KQED Perspectives: Gun Control

[johnny_22]

Another anti-gun lecture from a listener of KQED:

http://www.kqed.org/a/perspectives/R201205140735

My favorite quote is toward the end:

"The giant beast of gun manufacture is beyond stopping at this point. The only hope is that it kills itself on its own gluttony."

Gee, like unemployment is not a problem right now, and we can afford to kill more jobs!

[SanPedroShooter]

I think he actually getting close to the core of a pro gun argument. His major problem is confusing gun sales with 'gun violence', and as we have seen for a decade, gun sales and right to carry do not increase crime. In fact, I am suprised he doesnt mention the low crime rate relative to the increase in gun sales.

99% of those '9 out of ten' gun owners relative to the population will never shoot anything but steel and clays....

Parity is the goal, not with each other, but with criminals and government. Of course, if you are talking about small arms, we already outnumber the official sanctioned purveyors of violence by millions...

An armed and relatively free people is the end result.

Another point. No one forces me to buy a gun, or several, a year. What he is angry about, is that his neighbors are exercising their rights....

I think the author just doesnt really understand the issue. His perspective is tainted by 'books and movies'. Does what happens in Oakland California, a city with some of the most restrictive and apparently useless gun laws on books say anything about a national trend? Has the writer ever even fired a gun? I give this article a C for effort and because there is no histrionic raving about 'assault weapons' or 'clips' or 'gun show loopholes' (WTF?) or any other hand wringing nonsense.

[SilverTauron]

America is a place where the person holding the gun ultimately wins the argument, and therefore, maybe the best option for those of us sick of gun violence is to simply give up.

Well kids, the Emperor might be realizing he's a little "out of uniform".

We don't have the disarmament lobby on the ropes yet,but the sweat is in the eye and fatigue is setting in.

[USMCM16A2]

KQED

Guys,



The author as has been pointed out, seems to equate gun sales with gun violence. That's like saying be increase in car sales mean more accidents are going to happen. The only approach that will work with these people is as Oaklander has pointed out is the truth via education, or getting the **** sued out of them in court. These people are supposed be educated and intelligent, but I guess objectivity gets thrown out. A2

[Scarecrow Repair]

Gun grabbers are easy to understand if you believe that human life is so sacred that it's better to not resist a criminal, even if the odds are 100:1 that you will die anyway, because that 1% chance of you living is better than the 0% chance that the criminal will live if you shoot him.

I think it's a ridiculous argument mainly because the criminal made the choice to introduce the possibility of death and deserves no sympathy from me. But that's how gun grabbers think, and given that attitude, they are not as loony as they seem. They really do think that if there are no legal guns, even if criminals still have guns, they won't feel as inclined to use them, and there will be fewer deaths.

[Mulay El Raisuli]

Gun grabbers are easy to understand if you believe that human life is so sacred that it's better to not resist a criminal, even if the odds are 100:1 that you will die anyway, because that 1% chance of you living is better than the 0% chance that the criminal will live if you shoot him.

I think it's a ridiculous argument mainly because the criminal made the choice to introduce the possibility of death and deserves no sympathy from me. But that's how gun grabbers think, and given that attitude, they are not as loony as they seem. They really do think that if there are no legal guns, even if criminals still have guns, they won't feel as inclined to use them, and there will be fewer deaths.

Its actually worse than that. They really & truly believe that its better that they die rather than kill to defend their own life. Since they really & truly believe that this is the more moral course, they believe that you should die rather than defend your own life, too.

If this sounds cynical, maybe it is. But the one thing I learned from those books and movies is that when everyone has a gun pointed at everyone else, we either all win or all lose.

Well, we're not all "pointing" at everyone, but he IS right. We are all together on this. The beauty of this is that the return of the 2A will mean that we will all (even Mr. Bloch), win in the end.


The Raisuli

[ja308]

A few questions come to mind regarding this perspecive .
Should elected official be protected by bodyguards carring guns?

#2 How is it a mentally ill person gets a radio show ?

#3 Will this person advertise ,at his home that he does not believe in RKBA therefore NOGUNS here
Sadly this mental defective probably gets his 30 seconds of fame by spewing this police state victim mentality.
Those who fought one of the most brutal wars in history (Revolutionary War) would spit on this democrat dimwit.

[ewarmour]

rash of infants killed by random gun fire

wtf? Is he talking about Syria?

F-ing idiots with the same tired weak arguments. Not an original thought in that guys head.

I hope the all give up. Quit fighting! The was is over and we won!

[Jason_2111]

Once they starting making guns that smell like patchouli and are painted with rainbows, these liberal hoplophobes will go back to something that really matters... like saving the planet from grocery store plastic bags.

[Fish]

Just Posted a Reply

Your statement that "America is a place where the person holding the gun ultimately wins the argument" is true. Where you're wrong is your implication and apparent belief that there's some other place where that isn't true.

I don't often quote Chairman Mao -- he's responsible for the deaths of more human beings than all but a handful of people in the whole of recorded history -- but one doesn't become the leader of the most populous nation on earth without having at least some grasp of politics, power, and the human condition. One of his famous maxims is that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". He goes on to exhort his cadres to always remember that the reason his party is able to to exert control over the country is precisely because his party commands the gun. "All things grow out of the barrel of a gun."

Both you and Chairman Mao are absolutely right: the unpleasant truth is that every human society, America included, is a place where people who have the means to wield physical force have power over those who do not. This is true at the immediate, personal level, as when faced with an intruder in one's home, but it's also true for a society as a whole. Alongside the more immediate, personal considerations of defending self, home, and family, an important but less-discussed goal of the firearm rights movement is to retain this fundamental basis of political power where it belongs, in the hands of the people, not for us today who live in a relatively peaceful, stable democracy that is generally respectful of fundamental rights, but for future generations and whatever issues they may face.

Mr. Bloch, if you would not have the people wielding that power, then whom?

[Clownpuncher]

maybe the best option for those of us sick of gun violence is to simply give up

Yes, please. Life would be so much simpler without having to deal with your out of touch theory. If you gave up, more law abiding citizens would/could utilize their guns to stop gun violence.

It's a simple math equation. Where with only one gun there is a winner and a loser, now there will be stalemate

I disagree, it will then come down to accuracy.

Sturm, Ruger and Company had so many gun requests in the first quarter of this year that they had to temporarily suspend new orders

And that is a beautiful thing. Expand the industry, hire people, bring manufacturing back to America

Les Bloch is a writer and construction project manager

A construction project manager? Ok, now the rant makes perfect sense.

[CBruce]

That's like saying be increase in car sales mean more accidents are going to happen.

Technically, it would. More cars on the road means more automobile-related accidents. That's how percentages work. Arguably, more cars would lead to more traffic and increase the percentage of accidents as well as the total number. It would also increase the number of car-related accidetns, such as pedestrians or cyclists struck and killed by cars.

I can't say there would be a similiar increase in likelihood of gun-related deaths from more owners. But logically, I see no reason why the chance would go down. So simple math tells us that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens would equate to more deaths. Again, it's simple percentages. If 0.7% (number taken from CDC querry) of deaths were caused by some sort of accident with a firearm, then increasing the amount of gun owners by 10% means means a 10% increase in total deaths due to accidents alone.

Now, does that mean we need more gun control laws? No. Aboslutely not. But it also means we can't stick our fingers in our ears and refuse to accept a simple, logical supposition because it contradicts our opinion on the broader subject.

[PhalSe]

CBruce that's a good point that isn't acknowledged much by our side. I assume at least partly because we realize that the %10 increase in accidental deaths would be accompanied by a %10 increase in defensive gun uses. %10 of an estimated 2.5M yearly is a pretty big number.

[chiselchst]

Technically, it would. More cars on the road means more automobile-related accidents. That's how percentages work. Arguably, more cars would lead to more traffic and increase the percentage of accidents as well as the total number. It would also increase the number of car-related accidetns, such as pedestrians or cyclists struck and killed by cars.

Is that correct? Maybe more licensed drivers, but simply more cars? As with more guns, that doesn't always equate to more gun owners in the same percentage change...

I own more than one vehicle, but a hell of a lot more guns...and I'm not done yet.

[Jason_2111]

You'll never get the liberal media to understand (or admit) the difference between causation and correlation. It's just that simple.

Scared of guns + more guns = More scared of more guns.