Category: Gun Rights

Logic Hard

Yet another fine Letter to the Editor brought to you by the Red Star:

Guns
Car wash slaying shows how tiffs can turn lethal

Anthony Hartman, a 22-year-old Eagle Scout, is dead from a bullet allegedly fired by Jonas Grice, a 27-year-old described by his parents as a “good kid” who is “not one to go out and bully or pick on anybody.” There was apparently a small altercation at a car wash, and before other customers even realized anything had happened, a young man was dead on the floor.

This is an excellent example of why I want fewer guns in my community, as any minor tiff can become deadly when someone has easy access to a gun.

GERI L. ARMSTRONG, MINNEAPOLIS

First of all I must bring up this fact. Somebody who is 27 is not a “good kid” because you cease being a kid after you turn 18 in this country.

The author of this letter, whom is an idiot, says this situation is a reason for stronger gun control laws. On the surface this sounds logic until you stop to realize how little facts are given. The author describes the situation as a minor altercation but doesn’t even mention what the altercation was over.

But the idea of minor altercations turning in shootings was tossed out the window the second right to carry laws were passed. Now there are more guns on the streets than ever with people being able to legally carry firearms on their person. What has happened? Well violent crime has continue it’s downward trend. No I’m not saying right to carry laws are the reason for the downward trend in violent crime; I am saying an increase in the number of available guns doesn’t increase the violent crime rate.

Here in Minnesota for example we have tens of thousands of people who hold carry permits. The violent crime has been on a downward spiral which seems impossible if a higher availability of firearms causes minor altercations to escalate into shootings.

The problem is violent people are violent.

I Doubt this was Caused by Availability of Guns

We all know the anti-gunners like to claim the high availability of guns in the United States is the reason for our crime rate. They claim nations with stronger gun control laws are safer. Personally I think violence has more to do with social strife than laws and Mexico is a good example. Another violence incident occurred in Mexico. This time 17 people attending a birthday party were gunned down in the country dead south of us.

Whenever a spree shooting occurs here the anti-gunners bitch and moan about how we need stricter gun control laws and had such laws been on the books the spree shooting wouldn’t have happened. The bottom line is Mexico has some pretty strict gun control laws and they experience enough violence every day for several industrial countries. The problem is they are a failing state with a government more corrupt than Chicago’s politicians.

Which brings up to the fact most of the violent cities in the United States have a combination of strong gun control laws and social strife. Minneapolis for instance doesn’t have that horrible of a crime rate until you get into the northern territories where the slums are. Much of Chicago’s violence is in South Chicago. New York has the Bronx which is pretty well known for being a shit hole.

Violent people will be violent. Criminals will be criminals. If there is a law preventing a criminal from getting a gun they will ignore said law and get the gun. Those of us in the pro-rights community keep bringing this up and presenting our evidence yet the anti-gunners keep putting their fingers in their ears and screaming “LA LA LA” at the top of their lungs.

Gun Owners of America and Partisanship

I’ve been ripping on Gun Owners of America (GOA) quite a bit recently. My main beef with them is that they seem to spend all of their time bitching about the National Rifle Association (NRA) instead of doing something to eliminate gun control laws. Recently they’ve been going on about the NRA’s potential endorsement of Harry Reid who voted for the Brady Act back in 1993.

The problem? Well Kay Bailey, a Republican, voted for the same act. Why does that matter? Because she has an A rating from GOA. This seems to prove the point that GOA isn’t a second amendment organization but a conservative organization. They spend time talking about non-second amendment related issues and take those into account when grading politicians. The NRA on the other hand usually focus almost exclusively on gun rights.

I wouldn’t have a problem with GOA if they didn’t spend all their time whining and claiming they are the only no compromise second amendment organization out there. But to top it off they do that while bashing the NRA who actually work to get shit done.

Once again I state if you’re disenfranchised with the NRA please send your money to an organization that gets things done such as the Second Amendment Foundation.

A Ban by Any Other Name

McDonald vs. Chicago struck down the unconstitutional firearm ban in that forsaken city. Now that they’re little ban has been struck down the officials who run that prison city are looking at ways of banning firearms without actually banning them.

As Snowflakes in Hell points out they’re doing it using the same method they used to ban them in the first place, the city gun registration system.

In order to obtain a permit to purchase a firearm you must fill out five pages of unintelligible paperwork, have vision good enough to obtain a driver’s license (sorry those of you who are blind or otherwise have poor vision you don’t have any rights), show up between the hours of 8:30 and 15:30, and pay a $100 fee.

Yup it’s so easy! Well so long as you can fill out paperwork, have good eye vision, don’t have a day job, and have enough money! Obviously those who work during the day, have less than ideal vision, and the poor need not apply. Likewise if you are in any of the three mentioned categories of people please go kill yourself now as you have no right to self-defense should an attack chose to kill you later. You’ll be saving yourself, the attacker, and the police a lot of time.

Also as a person with horrible vision without my glasses I can tell you that you can see an attacker just fine unless you’re practically blind. Without my glasses I can’t read anything on my laptop screen when the laptop is on my lap with my right eye. With my left eye I can’t read the title of any book on my bookshelf which is no more than 10 feet away. Even with my horrible vision I can see people well enough to shoot them at self-defense ranges if they are attacking me.

Needless to say I know what it’s like having bad vision. So even if you’re vision isn’t correctable to a point you can drive there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be able to own a firearm.

That’s Kind of Funny

NPR had a recent show dealing with a “phenomenon” where people who believe something incorrect will ignore facts showing their belief is in error. So I caroused through the transcript (because I’m not going to waste my time listening to NPR) to get the gist of the show. I was expecting a lot more examples of how “right-wingers” were incorrect for their beliefs once presented with “the facts.” Well it seemed the show didn’t quite devolve too far into that (for NPR at least). This is a call-in show apparently and one of the calls they received interested me greatly:

CONAN: Let’s go next to Chrissie(ph), Chrissie with us from San Francisco.

CHRISSIE (Caller): Yes, I’m just calling to say I changed my mind on two different issues, one about gun ownership. I was originally from Utah, and I didn’t think that people should be able to have guns, and I just thought people were crazy to actually have their own guns.

And then I started to talking to more people and kind of educated myself. And it turned out the man that I married, his father makes bullets, and I went out shooting, and I actually think that people should be able to own their guns. Of course, I think background checks, and, you know, there needs to be definitely some controls over that. But I changed my mind pretty dramatically just through, really through self-education.

And then I also changed my point of view on the death penalty. I really believe that people, if they were convicted, they were dead wrong, and they really should have, you know, should be killed.

And then I educated myself again, and I just don’t really believe in the death penalty at all. I just don’t think that everybody has the same upbringing, the same choices, the same monetary backgrounds, and so I’m really against the death penalty now.

So I’ve changed my point of view just really through, I think, self-education and actually really great programs like this that are offered to us through NPR.

CONAN: Well, Chrissie, that’s very kind of you to say. Thank you very much for that, appreciate it.

CHRISSIE: Thank you.

First of all I’m surprised somebody with that opinion got on the show but the funniest part was how quickly the hosts brushed the caller off and moved on to the next person (and e-mail in this case). Nothing to see hear folks just move along. I’m also glad to hear there are people out there with cognitive abilities in regard to guns, good on the caller.

That’s Quite a List

Here’s something funny found via Say Uncle. The Chicago Police Department has made a list of “unsafe” firearms [PDF] that can not be registered in the city of Chicago. It’s pretty long but alas with few exceptions (Smith and Wesson for instance) the list is of manufacturers not firearms.

There are some real WTFs on that list. For instance the Sig Sauer Mosquito is on the list because as we all know the .22LR is one bad ass mother fucker.

Seriously that is a city that just tries too hard at being complete ass hats.

Anti-Gunners are Such a Violent Group

I guess when you are openly working to ban a means of personal protection you can become a bit violent. Joe Huffman has a good post demonstrating the violent desires of anti-gunners:

to the above poster, take your H&K 93, shove it up your ass and pull the trigger.

Harsh. It’s funny but I see it all the time. Arguments made out of emotions and feelings but otherwise not backed by any real research generally cause the person making said argument to lash out violently when challenged.

Arguing with the Anti-Gunners

That’s that this post is about. Although I do realize arguing things on the Internet is ultimately pointless I do sometimes partake in it. There are two main reasons I argue with anti-gunners online; to keep my kills of debating fresh and because I love watching them break down into personal insults after devastating their arguments. The last one is a guilty pleasure of mine to say the least. But some of these arguments are worth a little analysis so I figured I’d post a couple of the recent threads I participated in on reddit.

The first argument I’ll post up is one I had with a person going by the handle APeacefulWarrior. To save you some brain damage I’ll sum things up. APeacefulWarrior was stating that “idiot gun nuts” are getting what they deserve for listening to the NRA and stockpiling weaponry for a potential gun ban that could never be.

Well I tried pointing out the fact that the NRA never said Obama was going to use the UN to take our guns but instead tried to explain the implications of the Small Arms Treaty. Likewise I posted a link to Obama’s campaign website that stated the Obamessiah was in favor of repealing the Tiahrt Amendment (including a link that actually described what the amendment was) and reinstating the “assault weapons” ban (as well as explained what the ban really was). I also decided to point out the fact that the “gun show loophole” mentioned was responsible for less than 1% of crime guns. Yes I included links to sources of information on all of those subjects.

Like most anti-gunners eventually APeacefulWarrior broke down into personal insults and not once posted any links citing anything he was claiming. Generally in a debate if one side provides citations for their arguments it’s expected the other side will as well. Of course when you have no real facts to back up your arguments that very difficult and it ultimately what causes the anti-gunners to lose.

Another example of anti-gunner argument failures is a long running thread I had with a user going by the handle malevolentjelly. He tried making the argument that stricter gun control laws lowers the number of guns available to criminals and hence lower the crime rate. It’s important to note he is stating there is a correlation between the number of guns available to civilians and the amount of gun crime in a country.

Again I made several posts with citations to backup my claims. Anti-gunners facing facts often like to perform a little trick called moving the goal posts. They claim your information is invalid and irrelevant since it comes from obviously biased sources (while they source studies from people like the Violence Policy Center as neutral but this individual couldn’t even be bothered to do that). For instance take the following:

What research? Everything your cited is coming from biased sources. How about citing the FBI or the UN?

I laughed pretty hard when he said the UN is an unbiased source but alas I decided to oblige him by posting a link to the FBI United Crime Report for 2008 and a link to the number of FBI NICS checks performed. The number of NICS checks performed is the only method I know of to estimate the number of firearms sold in the country. According to the United Crime Report violent crime has been on a downward trend while the number of gun sales have been constantly increasing. This would of course destroy the argument that more available guns increases violent crime rates which was the correlation he was using. What was his response? Well it was golden:

Just wishing for those two datapoints to be connected does not make it so. Correlation does not equate causation. A systemic analysis state to state of crime would probably show no correlation to gun ownership. In fact, it’s probably largely unrelated. I would suppose that it makes more difference in the nature of crimes committed, not the rate.

This is why arguing with anti-gunners is so much fun. Given enough time they will invalidate their own argument. Of course anybody reading this knows I don’t believe correlation proves causality. But if you can show a correlation that doesn’t fit you can defeat an argument based on correlation.

It was at this point the threat devolved into personal attacks and became irrelevant. But my favorite closing argument from him was the following:

I don’t feel like walking you through criminology 101, it’s not worth the effort to cite for someone who links to webpages devoted to armed citizenry. You keep your eyes out for flying saucers and the gubberment. I’ll just keep deadly weapons out of my household and you get to be safer when the redcoats invade.

Yup apparently it’s not worth citing all this information on criminology that he knows to be fact. And all the sources I posted were biased including those FBI links I tossed up upon request for information from the FBI. Good old moving the goal posts.

Arguing with anti-gunners is completely pointless I admit but it does keep me in a good state of mind and sometimes I learn of new arguments they’re trying to make. But I posted these two threads for your analysis so you can watch a typical argument where one side has factual information to provide and the other side has emotional arguments.

Godwin’s Law states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” I’m going to go ahead and create a law for arguing with anti-gunners. As a debate with an anti-gunners grows longer, the probability of the anti-gunners using personal attacks and invalidating their own argument approaches one.

Second Amendment Foundation Continues

After being handed their victory yesterday in McDonald vs. Chicago the Second Amendment Foundation is now moving onto their next target, North Carolina’s Emergency Powers Act:

“Through this lawsuit in North Carolina,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb,” we intend to show that state emergency powers statutes that allow government officials to suspend fundamental civil rights, including the right to bear arms, are unconstitutional and therefore should be nullified. Citizens do not surrender their civil rights just because of a natural or man-made disaster.”

Hell yeah! The idea that the state can confiscate your private property, especially you means of self defense when you need it most is appalling. Currently the field is target rich with plenty of unconstitutional gun laws on the books that need to be struck down. It appears as though the Second Amendment Foundation is working fast on striking these laws down.

It’s also good to see a small second amendment group doing something great with their limited resources available. These guys are a group I’m proud to toss money to.

Score One for the Good Guys

News is coming down that the Supreme Court has come out with their decision on McDonald vs. Chicago. The vote was 5-4 for the good guys. The second amendment is now incorporated against the states and city governments meaning gun bans like Chicago’s are now completely unconstitutional and should be going away soon.

The NRA released a statement and the Supreme Court’s opinion has been posted.

I think I speak for everybody with a brain when I say Hell yeah!