In the wake of the Omaha mall mass killing, you just knew idiots like Glenn Reynolds and Neal Boortz would see that the solution to this gun violence is what they always say it is: turn everywhere in America into Tombstone. They never think like a normal person and consider whether it is wise, as a society, for us to give out mass-kill weapons to everyone with the equivalent of a Mickey Mouse Club card and just hope for the best.
Idiots.
Here’s how to test the gun advocates’ seriousness on this matter. (Gun advocates are even different than people who generally support 2nd amendment rights — they think guns are the solution, not a right.)
(1) The gun advocates continually argue that the possession of firearms makes it more likely that innocent people can defend themselves from violent crimes.
(2) The most likely victims of violent crimes are impoverished inner city black and Hispanic residents.
(3) Therefore, if gun advocates were serious about using the magic of gun possession to protect the innocent from violent crimes…
…they would advocate or even create for themselves programs to provide firearm ownership and safe use training to impoverished inner city black and Hispanic residents.
If they are not willing to do so, it is because they only intend their arguments to apply when they apply to an imagined innocent *white* population.
Sounds good to me, El Cid… after all, an armed society is a polite society.
But back to Oliver’s main point… the shooter in Omaha was legally forbidden from possessing a gun at all, and the mall was posted as a “gun-free” zone. And we see just how well those laws worked out here — pretty much as well as they did at Virginia Tech. Short version: disarm the innocent and give the guilty a safe hunting ground.
If you need more evidence, Google up the Luby’s Massacre in Texas. At least one of the people in there had locked their gun in their truck out of respect for the restaurant’s policy — and had to watch as her parents were killed.
Could she have stopped the killer? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing we DO know is that she never had the chance to try to save the innocent.
For the record: don’t own any guns, never have, probably never will — no real interest. But I believe the 2nd Amendment is pretty damned clear. If people have problems with that, then let them pass an amendment changing the language.
J.
Yes, they should get rid of that “well-regulated militia” garbage in the middle of the amendment, it keeps interfering with the ability of people outside of a well-regulated militia to get a gun whenever they choose.
Right?
… after all, an armed society is a polite society
Ah, if only we could experience the politeness so prevelant in Baghdad.
Come visit sunny Brazil, where the rich evade all income taxes, live behind high walls, and have to helicommute to work to avoid being kidnapped and held for ransom! Where no visit to the bank is complete without passing by the friendly guards holding loaded shotguns! With the highest per-capita ownership of armored cars anywhere in the world! Where the only thing weaker than the federal government is the respect people have for gun control and environmental laws! Brazil: on the surface it’s a European social welfare state, but scratch that surface and it’s a conservative utopia!
After all, an armed society is a polite society!
These are my thoughts, nothing more, nothing less. In some ways, I think this is similar to the debate over abstinence- based sex education. Yes, if people never have sex, they will not get pregnant and will not contract sexually transmitted diseases. The problem, of course, is getting people to become abstinent.
Yes, if law-abiding citizens have weapons at the time some maniac begins shooting then, if they can remain cool and collected and shoot the maniac before he/she shoots them, then innocent lives will be saved. The question, again is, is this what will actually happen?
I’ve owned a gun for 35 years. I like to target shoot but don’t hunt (a personal choice, I’m not opposed to it). I live in a city which permits carrying a concealed weapon. I don’t carry because I don’t think I could remain calm and focused enough to draw and fire at someone.
The ideal solution would be to find a way so that law abiding citizens could have access to weapons and criminals wouldn’t. That, unfortunately is a pipe dream here.
There’ s the concept of “harm reduction” in public health which essentially recognizes that the preferred solution isn’t always practical, and taking steps to reduce risks, while not as desireable as eliminating risks altogether, is better than doing nothing. Thus, the emphasis on condom use, which while not 100% effective in contrast to abstinence, might be more practical given human nature.
I don’t know what the right balance is with regard to gun control vs. the right to bear arms. The 2nd Amendment isn’t clear in my opinion. There’s a great deal of controversy over the meaning of the phrase “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state…” My own take is that it means people have a right to bear arms in order to serve as a check on the the threat posed by an unregulated militia.
Jay Tea may be right. Maybe the 2nd Amendment does need to be repealed or at least clarified, which is something George Will has called for.
Before I could legally drive a car, I had to pass a test. Periodically, I have to re-take that test and prove I am still a) familiar with the laws regarding driving and b) capable of safely operating the vehicle.
If I wish to drive a different kind of vehicle (motorcycle, truck, etc.) I have to take more exams and prove that I know what I’m doing.
So…. why not require something similar for guns? Why not require anyone who wants a gun to pass an exam demonstrating they know the rules regarding guns how to properly use the gun?
In any discussions I’ve gotten into regarding guns, I have yet to hear a good reason.
I’m totally on board with better gun education, which is what a responsible NRA chapter is supposed to encourage. As it is now, however, the NRA, like the GOP, is teeming with extremist nuts–people who could care less about the responsibility that comes with power and are simply intoxicated by the power itself. These are the people who take even the most reasonable gun control legislation–”say, let’s not allow kids to buy Uzi’s at gun shows” as a sign of impending totalitarianism.
A responsible NRA doesn’t let Ted Nugent speak for it anymore than a responsible GOP lets Tom Tancredo speak for it. But there you go.
I’m just curious what Glenn Reynolds has done to make the University of Tennessee a facility that encourages its staff, students, faculty, and visitors to legally carry guns.
Does anyone know if he has taken any steps to make sure his institution is taking a leading role in this battle?
It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in “gun free” zones is well-established at this point, and I don’t see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free.
In the meantime, QIAB, is this your firstest ever typo prevelant?
“In the meantime, QIAB, is this your firstest ever typo prevelant?”
Just say it’s the British spelling.
It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them.
That’s the break between the goal and the proposed solution that always seems to occur when discussing guns. A goal, such as protecting patrons, is re-stated as and equated to making sure they are able to defend themselves. And any further discussion is focussed on how they protect themselves (e.g., let’s arm them), not how they are protected from harm (e.g., let’s not let anyone have guns).
By the way, do all of these gun advocates imagine the perfect circumstances for this armed public defense?
You know, there are several well trained, calm, well-positioned people and one isolated, clearly targeted attacker, whom they can nicely shoot and save the day?
What happens when things are confusing and a bunch of pistol toting confused mall goers freak out and start shooting anywhere they think the shots are coming from?
(Note: this scenario doesn’t only apply to the lone crazed “I’ll show them” shooters. It also applies to the boyfriend coming to gun down his ex girlfriend or a spontaneous argument erupting into violence by people who now, in true gun advocate fashion, are all packin’ heat.)
And then the cops arrive and there are dozens of freaked out and badly wounded people waving guns around and shooting at each other.
Sounds like paradise to me. Mmmmm - hmmmm.
is this your firstest ever typo prevelant?
Oh, heck no. I’m pretty bad at both typpping and speeeling.
Before I could legally drive a car, I had to pass a test. Periodically, I have to re-take that test and prove I am still a) familiar with the laws regarding driving and b) capable of safely operating the vehicle.
If I wish to drive a different kind of vehicle (motorcycle, truck, etc.) I have to take more exams and prove that I know what I’m doing.
Actually, a license to operate a vehicle is not required if you’re going to drive on your own land. Only when you’re going to drive on public roads are you required to have a license and take a test.
I don’t think there’s a state around that allows a gun owner to carry without going through a state certified training course and getting a license to do so.
Spider, you’re using the same kind of language that politicians use. Define ‘reasonable gun control’ legislation. It’s a very subjective term. And I cannot understand why the slippery slope argument is valid when used for any kind of restrictions on things like free speech, but to bring up the same argument for gun control is to label one an “extremist.”
As for all the wild west, crazy shootout between citizens predictions, they’ve all been made before. When Florida was going to start allow citizens to carry concealed weapons they were out in full force talking about bringing the state back to the days of the wild west. More recently, gun control advocates lamented the changing of laws that said people had to run for their lives instead of protecting themselves because people would be getting into shootouts on the street.
Guess what? Neither dire prediction came true. So all of the pontificating about people just firing randomly all over the place is absurd. The people who I know who carry guns are well trained in using them and understand the dangers in just whipping it out and firing rounds if something were to happen. You guys on that side of the argument need to start PROVING that such dire and horrendous things have happened where carry laws have expanded in order to be credible. My guess however, is that you cannot do so.
The people who I know who carry guns are well trained in using them and understand the dangers in just whipping it out and firing rounds if something were to happen.
That’s great and I support your acquaintances. The problem is that not enough emphasis is placed upon making this training and understanding a priority. The commerce and trade takes first priority, the responsibility takes a back seat–shoot first, ask questions later, if you will.
And I cannot understand why the slippery slope argument is valid when used for any kind of restrictions on things like free speech, but to bring up the same argument for gun control is to label one an “extremist.”
Because of things like common sense, Jay. Are you in fact advocating that all gun laws are oppressive and should be abolished? Do you see no reason why allowing an angry teenager to purchase a handgun through a loophole is problematic? I doubt you do, but your statement seems to go that way.
“So all of the pontificating about people just firing randomly all over the place is absurd.”
Point taken. There haven’t been large scale shootouts(and I was one of the ones who thought there would be). But there have been plenty of smaller scale incidents. There’ve been more than one story locally of children killed when caught in the fire of a driveby shooting. Not to mention all kinds of road rage incidents, domestic shootings, etc. Recently, we had someone shoot someone else because the victim’s feet smelled.
Two years ago I had the two passenger windows in my car shot out, apparently by someone driving by and shooting at random. The shots went through my car, across the parking lot of the convenince store I park in front of, through their door, and came to lodge in the wall just above their soda machine. If I had been in my car or someone had been in the store, we could have been killed (I definitely would have been).
Again, it’s a question of how to make sure the good guys can have weapons (and making sure they don’t misuse them) and the bad guys can’t. Though in this case, I don’t see how my being armed would have prevented anything.
Doesn’t anyone remember the incident a few years ago when two groups of plain clothes police shot it out with each other in the New York subway?
The white officer, running onto a scene where a black undercover cop was holding a white suspect at gunpoint, naturally shot the black man.
Four times.
Twice in the back, as he lay on the floor.
Of course, the highly trained, professional law enforcement officers of New York’s finest have also emptied dozens of rounds into unarmed, law abiding (did I mention black) citizens, even reloading in the process, so perhaps we don’t want to use highly trained law enforcement officers as a standard of excellence in gun use.