Thursday, June 30, 2011

They Know...

Chris, in comments to this post, has an excellent question for the gun grabbers:
So I read the article and your comments and I'm still confused as to why they are looking to restrict peoples rights? I see references to "why are you special" "how to restrict" I don't see why they want to do this. I don't see any reference to danger, just a willingness to take peoples rights away. Am I supposed to assume a reason? I don't automatically accept "the new normal" of restriction just because they want to.
And it kicked over something I've thought about, off and on, for nearly 15 years now. The anti-gun people know. They know there won't be "blood in the streets" or people shot over parking lot disputes as a result of concealed carry. The past 25 years of evidence states otherwise. They know that allowing people to carry concealed firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol will not lead to drunken shootings; many states do not have such restrictions and have no such incidents.

They know that posting a sign on a door is not going to stop a lunatic from shooting the place up just as surely as they know that a woman getting a piece of paper against an estranged lover will not keep her safe. Police logs and news reports are filled with incidents of violence; yet they claim we don't need to carry weapons. "That's what the police are for" even though they know that the police are under no obligation to protect anyone.
  • They know that three 10 round magazines have the same capacity as one 30 round magazine.

  • They know that a bayonet lug doesn't make a rifle more dangerous.

  • They know that you can't realistically shoot down an airplane with a rifle, even a .50 BMG

  • They know that real, honest-to-goodness fully automatic weapons are very heavily regulated and are used in crimes so infrequently as to be statistically meaningless.
They know all of these things and more; many tropes that I've forgotten out of sheer disbelief that anyone could be so dense. They know these things because we - those of us on the pro-rights side - have shown them, time and time again, the truth behind firearms and concealed carry. We have facts and history on our side - "Wild West" style shootings (and here we have to point out that when an anti-rights believer says "Wild West" they mean the stylized Hollywood version of the Old West; the reality was that most places were safer than DC, Detroit, or Miami) are simply not happening - oh, yes, folks do get into confrontations with firearms, but those people are not concealed carry permit holders.

Knowing these things, then, makes the anti-rights crowd suspect. Why do they want to restrict what kind of magazines I can buy, or where I can carry my firearm? After nearly 20 years of being a permit holder and gun owner, I still haven't shot anyone over a parking space - how many more years must I, and hundreds of thousands like me, carry before they stop the nonsense? People that take the trouble to get the permit to carry are not the problem. They've never been the problem.

In fact, there's a damn good argument to be made that there's not even a problem to be had that banning guns in [insert public place] can solve.

So why do they do it? That's the crux of Chris's question. Why do the anti-rights folks push for gun bans and such when they know it's not going to work? Are they delusional? Do they think that they and they alone can succeed where, for thousands of years, people have failed? Merely by making [action/item/etc.] illegal that it will disappear? Or is it more insidious, and the term "anti-rights" is the correct one?

Is it that they view an individual with a permit to carry as a threat to the monopoly of force they would prefer the state enjoy? It explains their opposition to concealed carry as well as the idea behind so-called "assault weapons" bans - and the current state of heavily regulated and slowly dwindling supply of machine guns. They want the state to be the only entity that can employ force - their reasons for this are known only to themselves, but there can be no good outcome when only the agents of the state have arms.

As Alan says, there's a term for countries where only the police are armed: Police state.

That is all.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you , thank you, thank you!!!
You have put into words the feelings that I have had for a long time. WHY? Why does the idiot left continually bandy about all of their fear statements? Why can't they see that "blood on the streets" never happens!?!?! They tell us they are the intelligent ones; and yet they never seem to understand our side of the issue. They seem to only want to understand THEIR side of the issue.

I really, really think the answer lies deeper then we know. I really think the liberal left WANTS to be subjugated. I think genetically they are predisposed to want/need/desire to have an all knowing/seeing protector watching over them and caring for them.

Kind of like God. Every human has a physical side and a spiritual side. Both of those sides need to have constant attention. I believe in God and I worship Him in my daily life. Liberals have rejected God and/or hate the idea of worship. Yet their spiritual side is left raw and unfulfilled.

Thats why they want big government. They have substituted big government for God. They can satisfy their need for a god by substituting big government for God.

I think this is the reason why you see this liberal/socialistic/communistic thought pattern in every generation since man was created.

Steve

chiefjaybob said...

I don't think their behavior is sinister in it's origin. I believe the problem is they think that criminals think like they do. They can't put themselves into the mind-set of an armed robber or murderer. So they assume that if they post a "No mean guns allowed" sign that someone who was planning on coming in with their assault-clip-shoulder-thing-that-goes-up-military-style-weapon-of-mass-destruction will see their little sign and say, "Oh, poop. Can't bring my naughty gun in here. Guess I'll go down to the ghetto and start shooting."

We know it's nonsense. But I'm not sure they are capable of putting themselves in another's place.

Then again, I may be completely full of crap.

Weer'd Beard said...

They know, yet they do it anyway.

This is why I have no qualms against calling them "Evil".

Robb Allen said...

There's another train of thought as well.

They're zombies.

They may have started life as a thinking, caring, human being but at some point, they became so emotionally attached to their cause that they can no longer listen to reason or facts.

I can understand the initial concept of "More guns = More gun deaths!" It's simplistic, and on the surface would seem to make sense. But like many things in life, a few minutes of research and thought will show that things are more complex than they seem.

The Joan Petersons and Colin "I'm quite familiar with how the undersides of desks look" Goddards of the world have wrapped their very identities into gun-control and will always shun any data or facts that get in their way.

The bigger players like Soros and his ilk are definitely looking at at gun control as a way to remove freedom. So, there are the top tier people who are plain evil, and the zombie gun-control hordes that are just mindless in their support.

Bubblehead Les. said...

I have a 2 part answer. A) Fear and B) Control. SOME of the Antis (usually those non-Politicians) are Scared to Death of Life. So, in their Minds, if we just get rid of Firearms, (and add 20,000 Airbags to Cars, Stop Global Warming, throw all the Nukes into the Sun, remove PABA from Cold Medicine, keep those decendents of former Slaves in their Ghettos with Free Housing and Food and Education etc.), then their little Dream World that they wish to occur will happen, and they can be SAFE.

But those who wish to gain Permanent Political Control will use those saps to help advance their cause. Does anyone think that Hosni Bloomberg, Mayor-for-life of NYC is REALLY concerned that his multi-Billionaire Ass surrounded by Bodyguards is going to be mugged while strolling down 42nd. Street one night? There's your Evil. The others are Useful Idiots.

Chris said...

Wow Jay glad I could help focus your thoughts. What you said is true. I suggested some things we can do about it here http://falnfenix.blogspot.com/2011/06/did-i-shake-something-loose.html

Never stop asking why?

Mike W. said...

I'm inclined to agree with Robb. They're zombies, and for many of them it is not necessarily insidious.

Take my roommate for example. Black guy, rabid Liberal and Obama fanboy.

I've known him long enough to know he's not insidious nor an idiot. What he is is stuck inside his own little liberal ideological bubble.

When facts, points, or competing ideologies enter the bubble the immediate response is to push them out of said bubble. Why? because if they're not expelled and dismissed they'll damage the ideology contained therein.

His response to facts is generally either

1. I don't believe your facts
2. Your facts are irrelevant / don't necessarily support your position.
3. Regardless of your statistics his position is just "common sense"

He'll admonish me for being so narrowly focused and wrapped up in the facts, as if somehow you can form rational, intelligent positions without regard for factual truths.

Such people are not evil, but they help facilitate evil and elect those who are.

chris said...

The very foundation of gun control is based on the same kind of dishonesty that says communism works or that the war on drugs is successful. Once you get the lie going, you have to keep it going because admitting to it would mean admitting you are wrong. So you keep going no matter what, eventually you reach a point where you have nothing left... Sadly many dead people are usually left in your wake.

Eck! said...

When you substitute "belief" for facts and fear for rational thinking there is nothing left.

The antis have nothing except "belief" and fear of an inanimate object. To them guns kill, never people. Which is an exact example of their flawed thinking.

It's unfortunate that people with fine
and functional brains choose to cling with their lives to irrational, error loaded thinking.

Eck!

Daniel in Brookline said...

I believe gun-grabbers (some of them, anyway) are afraid of what they themselves would do with a gun... and project that fear onto others. (If I don't trust myself with a gun, the reasoning goes, why on Earth should I trust my neighbor with one?)

I remember this fear quite well. I remember vividly the first time I held a loaded M16, in preparation for enlisting in the IDF. It was just a firing range, with ten bullets, and a corporal behind me to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. But I couldn't shake the horrible feeling: I'm holding in my hands the wherewithal to kill ten people.

I felt similarly when I learned to drive. What's to stop me, I wondered, from getting a bad case of what-the-hells on the highway, veering into opposing traffic, and killing a lot of people, myself included?

The answer, I found, is that I wouldn't do it because I'm not a suicidal idiot, that's why. My fear was of the power of the tool I had in my hands, and my fear that I was not responsible enough to use it wisely. Increased exposure made me more comfortable with the tool, and the fear receded.

Which brings us to advice we've all heard: the best way to deal with a hoplophobe, if you can arrange it, is to get them down to the range and introduce them to the pleasures of your long-distance hole-puncher. If you can convince them that they actually could use a gun responsibly, then they'll be more likely to trust you to carry responsibly... and perhaps they'll be able to extend that to the population at large.


(This isn't universal, of course. There are determined gun-grabbers who carry themselves, or surround themselves with bodyguards who carry. Are they evil, stupid, or merely hypocrites? You decide.)