin. If your atheism is so delicate that it cannot withstand evangelization and must be protected from same by government force, then I suggest it isn’t all that solid to begin with.

UPDATE II: The conversation is also going on in the comments to the original question.

UPDATE III: Original comment thread DELETED. Why am I not surprised? Here’s the rest of the exchange:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

Government shall make no law respecting any establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.
That answers what I think.
Endorsement of monotheism on legal tender is without QUESTION UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Why do you think we have a free exercise clause? So cults and non-reasoning illiterates as an ignore it? Surely not.

To which I replied:

And, once again, where do you get your oddly worded version of the First Amendment? I assure you it does not use the word “organization.” The word used is “establishment,” oh great Constitutional Textualist. Do some research on the “Establishment Clause” in Constitutional law.

The premise of your argument is flawed. All other error flows from there.

Her return volley:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

There fixed it. Thanks- but you are dead wrong about the rest.
Monotheism establishes a singular God. Be honest would you- that is establishing MONOTHEISM excluding all else; hence a direct violation brainiac.
Monotheism is established as being only one God worshipping. That isn’t religious establishment to you? It is to everyone who doesn’t have schizophrenia and even a smidgen of science literacy.

And the reply that, I think, caused her to delete her initial comment:

So we’ve established that you, self-proclaimed Constitutional Textualist, cannot accurately quote the particular Constitutional clause you’re basing your position on, that you accuse ME of being a “history oblivious fool,” (though you’ve now deleted said comment), you accused me of belonging to a cult – sorry, “cûlt,” for not agreeing with you, and now you’re banging your MONOTHEISM! gong.

But we were discussing LAW. As I pointed out, what the law meant when it was adopted is what the law means NOW, unless and until that law is CHANGED through legislation – NOT by the proclamation of some robed priest sitting at the judicial bench handing down Truth.

Is “In God We Trust” unconstitutional? I very much doubt it, given the HISTORICAL FACT that both houses of Congress have government-paid clergy on staff, and have had since the inception of those legislatures. The law DID NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS when it was adopted. It doesn’t mean that now. I’m sorry that this historical FACT harshes your mellow, but there it remains.

You want to change that? Lobby and get new legislation passed. Don’t go looking for the solution in the courts.

Still Playing at Quora.com

January 15, 2015 KevinLeave a comment

The question was asked,

How realistic is the average gun rights enthusiast about their ability to use their firearm for self-defense/ home protection without being a danger to themselves or bystanders?

I have a friend who is a gun enthusiast, and while he is otherwise intelligent (PhD), I simply don’t trust his judgment or competence with a firearm. He is paranoid, can’t read situations well, and is not particularly coordinated.

If I was present at bank robbery, I would feel *less* safe knowing he was armed.
Is this an unusual case?

I responded to one of the comments.

There was a response from an anonymous user.

I was somewhat aware that, even after being voted off the island, Markadelphia just couldn’t stay away. I’ve been told that he writes posts at his blog about stuff I post here, and – to be honest – I visit his site every month or three just to see what he and his peeps are writing about. And to be even more honest, I find it amusing as hell that his comments seem to be pretty much exclusively occupied by a couple of MY readers.

Well, I know for a fact now that Markadelphia is, indeed stalking me. He showed up at Quora.com to give moral support to my latest adversary. To wit:

Andy, I’m going to give you some advice from someone who has spent some time debating Kevin Baker on his site (and was voted off). Kevin is part of a group of people in this country who have very serious issues with control and authority. They are tremendously insecure and paranoid people who likely had very poor relationships with one or both of their parents and were probably bullied in school, hence the need to be constantly adolescent and contrary.

And, of course, their need for guns:)

They take their personal feelings of anger, hate and fear (again, from childhood and probably an enlarged amygdala) and place them all on the federal government. This is the base of the conservative movement today. They live inside of a bubble that acts as a giant echo chamber that acts as an enabling device. As you have noted, their entire ideology is based on logical fallacies (ad hom, misleading vividness, appeal to fear, appeal to probability, straw man) and they employ a serious of tactics to make you look and feel as weak as their position actually is. Here is a handy list of those tactics.

Dr. Cynthia Boaz: 14 propaganda techniques Fox “News” uses to brainwash Americans

Look familiar?:)

To give you an idea of just how insecure Kevin is, go to his site and take note of how he has cut and pasted his discussion with you on there to get high fives from his band of mindless sycophants. Would a man confident in his assertion do such a thing? Nope.

You are correct in pointing out that they don’t really think and far too rude and emotional to be taken too seriously. They ignore facts and basically lie. An example of this would be the “violence is down” meme. The reason why it seems this way is due to how these statistics are reported. Deaths are indeed down but it’s because medical technology has improved so more lives are being saved. That doesn’t mean that any less people are being shot. For more on this, read here…

In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence

The main thing to remember is how deathly afraid they are of the truth and the changes that our country is going through. They don’t really care about the 2nd amendment. Their chief concern is their own hubris and ego, which might seem massive on the outside but is really that of a frightened child on the inside.

Take comfort in the fact that they would never survive a debate outside of their bubble in any sort of peer reviewed forum of critical thinkers. They can’t argue on the facts alone. They must resort to their usual tactics, fallacies and personal attacks because they feel just that inferior about themselves.

My response (You know I had to leave a response…):

Mark! I knew you were still stalking the blog, but really! I’m touched that you still care so much!

I also note that you’re still up to your old style. Let us fisk:

“To give you an idea of just how insecure Kevin is, go to his site and take note of how he has cut and pasted his discussion with you on there to get high fives from his band of mindless sycophants.”

Wow. I’m insecure. You don’t see me stalking your blog. Wow. EDIT: I originally replied: And yes, I cut-and-paste from my blog because I’ve spent ELEVEN YEARS acquiring the knowledge and writing the words there. Seems a waste not to take advantage of all that work. Sorry, I read that wrong. My bad. Yes, I cut and paste discussions from Quora to the blog because I’m spending time here and not there. When you’re a blogger, you need content. This is content. It also is not against Quora’s rules. END EDIT.

“They ignore facts and basically lie.“

Really?

For example: “An example of this would be the ‘violence is down’ meme.”

Gee, let me cut-n-paste from my blog. How about this one from 2010: Clueless. It has graphs from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing that not only has the homicide rate declined but the rate of NON-fatal firearm related crime and non-fatal firearm VICTIMIZATION is down. That means fewer people are getting shot and shot at. Rape rates are also declining, as are robbery rates. Improved medical technology isn’t magic, Mark. It has no effect on these statistics. The decline in violent crime isn’t a “meme,” it’s a FACT.

As always, your assertion fails the smell test. Nice to know that hasn’t changed.

“The main thing to remember is how deathly afraid they are of the truth and the changes that our country is going through.”

Projection much?

“Take comfort in the fact that they would never survive a debate outside of their bubble in any sort of peer reviewed forum of critical thinkers.”

He says on a forum where anyone can post.

“They can’t argue on the facts alone.”

Coming from you that is so freaking rich. You wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you on the ass, developed lockjaw and was dragged to death. (See “Violence is down meme” above.)

I’ve missed you, Mark. I mean that, honestly. The crap you spewed in my comments over the years inspired so many incredible comment threads, and so many really excellent posts. I mean, seriously, there’s an entire section of my “best of” selections dedicated to YOU. The place just hasn’t been the same.

And remember – when you were voted off the island by my “band of mindless sycophants” it was a VERY close vote. If they were mindless sycophants, shouldn’t it have been a landslide? And shouldn’t that comment thread (that ran 176 comments long) have been one long tirade against you? Well, OK, it was, but still.

I’m honored that you find me so irritating that you just can’t leave me alone!

More Fish-in-a-Barrel from Quora

April 22, 2014 KevinLeave a comment

OK, so someone asked the question Why is the NRA is so vehement that the 2nd Amendment is interpreted as broadly as possible and is interpreted as if it’s 1776?

One “Andy Zehner, statistical analyst at Purdue University” gave an answer. Let the frivolity begin!

They espouse a strong interpretation of the 2nd amendment because it works to their favor. But I don’t believe the NRA is much concerned about civil rights as a principle. The NRA works for what is beneficial to gun manufacturers.

From their point of view, more guns is the only answer. If the problem is “Not Enough Guns,” then the answer is “More guns.” If the problem is “Too Many guns,” the answer still is, “More Guns.”

Are you sure about the second part of your question? I don’t think the NRA wants to “interpret as if it’s 1776.” I think if Thomas Jefferson came into the room, Wayne LaPierre would dismiss him as quickly as he dismissed the Sandy Hook survivors. Cleaving to 1776 and original intent means justifying private gun ownership in terms of a “well-regulated militia.” That isn’t something the NRA wants to have to do. They want “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” and damn the consequences.

I replied:

Cleaving to 1776 and original intent means justifying private gun ownership in terms of a “well-regulated militia.” That isn’t something the NRA wants to have to do.

So you mean that the NRA wouldn’t want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine, body armor, and a standard infantryman’s loadout of ammunition at home? (See The Militia Act of 1792.) (And given their support for women with guns, perhaps them too?) Actually, I don’t think they’d really have much of a problem with that. But if instead you mean that they’re more interested in making sure that deer and duck hunters get to keep their wood-and-blued-steel guns, well, you may have a point.

What they’ve worked for in recent decades has been ensuring that law-abiding citizens are not made unable to defend themselves by state action. The NRA (along with the Second Amendment Foundation and many other national and state pro-rights groups) have worked towards expanding right-to-carry laws nationwide, so that now there are NO states where concealed-carry is outright prohibited, and only eight states where the law remains “may issue” instead of “shall issue.”

And the worst thing that can be said for this massive expansion in the right to arms is that it might not have contributed to the massive drop in violent crime that’s been recorded since the mid-1990’s.

So, yeah: “More guns” does seem to have been “the answer.” Or at least, it’s not “the problem.”

Facts are funny that way.

Of course, he took the bait:

“So you mean that the NRA wouldn’t want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine, body armor, and a standard infantryman’s loadout of ammunition at home?”

No, I don’t think the NRA would want that. Dictating which weapons and the amount of ammunition would be a considerable curtailment of gun owners’ rights as they exist today. If I want a BushMaster or a Glock, what right has the government to tell me I have to have a M4?

And more to the point, the makers of the BushMaster and the Glock wouldn’t want that (unless one of them happens to make the M4, which I don’t know and am not going to bother to look up.)

So I set the hook:

Of course you won’t bother to educate yourself. Your mind is made up! Facts are irrelevant!

Yes, Bushmaster does make M4 carbine clones. As do over two hundred other manufacturers including (but not limited to) Armalite, Colt’s Manufacturing, Stag Arms, Rock River, DPMS, H&K, Fabrique Nationale, Barrett, and on and on and on. The AR-15 platform is the most popular rifle sold today, after all.

What right would the government have to tell you you must have an M4? Surely you jest! The same right it has to tell you you must have health insurance, of course!! (Though in point of fact, it isn’t the government’s right – governments don’t have rights. Governments have powers.) Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable (yeah, right) Care Act held up the 1792 Militia Act as a model for the individual mandate.

And the government wouldn’t tell you you must have a Glock. If anything, they’d tell you you must have either a Beretta 92 (standard 9mm issue sidearm) or a 1911 (the previous standard issue sidearm). I’d bet on the latter, since there are just as many manufacturers of that weapon as there are manufacturers of M4 carbines.

We’ll see if he doubles-down on the stupid.

UPDATE: He did.

There is logical fallacy called “shifting ground” or non sequitor(sic), in which the arguer fails to address the rightness or wrongness of what has been said, and instead jumps to a different place without connecting what they are saying now with what was said previously.

Here’s an example:

Earlier Kevin Baker said: “So you mean that the NRA wouldn’t want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine?”

I responded that I thought the NRA would not want that. I responded to the question he asked, which was about what the NRA would want. I said nothing about whether the government would want that or would do that. Clearly, what the government would or wouldn’t do is a different question from what the NRA would want.

And then Kevin Baker implies (rudely) that I’m all kinds of wrong because the government would do one thing rather than something else. But we weren’t even talking about what the government would do.

Oh, and here’s a bonus logical fallacy: All the minutia about which gun maker manufacturers which types of weapons proves that Kevin Baker knows more than I know about guns. He know a lot about guns, in fact. But it’s all just stacked evidence or extraneous detail. He could expend any number of words listing which manufacturer makes which guns and it wouldn’t erode the validity of my point in the slightest. My point stands: The maker of any particular gun wouldn’t want people to be required to own different guns from the ones they make, and the NRA wouldn’t want such requirements as opposed to unlimited right to own guns.

Sounds like he’s got a little sand in his mangina. We’ll see if he replies to this:

Oh, there’s some “ground shifting” going on, but it’s not coming from me.

“Earlier Kevin Baker said: ‘So you mean that the NRA wouldn’t want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine.’

“I responded that I thought the NRA would not want that. I responded to the question he asked, which was about what the NRA would want.”

My question was in direct response to your original assertions: “The NRA works for what is beneficial to gun manufacturers.” and: “Cleaving to 1776 and original intent means justifying private gun ownership in terms of a “well-regulated militia.” That isn’t something the NRA wants to have to do.”

Given those two assertions, I asked if you meant that the NRA wouldn’t want all males of military age to be required to supply themselves with rifles suitable for militia duty as per the Militia Act of 1792? After all, if “The NRA works for what is beneficial to gun manufacturers,” what would be more beneficial to gun manufacturers than a need to produce, oh, 100 million M4 carbines?

“I said nothing about whether the government would want that or would do that. Clearly, what the government would or wouldn’t do is a different question from what the NRA would want.”

Read your own reply:

“If I want a BushMaster or a Glock, what right has the government to tell me I have to have a M4?”

Since what people decry is the NRA’s involvement in legislation (or stopping of said legislation) then the basic question is what the NRA can or can’t get the government to do. Restoration of the Milita Act – “justifying private gun ownership in terms of a “well-regulated militia” – would fit that bill.

“And then Kevin Baker implies (rudely) that I’m all kinds of wrong because the government would do one thing rather than something else. But we weren’t even talking about what the government would do.”

And that right there is “ground shifting.” I imply you’re “all kinds of wrong” because you’re all kinds of wrong, but we were most definitely discussing what the government COULD do if influenced by the NRA for the benefit of gun manufacturers, as you asserted is their raison d’etre.

“My point stands: The maker of any particular gun wouldn’t want people to be required to own different guns from the ones they make, and the NRA wouldn’t want such requirements as opposed to unlimited right to own guns.”

But you didn’t assert that the NRA exists to benefit “the maker of any particular gun”. (Thus, you’re shifting the ground, not me.) You asserted that the NRA exists to benefit gun manufacturers. All or most or many of them. If this is true, then creating a demand for, say, 100 million M4 carbines and 100 million 1911 pistols (both of which are made by numerous manufacturers) would be a net benefit to “gun manufacturers,” Q.E.D.

And once you’ve established not only a right, but a DUTY to possess weapons suitable for use in militia service, what does it matter if those same individuals have “sporting” rifles, shotguns and handguns? In essence, haven’t you established an “unlimited right to own guns” (from your perspective)?

UPDATE II: Aaaaand this one’s over:

You’re all sound and no sense. You really don’t see your errors, do you?

Pot? Meet kettle.

More Idiot-Bashing at Quora.com

April 17, 2014 KevinLeave a comment

Since I’m not posting here much, I guess I can recycle my stuff from other sites.

In today’s episode, I take one Nick Lilavois to task for his response to the question “Why are fully automatic guns banned for civilians without special permits in the US?“

Here’s the thread to date, his responses in blue background, mine in green:

Why are only people with special permits allowed to fly a plane?

Because those who do not have those permits would be putting people’s lives at risk.

Requiring some training, and some reason, why certain people are allowed to do certain dangerous things is a way to minimize death and injury for all of us.

And as a side thought- I get why someone would want to fly a plane. While it may be dangerous, when used properly it is not.

It is just not the same with a gun. When used properly, as intended by the manufacturer, someone ends up dead.

Really? I might agree with you concerning my M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, No. 5 Enfield, 1917 Enfield or P14, but my Thompson/Center Encore? My Ruger Mk II? My Remington XP-100? These are all designed to kill people?

My what an odd world you occupy.

Oh, the “tax stamp” you get from the government that allows you to possess a fully-automatic weapon, short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, suppressor, “destructive device” or “any other weapon” covered under the 1934 National Firearms Act is NOT a “license to operate” in the way a pilot license is. It’s just a tax form. It requires no training nor “reason” – just approval from the government.

Quote:
“These are all designed to kill people?”

Pick any one of the items in your collection, load it, point it at your spouse or child and pull the trigger.

Notice what happens.

The odd thing about the world I occupy is that people like you would even WANT to own such things.

The odd thing about the world I occupy is that people like you don’t seem to understand who is responsible for their safety. As a friend of mine once put it,

In a truly civil society peopled primarily by enlightened, sober individuals, the carriage of arms might be deemed gratuitous, but it is nonetheless harmless. In a society that measures up to anything less than that, the option to carry arms is a necessity.

We know what the world was like when nobody had firearms. It was run primarily by large men with swords, and was not just, fair, or democratic.

Now, which of us belongs to the “reality-based” community?

Still me, I’m in the reality-based community, because I realize the people responsible for my safety are the police and the military, and to an extent judges, lawyers, wardens, etc.

Not regular citizens with guns.

I never said I had a problem with cops having guns, and soldiers without guns would be silly.

As the constitution says rather clearly in the 2nd amendment, it is perfectly OK for men in a well-regulated militia to bear arms.

Not regular citizens NOT in a militia.

Heck, you still don’t get that guns were designed to kill people, so you certainly can’t claim you are dealing with reality.

BTW- you do know that democracy was invented in ancient Greece, LONG before the invention of guns, don’t you?

You do realize that the presence or absence of guns has nothing whatsoever to do with curtailing the power of the government, because your vast arsenal will do nothing to save you from a drone strike, a tank, a grandee launcher, or anything else that took down the cult in Wacco, Texas? You do understand that, right?

So the whole concept that people having guns protects us from an imaginary government out of control is just a bunch of mental masturbation because, let’s face it- you have guns because you WANT them. You LIKE them. You do not NEED them.

You collecting guns is no different from an old lady collecting little porcelain figurines from the Hallmark store, except that very few people get killed by porcelain figurines.

See? THAT was reality.

“Still me, I’m in the reality-based community, because I realize the people responsible for my safety are the police and the military, and to an extent judges, lawyers, wardens, etc.”

So, have you ever read the Supreme Court’s Warren v. District of Columbia decision from 1981? Or the more recent Castle Rock v. Gozales decision from 2005? I suggest you might find them enlightening. From Warren:

“A publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order. The extent and quality of police protection afforded to the community necessarily depends upon the availability of public resources and upon legislative or administrative determinations concerning allocation of those resources. Riss v. City of New York, supra. The public, through its representative officials, recruits, trains, maintains and disciplines its police force and determines the manner in which personnel are deployed. At any given time, publicly furnished police protection may accrue to the personal benefit of individual citizens, but at all times the needs and interests of the community at large predominate. Private resources and needs have little direct effect upon the nature of police services provided to the public. Accordingly, courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community.” (Bold my emphasis.)

“Individual members of the community” being, well, YOU. And me. Something bad happens, they don’t show up, they’re not at fault. They do show up and don’t do anything, they’re not at fault.

THAT’S the “real world.”

“As the constitution says rather clearly in the 2nd amendment, it is perfectly OK for men in a well-regulated militia to bear arms.

“Not regular citizens NOT in a militia.”

Oh really? Are you familiar with 10 U.S. Code § 311 – Militia: composition and classes?

“(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

In other words, if you’re between the ages of 17 and 45, male and are or intend to become a U.S. citizen, or a female citizen member of the National Guard, you, my friend, are a member of the militia – by Federal law.

Have you read the 1857 Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court decision? This one is reviled because it denied citizenship to blacks, free or slave, but it did so under the reasoning that citizenship:

“…would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

It seems the Supreme Court of 1857 understood the Second Amendment somewhat differently than you do, seeing as THEY did not consider milita service to be a requirement. So after a war in which hundreds of thousands died to determine just who WERE going to be citizens, we passed the 13th Amendment making blacks citizens, and the 14th Amendment ensuring that they would get the same rights as everyone else. Of course, that didn’t pan out too well with all those Jim Crow laws. But in 1875’s U.S. v. Cruikshank the court once again declared what it was the Second Amendment protected, while denying that protection to blacks:

“The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes….”

In other words, “It’s not the job of the .gov to protect your (pre-existing, individual) right to arms (also not mentioning militia service). See your friendly neighborhood Klansman about that.”

So we finally got another Supreme Court decision on the topic of the meaning of the Second Amendment in District of Colubia v. Heller, in which the Court said:

“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes….”

And slightly later the McDonald v. Chicago decision “incorporated” the Heller decision under the 14th Amendment’s ~~“privileges or immunities” clause (which wording dates back to the Dred Scott decision)~~ “Due Process” clause against STATE infringement of the fundamental, individual right, just as the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendments have been. (Third, too, but not by SCOTUS.) [Ed. note: I originally stated that McDonald was decided under the “Privileges or Immunities” clause of the 14th. That was an error. In the 5-4 decision, four Justices found in favor of McDonald based on the “Due Process” clause. Clarence Thomas found in favor based on the “Privileges or Immunities” clause. I happen to think he was correct, but that’s not the basis of the majority decision. My error.]

THAT’S the “real world.”

Democracy did originate in Greece, but it was a strictly limited franchise – you are aware of who the Helots were, right? They didn’t get to vote.

Or own swords.

“You do realize that the presence or absence of guns has nothing whatsoever to do with curtailing the power of the government, because your vast arsenal will do nothing to save you from a drone strike, a tank, a grandee(sic) launcher, or anything else that took down the cult in Wacco(sic), Texas? You do understand that, right?”

I admit that I’m really curious as to what a “grandee launcher” would look like, and why would I want to launch a Spanish nobleman anyway? As to whether guns might “curtail the power of government,” you might want to check in on what just went down in Nevada over the weekend. Not the best example, but who blinked first?

Personally, I’m more concerned about what happened in places like Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots, or New Orleans post Katrina, when law-enforcement (you remember, those guys who are not responsible for your safety?) broke down in the face of riots and natural disasters. I recommend you read Jew Without a Gun on the topic of the LA riots. Very enlightening.

True, I like guns, I want them, and I hope – fervently – never to NEED them, but as others have said it’s better to have and not need than need and not have.

Finally, I’ll quote Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the topic of the Second Amendment from his 2003 dissent to Silveira v. Lockyer:

“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.“

Should those contingencies come to pass, I intend to still have a vote.

So: the government ISN’T responsible for your protection; depending on the courts is hit-and-miss; if you believe in non-discrimination, pretty much EVERYBODY is the militia; the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms OUTSIDE militia service; Grecian democracy wasn’t really all that democratic; the government DOES pay attention to armed citizens; and being armed is not useless in the face of adversity, disaster and runaway government.

And THAT’S the world I live in. I submit that it reflects reality a great deal more closely than does the one you apparently occupy

No response as of yet.

I Got Called RACIST!™ Again

April 16, 2014 KevinLeave a comment

A while back over at Quora.com I responded to the question, “How do you solve the gun problem in the United States in a realistic way?” thus:

America does not have a “gun problem.” It has an inner-city violent crime problem. Yes, I understand that the majority of deaths attributable to firearms are suicides, but suicide rates seem to be unaffected by firearm availability. If firearms are not available, other methods are substituted and are equally effective. The U.S., for all of its guns, ranks rather low for suicide internationally.

Criminal homicide is heavily concentrated in large urban centers, in specific areas of those large urban centers, and among a very small, self-identifying group in those specific areas. Yet no one raises a hue-and-cry when one more inner-city youth is gunned down by another inner-city youth, especially when both of them have long criminal records of escalating violence.

It’s been two years since Trayvon Martin died. During that period, more than 10,000 young black men 34 years of age or younger have died of criminal homicide by firearm.

Name three without using Google or another search engine.

Yet every time the media gets a victim they can run with, it’s the rural gun owner in Ohio or Wyoming they want to slap new restrictions on. We’ve watched it happen for literally decades, a slow-motion hate crime against gun owners, because “the problem” is defined as (and only as) “too many guns.”

Young black men are killed – overwhelmingly by other young black men – at a rate six times higher than the rest of the population. A demographic that consists of less than 7% of the population makes up over 40% of the victims, but no one wants to talk about it, or try to find a solution for it other than “midnight basketball” or greater welfare subsidies.

No, it’s much easier (and politically safer) to blame “gun availability” and the “gun culture.” Here’s a newsflash: There are three distinct “gun cultures” – one recreational, one defensive, and one criminal. Guess which one “gun control” doesn’t have any effect on?

So tonight I get an email that someone has responded to my answer. Here’s the comment in its entirety by one “Jesse James Richard”:

Interesting answer, but yes the US does have a gun problem by the standards of highly developed nations based on gun related deaths. From your answer I get you’re saying gun related death don’t matter because they are committed by black people.

Violence in the developed world is invariably related to poverty, so by extension I read that it gun related deaths don’t matter because they happen to the poor and should be dismissed because they rarely effect white (important) people.

I am a gun owner.

Here’s my reply:

“From your answer I get you’re saying gun related death don’t matter because they are committed by black people.”

Then you need to improve your logic skills.

“Violence in the developed world is invariably related to poverty, so by extension I read that it gun related deaths don’t matter because they happen to the poor and should be dismissed because they rarely effect white (important) people.”

So I’m not only a racist, I hate poor people too. Check.

“I am a gun owner.”

You forgot the “But….” My logic skills are quite good, though, so I know it’s implied: “I am a gun owner, but not a racist, classist, homophobic, anti-immigrant climate-denier like you.” Did I miss anything?

Now that we’ve gotten your obvious social sensitivity and implied moral superiority out of the way, let’s discuss FACTS.

Here’s the deal, Jesse James: facts are not racist. They’re not classist, they’re not homophobic, they’re not anti-environment, anti-immigrant, anti-handicapped or anything else – they’re just facts.

The inability to look at FACTS because of the fear of saying something politically incorrect is the reason nothing ever gets done.

Gun control – what politicians do instead of something.

I’m saying deaths – all deaths – matter, not just “gun deaths.” And that if you want to affect THAT problem, then you have to look at who is dying and where they are dying and why they are dying. Making rural and suburban gun owners license and register their firearms does not address the deaths of inner-city youths, regardless of the color of their skin. It so happens that inner city youths are overwhelmingly black, but that is not the fault of guns. But addressing the epidemic problem of inner-city youth homicide can’t be done because to do so would be considered “racist” by our political victim class.

The FACT of the matter is that homicide in the U.S. is heavily concentrated in a very small, easily identifiable demographic to the point that it severely skews the overall numbers. If it were possible to reduce homicide within that group to the same level as the average of the rest of the population, then the overall homicide rate in the U.S. – despite all of our guns – would be more in line with the rest of the “developed world.”

Look up the Centers for Disease Control’s WISQARS tool. Here are some relevant FACTS.

Leading causes of death, all races, both sexes from 1999 – 2010, from 15 years of age to age 34

1. Unintentional injury
2. Homicide (15-24 years of age) and Suicide (25-34)
3. Suicide (15-24) and Homicide (25-34)
4. Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
5. Heart disease
6. Congenital anomalies (15-24), HIV (25-34)
7. Flu and pneumonia (15-24), Diabetes (25-34)

Now, if we look specifically at black men in those groups:

1. Homicide – both age subgroups, by almost TWICE the runner-up, “unintentional injury.” Over that twelve year period, the CDC recorded 57,349 young black men between the ages of 15 and 34 died as a result of homicide – 46.2% of the total victims of homicide in those age groups (though they are only 7.2% of that population), 58% of the male victims of homicide in those age groups (14.2% of that population – I guess I’m anti-male, too), and 27% of all homicide victims, though they make up only 2% of the total population.

But I’m racist for pointing this out and saying “LOOK! THIS IS A BAD THING WE DON’T TALK ABOUT!”

Yet you want us to believe this is a “GUN problem”?

The homicide rate in 2010 according to the CDC was 5.27/100,000, all races, both sexes, all ages. For young black men ages 15-34 it was 73.21/100,000 almost fourteen times higher.

When performing triage on a patient, don’t you want to stop the arterial bleeding first? Or am I a racist for saying that?

If we could somehow reduce the homicide rate in this group to the 5.27/100,000 average of the nation, that alone would have saved the lives of 4,343 people in 2010. Is that not a goal to strive for? Then why are we talking about “assault weapon” bans and magazine size restrictions?

Oh, and by reducing the homicide rate in that demographic to 5.27/100,000, the total U.S. homicide rate would then decline to 3.86/100,000. I leave extrapolation of THAT data to you.

Yeah, we kill each other a lot. I get it. But when arterial blood is spurting from a limb, putting a Band-Aid™ on the victim’s finger doesn’t help. (OMG! A brand name! I must be in the pay of evil CORPORATIONS!!)

I wonder if he picked up on the subtle “FUCK YOU!” in my response?

UPDATE: He replied!

First let me state that your retort is great and your band aid tm made me laugh. You can chose to value or devalue this as disingenuous if you so see fit. It’s not.

By no means do I think you’re a racist or hate the poor, but it sure reads that way and this why:

If this question was about anything that killed people en-mass race, or really any social subclass, say gender, height, weight, educational background, surely would not have been brought up, right? It’s only because it’s guns and violence that we talk bout thugs before we talk about the guns.

1) do we have a problem with obesity in this county
2) do we have a problem with car accident-related deaths in this country
3) do we have a problem infant mortality in this count

You could never answer “we don’t have a problem with shitty drivers, we have a problem with women who are four to one more likely to crash a car.” That might be true, but you still have a problem with cars killing people.

You didn’t really answer the question, that’s my point. You skirted the issue and said we don’t have a problem with guns we have an inner city violent crime problem. Both might be true, but the fact that the US has between 5 – 10 x the gun related homicide deaths compared to other developed counties. This does suggest you have a problem with guns…. Or not, I guess. That’s up to you as an American.

Stats aren’t racist, on that we can agree.

He’s a Canuck, BTW. Haven’t decided if I want to beat on him some more.

Live One! Part II

March 9, 2014 KevinLeave a comment

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, in playing over at Quora.com I managed to draw a Wall-‘o-Text comment from one Alex Nuginski, to which I gave an (uncharacteristically) brief reply. He responded. So I fisked. (His quotes have the colored background and are in italics.)

Yes, my reply did require some thought and prior research that I had done in the past… you might consider the same for your replies.

Dude, you have NO IDEA what you’re asking for. I freaking LIVE for this. You want Wall-‘o-Text, I’ll GIVE you Wall-‘o-Text:

1) “The bipartisan Manchin-Toomey bill to extend background checks to gun shows and Internet sales has died in the Senate. It got 54 votes, but that wasn’t enough to overcome what was essentially a Republican filibuster. – April 2013 – Washington Post”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/bl…

Yeah, so?

2) Personal insults? “Tea Baggers” is the initial name choice that those who now call themselves the “Tea Party” chose for themselves before they figured out the urban meaning of that phrase, so I am merely respecting their original name for themselves.

You? Respect? I’ve read some of your other comments. Don’t make me laugh.

3) How does the NRA get a cut from every gun sale? Here ya go!…

“How The Gun Industry Funnels Tens Of Millions Of Dollars To The NRA”

http://www.businessinsider.com/g…

QUOTE:

“Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala’s, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.

The NRA also made $20.9 million — about 10 percent of its revenue — from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.

Additionally, some companies donate portions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA.

Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar[sic] gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA’s revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.

The NRA Foundation also collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industry, which it then gives to local-level organizations for training and equipment purchases.”

UNQUOTE

So Sturm Ruger and Taurus, Springfield, Smith & Wesson and Beretta donate to the NRA. And many BUY advertising! In GUN MAGAZINES! (And I would like to point out that Taurus OFFERS an NRA membership with every gun sold, but that hardly means that they get taken up on the offer every time. Lots of buyers are already members.) But your assertion was – and I QUOTE: “the NRA, who gets a cut from every legally sold gun…”

Not “Crimson Trace.” Not “Midway USA,” not “Pierce Bullet Seal Target System,” EVERY GUN MANUFACTURER. Now, are you insinuating that Armalite, Astra, Browning/FN, Colt, Glock, Heckler & Koch, IMI, Izmash, Remington, Shiloh Sharps, Sig Sauer, Tanfoglio, Walther, Weatherby, Norinco, Zastava, CZ, MKE, Miroku, Pietta, Pedersoli, and literally HUNDREDS of smaller manufacturers have a checkbox on their invoices marked “cut for NRA” or not? Sure looked that way to me.

“Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program.”

OK, let’s assume it’s on the high end, $52.6 million since 2005. And, let’s assume that the cutoff is 2010 for the most recent data when that piece was published, so six years. $52,600,000 / 6 = is $8,766,667 PER YEAR. If the NRA is getting “a cut from every legally sold gun” it’s a damned small cut.

The number of NEW guns manufactured in the U.S. PER YEAR according to the ATF:

2005: 2,163,864 Page on atf.gov

2006: 3,268,255 Page on atf.gov

2007: 3,531,279 Page on atf.gov

2008: 3,866,444 http://www.atf.gov/files/statist…

2009: 5,008,623 Page on atf.gov

2010: 4,900,313 Page on atf.gov

That’s (carry the one…) 26,270,057 firearms manufactured over the period where the NRA got (at most) $52.6 million from the ENTIRE “firearms industry,” including many, many companies that don’t MAKE guns or even SELL them. Being insanely generous, you’re looking at a whopping $2 per gun!

Now, look at 2010. Here’s the NRA’s IRS Form 990 for that year:

Page on documentcloud.org

Their income was listed:

$12,573,541 from “related organizations.” That would be, for example, the rifle range I’m a member of.

$58,572,260 from “all other contributions, grants, gifts, and similar amounts not included above.” I’m going to assume the monies from Crimson Trace, Midway USA and Pierce Target Systems and the like are included here, but are hardly exclusive. That’s money retailers get from people like ME, when I buy stuff and when I use their “NRA Roundup” option to support the NRA.

$6,552,336 from “Program fees.”

$100,531,465 from “Member dues.” I’m a Life member. I don’t pay dues anymore, but I do occasionally write them a check that goes into that pile two line-items above.

$852,154 from “Investment income.”

There’s a lot more, but total revenue for 2010 was listed as $227,811,279. Total guns manufactured in 2010 were 4,900,313. At $2 per gun, that’s $9,800,626, or LESS THAN 5% of total income, and I’m being INSANELY generous here. So, the “gun industry funnels millions of dollars to the NRA.” Granted.

What’s your point?

“The NRA’s revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.”

Yeah, so? The overwhelming majority of their funding comes from sources other than the firearm industry. The American Automobile Association’s revenues are “intrinsically linked to the success” of the automobile industry. What I don’t get is why this important to you.

4) Again, you failed to tell me how you can tell the difference between a law abiding citizen and a citizen who wants a gun for nefarious reasons, whether they be convicted felons with a criminal record or just felon wannabes who have no record.

How do internet gun sales people distinguish the difference between a criminal or an illegal gun dealer and a law abiding citizen? It seems you fail to address that issue because you can’t respond in a logical way.

Sure I can. We can’t. We’re prohibited by law from using the NICS system without transferring through a licensed dealer. But generally, I’m not worried that the guy I sold a Marlin lever-action .30-30 rifle to was going to use it to hold up a liquor store, or the guy I sold a Mossberg 500 shotgun to was going to use it to whack his neighbor. I figure if Joe Felon wants a gun, he’ll get it from the same guy he gets his weed or his meth from, or his cousin Sumdood.

I do have an idea how to make this work without having to go through the background check, but I doubt you’d be interested in hearing about it, given your obvious political proclivities.

5) Requiring full background checks for internet gun sales and gun show sales IS NOT making sales of guns in those places illegal… that is something that you apparently cannot differentiate.

Did I say it was? Please, point out where, specifically.

6) As far as giving a gun to someone as a gift, YES, I think that ANYONE who will the[sic] take ownership of that gun should go through a background check and gun licensing procedures.

I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way.

You guys love the comparison of guns to cars so much, then there it is… if you get a car as a gift, you STILL have to get a driver’s license, requiring weeks of education and training, and then getting the car registered is a seperate procedure… it SHOULD BE same for guns, with maybe at least a 3 day gun safety and training course instead of 6 or more weeks for a car. There, I’d say I’m being pretty generous there.

I love this comparison? Actually I’m tired of it, but here we go: If I don’t drive it on public roads, I need neither a driver’s license nor vehicle registration. There’s no limit on the horsepower it has, how much fuel it can carry, or whether it has a manual or fully-automatic transmission. I can buy a muffler for it at any parts store without paying a $200 tax and requiring an extensive background check and sign-off by a local chief law enforcement officer. Neither licensing nor registration prevents me from using the vehicle illegally or prevents accidents. I’d say your argument is empty.

7) Guns stats for England and Australia compared to the U.S. that were in my original post above…
________

Homicides-2013:
AUSTRALIA: 13,000 gun homicides
UNITED KINGDOM: 4,000 gun homicides
UNITED STATES: 360,000 gun homicides

Adjusted for population size:
AUSTRALIA: 22.68 million people
UNITED KINGDOM: 63.23 million people
UNITED STATES: 313.9 million people

The U.S. population is 13.84 times the size of the Australian population, but it has a gun murder rate 27.69 times as high.

The U.S. population is 4.96 times the size of the U.K. population, but it has a gun murder rate 90 times as high.

What happened to your meticulous sourcing? 360,000 “gun homicides” in the U.S. in 2013? 4,000 in the UK? What color is the sky on YOUR planet? The most recent data I’ve seen comes from the FBI Preliminary Six-Month Crime Stats for 2013 Releasedand it’s for only the first six months of 2013:

“In the violent crime category, forcible rape was down 10.6 percent, murder was down 6.9 percent, aggravated assault decreased 6.6 percent, and robbery was down 1.8 percent.”

The stats for 2012 showed TOTAL homicide in the U.S. in 2012 at 16,259 with firearms being the cause of death in 11,078 of them: FASTSTATS – Homicide

Get better stats. Then we can talk. Or, you know, not.

8) So skipping a lot of what I wrote buys you a lot of credibility, I guess then, right? Well, I guess that’s worked for Republicans in the past, so you fit right in.

I skipped a lot of what you copied-and-pasted. This is the comment section of a Quora answer. If you want to write Wall-‘o-Text comments, you really should start a blog.

Or therapy.

9) Tell me what hand gun (besides an Uzi) or rifle (besides a semi-automatic or fully automatic rifle) can kill 27 people in THREE DIFFERENT CLASSROOMS consecutively in less than 3 minutes, please. One would need to have the children lined up and standing still to kill as many with a handgun, reloading, then continuing to fire.

Pretty much anything that holds more than one or two rounds. As illustrated in that video you just ignored. Here’s another you can ignore:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvjMNW3ur5s?rel=0]
And another:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHG-ibZaKM?rel=0]
Jerry’s using a revolver in this one. He’s hella-fast, but you’re talking 27 aimed shots in THREE MINUTES. Not a problem for Joe Nutcase unless he’s missing a hand.

A guy I know tried to make the argument that Adam Lanza or James Holmes could have killed just as many children and adults with a knife if the knife had poison on the blade, provided that he got the poisoned knife in their jugular vein. Yes, if all the people lined up and tipped their heads back and stood still, perhaps with one big poison knife blade slash, one could do that.

Your argument, Kevin, is just as ridiculous.

We’re not talking about knives, Alex, we’re talking about firearms. And you’re arguing with ME, not “a guy” you know. YOU’RE the one insisting that the AR-15 type rifles used by Lanza and Holmes were absolutely necessary in the infliction of large scale deaths. I’m merely pointing out that YOUR argument is ridiculous.

10) Obama and the Democrats in Congress proposed extended background checks (see link at the top of this post) but it is the gun snugglers like you who keep interjecting gun ban hysteria, going in to some kind of “nam myoho renge kyo” type chant about the 2nd amendment whenever background checks come up, so THAT’S why I refer to the banning of some semi-automatic weapons, which does make perfect sense to me, however it has nothing to do with the topic of extended background checks, in spite of efforts by people like you trying to tie the two together.

OK, let’s look at this argument. You, personally, support a ban on semi-auto weapons. You seem to believe that extending the background check system to all firearms transfers would somehow help prevent these mass shootings. I don’t get the association, since Lanza’s mother DID undergo a background check for the weapons she purchased, and Lanza killed her to take them from her. Holmes also passed a background check each time he purchased one of the four firearms he used in Aurora. He also bought explosive materials that he used to booby-trap his apartment. Why he didn’t use bombs in the theater, we’ll never know.

But as for bans, how’s that working out in Connecticut? Massive civil disobedience. I thought Lefties were all for civil disobedience?

How do you take something if you don’t know where it is and the possessor of it doesn’t want to give it up? How does a background check system work if you don’t know who owns what?

11) I would fathom that your study can be traced back to some NRA sponsored Repblican[sic] think tank (oxymoron) or “The Herritage Foundation” or “Freedom Something or Other”, or the Koch brothers, like so many gun, health insurance and anti-gay studies can be traced back to.

Is your tinfoil hat a little tight? You want sources? The 2007 United Nations Small Arms Survey estimated that the number of firearms in private hands in the U.S. was between 270,000,000 and 290,000,000. Page on smallarmssurvey.orgI refer you back to the 2008, 2009, and 2010 ATF production reports and ask you to extrapolate on to 2011, 2012 and 2013. I don’t think you can argue convincingly that the UN Small Arms Survey is “NRA sponsored” or a tool of the eeeeeeeeeeeevil Koch Brothers. The 100 million estimate for the 1980’s comes from a study commissioned by the Carter administration in 1979, published as Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America in 1983. It’s available at Amazon. Interesting read.

Here are my stats, again, not sponsored by any politically affiliated group…

Gun crime statistics by US state
http://www.theguardian.com/news/…

“Gun ownership globally: US ranks first, ahead of Yemen”

“The United Stateshas 88 firearms per 100 people. Yemen, the second highest gun ownership country in the world has 54.8.”

Note that your Guardian link shows the number of firearm-related homicide in 2012 at 8,855, not 360,000. DO try to be consistent. And note that the Guardian also puts the number of guns in the U.S. at “roughly 35-50% of the world’s civilian-owned guns.” The statistical error-bars on that number are pretty high. Me? I’m going with the Small Arms Survey.

This Washington Post article has some telling facts on the subject of gun violence, and not all of it favors my argument, but much of it does, so in all fairness, I included it.

Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
http://www.washingtonpost.com/bl…

Yet your argument was – and I quote – “It’s a simple equation – more guns, more guns deaths.” Your own link illustrates your error. I repeat: The number of guns in the U.S. has increased threefold since the 1980’s, yet the rate of “gun deaths” over the last fifteen to twenty years has declined dramatically. Your “simple equation” is simply incorrect.

Wikipedia:
Gun violence in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun…

“During the 1980s and early 1990s, homicide rates surged in cities across the United States (see graphs at right).
wikipedia.org
[26] Handgun homicides accounted for nearly all of the overall increase in the homicide rate, from 1985 to 1993, while homicide rates involving other weapons declined during that time frame.”

But YOU want to ban semi-automatic RIFLES. I fail to see the logic.

For further damning facts and links, please refer to my original reply, above.

Your turn now, Kevin, but try to keep it accurate and truthful this time.

THIS TIME? I’M not the one claiming 360,000 “gun deaths” in 2013. I’m not the one claiming “more guns, more gun deaths.” I’m not the one claiming that background checks will somehow stop mass shootings in some kind of underpants gnomes logic:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts?rel=0]
Step 1: Universal Background Checks
Step 2: ?
Step 3: No more rampage shootings!

It’s been fun playing with you, Nugi, but really, the comments to Quora questions is NOT the forum for this kind of thing.

I’ve Gotta Live One!

March 7, 2014 KevinLeave a comment

Still playing over at Quora.com. In response to the question “How do you solve the gun problem in the United States in a realistic way?” I answered:

America does not have a “gun problem.” It has an inner-city violent crime problem. Yes, I understand that the majority of deaths attributable to firearms are suicides, but suicide rates seem to be unaffected by firearm availability. If firearms are not available, other methods are substituted and are equally effective. The U.S., for all of its guns, ranks rather low for suicide internationally.

Criminal homicide is heavily concentrated in large urban centers, in specific areas of those large urban centers, and among a very small, self-identifying group in those specific areas. Yet no one raises a hue-and-cry when one more inner-city youth is gunned down by another inner-city youth, especially when both of them have long criminal records of escalating violence.

It’s been two years since Trayvon Martin died. During that period, more than 10,000 young black men 34 years of age or younger have died of criminal homicide by firearm.

Name three without using Google or another search engine.

Yet every time the media gets a victim they can run with, it’s the rural gun owner in Ohio or Wyoming they want to slap new restrictions on. We’ve watched it happen for literally decades, a slow-motion hate crime against gun owners, because “the problem” is defined as (and only as) “too many guns.”

Young black men are killed – overwhelmingly by other young black men – at a rate six times higher than the rest of the population. A demographic that consists of less than 7% of the population makes up over 40% of the victims, but no one wants to talk about it, or try to find a solution for it other than “midnight basketball” or greater welfare subsidies.

No, it’s much easier (and politically safer) to blame “gun availability” and the “gun culture.” Here’s a newsflash: There are three distinct “gun cultures” – one recreational, one defensive, and one criminal. Guess which one “gun control” doesn’t have any effect on?

That drew this response (in its entirety!!) from one Alex Nuginski:

Anyone who says that the U.S. doesn’t have gun problem is so in denial, it’s not even funny anymore.

Kevin, first, why, in the gun control debate, do gun lovers always ignore the “extended background checks” part of the debate and jump right to “They’re trying to take our guns away, AHHHH!”

One reason is because talking about the real issues at hand doesn’t serve their purpose.

In the last attempt that Dems made to extend background checks on gun purchases after the Sandyhook massacre, no one was talking about taking anyone’s guns away, but that’s what the NRA and gun snugglers kept falling back on.

Ted Cruz and other tea-baggers tried to use the argument that if they allowed any sensible gun control measures like extended background checks to get passed through Congress now, that would then open the doors for other gun control measures to be passed in the future. That is such a sleazy dodge to the real issues at hand and the actual law that was being debated at the time… they were talking about a CURRENT law for extended background checks, NOT a future law to take guns away from “law abiding citizens”.

One of the many other flaws in anti gun control arguments, Kevin (the very same argument that anti-gun control people keep parroting) is this – you keep saying things like…

“Law-abiding citizens with guns is nothing to be afraid of.”

But, do you know who all the law abiding citizens in your country are and how to differentiate them from non-law abiding citizens?

In other words, people with bad intentions can just buy a gun on the internet, on any one of thousands of websites and social media networks, without any background check. And the people with bad intentions can also buy guns without any background check at gun shows from other private individuals.

Both of those ocean size holes could be closed so easily, by requiring background checks on internet gun sales and private gun sales at gun shows… it seems pretty much like a no brainer, right? But that lack of brains, or total refusal to consider it in the Republican side of the debate, is the problem.

The fact is, some of your “fellow citizens” are buying guns legally on the internet and at guns shows and then selling them illegally to criminals (or using the guns themselves) who then use those guns in rapes, robberies, drive-bys, and murders. YOU DON’T KNOW all of your fellow citizens… that seems so obvious, but do you consider that in your argument? No.

I think, deep down, you’ve already thought about what I’m saying here, but it doesn’t serve your side of the equation, so you try to ignore it.

And even if no one is talking about “taking guns away” from anyone (just talking about expanded background checks) the gun lovers always ignore that and start shouting about how Obama wants to take their guns away and how “the 2nd amendment is being trashed, la la la!”

That’s just the first and biggest flaw in your argument.

The second big, laughable flaw in what anti-gun control people are touting on this thread here is the argument that swimming pools cause deaths, so why shouldn’t we ban swimming pools?

Others try to comically use the same ridiculous argument by substituting cars in that same silliness, like the sophisticated Mr. Fair, below… so funny.

Guns are killing machines, and nothing else. They are made to kill living things, and that’s all they do. Swimming pools or cars are not made only to kill.

No one is designing a new car or a new swimming pool so they can hold more bullets and so they can fire bullets at a higher rate per minute. So unless you are going to tell me about how great guns are for starting marathon races or for doing 21 gun salutes, there is nothing else to discuss when talking about a gun, except killing something.

And swimming pools and cars don’t fall in to the same category of home defense, they aren’t used in rapes and robberies, and they aren’t used to put against your head and threaten you with death.

GUNS ARE being used that way, and they are sold with reckless abandon because the NRA, who gets a cut from every legally sold gun, makes sure that guns are as easy to get as a car or a bag of potato chips in some places, and even easier in some states that don’t even require gun owner registration.

Some people are completely freaked-out by some states trying to introduce new gun owner registration regulations, again, comically shouting, “They’re trying to take away our guns! AHHHH!”.

Yes, many gun deaths are accidental, but statistics prove that most accidental gun deaths wouldn’t have happened if the gun had not been in the home to begin with. Statistics also show that a gun owner who has a gun for self defense is more likely to be shot with his own gun than him using that gun to shoot an intruder.

Below are some links, stats and facts on the subject of gun deaths in homes that have guns, as well as other gun death stats & links, including a comparison of the U.S. homicide rates against two countries who have proven that gun control reduces homicide rates and accidental gun deaths.

As far as a school shooting or theater shooting, or any other shooting with a high-capacity, semi-automatic gun, like Sandyhook… what do non-military people need with a gun like that? I heard one ridiculous argument from a woman who said she needed an AK-47 style semi-automatic rifle to shoot rabbits because they move so fast… come on!… you’d turn a rabbit in to instant pulp with a rifle like that.

The fact is, if semi-automatic guns were not available at all to the general public, then Adam Lanza’s mother never would have been able to buy that killing machine, and then Adam Lanza would not have been able take that weapon out of his mother’s gun safe and shoot her in the face with it and then go and massacre 27 people in less than three minutes. Yes, he had other guns, but he wouldn’t have been able to cause nearly as much carnage as he did with that semi-automatic rifle.

And if James Holmes wasn’t able to get his hands on that killing machine in the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre (one of your so called FELLOW CITIZENS who bought that gun legally) then he wouldn’t have been able to kill nearly as many people.

It’s funny, because anti-gun control people say “See, he bought that gun legally, so any gun control laws wouldn’t have made any difference.” But then if the gun was acquired illegally, then they say, “See, he got gun illegally, so gun control laws wouldn’t have made any difference.”

You can’t have it both ways, or either of those ways, in the real world, because either way, extended background checks could have or would made a gun harder for a shooter to get to begin with.

And the topic of gun safes brings me to another statistical fact… if there are more guns in homes to be stolen from gun safes and other less protected hiding places, that just puts more guns in the hands of criminals. It’s a logical fact that is also backed up by stats… look at your local gun theft stats from home burglaries, then multiply that by about 100,000 and that will give you an idea of how many stolen guns get in to the hands of criminals in this country every year.

It’s a simple equation – more guns, more guns deaths… not hard to figure out, but so often ignored by your side of the argument.

And with that, one also needs to consider if everyone is armed, like so many dopes advocate, combined with racially charged laws like “Stand Your Ground”, the idea that anyone can die in a wild west style execution at any moment, like in Florida, because some pissed off, self appointed vigilante profiled a black guy walking in his neighborhood, or because a guy who thought that white people aren’t getting enough respect from black kids, so he started a fight over loud music, or because some guy was texting during the previews in a movie theater, and the shooter got some popcorn tossed at him.

Heat of the moment gun murders are becoming more and more common with every legal and illegal gun sold. But in Florida, the SYG laws don’t seem to be serving black people so well, statistically.

The case were a black woman fired a warning shot in her garage to keep her abusive husband away (who had been arrested several times for beating her) and she claimed SYG, but she got sentenced to 20 years by a white jury for firing that warning shot. Thank goodness she’s finally getting a retrial, but with Florida’s track record, who knows what will happen in there.

Here are those links, stats and facts that I spoke of, below.
____________

The most telling excerpt, from the second linked article below, is this…
_____

“Two-thirds of all murders between 2003 and 2007 involved guns. The average number of Americans shot and killed daily during those years was 33. Of those, one was a child (0 to 14 years), five were teenagers (15 to 19 years) and seven were young adults (20 to 24 years), on average.

Children in the U.S. get murdered with guns at a rate that is 13 times higher than that of other developed nations. For our young people aged 15 to 24, the rate is 43 times higher.

“The presence of a gun makes quarrels, disputes, assaults, and robberies more deadly. Many murders are committed in a moment of rage,” writes Hemenway.

“For example, a large percentage of homicides — and especially homicides in the home — occur during altercations over matters such as love, money, and domestic problems, involving acquaintances, neighbors, lovers, and family members; often the assailant or victim has been drinking.”

“Benefits?
The possible health benefits of gun ownership are twofold: deterring crime and stopping crimes in progress. But there are no credible studies, says Hemenway, that higher levels of gun ownership actually do these things.”

“Real risks
“There are real and imaginary situations when it might be beneficial to have a gun in the home,” Hemenway concludes. “For example, in the Australian film Mad Max, where survivors of the apocalypse seem to have been predominantly psychopathic male bikers, having a loaded gun would seem to be very helpful for survival, and public health experts would probably advise people in that world to obtain guns.”
“However, for most contemporary Americans, the scientific studies suggest that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit,” he adds. “There are no credible studies that indicate otherwise.”
Hemenway’s review appeared in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine and can be read in full online.”
________

Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/co…

Here are some excerpts from this study…

“Approximately 60 percent of all homicides and suicides in the United States are committed with a firearm”

“Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 3.4).

They were also at greater risk of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person was living with others at the time of death.

The risk of dying from a suicide in the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 10.4, 95% confidence interval: 5.8, 18.9).

Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different method (adjusted odds ratio = 31.1, 95% confidence interval: 19.5, 49.6).

Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.”

“Nearly three quarters of suicide victims lived in a home where one or more firearms were present, compared with 42 percent of homicide victims and one third of those who died of other causes (table 2). A firearm was used in 68 percent of both homicides and suicides.”

“Over three quarters (76.3 percent) of the homicide victims knew their assailant. Nearly one third (31.7 percent) of the homicides occurred during a family argument, 15.4 percent during a robbery, 4.1 percent during a drug deal, 0.2 percent during an abduction, and 44.1 percent for other unspecified reasons. In 4.5 percent of the homicides, multiple circumstances were reported.”
_______________

THE HEATH RISK OF HAVING A GUN IN THE HOME
http://www.minnpost.com/second-o…

Here are some excerpts from this study, and this first section is shocking…

“Homicides
Two-thirds of all murders between 2003 and 2007 involved guns. The average number of Americans shot and killed daily during those years was 33. Of those, one was a child (0 to 14 years), five were teenagers (15 to 19 years) and seven were young adults (20 to 24 years), on average.

Children in the U.S. get murdered with guns at a rate that is 13 times higher than that of other developed nations. For our young people aged 15 to 24, the rate is 43 times higher.

“The presence of a gun makes quarrels, disputes, assaults, and robberies more deadly. Many murders are committed in a moment of rage,” writes Hemenway.

“For example, a large percentage of homicides — and especially homicides in the home — occur during altercations over matters such as love, money, and domestic problems, involving acquaintances, neighbors, lovers, and family members; often the assailant or victim has been drinking.

Only a small minority of homicides appear to be the carefully planned acts of individuals with a single-minded intention to kill. Most gun killings are indistinguishable from nonfatal gun shootings; it is just a question of the caliber of the gun, whether a vital organ is hit, and how much time passes before medical treatment arrives.”

“Study after study has been conducted on the health risks associated with guns in the home. One of the latest was a meta-review published in 2011 by David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. He examined all the scientific literature to date on the health risks and benefits of gun ownership. What he found was sobering, to say the least.”

“Having a gun in your home significantly increases your risk of death — and that of your spouse and children.

And it doesn’t matter how the guns are stored or what type or how many guns you own.

If you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide.

Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that having a gun in your house reduces your risk of being a victim of a crime. Nor does it reduce your risk of being injured during a home break-in.

The health risks of owning a gun are so established and scientifically non-controvertible that the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement in 2000 recommending that pediatricians urge parents to remove all guns from their homes.”
____________

Just for fun, here’s a little video that addresses the whole silly “2nd Amendment” argument that Republicans chant whenever talking about gun control laws.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L…
____________

Wikipedia:
Gun violence in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun…

“During the 1980s and early 1990s, homicide rates surged in cities across the United States (see graphs at right).[26] Handgun homicides accounted for nearly all of the overall increase in the homicide rate, from 1985 to 1993, while homicide rates involving other weapons declined during that time frame.”
_______________

Comparing the U.S. to Australia and the U.K., both of whom have enacted highly effective gun control laws.

Wikipedia: List of countries by firearm-related death rate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…

Homicides-2013:
AUSTRALIA: 13,000 gun homicides
UNITED KINGDOM: 4,000 gun homicides
UNITED STATES: 360,000 gun homicides

Adjusted for population size:
AUSTRALIA: 22.68 million people
UNITED KINGDOM: 63.23 million people
UNITED STATES: 313.9 million people

The U.S. population is 13.84 times the size of the Australian population, but it has a gun murder rate 27.69 times as high.

The U.S. population is 4.96 times the size of the U.K. population, but it has a gun murder rate 90 times as high.
_______________

Gun crime statistics by US state
http://www.theguardian.com/news/…

“Gun ownership globally: US ranks first, ahead of Yemen”

“The United States has 88 firearms per 100 people. Yemen, the second highest gun ownership country in the world has 54.8.”
_______________

This Washington Post article has some telling facts on the subject of gun violence, and not all of it favors my argument, but much of it does, so in all fairness, I included it.

Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
http://www.washingtonpost.com/bl…

1. Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.

2. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.

3. Lots of guns don’t necessarily mean lots of shootings, as you can see in Israel and Switzerland.

(One would have to consider the culture and the history of violence that exists in the U.S. to explain the differences between Israel, Switzerland and the U.S.)

4. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened from 2007 onward.

5. America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be.

6. The South is the most violent region in the United States.

7. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.

(This article was written in late 2012, and since the Sandyhook shooting that same month, gun ownership in the U.S. has increased drastically due to somewhat of a mass-hysteria fear of changing gun control laws, which never materialized due to a minority of Republican and NRA efforts)

8. More guns tend to mean more homicide.

9. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.

10. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.

11. But particular policies to control guns often are.

12. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.

Did you read all that? No, honestly I didn’t either. My eyes started to glaze over at the “tea-baggers” comment, but I did respond. Here it is, archived at TSM because I wouldn’t be surprised if someone at Quora yanked it.

Holy Wall-o-Text, Batman! I thought I was the last of the long-winded on the Interwebs!

You’ll have to forgive me, but I simply CANNOT respond to Every. Single. Point. in your screed, but I’ll hit on a few of ’em.

Please describe for me the “extended background checks” you brought up WAAAYY up there at the top. I need details. What was the bill number? Who introduced it? What did it cover? Or are you instead discussing some nebulous idea of “extended background checks” that was never proposed as, you know, an actual law? If that’s the case, please be specific in what, PRECISELY these “extended background checks” consist of. Then, perhaps, we can discuss whether or not they might be useful, or just gun registration through the back door.

“One reason is because talking about the real issues at hand doesn’t serve their purpose.” Um, Pot? Meet Kettle.

“In the last attempt that Dems made to extend background checks on gun purchases after the Sandyhook massacre, no one was talking about taking anyone’s guns away…” Did you READ the bill? I did. It’s not at all surprising it failed.

“Ted Cruz and other tea-baggers…” Ah, yes, personal insults. Well, now I know without a doubt the type of person I’m dealing with, so we’re on level ground there.

“But, do you know who all the law abiding citizens in your country are and how to differentiate them from non-law abiding citizens?”

Yeah, we’re the ones who go to work, pay our taxes, and DON’T SHOOT PEOPLE WHO AREN’T THREATENING US. We’re the ones who DON’T HAVE CRIMINAL RECORDS. Perhaps you’d like us to tattoo a big “L” on our cheeks, or sew a script “L” on our clothes so we look like Laverne from “Laverne & Shirley?”

“In other words, people with bad intentions can just buy a gun on the internet, on any one of thousands of websites and social media networks, without any background check. And the people with bad intentions can also buy guns without any background check at gun shows from other private individuals.” Or they can get a friend or relative – who doesn’t have a record, to buy them a gun from a gun shop. Or they can buy a stolen gun from the same guy they buy their weed or other drug-of-choice from. You know, drugs are illegal too, right?

You are aware that AFTER the handgun ban in Britain, handgun crime DOUBLED? And they don’t have the excuse that “the state next door has lax gun laws!” Britain is an ISLAND.

An island where they apparently import and sell HAND GRENADES.

And if we can’t keep drugs and “undocumented workers” from streaming across our Southern border, how hard do you think it would be for the smugglers to bring guns across? (Not that we need them, having 300 million of our own to begin with.)

“Both of those ocean size holes could be closed so easily, by requiring background checks on internet gun sales and private gun sales at gun shows…”

Just internet sales and gun shows? Can my wife buy me a gun for, say, Father’s day and just give it to me, or would that require another “extended background check”? Can I give one to a friend for Christmas, or does that have to go through your “extended background check”? Can I sell one to a coworker or other acquaintance? And if I do, how do you know? After all, there’s no massive GUN REGISTRY of who owns the 300+ million firearms in private hands now. How does your “extended background check” work in the face of this annoying fact?

“The fact is, some of your “fellow citizens” are buying guns legally on the internet and at guns shows and then selling them illegally to criminals…”

Which is ALREADY ILLEGAL. You believe making it illegaler (totally a word) will help? We have a WHOLE BUREACRACY (The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – which should be a really cool convenience store instead of a government department, but I digress) to pursue people who do that. Well, they’re supposed to, but lately they’ve been involved in smuggling guns to narcotraffickers in Mexico for some reason….

“I think, deep down, you’ve already thought about what I’m saying here, but it doesn’t serve your side of the equation, so you try to ignore it.”

Oh no! I’m fully aware of it. I’ve probably given it far more thought than you have, and I’ve just asked a few first-order questions concerning your proposed “solution.”

“…because the NRA, who gets a cut from every legally sold gun….”

Really? Where did you hear this factoid? The U.S. GOVERNMENT gets a cut from every legally manufactured gun and every round of ammunition, but I was unaware that the NRA had the same kind of setup. Please enlighten me. Point me to the source!

“Yes, many gun deaths are accidental, but statistics prove that most accidental gun deaths wouldn’t have happened if the gun had not been in the home to begin with.”

This is what’s known in logic as “a tautology.” In fact, I’d go so far as to say “statistic prove that ALL accidental gun deaths would never occur if guns didn’t exist!” People wouldn’t die of snakebite if there were no snakes, either.

I’m going to skip a lot of the rest of your philippic and address one more point to illustrate your relative lack of grasp on the topic:

“The fact is, if semi-automatic guns were not available at all to the general public, then Adam Lanza’s mother never would have been able to buy that killing machine, and then Adam Lanza would not have been able take that weapon out of his mother’s gun safe and shoot her in the face with it and then go and massacre 27 people in less than three minutes.”

Avoiding the obvious tautology that, had Lanza’s mother not been ABLE to buy THAT particular weapon, Lanza couldn’t have used THAT particular weapon, I challenge your assertion that he couldn’t have used a DIFFERENT weapon (or weapons) to kill 27 people in “less than three minutes.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THe3nHDpPqM?rel=0]
Twenty-three rounds in less than 25 seconds. The revolvers hold six each, he only loaded five. The shotgun holds three rounds, he single-loaded it. Had he started with full guns, there’d have been TWENTY-SEVEN AIMED SHOTS in less than 30 seconds. Not a semi-auto weapon to be found. That gives him two minutes to reload and go again. The kid is fourteen years old in this video.

Adam Lanza was unopposed, in a classroom full of children. Besides the AR-15, he had two handguns on him. He left his mother’s shotgun in his car.

Extrapolate for James Holmes.

And I thought you guys didn’t want to BAN anything and we were paranoid for thinking it?

And – for anyone who’s slogged all the way through this – one final point:

“It’s a simple equation – more guns, more guns deaths… not hard to figure out, but so often ignored by your side of the argument.”

The estimated number of privately owned guns in this country has INCREASED (that’s “more guns”) from approximately 100 million in the 1980’s to 300 million (that’s THREE TIMES AS MANY) today.

“Gun deaths” (defined as “people killed by firearm” rather than “guns that died” – just trying to be perfectly clear here) have DECLINED (that’s LESS DEATHS). According to the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS tool (look it up) in 1981 there were a total of 34,050 people who died by firearm for any reason – suicide, homicide, accident. In 2010, there were a total of 31,610 deaths by firearm. On a strictly mathematical basis, that’s a DECREASE of 2,440, but the population in 1981 was 229,460,000. In 2010 (latest data available) it was 308,745,000. On a per capita basis, in 2010 the death rate by firearm was 10.26 per 100,000 population. In 1981 the rate was 14.84. (Check WISQARS if you don’t believe me.)

That’s a DECREASE of approximately 30%.

What was your argument again? Oh yes, “more guns, more gun deaths.”

Who’s ignoring what?

Need Some Aloe Vera for that Burn?

August 24, 2013 KevinLeave a comment

Mike Rowe, star of Dirty Jobs, narrator of Deadliest Catch and other TV shows, spokesman for Ford and supporter and promoter of the skilled trades, does a Pulitzer-prize quality fisking of a piece by one Steve Kloosterman on MLive.com, Question of the Day: Are bad jobs good for the economy and people who work them?

It’s all good, but I loved his opening:

Steve Kloosterman, MUSKEGON, MI – Most of us can tell a story about a job from hell somewhere in our past. There’s the first job, the one we took because our parents said, “You can’t hang around the house all summer long.” Maybe it was at a fast food place or in a retail outlet.

Mike Rowe – First of all, Steve, the Dirty Jobs Code of Conduct contains a Damnation Clause that clearly and unequivocally states that my photo “can not be used in conjunction with any satanic reference, including but not limited to Lucifer, Hades, Old Scratch, Hell, Perdition, Beelzebub or Honey Boo Boo.”

Secondly, jobs don’t come from hell. They come from people with money who are willing to pay other people to work for them.

Thirdly, I have worked in both fast food and retail and neither one reminded me of the Netherworld. (Although the Taco Bell drive-through at 2 a.m. does smell vaguely of brimstone and sulphur.)

And it just gets better from there.

Rights vs. Duties

October 22, 2012 KevinLeave a comment

(This is another draft from the past that just needed a little light cleanup before hitting “Publish.)

In a previous piece, A Fisking, a couple of commenters have taken exception or raised questions that ought to be addressed in depth. The first was “craig“:

‘Any “right” that demands that someone else provide a service, a material good, or any other thing of value is not a RIGHT.’

Whoa there.

We do use the word ‘right’ in two ways, but it’s not so clean as negative-rights good, positive-rights bad. The only rational basis for comprehending what we mostly understand intuitively lies in natural law, but natural law does include a few positive rights in addition to the obvious negative rights.

What John Locke described and Jefferson wrote into the Declaration are natural or ‘negative’ rights. These are rights (life, liberty, property) that automatically exist in a person unless they are negated (taken away) by some external force or impediment. They are inalienable in that they exist prior to any governments or laws; men are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with these rights, and so no government may, as a matter of justice, arbitrarily impede them.

The problem is that ‘positive’ rights (rights that impose a duty on another) do exist. The left has ruined our concept of them, starting with the Soviet propagandists who boasted about the Soviet ‘rights’ to employment, housing, etc., to distract from their obvious offenses against natural rights.

First and foremost, a child has the right to the care of both his father and his mother. To neglect the duty of caring for one’s offspring is to deprive him of justice. A child also has the rights to care, food, and shelter, as do his parents when they are old and unable to care for themselves. Without a natural-law understanding that the act of procreation also ‘endows’ certain duties upon persons, all basis for the law’s treatment of families (marriage, guardianship, inheritance, etc.) vanishes.

I responded:

Here we’re going to have to agree to disagree. A parent has a duty to their minor children. Adult children have a duty to their eldery parents. I do not consider the imposition of these duties “rights.” My definition of the word “right” is then narrower than yours. “Duties” are not the reciprocal of “rights,” in my view. I have a right to arms. I do not have a duty to be armed. I have a duty to care for my children and my parents. They do not have a right to have access to my checking account.

To which “craig” replied:

OK, I’ll agree with that take, if you can tell me where duties come from.

A Catholic Christian can say that rights and duties alike are corollary attributes of the God-given dignity intrinsic to humans as beings made in His image (i.e., with free will, rationality, and conscience). So I’m comfortable speaking of duties. But in the absence of some philosophically rigorous basis, it’s hard to claim that there are intrinsic duties upon any person. Sure, care for offspring is in our DNA, but it’s also in animals’ DNA and yet many of them abandon or even eat their young. If the adult animal survives to reproduce another day, it’s all the same to natural selection. We don’t treat animals as moral agents in this case; what causes us to treat humans as such?

Classical philosophy considers justice as the condition of one’s having what is rightfully his. But reciprocity between rights and duties has to be limited: only when another’s acts leave you incapable of exercising your natural right, do they implicitly assume a proportional duty to aid. This is nothing more than restoring what rightfully belonged to another, and such is just and is consistent with centuries of common law. He who breaks, buys. He who procreates assumes a duty to care for offspring. He who impedes your right to self-defense in a particular place implicitly assumes a duty to defend you.

If you don’t have at least this level of correspondence between right and duty, then it must follow that a declaration (as QuadGMoto argues above) that the incapable have no right to food, only need, means that by that same declaration it cannot be unjust to let Granny starve.

Good discussion.

Yes it is.

Andrew MacDougal also asks:

What about the 5th amendment right, “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Providing just compensation seems to require somebody else do something.

What about the 5th amendment right “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” In the same way a trial requires all sorts of work by paid professionals plus a jury donating their time, so a ‘right’ to health care requires other people to work.

Pressed for time even then, I deferred to my readers to reply, and one Chris Gerard stepped up:

I would posit that it is different, and I’ll address the two points separately.

First, with regard to private property, you can’t only talk about the part where just compensation occurs. The absolute most important part of that clause, in my opinion, is the part where the government is taking your property away from you. Furthermore, that taking is happening whether you want to allow it or not, and will be done – as with so many other government actions – with armed agents of the government standing by if need be. Just compensation isn’t just requiring someone else to do something; here, it’s saying that the .gov is going to take your private property if need be, but they have to compensate you justly for doing so.

The second part of 5A that you mention, on the other hand, is a very “um… lemme think about that for a minute” kind of argument. Again, though, I have to begin with the part where the accused is facing a government that’s here to do some taking (likely why these two clauses are in the same Amendment. Neat, ain’t it?). In this case, we’re talking about taking your money (fines), freedom (imprisonment), or life (death penalty). That’s a Big Damned Deal, and requires as it should a whole big lot of folks to make damn sure that the .gov, on behalf of the people, has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt the necessity of removing your money, freedom, or life.

While there is a glowing similarity to the healthcare argument, it’s still apples and oranges once you take away the government force. When it comes to getting treated at a hospital, sure it can be life-or-death, and yes, that makes the situation arguably every bit as important as a trial – if not more so – but we’re not talking about a situation where the hospital administrators are taking away health you already had. And that makes it very, very different.

The next day I received an email from retired blogger Publicola, which I turned into its own post, More on Rights, which was his exploration of individual rights as property rights. I can’t say I disagreed with any of it.

But now it’s my turn, as promised.

As I have noted previously in the “Rights” essays linked over on the left sidebar, I am convinced that Ayn Rand was correct in that there is only one fundamental right – the right to one’s own life – and that all other rights are corollaries of that fundamental. I believe that John Locke’s “Life, Liberty, Property” list of fundamental rights are such corollaries. I also believe that Rand was accurate when she defined any right as “a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” So let me address craig’s question concerning the source of duty. Let me quote Heinlein:

Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

Duty is voluntary. It is not imposed by outside forces – thus there is no such thing as (for instance) “obligatory charity” – the term is null. Self-respect is a function of education and of culture. What one would never imagine doing in ones own culture has throughout history been done to other cultures without a second thought. Remember Rand’s “moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” If that social context changes, then the actions that are sanctioned also can change, based on cultures.

Bear in mind, I’m not saying this is philosophically correct, I’m saying this is how it has worked throughout history.

Tag: debate