Sometimes I come across an article full of so much bullshit and stupidity that I have to actually take a few minutes to re-read it and see if it actually says what I thought it said after the first reading. Uncle pointed out one of those articles dealing with the recent massacre in Norway. It’s not good to make your entire article irrelevant in the first paragraph but this one did exactly that:
DEEP IN his 1,518-page manifesto, Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of killing 68 people at a Norwegian youth camp last month, explained how he acquired the ammunition that he used in the attack: “10 x 30 round magazines – .223 cal at 34 USD per mag. Had to buy through a smaller US supplier (who again ordered from other suppliers) as most suppliers have export limitations. . . . Total cost: 550 USD.” He says he could have purchased the clips in Sweden, but they were cheaper through the U.S. supplier.
Emphasis mine. The article goes on spewing idiocy relating to gun laws in the United States but it’s completely irrelevant because Breivik could have obtained his 30-round magazines even if they were illegal in the United States. Why write an article implying that restricting 30-round magazines in the United States would have prevented Norway’s tragedy when the killer would have simply ordered the magazines from another country? You don’t nothing more than annoy a great number of electrons in writing your argument and making it completely irrelevant right from the word go.
Mr. Breivik’s claim is sadly believable, even though Norwegian officials have not confirmed the details.
I’m quoting this because it’s important a little later on, keep it in mind.
U.S. gun retailers can sell merchandise overseas and do not need to obtain an export license if the value of the goods being shipped falls below $100; sellers can avoid the licensing requirements — and buyers can avoid the additional costs — by breaking up the order into smaller shipments. U.S. law enforcement officials should determine whether the transaction was legal.
Once again the emphasis is mind. The author of this opinion piece seems to be making an argument without actually understanding how the legal system in the United States works. Law enforcement doesn’t get to determine what is legal and what isn’t, that’s done by our lawmakers and judges. The federal government (which is the only one that matters as this transaction was international and thus fall sunder federal regulations) has three branches with the legislative branch (Congress and the Senate) making laws with the judiciary branch determining whether or not those laws are constitutional if passed. Law enforcement is only tasked with enforcing the laws the legislative branch has passed and the judiciary branch hasn’t invalidated. They don’t get the determine jack shit.
Regardless of where Mr. Breivik obtained his weapons, the events in Norway should serve as a reminder of the absurdity of producing and selling such products.
Remember when I said that one quote would be important, well here’s the reason. The author is basically saying, “I have no clue if any claims I’m making in this article are true but damn it I don’t like 30-round magazines so I don’t fucking care. I also sodomize myself with a retractable baton.” OK I may have added a bit of editorial creativity somewhere in that paraphrase but the basic idea is true. The Norwegian government hasn’t actually come forth with any information related to the weapons used by Breivik. If his manifesto is accurate then we also have to ban a bunch of currently available chemicals as he used easily available components to build is bomb. Oh, and the next line is just fucking classic anti-gunner malarkey:
No self-respecting hunter would use such exaggerated force to take down a deer.
No self-respecting hunter would use a 9mm handgun to take down a deer. The 9mm isn’t a hunting round, it’s a self-defense round. Deer are critters of some size and using a 9mm is inhumane as it’s likely to injure but not kill the deer which is an outcome self-respecting hunters don’t want. Hell the .223 rifle that was being used by Breivik isn’t even a round that most deer hunters would consider acceptable for the same reason they don’t consider the 9mm acceptable. Finally, the right to bear arms has absolutely nothing to do with hunting.
These magazines too often find their way into the hands of deranged individuals, transforming them into efficient killing machines. In Tucson earlier this year, Jared Lee Loughner relied on high-capacity magazines to tear off 31 shots in a matter of seconds, killing six people and seriously injuring 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
So you have two data points and all of the sudden these 30-round magazines are a plague unto the Earth? If we’re going to ban items based on whether or not a couple of people were able to successfully use them to harm others we need to get out there and ban automobiles, knives of all types, fertilizer, anything that can be used to start a fire, shovels, axes, etc.
There was a brief period of sanity in this country when high-capacity magazines were prohibited as part of an assault weapons ban. That ban expired in 2004; a Washington Post review of Virginia records showed that the number of high-capacity magazines used in crimes jumped dramatically in that state after the ban lapsed.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Unified Crime Report also shows that violent crime itself has been dropping. This drop includes a decreases in the number of homicides where firearms were used as the murder weapon. So using the author’s “logic” we can say raising the ban on standard capacity magazines actually caused a drop in violent crime (no I don’t actually believe that, I’m just pointing out the stupidity in the author’s argument).
Some people are dumb, the person who wrote this opinion piece is just plain stupid.