Tag: GFWs

Enjoying a Fight

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Enjoying a Fight

Back in 2005 I wrote Fear: The Philosophy and Politics Thereof. The general topic was the fact that the gun-control philosophy is based on just that – fear. As I said then:

It’s important to understand this: We call ourselves “gun nuts” – embracing the label thrust upon us by the ignorant, anti-gun bigots – but many of them really believe it. We’re “potentially dangerous” because we like guns.

I think that’s something most gun owners don’t really grasp. I know it initially took me a while to get my mind around the idea.

The Brady Campaign linked to several gunbloggers yesterday. (No link, on purpose. You can find it below if you want.) The author was horrified at that famous letter to the editor, but even more horrified that we gunbloggers didn’t “denounce it as morally degenerate and unrepresentative of gun owners at-large”.

And we didn’t.

Our dedicated opposition is made up of people who actually believe there is (or ought to be) a Right to Feel Safe. The fact that there are people around them, armed and willing to use violence scares the crap out of them. As I’ve noted before, they either refuse or are unable to distinguish between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective”. They see only violence, and violence is bad, mmmmkay?

But what really gives them PSH are people who aren’t afraid of fighting. It’s taken me a while, but I swear that half the antipathy the Left has for the modern military must come from the fact that soldiers are trained to fight, and volunteer for the training. When I wrote Fear there had been a Great Outrage at the pronouncement of Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis that:

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.

One typical response was from Juan Cole:

Just as few priests are pedophiles, few soldiers are sadists. Mattis has brought dishonor on the US Marine Corps with his words. Killing is never appropriately called “fun.” I think he should resign.

As I said then, according to the Left, enjoying the practice of violence is the definition of insane.

Eric S. Raymond posted today on this topic. He’s got some interesting insights. Here’s a taste:

It used to bother me that I like fighting. I had internalized the idea that while combat may sometimes be an ethical necessity, enjoying it is wrong — or at least dubious.

So I half-hid my delight from myself behind a screen of words about seeking self-perfection and focus and meditation in motion. Those words were all true; I do value the quasi-mystical aspects of the fighting arts very much. But the visceral reality underneath them, for me, was the joy of battle.

In 2005 I finally came to understand why I enjoy fighting. And — I know this will sound corny — I’m much more at peace with myself now. I’m writing this explanation because I think I am not alone — I don’t think my confusion and struggle was unique. There may be lessons here for others as well as myself, and even an insight into evolutionary biology.

If that’s not enough of a teaser, you’re not interested in the topic.

Eric is not alone, but I don’t count myself among that group. I don’t like fighting. I haven’t been in a physical altercation since I was probably 12. I have no idea how I would perform in an actual combat situation. I’d like to think I’d be adequate, but I don’t expect more from myself than that. I remember reading W.E.B. Griffin’s series Brotherhood of War. In the first book, The Lieutenants, a soldier is sent to Greece in the immediate post WWII period during America’s initial, stumbling efforts to check the spread of Communism. He is sent as a liaison to the Greek army during their civil war. He was not supposed to be a combatant, but his position comes under major attack, and there are numerous casualties. During WWII he had not been exposed to battle, but in the hills of Greece, he comes under mortar and small-arms fire.

And he shits himself.

Then he picks up his Garand, and goes to war anyway.

That was not the behavior I was expecting from a major character in a war novel, but it rang true.

If the S does HTF, all I can hope for myself is that I do what is right, but I’ll remember what I learned from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society – about 2% of the population is able to kill without hesitation and without remorse. Half of those are clinically insane. But the other half are perfectly sane, and they’re the ones who lead in battle. I suspect Eric is one of that 1%. But the rest of us can do violence, if it’s necessary.

What decides that is the philosophy (or lack thereof) you live by.

Paul Helmke and Super Dangerous Weapons

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ABC News interviewed Mr. Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Disarm America. He had some interesting things to say:

(W)ith the Supreme Court poised to hand down a potentially landmark decision in the case, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence fully expects to lose.

“We’ve lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means,” campaign president Paul Helmke told ABC News. “Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it’s an individual right. Why are we arguing a theory anymore? We are concerned about what we can do practically.”

As I noted in my comment there, Mr. Helmke once again avoids mention of the fact that he and his ilk were attempting to change the Constitution without recourse to the Amendment process through REDEFINING the meaning of “right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms”. They failed. Spectacularly. That doesn’t mean we think they’ve given up. And his mouthpiece confirms:

Brady Campaign Attorney Dennis Henigan said there are multiple gun control measures that would not run afoul of a Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban.

“Universal background checks don’t affect the right of self-defense in the home. Banning a super dangerous class of weapons, like assault weapons, also would not adversely affect the right of self-defense in the home,” said Henigan. “Curbing large volume sales doesn’t affect self-defense in the home.”

Yet the Brady Campaign supported the D.C. ban at least in part because they believe that handguns are a “super dangerous class” of weapons. The Violence Policy Center, of the same ilk, has been trying to get a national handgun ban passed since its inception. They even sell a book on the topic: EVERY HANDGUN IS AIMED AT YOU.

But somehow Mr. Helmke thinks that “assault weapons” – which I doubt he could define – are “super dangerous.” Apparently only when they’re in the hands of people not on the .gov payroll, since almost every police force in the country (including, most recently, Chicago) is armed or arming with AR-15 or M16/M4 rifles and carbines. You know, those spray-firing bullet hoses designed to be fired from the hip and that are only good for mowing down crowds?

In current news, Utah’s Hill Air Force Base has apparently misplaced a crate of M-16 select-fire rifles (read: “machine guns”). Apparently since these are official government firearms, the Salt Lake Tribune notes that they are “small caliber rifles,” though they are “worth up to $5,000 each on the street.”

“Small caliber rifle” doesn’t sound like a “Super Dangerous Weapon,” does it?

They’re missing twelve of them.

Helmke must be having kittens.

Ayn Rand Was Right

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Do you really think we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking the law. Create a nation of lawbreakers and then you can cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system! – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

Several bloggers have reported on the 10 year old Winchendon, Massachusetts boy who was suspended from school for five days for bringing a spent (that’s “fired,” “inert,” or “empty” for those of you in the Journalism profession) blank (that’s “never had a projectile” – the pointy bit that’s designed to come out of the barrel, the long tube-thingy that… never mind.) cartridge case to his school – a fired blank case that was given to him by a veteran, presumably after it was fired in a 21-gun salute on Memorial Day.

Yes, that’s outrageous.

But Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has a little different spin on the story:

Well, the problem is, if you don’t have a license to have a firearm in Massachuetts, you can’t even possess ammunition or ammunition components. The truth is, this kid and everyone involved in this situation is lucky that it’s only resulting in a five day suspension. Under Massachusetts law, both the kid, the veteran who gave the kid the empty shell casing, and the teacher to took if from the kid could be looking at two years in prison for having ammunition components without a license.

These are the “reasonable restrictions” that the Brady Campaign wants to impose on the rest of the country. And they call us “nuts” and “paranoid” for arguing that these regulations are anything but reasonable.

I would be very curious to learn how often these laws are actually used in prosecution against armed robbers, drug dealers and the like.

A license to possess a spent cartridge case. It boggles.

Still the Man Hears What He Wants to Hear and Disregards the Rest…

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(with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel)

Markadelphia dropped this in a comment on the post about the school shooting in Portsmith Ohio:

So, there were guns there and nothing could be done to stop it. Having people armed in schools will prevent nothing. While I think that if many people here were armed in a school would be responsible, most Americans, unlike Israelis, are fucking morons who jump at their own shadow and would probably shoot someone by accident. Simply put, I don’t trust most American and I don’t think you do either, Kevin, as evidenced by your writings.

Let us parse:

So, there were guns there and nothing could be done to stop it.

Really? You again exhibit your God-like powers of prescience and prognostication. Wherever do you find those? Is there a pill?

Having people armed in schools will prevent nothing.

Is that so? Well it is difficult to “prove a negative.” The probability that such an incident doesn’t happen because a gunman was dissuaded due to the fact that one of his victims might shoot back (or first) is, admittedly, impossible to calculate. Oregon school teacher Shirley Katz seems to believe with a weapon she could prevent her ex-husband from doing something unpleasant to her (since restraining orders are essentially tissue paper and she knows it), but the law requires her to be a disarmed target while she’s at work.

Just like Christi Layne.

However, it’s never really been that much about prevention, Markadelphia, it’s been about attenuation. Only two things will stop a rampage shooter – either he (or she) decides they’re done, or someone with a gun stops them.

As Tam put it so eloquently after the Montreal college shooting in 2006:

I ain’t goin’ out like that. Whether it’s some Columbine wannabe who’s heard the backward-masked messages on his Marilyn Manson discs, distressed daytrader off his Prozac, homegrown Hadji sympathetic with his oppressed brothers in Baghdad, or a bugnuts whackjob picking up Robert Frost quotes transmitted from Langley on the fillings in his molars, I am going to do my level best to smoke that goblin before my carcass goes on the pile. I am not going to go out curled into a fetal ball and praying for help that won’t arrive in time.

—

Even if the police are right there, it might not do me any good. Heck, I might not do me any good. But, dammit, I am going to try. If a 51 year-old nurse can overcome a hammer-wielding psycho with her bare hands, the least I can do is go out on my feet. I’m not going to wait for the coup de grace under a desk; I’m not going get in the abductor’s car; I’m not going to comply with their demands; I’m not going gently.

Help in this case didn’t arrive in time to stop the shooter before he decided he was finished, nor did it in the Baton Rouge shooting yesterday, but it did in the City Hall shooting in Missouri. There’s no way to know how many people Charles Lee ‘Cookie’ Thornton intended to kill before he decided he was finished, is there?

But now we get to the heart of the matter:

While I think that if many people here were armed in a school would be responsible, most Americans, unlike Israelis, are fucking morons who jump at their own shadow and would probably shoot someone by accident. Simply put, I don’t trust most American and I don’t think you do either, Kevin, as evidenced by your writings.

Then you’ve not been reading what I’ve been writing. (There’s a surprise.)

Prior to Florida starting the current trend in 1987, there were eight “shall-issue” states, where citizens who applied for a CCW permit and who passed a background check and a minor licensing requirement had to be issued a permit. It was not at the discretion of local law enforcement to deny. Vermont has always been a “no permit required” state. Seventeen states were “no issue” – you couldn’t get a CCW at all. Since then the number of “shall issue” states has increased to 37, Alaska has joined Vermont in not requiring a permit, and only two states remain “no issue.”

In each of the states where “shall issue” is the law, approximately 1-3% of the eligible population jumps through the relatively minor hoops in order to get a permit. The number of people who actually carry is unknown. What we do know is that those people are remarkably law-abiding. They are much less likely to be arrested for anything than the general population.

In point of fact, they do not “jump at their own shadow” or “shoot someone by accident” – at least if they do shoot someone by accident, it’s at rates far below those of police officers. It is a fact that the worst thing you can say about “shall issue” concealed-carry legislation is that it might not have contributed to the decline in violent crime during the same period. In state after state, opponents to the laws have had to admit that none of the “blood in the streets” and “shootouts over fender-bender” fearmongering came true.

You’re right, Markadelphia, I don’t trust “most Americans,” and with reason. Apparently “most Americans” are like you. But I do trust those who get CCW permits far above and beyond “most Americans” because – for the overwhelming majority – they’ve given thought to their own protection, and understand that the police can’t be everywhere, all the time. They are connected to reality in a way “most Americans” really aren’t.

And if you’re interested in the efficacy of concealed carry, I suggest you peruse the archives of Clayton Cramer’s Civilian Gun Self-Defense blog. Admittedly, the number of CCW defensive gun uses are low, but they do happen.

Contrast Tam’s words above with these of Barry of Inn of the Last Home from a while back:

I just…I just blink my eyes in amazement everytime this crops up – actually watching people feel the need to carry a concealed weapon in public…

If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment’s notice to possibly kill…a child. A homeless person. An innocent.

Obviously that is not your intent. You want to protect yourself – maybe that is how you feel in California. But being brought up in Eastern Tennessee I’ve never once felt the need to protect myself from imminent bodily harm in public. And if I were aware of a location that might be unduly hazardous – a dark alley, a badly lighted parking area – I would avoid it. I’ve never been mugged, nor can I readily pull up a name of any person I’ve ever met that’s been mugged or even bodily threatened in my whole life.

What scares me most is the arbitrary nature of self-defense. What line must be crossed to signal to you that there is imminent danger or threat? Is it a criminal pulling a gun on you? In which case, unless you’re a gunslinger, you’re not going to outdraw him. Is it someone pulling a knife? Threatening words? Bad language or rude gestures? Where is that one point where you decide, “Yes, my life or the life of my loved ones is in danger and I must now take it upon myself to take the life of another person.” What if the guy is reaching into his jacket, and you are sure, absolutely certain that it is a weapon. You pull your gun and shoot–and see he’s reaching for his wallet. Or worse, you miss and hit a child running in the street. Where is that line?

The radiation would rot my brain and I would never be able to live with myself.

Maybe it’s different in California. Maybe it’s different in Tennessee. Maybe I don’t love my family enough…maybe I love them too much. But I know myself, and know that if I surrendered to the paranoia – and I mean that in the most basic sense – there would be no turning back.

You can bet your ass I don’t trust him to make decisions for me.

UPDATE:  Original JSKit/Echo comment thread is available here. Thank you, John Hardin.

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Do It Again, Only HARDER!.

Say Uncle points to another Laura Washington piece on gun control. It seems Ms. Washington wants to “energize the base,” since in her previous jeremiad she stated that she wanted to “get organized and shove tougher gun policies right down their throats.”

One of those throats, obviously, would be mine. Now she wants to “pry open those cold dead hands.”

Guess whose?

Say Uncle has done a masterful job fisking her op-ed (and I’ll get back to that), and Ahab has some things to say about it, as does Sebastian, and Countertop, and Alphecca. Since Ms. Washington states in her current piece, “Whenever I write about the plague of gun violence, I get a huge blowback from the gun lovers of America,” I thought I’d do my part as well.

Before I do that, though, allow me to bask in the pleasure that Ms. Washington took what I told her in my first email to her, and wrote an op-ed from it. I wrote previously:

Ms. Washington, you note in your piece: “(I)t seems the gun control advocates have been outmatched. Abigail Spangler acknowledges as much. Spangler is the founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com, a Virginia-based group that has been spearheading a slew of anti-gun protests around the nation.

“Gun control activists, she wrote me, ‘are TRYING HARD but they are seriously affected in state after state by lack of funding and contributions.” She recently met, she says, with the leader of Virginia’s only gun control group. “He says they may not even be able to afford any lobbyist at all soon in Virginia!'”

Ms. Washington, the citizenry will offer an opinion to anyone. Opinions are free. But activism costs money – and the anti-gun side has shown that the hearts and wallets of the general public are not really into it. Ask any hundred random people on the street if they favor stricter gun laws and most likely the majority will say “yes.” Ask them what the current gun laws are, and they won’t be able to tell you. Gun rights activists can. The gun control side of the argument has been supported for decades with money from foundations, perhaps the largest contributor being the Joyce Foundation. Look them up. Those of us who believe in the right to arms are the true grass-rooters, and there are far more of us than the mere four million that the NRA claims as members. As someone once put it so pithily: “Poor Lefties; they’ve been playing on astroturf so long that they don’t know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.”

In the current piece she writes:

Through organizing, the Internet, and plunking down plenty of cold hard cash, the gun lobby has proven it is ready for primetime. Meanwhile, its opponents are languishing in the wee-hours of late-night local cable.

Right. The Violence Policy Center, the Brady Center, IANSA, the Second Amendment Research Center of Ohio State University, the Harvard School of Public Health, the…. Well, you get the idea.

Gun control advocates should piggyback on the success of online activist groups like MoveOn.org and MeetUp.com. These efforts have raised millions to promote political candidates and the antiwar movement. The money is there. Barack Obama, for one, has raised over $17 million on the Internet. Marches and protests are fine, but it is imperative to devise a response that is sophisticated and symmetrical to the gun lobby’s tactics.

She realizes her side needs money, but I don’t think she knows the mailing address for her grant application to the Joyce Foundation.

ANYWAY, back to Say Uncle’s fisk. In it, he uses one of my favorite “Uncleisms” – “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”

Ms. Washington makes two statements that I think are crucial to understand about the topic, but that almost no one on either side ever addresses. To wit:

The gun army, made up almost exclusively of white men from suburban and rural areas….

and:

According to a recent report by the U.S. Justice Department, nearly half the people murdered in the United States in 2005 were black. Most lived in cities and were felled by guns. While blacks make up about 13 percent of the nation’s population, they comprised 49 percent of all murder victims.

I am reminded of the truth of the first point every time I go to the range. While Zendo Deb, Denise, Tam, Bitter, KeeWee, Breda, and hundreds if not thousands of women, not to mention black men like Kenn Blanchard and Walter Williams, are members of the “gun army,” the overwhelming majority of us are white males, mostly suburban or rural.

But very nearly half of the victims and perpetrators of violent crime are less than 13% of the population. A very identifiable less than 13%.

Young. Urban. Black. Males.

In fact, the level of violence committed by and upon this tiny demographic skews America’s violent crime rates markedly, as I pointed out in Questions from the Audience? back in January of last year.

But whose throats does Ms. Washington want to shove “tough new gun policies” down? Whose “cold dead hands” does she want to pry open, in the apparent belief it will somehow affect the problem she herself identifies?

If you misidentify the problem, it’s no surprise that you misidentify the solution, but it’s more than a little exasperating when the other side points right at a crucial datum, and continues to make the same error. It leads one to suspect either a logical disconnect, or an ulterior motive.

“Gun control is what you do instead of something” indeed.

Quote of the Day

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From an excellent post by Joe Huffman. Joe’s formerly hoplophobic friend explains why he felt it necessary to demonize gun owners in his own mind:

Back in the days when I was very anti-gun, I tended to think of “gun nuts” as drooling, knuckle-dragging morons. Cavemen. Uneducated. Beer-drinking slobs who could barely read and who probably beat up their wives a lot. Maybe they were even all closet Nazis, eh? Etc., etc., etc. It was an image that came instantly to mind. I would talk about “gun nuts” that same way with friends of like mind. It all made such perfect sense to us.

But if ever I came across a “gun nut” in person I would be silent — especially if it was someone dressed in, say, hunting cammos. Or I might see “gun nuts” on TV and make a snide comment about them, but seeing them made me feel a bit afraid (something I didn’t reveal to other people). It wasn’t rational, but it wasn’t surprising considering how I’d been raised. It wasn’t until a long time later that I realized what I’d been doing: trying to make the “gun nuts” almost into sub-humans in my mind, and paint them as ridiculous and stupid so that they shrank in stature and were less scary to me. (But as I said, this doesn’t work. No amount of sneering made me feel less afraid.)

Read Joe’s whole post. There’s a good comment by Clayton Cramer at the bottom, too.

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“Authorized Journalist” Misses the Key Facts.

Big freaking surprise.

A Keyboard and a .45 has the real scoop on how the legacy media once again allowed itself to be manipulated in the battle against those eeeevil guns, the giant gun industry and its all-powerful lobby that wants to see a gun in every child’s hand!

Hie thee hence. And maybe write a short letter to the editor when you’re done reading.

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“You’re an American!!! We don’t do that sort of thing!”.

A reader sent me an email with a link to a really outstanding first-person account over at OpenCarry.org. It seems a young American serving in the Israeli Defense Forces had an encounter with a couple of New Yorkers in Tel Aviv.

I imagine that couple counted themselves among those who have “been against violence and guns their whole lives.” I think he rocked their world a little bit.

Give it a read.

Thanks for the link, Chuck!

Like Water Off a Duck’s Back

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Say Uncle pointed to a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed yesterday by columnist and journalism professor Laura Washington. I won’t reproduce the whole piece, but here’s a taste:

Gun lovers disarm control advocates

August 27, 2007
LAURA WASHINGTON Sun-Times columnist

It looks like the petulant, gun-toting NRA stalwarts have won the first round.

Last time, I used this space to ask where you stand on the issue of gun control. A torrent of e-mails later, it’s clear: Gun-control advocates were outgunned, four to one.

The gun lovers were legion, robust and vitriolic. Many of you told me to go places where the sun doesn’t shine and the temperature is way too hot. Yet, if you believe public opinion polls, that reaction is an anomaly. For instance, last April, ABC News polled adults nationwide, and asked: “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” Sixty-one percent favored them, 36 percent were opposed, and 3 percent were “unsure.”

CBS News asked, “In general, do you feel the laws covering the sale of handguns should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” Two-thirds of respondents nationwide opted for “more strict.”

What is the problem with the advocates of gun control? Why are their voices not being heard? They are consistently cowed and overmatched. Gun violence is out of control, yet the gun lovers are ascendant.

You think we’ve got problems now? Just listen to Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential aspirant. At a recent Conservative Political Action Conference, he bragged, “I’m not a newcomer to the NRA,” the New York Times reported on its political blog. “I was the first governor to have a conceal-carry permit, so don’t mess with me.”

Huckabee, mind you, recently made a flashy second-place showing in the Iowa presidential straw poll.

Do you want to be standing in line for gas, popcorn or a gallon of milk and find yourself next to someone who’s packing heat? If he takes the White House, we can all go shopping for embossed leather holsters and pearl-handled pistols. I’ll be looking to accessorize that with rhinestone-studded boots.

You know, the usual Reasoned Discourse™ we’ve come to expect from our opposition. Please, RTWT. (And yes, I do know about the Zogby poll.)

Instead of fisking her piece, I thought I’d drop her a nice email (and copy the paper’s letters-to-the-editor while I was at it. What the hell, worth a shot.) Here’s what I sent:

Ms. Washington:

I read with interest your op-ed in the online edition of the Sun-Times, and I had some comments to make. I hope that you will see this epistle in the volume of email I am sure has been forthcoming since your little jeremiad was published. Provoking an outpour of response was, I am sure, one of your intentions. Let me apologize in advance (though it is not really my place) for those who will shower you with invective and vitriol. We on the side of the right to arms have been fighting against a decades-long slow-motion hate crime,1 and it tends to wear on our patience. I understand such responses, but I cannot countenance them.

I am eternally fascinated by people who see themselves as “gun control advocates.” I find them fascinating because they epitomize to me the phrase “cognitive dissonance.” The fact that you write from Chicago, one of the epicenters of “common-sense gun control” only adds to my fascination.

Cognitive dissonance has been defined thus:

“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”2

Or, as I phrase it, “The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only harder!” We see this behavior in gun control advocates all the time. There’s always a “loophole” to blame. Always a “next step.” But “gun control” never improves crime rates, never reduces homicide rates. Never. Gun control advocates always – without exception – predict “blood in the streets” and “wild West shootouts” when “shall issue” concealed-carry legislation makes progress in state legislatures, but this never happens. Never. Somehow this data fails to make a dent in the “gun control” mindset. The strategy constantly fails, but the ideology cannot be questioned. Do it again, only harder!

Ms. Washington, you note in your piece: “(I)t seems the gun control advocates have been outmatched. Abigail Spangler acknowledges as much. Spangler is the founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com, a Virginia-based group that has been spearheading a slew of anti-gun protests around the nation.

“Gun control activists, she wrote me, ‘are TRYING HARD but they are seriously affected in state after state by lack of funding and contributions.” She recently met, she says, with the leader of Virginia’s only gun control group. “He says they may not even be able to afford any lobbyist at all soon in Virginia!'”

Ms. Washington, the citizenry will offer an opinion to anyone. Opinions are free. But activism costs money – and the anti-gun side has shown that the hearts and wallets of the general public are not really into it. Ask any hundred random people on the street if they favor stricter gun laws and most likely the majority will say “yes.” Ask them what the current gun laws are, and they won’t be able to tell you. Gun rights activists can. The gun control side of the argument has been supported for decades with money from foundations, perhaps the largest contributor being the Joyce Foundation. Look them up. Those of us who believe in the right to arms are the true grass-rooters, and there are far more of us than the mere four million that the NRA claims as members. As someone once put it so pithily: “Poor Lefties; they’ve been playing on astroturf so long that they don’t know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.” 3

Ms. Washington, our side is winning because we can see reality. We are not blinded to a flawed ideology. The ideology you operate under is expressed best as “Guns are baaad, mmmmkay?” This ideology springs from an inability or unwillingness to see a difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective.” You see only “violence” and violence offends you. From this inability you mistake the tools of violence to be the cause of violence, and from that error comes the desire to eradicate the tools. But this does not address the actual cause. In other words, “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”4

When disaster strikes and civil society breaks down, when the government proves unmistakably that it cannot protect everyone, everywhere, all the time, then some people have an awakening – and they go to a gun store or a Wal-Mart and try to buy a gun.

And that’s when they discover just what the gun laws really are.

And many become gun-rights activists because, as one woman put it when she found out she had to wait a week for a gun while being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, “I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”5 She and those like her were responsible for that interminable week wait. She finally understood the difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective,” and wanted protection – which the law denied her for a full week.

Some of us are “gun lovers,” Ms. Washington. I am, unashamedly. But many, many more simply want to be able to choose how to defend ourselves. That is a choice you wish to deny us out of a belief in a flawed ideology that you cannot bring yourselves to recognize.

I’d love to discuss this topic with you further, but I seriously doubt you’ve bothered to read this far.

Thank you for your attention, however much of it I was able to garner.

(Footnotes not in original).

Somewhat to my surprise, she replied:

Dear Mr. Baker,

Thanks for your comments on the gun control column. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Be consoled that you are winning the battle. And yes, I did read your entire letter.

Best, Laura

=================================================================
Laura S. Washington
Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor
DePaul University
Contributing Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times
Senior Editor, In These Times

The fact that she responded was surprising. The content was not.

I sent her a short reply:

Dear Laura:

Thank you for your gracious reply, and for taking the time our of your obviously busy schedule to read my missive.

Water off a duck’s back, eh?

My sincere condolences,

Kevin

But wait! There’s more! Phelps had a beautiful response of his own that I hope he sent to her. I urge you not to miss it.

Footnotes:

1Dr. Michael S. Brown
2Steven Den Beste
3Tamara K
4Say Uncle
5Seraphic Secret

Credit where credit is due.

UPDATE: Commenter Kevin P. notes that he maintains (an EXCELLENT) Wikipedia page on the Joyce Foundation and their funding efforts. Way to go, Kevin!

Cognitive Dissonance

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It raises its head once again. To quote Steven Den Beste:

When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as “escalation of failure”.)

Or, as I put it:

The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again only harder!

We have some new stories coming out of the petri dishes of the UK Commonwealth.

Let’s start with this one:

Victims and offenders get younger

By Philip Johnston
Last Updated: 7:01am BST 24/08/2007
Periodically, there is a national outcry about guns on our streets. It reached a climax 20 years ago this week when Michael Ryan shot and killed 16 people, including his mother, wounded 15 others, then killed himself.

The massacre in Hungerford led to a ban on the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles.

In 1996, the murder of 15 children and their teacher at a school in Dunblane, Scotland, led to a complete ban on handguns.

Yet since then, the number of crimes involving guns has risen.

In 1996, there were 14,000 recorded offences in which firearms were reported to have been used. In 2005/6, the last period for which figures are available, there were 21,500.

Although the numbers dying through shooting is roughly similar, 50 victims in 1996 and last year, attempted murders and woundings are up 50 per cent.

Britain now has some of the toughest gun laws in the world – yet they did not prevent the appalling events in Croxteth.

Ergo: the strategy failed.

But the ideology cannot be wrong!

Yesterday, Gordon Brown said the Government was “working urgently” to tackle gun crime. But if previous laws have made little difference why should new ones?

The past year has seen another avalanche of legislation. The Government introduced a minimum five-year sentence for possessing an illegal firearm. They made it an offence to possess an air weapon or imitation firearm in public without legal authority or reasonable excuse.

The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 made it illegal to manufacture or sell imitation firearms that could be mistaken for real firearms. It also strengthened sentences for carrying imitation firearms, and created tougher manufacturing standards so imitations cannot be converted to fire real ammunition.

The Home Office boasted: “We’re cutting off the supply of firearms into the country.”

“Do it again, only HARDER!

But the guns are already here; and they are increasingly easy to get. Home Office research indicated that an imitation firearm could be bought for £20 and a shotgun for £50. A military-quality handgun will go for around £1,000. An automatic weapon sells for between £800 and £4,000.

Think about that. Gun control supporters here object to our pointing out the failure of DC’s draconian gun ban (there were seven homicides in DC last week, at least five of which were by firearm), or Chicago’s handgun ban to have any positive effect on the level of gun crime in those cities. They blame “lax gun control laws” in the surrounding areas for the influx of guns into those cities. However, England has all the laws that the Brady Campaign et. al think are “common sense”: “may-issue” ownership licensing with full background check and character references, “safe storage” requirements with surprise inspection powers by the State, restrictions on the amount and type of ammunition permit holders can possess, a complete ban on “military style” semi-automatic rifles, a complete ban on handguns, the whole nine yards. More importantly, the UK is an island – there are no neighbors just across the state or county line with “lax gun laws” that allow an easy flow of illicit guns. You’ve got to smuggle them in through the ports of entry, or by boat. Yet gun prices are barely above American retail, and fully-automatic weapons can cost less than a handgun.

But does anybody learn from this? Hardly. Washington D.C. is going to the Supreme Court to prevent its bans from being overturned. The city of Philadelphia is currently experiencing a tremendous increase in homicides, so two city council members are suing the state legislature so that Philadelphia can pass its own gun control laws, and activist lawyer Michael Coard wants to sue the NRA for influencing the Pennsylvania state legislature into passing preemption laws.

There’s more to that piece, and I recommend you read it, but let’s move on to the next story that covers the slaying of an 11 year-old boy in Liverpool:

Former detective: It is a gangland culture

Albert Kirby, Former Detective Superintendent, Merseyside Police, on the problem of gun crime in Liverpool:

“Like other areas of Liverpool, Croxteth has become increasingly more difficult to police over the years due to the gang type culture and the reluctance of people living in the area either to come forward and give either evidence or information about those involved in the gang culture, drugs and crime groups.

“It is the same throughout the city. Once upon a time it used to be fists on the street corner. Then they started to use any sort of weapons – hammers or axes. Now the readily availability of fire arms has opened up a whole new ball game.

But licensing, registration, “safe storage” and outright bans are supposed to prevent “ready availability,” aren’t they? That’s what the ideology says!

“Fire arms can be obtained very cheaply and after they have been used criminals can dispose of them because they are so cheap – a handgun can be bought for about £25 a time.

Yet the earlier piece said a “military quality” handgun would go for about £1,000. What are these, cheap “Saturday Night Specials”? Just so you know, at current exchange rates, £25 is $50 US.

“Fire arms are so readily available that you can go out on the street, make the necessary enquiries and come up with them. It is that easy.

Ergo: the strategy failed.

“The legislation that came in after the Dunblane shooting in 1996 has been utterly and totally ineffective. It was a waste of space. With the borders disappearing in Europe there are no checks on firearms coming in from abroad. They come from Eastern Bloc countries, recommissioned firearms, and a steady flow coming out of the world’s conflict zones.

See! See! It’s the fault of neighboring states with lax gun laws!

Oh, wait…

“Merseyside Police have done a tremendous amount of work to recover firearms. But bearing in mind the amount of firearms that are available it is very difficult.

“For a lot of these kids, it is a status symbol to them. In the sixties they would have the drainpipe trousers and the slicked hair, and then the mods and rockers in the 1970s with their crash hats.

“Now guns are like a status symbol: ‘If you diss me I will shoot you because I have got a gun’. It is part of the culture, it is a gangland culture.

“Croxteth is a poor area. I would think there are a lot of unemployed people there. In that area drugs are just prolific.

So are guns. Cheap guns.

“This poor lad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. These people have been feuding and the poor guy has got in the way. What justification can these people have to shoot an 11-year-old boy who has not done any harm to anyone. He comes from a decent family.

“Where do we go from here? Firstly, we have to change the street culture which accepts guns. That will be a long-term issue – like tackling anti-social behaviour.

With what? Judicious application of ASBOs?

“Secondly, these incidents will continue to happen unless people are willing to come forward as witnesses.

Even though you cannot/will not protect them from retaliation, and they cannot protect themselves.

“The system in the judicial process is so good now at protecting identities. People have to learn to have faith in the system.

You’re going to protect the identities of the witnesses? How? Relocate them to Australia? The people have an abiding faith in the system. They believe faithfully that it’s not going to do squat to help them. They have reason to believe that.

“Thirdly, the courts are so woeful. These people hate going to prison. Scousers have an expression that they can do it standing on their head. But standing on their head gets harder as they get older.

“The courts should say that if someone is sentenced for an offence, and a firearm is used, even if it is a replica, that person are going to prison for a long time.”

They may say it, but as you said, the courts are woeful, and your prisons are overcrowded already.

No wonder there’s no trust.

Finally we travel far across the pond to Australia, to the little town of Roseville, a Northern suburb of Sydney in New South Wales where a new gun shop has opened:

Residents irate over gunshop permit: what do we tell our children?

What a fascinating question!

UP IN arms would accurately describe the incensed reaction of Roseville residents to news that a gunshop is to open in their midst.

Last night hundreds were expected to pack a community hall to protest against the approval granted by Ku-ring-gai Council, apparently without notification to those who may have an opinion about such an enterprise.

Andrew Peter, a gun enthusiast and coffee shop owner from Bondi Junction, made an application last month to turn an old printing shop into a sporting goods and firearms store. One of the main reasons for his decision was the estimated 1300 firearm owners who live in the area.

I’m curious as to how much territory “in the area” covers.

The shop is opposite a community hall that runs a preschool centre. It is also near a bus interchange used by schoolchildren, and some neighbouring businesses say the approval, although legal, is inappropriate.

Lisa Warrand is one of dozens of parents who fear the worst: the potential for an armed hold-up and shootout, or merely having to explain to children who walk past every day why a shop sells guns. (My emphasis.)

“Roseville has five churches and no pubs. People buy in this area because they want a more family-focused area,” she said yesterday. “We teach children about how bad guns are and yet we are being put into a position where we have to explain why there is a man in the car park carrying a gun bought across the road.” (My emphasis.)

Sally Cochrane runs the Zest hairdressing salon a few doors away. She concedes that the chances of a hold-up are slim but says it is a risk that should rule out the shop from the neighbourhood. “Children and guns don’t mix. It’s as simple as that, and if there is a robbery then it could be disastrous. I accept that this man has a right to open his shop and to sell guns, but not here.”

Rob Hudspith disagrees. He owns the bicycle shop nearby and says the biggest mistake was that no one was given details of the application by the council.

“If they didn’t have a legal obligation, then they had a moral one,” Mr Hudspith said. “Personally, I don’t have any problems, but there is an inherent fear of firearms, and who can blame people for being worried?” (My emphasis.)

A council spokesman said the approval was assessed under State Government planning laws. The business would have to comply with strict laws covering handling, storage and safety.

The Liberal MP for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea, backs the residents, denying it is nimbyism.

The Shooters Party accuses Mr O’Dea of stirring up trouble by instigating a survey of residents. Mr Peter says he is willing to compromise with extra security to ensure residents feel safe. “Sure, I understand their feelings and I’m happy to talk to them about their concerns, but they don’t have anything to worry about.” (My emphasis.)

There’s the ideology, ladies and gentlemen: “GUNS ARE BAD, mmmkay?” Its root is the belief that all violence is bad; the inability to differentiate between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective” that leads to the totemic belief that the tools of violence are the cause of violence. The outcome of that flawed ideology is licensing, registration, restriction, bans, confiscation… and rising violent crime.

But cognitive dissonance prevents people from questioning the ideology. The result is escalation of failure, and a complete inability to implement any kind of successful strategy. As Say Uncle put it, “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”