Anti-Gun Folks – Page 131 – Shall Not Be Questioned

On the “B” Word

Over at Common Gunsense, our host has taken unkindly to being called a “Bigot.” My American Heritage dictionary defines the word thusly, “AÂ personÂ whoÂ isÂ utterlyÂ intolerantÂ ofÂ anyÂ differingÂ creed,Â belief,Â or opinion.” In the modern American vernacular, we’ve largely forgotten about the latter two objects and concentrate almost exclusively on the first. In terms of the literal definition, we have all certainly met gun control advocates who fit it, by displaying a wildly condescending and contemptuous view of those who exercise their rights. I will leave it to readers to decide whether the proprietor of Common Gunsense fits that definition, but it’s not my purpose in this post to weigh into that particular debate. My purpose is to point out that I think Ms. Peterson has a point about the “pot calling the kettle black” in terms of some of our folks having bigoted attitudes towards people who merely disagree with us about the role of arms in American society.

Most of the tossing around I’ve seen of the word “bigot” seems to germinate from a belief that because these individuals are advocating against an enumerated civil right, that they aren’t any different than those that advocated against civil rights for blacks and other racial or ethnic minorities. I’ve said before that I think there has to be a distinction, morally, between hatred of someone because of immutable characteristics, and hatred of someone because you abhor a behavior of theirs, even if that behavior is constitutionally protected.

You can draw First Amendment analogies here, since speech is characteristically a behavior rather than an immutable quality, and speech, like firearms ownership, is constitutionally protected. I don’t necessarily consider someone advocating for a law preventing Fred Phelps and others like him from picketing a funeral to be an intolerant bigot. Misguided, yes, but not necessarily a bigot. Reasonable people can disagree about the nature and scope of the First Amendment, especially weighted against protecting the privacy and dignity of the families of service members who have been killed in action.

Advocacy of a position only really descends into bigotry when it’s based on an intolerant contempt for the individual or individuals who are engaging in a behavior, or holding a contrary opinion. It wouldn’t, for instance, be bigotry for someone to suggest “I really believe that jury verdicts shouldn’t need to be unanimous, because it costs taxpayers a lot of money for new trials, and often lets the guilty go free.” You could express the exact same opinion in a Â bigoted way, however, by saying, “I really believe that jury verdicts shouldn’t need to be unanimous, because your average working class rube, too stupid to get out of jury duty, is too ignorant in judgement to be trusted with the outcome of a verdict.” The latter expression of the same idea displays a bigoted attitude towards average, working class individuals. Both attitudes are treading into the territory of weakening a traditional civil right, but only one displays any evidence of the opinion having a bigoted origin for the opinion.

In our issue, someone saying “I believe in banning handguns, machine guns and assault weapons, because they are dangerous to society, and no one except the police and military should be allowed to have them,” is not displaying any hint of bigotry. The same person saying “I believe in banning handguns, machine guns and assault weapons because anyone who could possibly want to use one is certainly a homicidal manic out to mow down kindergartners,” is a bigoted viewpoint. It might be a surprise to many who support gun control, but when you call people of good will and character dangerous, mentally deficient, sexually dysfunctional, or insane, only because they engage in a behavior or have an interest you disapprove of or don’t understand, they tend to take that quite personally, and will lash back with insults of their own.

If there’s to be any dialog, even if that dialog only results in having to agree to disagree, both sides need to come to terms with exactly who the other side is. Gun owners who believe in a very strong, broad, and robust Second Amendment are not evil, dangerous, sexually challenged, or mentally deranged people just because the hold that opinion. They aren’t scary, wild eyed beasts out to cause mayhem. And by the same token, those that advocate for a narrow or inconsequential Second Amendment are not necessarily that either, nor are they the modern day equivalent of the KKK.

I think both sides owe the other more than that. We may end up doing nasty and underhanded things to each other as we struggle against each other in the court of public opinion, but we should be cognizant of keeping the political struggle separated from personal ones. It is fine to be dogged, unrelenting and aggressive in the political space. The personal space is something else, and from what I’ve seen I don’t think either side has a monopoly on nastiness in that arena.

Laying the Ground Work

The Brady Campaign is pretty clearly laying the ground work for their push to get the Democrats to abandon the NRA post-election, by saying the 1994 elections were never really about guns, and that the Democrats who do not take NRA money (and who are also, conveniently, in safe, heavily lefty Democratic urban districts) are going to fare better than those who do.

The real lesson for the Democrats is that you can’t expect to win your majority back with pro-gun Blue Dog Democrats, then twist their arms to vote for Pelosi and Obama’s radical agenda, and then expect the gun vote to save you. The gun vote is powerful, but not that powerful. Being pro-gun is still going to win those candidates more than it will cost them, and in some of those districts it’s necessary to get elected at all.

Want to Ban My Guns?

Japete is a bit incredulous we think so. I know I said it was time for me to disengage from Common Gunsense, but it’s too much to resist. She’s trying to rewrite history. We’re all well aware of the Brady Campaigns past, and their support of an effective ban on handguns. She points out that even the assault weapons ban didn’t actually ban anything. True, but the only reason that wasn’t the case is because they didn’t have the votes to pass confiscation, which is also the only reason it had a sunset clause.Â Let’s not also forget theÂ last proposed incarnation of the AWB, which was far more draconian. Japete also needs an explanation for what followed up on the heels of the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady Act, which was only stopped because we flipped Congress in 1994.Â Brady II, as it was dubbed, would never see the light of day.

Let’s make one other things clear. Whether or not you want to ban guns, or make them so difficult to own that for all practical purposes no one bothers, is an academic argument. I really could care less at this point. Recently a state lawmaker proposed a universal registration scheme which would have amounted to a tax on gun ownership. For serious collectors or competitors it would mean hundreds of dollars a year. You expect me not to oppose that because it’s not a ban? You think the fact that it costs 500 dollars to legally own a gun in DC, before even buying the gun, should be acceptable to us? Is it acceptable to you? Constitutional rights, but only for the rich? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot the position was constitutional rights for no one.

She then goes on to lament that the slippery slope can go the other way. Yes it can. It works in both directions. That why we’re all working to make sure it keeps heading in her direction. Is there anywhere it’s going to stop? Who knows. But it’s not like gun control works anyway, so don’t expect me to stand atop my soapbox and yell “stop.”Â Gun control advocates seem to think if somehow we believe you aren’t going to ban guns, we’re not going to oppose you. At this point we’re not afraid of your end game anymore. We just resent the interference with our rights. Where will the slippery slope stop? When you’re about as relevant as these people.

Reading too Many Vampire Novels?

First we’re the forces of darkness. Â Now violent death stalks us all. Geez, with an outlook like that, you’d think I might want to carry a gun or something.

Heart Not In It?

Looks like Ray Schoenke must have tired of his strategy of trying to build an organization to help give anti-gun Democrats pro-gun cover. Because it looks like he forgot to pay AHSA’s hosting bill.

Threat from the ABA

Howard Nemerov is noting that the American Bar Association is now promoting micro stamping, and unlike the Bradys, they bring a lot of money to the table to help push for it.

Having Lost on “Keep” …

… the Brady Center is doing all it can not to lose on that whole “bear” part. Unfortunately, there’s language in Heller that could go either way, but at minimum, the Court strongly hinted that California would have to allow some form of carry, even if it’s open carry, of a gun that’s ready for self-defense (loaded, in other words).

LA Times Favors Boxer

Hopefully they’ll remember to call her “Senator.” Either way, the Brady folks are thrilled because their issue got a mention in the LA Times, which hasn’t really been focusing very heavily on the gun issue:

Boxer supports California’s ban on assault weapons and the revival of a similar law at the federal level. Fiorina has criticized the federal law’s definition of assault weapons as “extremely arbitrary” and emphasizes other ways of combating gun crimes, none of which is a substitute for a ban. She also believes that travelers on the federal government’s no-fly list should be allowed to own firearms

I’m not sure how thrilled I’d be though, given that they balanced it with Fiorina’s view on the matter, which has a basis in fact, and they failed to frame the “terror gap” issue properly. I think most Americans understand the “No-Fly” list is a sham, but the “Terror Watch List” sounds much more ominous. Ten years ago the LA Times would have said “Fiorina wants to legalize assault weapons, which are the weapons of choice for gang members in California, and ridiculously wants terrorists to be able to buy guns.”

I guess when you’re down and out, you’ll take any piece of bread thrown at you, but given what we’ve seen from the LA Times in the past, I consider this progress.

You Ask, I Answer

The Brady People, probably reminiscent of Johnson who once said “If I lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America,” in regards to Vietnam, are upset at Jon Stewart for being willing to take a middle ground on the gun issue, and suggesting that the problem isn’t the guns, it’s the crazy, and that if you took away the guns, you’d have school bludgeonings. The Brady’s obviously don’t like this:

When, really, was the last time somebody in America was able to terrorize a college campus, kill 32 people, and wound 17 others in less than 12 minutes with a blunt instrument?

There’s plenty of examples that run along the lines they are asking about, if one cares to look. For instance, over in gun free Japan, in a culture more known for suicide than murder suicide, you did have some guy go ape shit with a truck and a dagger. This isn’t the only incident in Japan that involved someone going nuts with a weapon that was not a gun. Let’s also not forget the Osaka school massacre:

At 10:15 that morning, 37-year-old former janitorÂ Mamoru Takuma entered the school armed with a kitchen knife and began stabbing numerous school children and teachers. He killed eight children, mostly between the ages of seven and eight, and seriously wounded thirteen other children and two teachers.

But let’s not also forget about the Childers Palace Fire in Australia, after they instituted strict gun control after the Port Arthur massacre. Set by an unstable drifter, this fire killed fifteen people, and the man responsible was charged with murder.

Also from Australia, with the perpetrator currently imprisoned in Perth, is the case of a man who murdered five people when, enraged after being kicked out of a pub, he drove his truck into the pub, killing five people and seriously injuring sixteen.

Over to China, which has strict gun control, where earlier this year there were several attacks in schools using edge weapons and bludgeons. Here’s a report on just one of them. But there were more than a dozen, with dozens of children either killed or injured:

Some sociologists believe some of these attacks may due to the government’s failure to diagnose and treat mental illness

So I think Jon Stewart is exactly right in his assessment of the real problem, and it’s not just confined to the United States. Not by any means. The Brady folks would like to pretend this is a gun problem, but Stewart is exactly right. Crazy people who fail to get treatment, and who are out on the street, are ticking time bombs, and it matters little what kind of weapon controls are in place. Where there’s a will to maim and kill, there is a way. SayUncleÂ notes:

And that, Paul, is why youâ€™re losing. You canâ€™t even shore up the strident defenders of liberal policy who run fake news. Just like the real world.

It amazes me with all the other left wing causes out there that can get traction, like running future generations into debt beyond their wildest dreams, these guys are still wasting their time with what is increasingly looking like a dead issue.

Reasoned Discorse^TM Part MDCCCXLVII

By now it’s an old formula, pro-gun people find an anti-gun blog, pro-gun people engage anti-gun blog, anti-gun blog heavily moderates comments in an attempt to shift debate away from topics they’d rather not address. Common GunsenseÂ has not completely shut down comments, but she’s also pretty clearly not interested in debate, only parroting the talking points:

The idea is to harangue and harass and hope I will go away. There was an early complaint that the Brady Campaign didn’t allow comments. I completely understand why. It is overwhelming and would require at least a full time staff person to publish and respond to comments. And to what end?

No, that’s not the idea at all. The idea is to show your ideas cannot stand up to open debate, and ultimately fail in the court of public opinion because of that. The idea isn’t to get you to go away, but to show that for all the accusations that have been flung at gun owners in the past decade, that they could not think for themselves, that they were essentially manipulated by the “evil gun lobby,” and could only regurgitate talking points, that is in fact more true about your side than ours. I’ve run into a few Brady staffers who know how to make an argument, but for the most part, any time I’ve pressed down on the astroturf, I don’t sense much in the way of depth below the surface.

If you were only moderating nasty comment, or even only moderating ridiculous comments, I wouldn’t have thought poorly of it. But it’s quite possible to talk through the unreasonable people and get to the folks who have something worthwhile to say. It doesn’t take a full time staffer to speak with commenters. I’ve floated at least one opportunity inÂ the thread on private sales, where I once again proffered a slight variation on this idea, and asked her whether she would find this an acceptable idea, and if not, what was wrong with it?

I can only assume, since the comment was never approved, that it leads to an area that the Brady folks would rather not talk about, because it addresses the problem they claim to be concerned with, but doesn’t amount to much in the way of restricting law abiding people form purchasing guns. That’s also, I would point out, not a proposal you’ll see from the NRA any time soon. I’m sure a lot of folks there cringe every time I discuss such things. But where are your internal disagreements? Where are your debates? Ours are increasingly happening out in the open, because that’s what you’d expect when you have millions of opinions, thousands of activists, and hundreds of soap boxes.

Ultimately, I think we have come to the point where we have to agree to disagree. I think Joe is probably right about this whole circumstance, and I don’t see anything to be gained by further engagement. So I shall declare Reasoned Discourse^TM, and move on.