Josh Sugarmann is touting the canard that the firearms industry is unregulated. We know for a fact just how much bunk that is. The fact is that firearms are regulated much the same way as other consumer products, like automobiles. In that there are regulatory parameters that manufacturers have to comply with, but within those parameters there’s the ability to make products that consumers want.
If you read carefully what Sugarmann is really saying, he’s lamenting that guns are largely legal, within the framework established by federal and sometimes state regulation. Presumably he’d want a framework more akin to how the FDA regulates drugs, with agency approval being required before sale to consumers, and with the regulating agency having a very large degree of control over how products are marketed.
Very few consumer products are regulated in this manner. In fact, I can think of only drugs, which aren’t really a consumer product since they require a prescription from a doctor, as the only products regulated according to Sugarmann’s proposed regime. Even the famous teddy bear example, that anti-gun groups always throw at us, are regulated in the same manner as firearms, in that manufacturers act within an established regulatory framework that only defines what you may not do, rather than requiring prior permission from the regulating agency to do anything.
But why lie and say guns are unregulated? That’s far from the truth. If you want an FDA like regulatory framework for guns, why not start with that discussion? Make the case for it. Again, the anti-gun folks aren’t talking to real people here. They are talking to a media that’s too busy trying to escape its own death spiral to pay much attention. The days of success through lying to the public is over. The real problem for the anti-gun folks, and why they have adopted these tactics to begin with, is that there’s no political support what Sugarmann proposes.
That’s an easy one.
That firearms aren’t regulated is the ONLY lie that has ever worked for the anti-guners. People used to believe that crap. Many people weren’t so much anti-gun, they were just scared of retarded, drug-addled felons buying guns mail order and shooting up schoolyards, so they were happy when the anti-gun people came along and said that they were going to do something to fix that.
I think a big reason that the anti-guners aren’t getting the support that they used to is that people are more educated about the issue and just what laws ARE on the books and are at the point where they are comfortable that there are enough laws. I certianly hope that this continues because it is the most sure defence against the lies told by the anti-guners.
A sure way to loose an argument is being caught in a lie, so I hope Sugarmann never stops. But I also hope that the pro-gun people never stop educating the public so that those lies are exposed for what they are.
Sadly, from time to time I still come across a gun owner who still believes this crap and thinks that there should be more regulation. These are the people who I just can’t figure out.
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Josh mentions the Ruger Blackhawk as an example of guns being defective when they go off when dropped, yet simple *googling* reveals that wwwaaayyy back in 1973, Ruger created the *transfer bar* system, to eliminate this unsafe characteristic on it’s revolvers.
Nothing like more outdated info.
Is it just me, or does Sugarmann not only look like but he acts like Walter Peck, the EPA bad guy from Ghostbusters?
Or in other words, a slimy lying weasel?
Why does Josh lie? Because it is an easy lie to tell, it carries a lot of emotional impact, and people are likely to believe it.
However, that said, I would be just as happy if he kept telling the same lie over and over again… it is easy to disprove with facts, evidence, and regulations, and that just makes him look like more of a lying ass than he already does.
Oftentimes, I have found that hoplophobes can do far more damage to their own causes than we could ever hope to…
Hey Sebastian… stop giving the assholes so much good advice already!
I think that sometimes too, but understand there’s a reason they can’t take me up on my advice. Things don’t get better for them if they have to give up the bullshit, because without it, they aren’t left with much.
I think that we as pro-civil rights types should make up a canard of our own. For example:
Josh Sugarmann is a child molester.
Then we simply parrot this endlessly without proof every chance we get. Whenever somebody mentions Josh Sugarmann, we simply say: “Isn’t he the one who was caught sodomizing a little boy?”
Why should we always be on the defensive? Why should we always need to disprove the lies he tells? One man’s Libelous Slander is another man’s irrefutable fact.
Why would anyone belive Josh Sugarmann anyways. We all know he lies the sad thing is no one as attack his lies on the Huffington post when he made even a bigger lie when when he said ” Sorry NRA Mexico is buying guns from Americans”
First of all Mexico buys their guns from China and scum bag Sugarmann knows its true he just will not admitt to it.
To me Josh Sugarmann is a waste of time to argue with because he is notting more the a anti-gun left wing communist hippe.