Smite my enemies, but deliver me from my friends.

[Lex Arma]

This lady, an earnest conservative, a "believer in the Second Amendment" represents the real danger we face in securing gun rights.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=94000258886&h=wZ383&u=YItXl

People who proclaim: "I believe in the right to self-defense, but,....." are weak links in our battles to secure the right of self-defense as a core, fundamental right, for every law-abiding citizen.

Smashing, melting, sinking perfectly good guns because they were used in a crime is just plain irrational. To the extent that people derive self-righteous satisfaction from the destructions of guns, they are prone to engaging in a kind of mystical whim that is dangerous to a rational approach to the concept of fundamental rights. That is because they lack the capacity for reasoned argument when it challenges their pre-conceived notions of what they think is right and good. Notice (in the comments section) how she terminates the conversation with me when I come dangerously close to undermining her defense (defensive) of the conclusion of her article.

[dfletcher]

How would she feel if we did the same thing with cars? A bad guy steals a car, it's held in evidence with no real effort to find the owner and then it's destroyed. Good enough for guns, good enough for cars.

And you would think with all the information available to the police, they would have a duty to find the rightful owner of a gun. If DOJ can compile what I have for handguns shouldn't they be required to put that list to use?

BTW - I realize I'm getting old. That "handguns to sewer cover" bit? I saw it about 35 years ago on "The Streets of San Francisco" when they did a 70's fashionably anti-gun episode. Ms Dimond isn't even being original.

[Boris]

Kilmer-1
Diamond-0

This woman who "respects and recognizes the constitution" who is immersed in an industry bent on the dismantling of the 2nd Amendment through slanted reporting needs to be challenged every time she takes to her keyboard. Great job.

[Glock22Fan]

I've added a few comments here and there, don't know how long they will take to show up. I like Don's idea that we wouldn't destroy a gold bar used to beat someone to death - pity he didn't put that first instead of the scam using gold bars which seems less directed.

Also a pity, IMHO, that he suggested selling them through Ebay, without pointing out that all sales should go through the usual background checks.

Most of the comments are in favor of destruction and seems to assume that any sale would naturally go to gangbangers. Maybe we need a few more comments from our members showing the other side of things.

[bwiese]

Don,

Teaching a pig to sing neither results in good music, nor a properly trained pig.

[yellowfin]

It's funny how pointing out something else that the vast majority of urban criminals have in common and treating all of them the same would receive all kinds of irate objections from the people who advocate her position.

[GaryV]

It's a blatantly anti-gun article. The only line in there that is not overtly or covertly anti-gun is the little "I acknowledge the U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms - law abiding citizens - and that’s fine". It's clear that's just thrown in there to try to make it sound like she's a "reasonable" person who isn't trying to subvert the Constitution. But it's also clear that it's a lie.

[Lex Arma]

The Comments section of the article has now been deleted.

[Glock22Fan]

The Comments section of the article has now been deleted.

This may be a system problem. There is a message at the foot of the page:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /home/diandim0/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 795

[GaryV]

This may be a system problem. There is a message at the foot of the page:

Yeah, I got that the last time I tried, but now there's no error message, the comments section is just gone.

[Lex Arma]

Yeah, I got that the last time I tried, but now there's no error message, the comments section is just gone.

All my pearls of wisdom, gone. Cast before the singing swine of which BW spoke. :kest::kest:

[Glock22Fan]

Yeah, I got that the last time I tried, but now there's no error message, the comments section is just gone.

They are back. Nothing new though. It seems to be a very slow server, probably overloaded, so maybe this is intermittent.

[hill billy]

Worked for me, and I posted a comment.

[aileron]

I posted a one liner, it was only pointing out the obvious, and I wasn't mean or nasty in my comment, but it didn't appear.

[not-fishing]

People who proclaim: "I believe in the right to self-defense, but,....."

"But..but..Everyone has a big butt. Tell me about your big butt " - Pee Wee Herman

[7x57]

Hmm. I'll agree she's earnest, but is she Conservative? It depends a great deal on what makes one "Conservative." Conservative or not, she's anti-gun because she accepts the presuppositions of the mostly liberal anti-gun crowd, which is why it's better to look at presuppositions than to just lump all similar conclusions together no matter how derived. It's all about implicit assumptions.

So what are her assumptions? There seem to be two key ones: (1) the government has the power to do whatever we deem good policy, and (2) guns cause crime, either because they cause ordinary decent people to commit horrible crimes or because apparently decent people are actually raging animals who merely have lacked the opportunity to do horrible things until now. The first is not the position of much of what we lump together as Conservative; certainly it is neither Libertarian nor Constitutionalist by definition. It is optional for a social Conservative who has no other Conservative convictions, and it is more or less necessary for a neocon. (I'm ignoring the fact that it is tatamount to rebellion against the Constitution, as that merely emphasizes just how anti-Constitutionalist it is.) I'm tempted to rant about the rational and ethical incoherence of anti-Constitutional social conservatives, but I'll reluctantly forego the temptation at this time as I'm analyzing the poster, not evaluating the results of analysis.

The second assumption is obviously also completely incompatible with Libertarian and Constitutionalist thought. It is also a poor fit with social Conservatism, albeit not quite so intractably. The reason is that social Conservatives agree with classical theories of evil, and believe that moral choices are real choices with real consequences. "Guns cause crime" is a kind of Original Sin theory thoroughly at odds with ideas of objective moral guilt and Just consequences. It's an uneasy combination to believe that guns make decent people do bad things, but then believe that they have an objective moral guilt rather than simply being the victims that Liberal thought would make them. It is, however, compatible with Neocon thought, because it amounts to the belief that Government should do whatever is necessary to create a conservative society and should have no restraints in doing so.

I haven't tried to create a typology of liberal thought in the same way as I just used for Conservatives, and I probably should, but obviously both assumptions are compatible with most liberal's assumptions. Certainly the government has the power, because the Constitution is not an enduring definition of government's powers and limitations but a statement of social aspirations whose meaning is in the reader's response. It succeeded because the first readers found it expressed their loftiest sentiments, and while we have different sentiments because we have evolved beyond them morally we can read it subjectively and find in our response our own loftiest sentiments. Naturally, therefore, the government has all the powers necessary to implement our (the left's philosopher kings are the "our", of course, others are Outside and Excluded) current loftiest sentiments and goals.

Similarly, the second is compatible, because people are born ethically pure and innocent. The Origin of Evil is outside of man, taught to innocent, Edenic, tabula rasa children by a corrupted society. Therefore, the problem of evil is a problem of society (specifically the bad old society of the Hegelian thesis) and the answer to evil is in the perfecting of society (in particular, by the dialectic of creating new syntheses with as many features of the antithetical society of the left's leading edge as possible at any given time). It is probably not necessary to identify guns as the vector by which the perverted society of the thesis causes men to fall, but it is almost inevitable; one is conditioned to look for a means of social transmission of evil, and the mind naturally focuses on the iconic tools taught by movie and even by (I think) biological instinct.

Worse, guns are deeply associated with the thesis' concepts of manliness, because according to that society it is a man's duty to be prepared to defend neighbor and society, and according to our particular version of the antithesis men and the manly virtues are automatically the most deprecated part of the thesis. So if the identification of guns as the vector is not absolutely necessary, it is nearly inevitable. It agrees too well with the External theory of evil and the identification of masculine attributes as, at a minimum, the symptoms of an acute case of the disease.

There is just a hint of her operational theory of evil in the article; she mentions recycled guns being "a warning" to gun owners to stay within the law. This doesn't really help us, because both a neocon or a (modern) liberal could say that--the first is happy to warn all citizens of the iron-fisted consequences of defying The State, and the second is happy to warn the slaves of the bad old society of the thesis to "get out of the way if you can't lend a hand." The modern left has an Iron Fist too, it just shakes it in a different direction.

How to distinguish? Well, another article was in favor of military tribunals. Now, I am not commenting on them either legally or ethically at this time, but that is in practice a neocon position and not a leftist position (of course, under other circumstances that would change because the left certainly believes they have the power to use "any means necessary" if it furthers the fight against the Right and would certainly use military tribunals against the Right if given the opportunity). So I conclude that she is most probably a neocon. Her only real difference with the left is in terms of the goals for which the unlimited power of the state should be used, not in terms of what those powers are. Both believe in the omnipotent State, in an American version of Parliamentary Supremacy. They simply disagree on the policy that this omnipotent state should implement.

I can easily live with Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and real Social Conservatives. But in this case I agree with Don--Preserve us, O Lord, from the fury of the Northmen Neocons who ravage our coasts and plunder our ideology. I'm very tired of having my choices limited to which version of the Omnipotent State I prefer as my Overlord. :chris:

7x57

[artherd]

Bill - it only annoys the pig! ;)

[DDT]

The rebar fashioned out of the 12 thousand guns TAMCO melted into uselessness last year helped build, among other structures, the Staples Center and the New York, New York Casino in Las Vegas. They also used it to repair the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco and various earthquake damaged freeways.

NY NY casino was opened in 1997, Staples Center in 1999, the Loma Prieta Earthquake was in 1989.


I wonder what year "last year" supposedly was? Recycling articles or just making stuff up?

[Glock22Fan]

I got a response from the woman:

MAY I SUGGEST THAT . . . IF MY SITE ANNOYS YOU, YOU FIND ANOTHER ONE TO READ!

I guess I touched a nerve.

I replied:

May I suggest that if you want to report things, you engage your brain?

Her email is DiDimond@verizon.net if anyone has any comments to make to her.

[wildhawker]

NY NY casino was opened in 1997, Staples Center in 1999, the Loma Prieta Earthquake was in 1989.


I wonder what year "last year" supposedly was? Recycling articles or just making stuff up?

Without extensive work at the foundry, the byproduct of gun meltdowns would not become either cast iron manhole covers or structural alloys. I wonder how much energy is being expended and pollution being adding to the atmosphere for these types of efforts (think: power generation & trasmission, freight by rail and tractor/trailer, consumption and emmisions at plant, distribution to other founderies/casting yards, distribution to retail or stocking facilities, etc...).

How much benefit are we receiving for this cost? Where's the upside?

If they had to complete and submit an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) like so many other sectors and initiatives must, meltdown proponents would be laughed out of the room.

[Faust]

You made your point extremely well IMO, wish I could do so well.
Good job sir.

[luvtolean]

How would she feel if we did the same thing with cars? A bad guy steals a car, it's held in evidence with no real effort to find the owner and then it's destroyed. Good enough for guns, good enough for cars

Congress did that too, haven't you seen the Cash For Clunkers news?

Of course, the bad guy is those of us who didn't buy Priuses but...

[nick]

Don, as an aside, you can't auction guns on Ebay. They're very anti-gun.

[motorhead]

i nioticed the comments are screened. more fud for the sheeple. bread and circuses.

[Glock22Fan]

i noticed the comments are screened. more fud for the sheeple. bread and circuses.

She responded to my last email (see above) screaming:

I DON'T CARE, MR. (deleted).

To which I replied, of course she cared, because otherwise she wouldn't be screaming.

I note that her last comment referred to "vitriolic attacks" and I'm guessing she's referring, at least in part, to me.

However, the only thing I said which she has screened out was in my response to:

And, its an Op-Ed column, Chris. Its not an investigative piece. I know the difference as I've done both for years. ~ DD

I pointed out that when an article was run under the banner "Investigative Reporter and Author Diane Dimond" then it was disingenious, and symptomatic of the problems of modern journalism, to avoid having to do investigations merely by mentally classifying the article as an Op-Ed.

This is a vitiolic attack?

Why do I care? Well, I don't really.