I was curious if anyone saw this article in The Atlantic: (Responsible Gun Ownership Is a Lie - The Atlantic)? I think that this needs a response. The analogy he proposes, drunk driving, is a feckless argument for getting rid of guns. How did we effectively reduce DUI-related fatalities? Not by banning automobiles or alcohol, but by education, training, and stricter laws. I would not be opposed to mandatory training requirements when it came to handgun ownership. Currently, anyone (subject to background checks) can purchase a handgun. With absolutely NO training. If getting rid of cars or alcohol wasn’t the answer to reducing alcohol-related automobile fatalities, how in the world is getting rid of guns going to reduce handgun fatalities?
Welcome to the fray, Dr_G_Robert. Lots of good folks expressing themselves here.
By the same token, we should convince anti-gunners that their way of thinking is irrational and biased and endangers the rest of society while emboldening criminals? For example, they mentioned suicides and domestic crime, but not a peep about mountain of gun crime committed by Chicago gangs, or shootings in “autonomous zones”, or even - say his name! - murder of David Dorn by the peaceful ones.
Save yourself some frustration and don’t read any press that is a primitive propaganda outlet or a showcase of defective mental process and ignorance.
Thank you, Alexander8, for your thoughts. I suppose that you are right in regards to saving frustration by not reading the primitive propaganda. However, I just can’t bury my head in the sand, so to speak. The article mentions a survey at the beginning, where 36% of the respondents weren’t gun owners but were also not opposed to owning a firearm. It then cites a scary strategy, “In virtually every way that can be measured, owning a firearm makes the owner, the owner’s family, and the people around them less safe [no reference cited]. The hard-core gun owner will never accept this truth. But the 36 percent in the middle—they may be open to it, if they can be helped to perceive it.” Therein lies my concern. The 36 percent in the middle, who likely aren’t paying attention, might possibly be duped into believing this kind of tripe, which could ultimately swing legislative influence. I believe that we need to call these progressive agendas out. I have lived through an armed confrontation. I wouldn’t have, had I not had, and been trained to effectively, and safely, use my weapon. I wonder if the author would still feel that way when a gang breaks into his house, ties him up, and assaults his wife or daughter? Over my dead body!
The 18th amendment effectively banned alcohol. Chicago, 1930s. Al Capone and others come into being, giving rise to organized crime to supply illegal alcohol to a willing public. Large amounts of money is made by suppliers. Competition between gangs causes the bodies to start dropping amid indiscriminate gunfire by the gangs, not to mention the deaths caused by consumption of poisonous alcohol. The 21st amendment repeals the 18th. One of the end results was that there were more alcoholics at the end of Prohibition then there was at the beginning. The quickest way to make people want something, anything, is to tell them they can’t have it. As proof of this, I offer the fact that, whenever there is talk or a perception of more gun control on the horizon, gun sales spike to new heights. During the Obama years, I saw many signs in gun shops with a picture of the President labeled “Gun Salesman of the Year.”
There is a concept of Observer’s Bias, it applies in any empirical field, physics, statistics, social studies, etc. You can skew your conclusions with your assumptions, looking at same data. I feel the assumption from anti-gunners is that a previously law-obedient individual, mentally stable, focused on family and well-being, suddenly turns into the exact opposite, and then gun(s) are readily available to this all of a sudden psycho.
Why does this assumption exist? 1) They are projecting their own mental state and values on people who are mentally and morally healthy. 2) They wish for some Orwellian condition, that the armed population may stand in a way of. This is just my opinion, I am open to other explanations.
I disagree with their premise and therefore, disagree with their suggested solution.
Yes, everyone should be knowledgeable on firearms - even those that do not own firearms. However, government-mandated training is not the solution, it is one of the problems with “gun conntrol” laws. One problem with mandated training is that it will, as it has in states that have mandatory training, disenfranchise the poor. Another issue is who decides how much training is “enough”?
In states with mandatory training, each state has different training requirements. If “x” amount is the correct amount, which states have it wrong? Another issue is that those same states always increase training requirements and costs, and create Bizantine laws that make firearm ownership onerous, expensive and legally perilous, both civilly and criminally, which makes people not want to own firearms. I believe that is one of the reasons for those laws.
Hello and welcome @Dr_G_Robert_Weedon
In my opinion, any state, including the federal government, that requires training as a requirement to get a CCL should also be required to provide locales, trainers, and the minimum acceptable curriculum to achieve the issuance of the CCL at state/ federal expense. Advanced training desired by the CCL holder above the required minimum would be at the CCL holders expense. The government has a bad habit of issuing mandates willy-nilly without regard to the cost of those mandates cast upon the people they supposedly serve. Even those mandates initially funded by the government have a bad habit of being de-funded after a , usually, short time while leaving the mandates in place to be funded by the states. Whenever the government issues a mandate, the government should be required to fully fund those mandates. When the funding for those mandates ends, that mandate shall immediately be null and void.
Yes, I have read the article by Mr Frum. Same nonsense; different day.
“When ladders are outlawed, only outlaws will have ladders.”
– Moms Against Moms Against Other Nonsense
By all means, if one is unable or unwilling to learn and practice the safe ownership and responsible use of firearms — or footstools, or power tools, or motor vehicles — the wise path is choosing to not own them. Not to say that the unable or unwilling are necessarily wise enough to choose the safe path, but does that justify blanket prohibition? Of course not.
“When seconds count, 9-1-1 is only minutes away.”
– Anyone With Life Experience
So the main argument of this article is that if you own a gun you are more likely to have an accident with it than someone who doesn’t. No Duh! Just like if you own a car you are more likely to get in a car accident. Own a set of skis? You are way more likely to get in a ski accident than someone who doesn’t own them. More kids drown in pools than die in firearm accidents. Where is the anti pool crowd when you need it! Etc. add infinitum.
Blatant Strawman argument.
Same with his DUI argument. What does the crackdown on drunk driving have to do with convincing people to give up guns? LEOs didn’t advocate people give up cars or booze. They just arrested the people who were endangering others with their misuse. It is a logical comparison though that if the police would crack down more on violent criminals it would likely reduce violence with and without guns. Providing the justice system wouldn’t just revolving door them back out on the street with no efforts to keep them from repeat offenses.
If the anti gunner’s really cared about saving lives they would be promoting public safety announcements and educational opportunities on safe firearm handling and storage just like the push to teach people not to drink and drive.
I need to push back a little on the idea that gun-banning is a progressive value or one which belongs to anyone who votes for a Democrat. Why not just call it what it is — an infringement upon a universal human right to individual and collective defense which is protected by the US Constitution?
Sure, there are powerful forces fomenting fear on the left to embrace this agenda as a wedge. There are also powerful forces fomenting fear on the right to embrace other un-American and anti-Constitutional values for their own disruptive purposes.
I suggest that USCCA is a suitable place to celebrate and support full-throated 2A support — to bring the entire 66 percent of Americans who do not reject the idea of gun ownership, regardless of political affiliation or splinter identity, onto our side of this particular issue. We can take our other grievances to a forum where they may be more appropriate.
Who knows. Maybe even the NRA will come back to its main mission some day.
This topic speaks in a corner on the broader topic that faces us all today. It has many facets and ALL are aligned with the demoralization and silencing of the core principles of this country. Call it Critical Race Theory, 1671, LGBTQXYZ EIOU1, Anti Jewish/Catholic/Religion, White Privilege, Wokeness the list goes on and on of some new group that is offended by something. The co mingling of FEAR and a concerted effort to make people FEEL that they are MORALLY wrong because they were born a certain color, believe a certain way, don’t care, don’t care enough eats into the psyche of a person who is actually moral enough to have morals.
This is precisely how the Nazi party subjugated and over took an entire country. They created a common enemy by decrying them as immoral, unfeeling, privileged, “strange”, hateful, add more adjectives as you see fit to create a perceptual “monster” out of some guy/girl/family/ town/business that doesn’t fit your narrative. Joseph Goebles (sp) :“Repeat a lie often enough and it will become fact.” (or words to that effect)
The go along to get along majority suddenly find themselves accepting mask mandates, immunization mandates, social distancing, carbon emissions, climate change, revision of history, tearing down of monuments of historical value and a whole host of other things that not too many years ago would have been unthinkable. But here we are. Guns are on the back burner because it is a firebrand in America still, it’s a political No Win but they have too keep the narrative alive. That being said, once the camel has his nose under the tent flap of infringement of social liberties the Constitutional Liberties are next.
Where is all of this coming from? I can point to two sources definitively. The Media & Academia. The media has been slowly swinging to Liberal/Left since Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in journalism with a not so public disdain for Capitalism. Academia has been in a Liberal/Left slide since the 60’s/70’s when the Hippies found out it is easier to be a University Professor than it is to get a real job and so the infection of the America began.
How do you be come a Journalist? Go to college.
How do you become a professor? Go to college and never leave.
How do you become a CEO? Go to college and be trained and surrounded by both of the above.
How do you get to be on a school board? See all the above.
How do you get all the other teachers to think like you? See all the above, ascend in the school union.
How do you change America? See all the above and add a daily deluge of “Your information”.
Slowly you will bend the river.
Food for thought. Worth what you paid for it.
Cheers,
Craig6
I got into the “politics” of firearms almost 30 years ago. The entire script using the totally and completely ludicrous description “gun violence” has been repeated so much that even supposed educated and knowledgeable conservatives have been using it. I can’t help but go back to a statement made by Hitler’s “right hand” man Goebbels who opined " a lie repeated often enough becomes truth." I grew up in the 50’s. Guns were probably in almost every household in the nation…they were tools. NRA’s Eddie Eagle gun safety program was taught in schools all across America. Kids brought their rifles to school and usually put them in one place until after school when they could practice with their shooting coach…lo and behold…no one ever heard of mass shootings. When I first moved to southwest Colorado 47 years ago about every truck had one or two rifles in the rear window. We also had a strong justice system. Criminals were punished and the worse the crime the harsher the punishment. But that all went away in earnest when William Jefferson Clinton came on the scene and during his regime officiated the slaughter of almost 86 men, women and children in Waco, Texas. Aided and abetted by the bought and paid for propaganda machine laughingly called “the press.” Clinton fired 93 sitting U.S. attorneys and replaced them with increasingly “liberal” attorneys…and guess what he was “impeached for”…messing with an intern in the Oval Office.
But I digress; the 60’s came barreling into our lives and began the steady deterioration of morals, standards, excellence, truth, decency, courtesy and all the good things we once took for granted in our Constitutional Republic. Schools had a dress code, a behavior code. You were expected to do your work, respect your parents and teachers. This was still a God fearing Christian nation founded on Christian values…the 60’s whackos, many of who’s brats are now infesting our government, school boards lowering academic standards for any reason they can think up,are now politicians who’ve not been held accountable by WE THE PEOPLE.
You can go back to 1900 and begin the frightening and painful study of 9 nations that disarmed their citizens with similar deceptive propaganda…approximately 60 million citizens slaughtered by their own “governments”.
It’s not about “gun safety” and never was. It’s about the deliberate and pre-meditated disarming of We the People. I’ve been a certified firearms instructor for 12 years. Decent law abiding folks learn how to use firearms. Crooks, now coddled by our “justice” system know they’ll probably get reduced sentences and turned loose by another “liberal” judge to go out and commit more murders; after all the poor criminals have had a such a hard life.
When ever I hear the term “gun violence” my ears burn. Guns are incapable of picking a target, loading themselves, purposefully marching out the door and pulling their own triggers thusly killing their studied target! IF this were possible we must also employ the same standards for knives, hammers, hatchets, baseball bats…seriously? Knife violence? Hammer violence?
We have a deliberately weakened “justice system” there are thousands of gun laws on the ATF web sight to peruse. When you buy a gun, get qualified and get your certificate for conceal carry you get background checked to death, YOUR information is at the fingertips of the government. They will know, just as Hitler knew when the Jewish people were forced to register their guns, exactly where to round up American gun owners and perhaps as the laughable but dangerous AOC opined, put us in “re-education camps”.
Dr. G, I urge you to get educated on just where this dangerous propaganda is leading … please if you get your information from the “news”…expand your horizon. Gun Owners of America, John Lott’s Crime Research Center, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership…spend a frightening evening investigating the ATF website and see the thousands of gun laws already on the books…something too many citizens don’t think about…criminals don’t obey laws, law abiding citizens do…WE are the targets.
It’s not about “guns” It’s about evil hearts with evil intentions. The left is not interested in how adept you are with your gun…it’s about taking it away.
God bless and good hunting.
The first country the Nazis invaded was their own.
The “Post Derangement Syndrome” is not a new thing! It rests on the notions of entrenched beliefs that are based on indoctrination, emotion, desire to control other people, disregard of data and analyses that yield outcomes different from that of the power privileged class. Examples of post derangement syndrome are especially prominent in the firearms control industry, Covid-19 “experts” presentations, government expenditures, tax and critical race theory that said I highly recommend the book “Gun Control Myths: How politicians, the media, and botched “studies” have twisted the facts on gun control” by John R Lott.
Lott blows away one false myth about gun ownership after another he addresses the claims you frequently hear in the media and explains what is wrong with those claims.
Take care
Absolutely agree Dave! The problem with mandating training isn’t the training, it is that the government is running it. It would then be a gateway that the government could limit a common right as they pleased. Everyone should be trained in firearms or they shouldn’t carry, but the government shouldn’t be involved at all in overseeing that process.
Hunting has little to do with the 2A. No professional ballet around here. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right.
Author is a typical liberal trying to advance a false narrative.
Sorry, I only skimmed the article, my BS meter was pegging.