Home Guns, Guns, Guns
Home Guns, Guns, Guns

Guns, Guns, Guns

If you're the biblically minded sort, then the trouble began when a jealous Cain clubbed Abel to death, but if you're evolutionarily minded, then it's a 'chicken and egg' question. Violence had no beginning, except perhaps in the Big Bang, it was always here, coded into the DNA. If people are just grown-up animals, more articulate versions of the creatures who eat each other's young, and sometimes their own young, there is as much use in wondering about the nature of evil as there is in trying to understand why a killer whale kills.

But debating how many devils can dance on the head of a pinhead is largely useless. We are not a particularly violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends a great deal of time wondering what kind of man would murder children. They probably live next door to him. For that matter, if your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to any number of war criminals, all the way from Eastern Europe to Asia to Africa.

The issue isn't really guns. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia.

The obsession with guns, rather than machetes, stone clubs, crossbows or that impressive weapon of mass death, the longbow (just ask anyone on the French side of the Battle of Agincourt) is really the obsession with human agency. It's not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of social control that the killing sprees imply.

Mass death isn't the issue. After September 11, the same righteous folks calling for the immediate necessity of gun control were not talking about banning planes or Saudis, they were quoting statistics about how many more people die of car accidents each year than are killed by terrorists. As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy; three thousand deaths can always be minimized by comparing them to some even larger statistic.

The gun issue is the narrative. It's not about death or children; it's about control. It's about confusing object and subject. It's about guns that shoot people and people that are irrevocably tugged into pulling the trigger because society failed them, corporations programmed them and not enough kindly souls told them that they loved them.

Mostly it's about people who are sheltered from the realities of human nature trying to build a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren't. A society where everyone is drawing unicorns on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.

After every shooting there are more zero tolerance policies in schools that crack down on everything from eight-year olds making POW POW gestures with their fingers to honor students bringing Tylenol and pocket knives to school. And then another shooting happens and then another one and they wouldn't happen if we just had more zero tolerance policies for everyone and everything.

But evil just can't be controlled. Not with the sort of zero tolerance policies that confuse object with subject, which ban pocket knives and finger shootings to prevent real shootings. That brand of control isn't authority, it's authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more school shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.

Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the countless numbers of security guards, including those who protect banks and armored cars, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control, not to mention park rangers, ambulance drivers in the ghetto and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you're sure to stop all shootings.

So long as none of those millions of people, or their tens of millions of kids, spouses, parents, grandchildren, girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and anyone else who has access to them and their living spaces, carries out one of those shootings.

But this isn't really about stopping shootings; it's about controlling when they happen. It's about making sure that everyone who has a gun is in some kind of chain of command. It's about the belief that the problem isn't evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop. Or if it doesn't stop, then at least there will be someone higher up in the chain of command to blame. Either way authority is sanctified, control or the illusion of it, maintained.

We'll never know the full number of people who were killed by Fast and Furious. We'll never know how many were killed by Obama's regime change operation in Libya, with repercussions in Mali and Syria. But everyone involved in that was following orders. There was no individual agency, just agencies. No lone gunman who just decided to go up to a school and shoot kids. There were orders to run guns to Mexico and the cartel gunmen who killed people with those guns had orders to shoot. There was nothing random or unpredictable about it. Or as the Joker put it, "Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying."

Gun control is the assertion that the problem is not the guns; it's the lack of a controlling authority for all those guns. It's the individual. A few million people with little sleep, taut nerves and PTSD are not a problem so long as there is someone to give them orders. A hundred million people with guns and no orders is a major problem. Historically though it's millions of people with guns who follow orders who have been more of a problem than millions of people with guns who do not.

Moral agency is individual. You can't outsource it to a government and you wouldn't want to. The bundle of impulses, the codes of character, the concepts of right and wrong, take place at the level of the individual. Organizations do not sanctify this process. They do not lift it above its fallacies, nor do they even do a very good job of keeping sociopaths and murderers from rising high enough to give orders. Organizations are the biggest guns of all, and some men and women who make Lanza look like a man of modestly murderous ambitions have had their fingers on their triggers and still do.

Gun control will not really control guns, but it will give the illusion of controlling people, and even when it fails those in authority will be able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.

We live under the rule of organizers, community and otherwise, whose great faith is that the power to control men and their environment will allow them to shape their perfect state into being, and the violent acts of lone madmen are a reminder that such control is fleeting, that utopia has its tigers, and that attempting to control a problem often makes it worse by removing the natural human crowdsourced responses that would otherwise come into play.

The clamor for gun control is the cry of sheltered utopians believing that evil is a substance as finite as guns, and that getting rid of one will also get rid of the other. But evil isn't finite and guns are as finite as drugs or moonshine whiskey, which is to say that they are as finite as the human interest in having them is. And unlike whiskey or heroin, the only way to stop a man with a gun is with a gun.

People do kill people and the only way to stop people from killing people is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything, but to everyone else, it's just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word.

Anyone who really hankers after a world without guns would do well to try the 14th Century, the 1400 years ago or the 3400 years ago variety, which was not a nicer place for lack of guns, and the same firepower that makes it possible for one homicidal maniac to kill a dozen unarmed people, also makes it that much harder to recreate a world where one man in armor can terrify hundreds of peasants in boiled leather armed with sharp sticks.

The longbow was the first weapon to truly begin to level the playing field, putting serious firepower in the hands of a single man. In the Battle of Crecy, a few thousand English and Welsh peasants with longbows slew thousands of French knights and defeated an army of 30,000. Or as the French side described it, "It is a shame that so many French noblemen fell to men of no value." Crecy, incidentally, also saw one of the first uses of cannon.

Putting miniature cannons in the hands of every peasant made the American Revolution possible. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would have meant very little without an army of ordinary men armed with weapons that made them a match for the superior organization and numbers of a world power.

At the Battle of Bunker Hill, 2,400 American rebels faced down superior numbers and lost the hill, but inflicted over a 1,000 casualties, including 100 British commissioned officers killed or wounded, leading to General Clinton's observation, "A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America."

This was done with muskets, the weapon that gun control advocates assure us was responsible for the Second Amendment because the Founders couldn't imagine all the "truly dangerous" weapons that we have today.

And yet would Thomas Jefferson, the abiding figurehead of the Democratic Party, who famously wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", really have shuddered at the idea of peasants with assault rifles, or would he have grinned at the playing field being leveled some more?

The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.

Do we want a society run by the flower of chivalry, who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The flower of chivalry can promise us a utopian world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.

It isn't really guns that the gun controllers are afraid of, it's a country where individual agency is still superior to organized control, where things are unpredictable because the trains don't run on time and orders don't mean anything. But chivalry is dead. The longbow and the cannon killed it and no charge of the light brigade can bring it back. And we're better for it.

Evil may find heavy firepower appealing, but the firepower works both ways. A world where the peasants have assault rifles is a world where peasant no longer means a man without any rights. And while it may also mean the occasional brutal shooting spree, those sprees tend to happen in the outposts of utopia, the gun-free zones with zero tolerance for firearms. An occasional peasant may go on a killing spree, but a society where the peasants are all armed is also far more able to stop such a thing without waiting for the men-at-arms to be dispatched from the castle.

An armed society spends more time stopping evil than contemplating it. It is the disarmed society that is always contemplating it as a thing beyond its control. Helpless people must find something to think about while waiting for their lords to do something about the killing. Instead of doing something about it themselves, they blame the agency of the killer in being free to kill, rather than their own lack of agency for being unable to stop him.

Comments

  1. Yes and no, strict gun control like in The Netherlands where I live, does not prevent hardened criminals from carrying even though their use of guns in robberies is relatively low because they do not have to fear that their subject carries and equalizes them. Mentally unstable seldom if not never(a random shooting in a mall by a legall permit perpetrator did happen) have access to a gun or a knife wider than hand width (also forbidden to be carried) in the public space, police has the right of preventive body search in sensitive areas of the city (bar & night clubs). Normal people that get aggressive as they can't hold their liquor never shoot others in a bar brawl, middle-finger raisers who have cut in front of others in traffic are not shot at. Heated arguments are not solved by a shoot-out. These are all the advantages of strict gun laws. Of course arguments against exist, the Dutch public can not violently overthrow a repressive government (had it become such), ambulance and fire-truck staff can not defend themselves from being seriously harassed by the people they try to help. Robbers escape with their loot without chance of at least having to remove shot-gun pellets out of their butts. In general however the Dutch do prefer it this way rather than the American way and do remember The Netherlands was the first republic, called The Seven United Provinces, after having fought for it's freedom from Spanish royal rule in the 80 year war from 1568 till 1648.

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    1. Anonymous16/12/12

      Interesting perspective, thanks. So long as it works for the Netherlands, who's to say this is wrong? I wonder though, when and if it fails, though, through massive civil disorder, climbing crime rates, foreign invasion, or government repression, what recourse will Dutch citizens have?

      In the US we do not have the option of reconstructing society along these lines. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in private hands and no legislation and/or enforcement action would ever eliminate enough of them to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, terrorists, or other sociopaths. Indeed, since it is the foundation of our liberty and a constitutional right, any serious attempt at confiscation would lead to massive disorder and the probable collapse of our civil society. So we must approach the "problem" such as it is, in a uniquely American fashion, and Mr. Greenfield's thoughts are quite cogent.

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  2. Addition to my comment an interesting view from the Jewish press:
    http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-us-should-learn-from-israel-how-to-permit-not-outlaw-guns/2012/12/16/

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  3. Banning drugs simply made it more profitable. Same with alcohol.
    The same would be true of weapons.
    And of course, the bad guys will always have access to weapons no matter how illegal they might be made.

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  4. Sultan after sharing a last thought on guns I prommiss I'll stop on the subject! In my youth as member of a gun club I had handguns, all official on my permit, amongst which a .38 Derringer which I kept loaded (in case of burglars....) in my cupboard. However once a cleaning woman cleaned that cupboard and the gun fell on it's hammer resulting in an accidental discharge leaving to her and my luck only a hole in the cupboard and the ceiling and one very upset lady......

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  5. All this talk about gun control makes me angry. Why in heavens name don't they have a fence around the schools and a guard at the gate? An ounce of prevention perhaps....

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  6. Anonymous16/12/12

    Well said! Pity the hand wringers digress.

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  7. I don't go anywhere without a gun. I grew up in a city that has the most dangerous neighborhoods in America (Cincinnati). I've stopped a violent assault on myself and a loved one, just by letting the bad guy know I was armed and would kill him. I never showed him the gun. It was behind my back and ready to fire. He believed me and fled. Lucky for him. The schools don't have armed guards anymore because the government took the money away in their budget cuts. Politician kids are safe in their patrician schools but the peasants sometimes become victims. You can't stop a psycho when he is ready to blow, and blaming guns is ridiculous. A gun like the longbow at Agincourt is a tool, and if used when needed can save lives. A psycho will use any tool if he can't get a gun so the argument against guns (Hollywood stars and politicians all seem to need people with guns protecting them, but that's different they say)is stupid. I read a newspaper from Scotland where they outlawed guns. Now all the people stab each other to death. I agree that the entire issue is about control so the peasants can't rise up and slaughter the socialist leaders.

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  8. Having a gun usually works best, but also it always puzzled me why most people tend to underestimate and ignore a plethora of very effective non-lethal protective means.

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  9. If there is a "gun culture" in America today, it's encouraged by the government's obliterating every little nook and cranny of an individual's freedom. The current administration is stoking the fires of "class" and "race" warfare, so many people are buying guns to defend themselves if things really go crazy, and also to defend themselves against government goons enforcing new prohibitions, such as on speech. On an historical note, even before war broke out between the colonials and the British, the British sought to outlaw the import of French-made muskets and, more importantly, the possession of rifles (not muskets) by colonials, which were far more deadly than muskets. And, of course, everyone's focusing on the Sandy Hook massacre, but the MSM isn't talking about all the massacres by Muslims via bombs, poison, swords and knives of others in all those "gun free" zones around the world. If the colonials lived in a "gun free" zone, there would've been no Revolution. Guns are good for retaliatory force, and that force wasn’t there to protect the children and teaches at Sandy Hook school. Lastly, the only forces armed in a "gun free" zone are the authorities and the lawless. So, why is it so difficult to grasp that criminals by nature flout the law and find ways to obtain what's forbidden? Guns do not possess aphrodisiacal powers to take over an individual's mind and cause him to shoot people. And, gun controls infer that everyone's nuts and shouldn't be trusted with firearms of any kind.

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  10. Guns are how we misspell evil.

    One of the best lines I have ever read. Thank you.

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  11. Elisandra16/12/12

    The liberals and "progressives" claim they're making the world a better place, but when I was a kid, back when right and wrong still existed, and crimes weren't excused away by blaming the chosen weapon or not enough hugs in childhood, we didn't need armed guards and metal detectors in schools.

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  12. This entire argument is a red herring. The SOLE purpose of the Second Ammendment is to prevent tyranny by ensuring that the People as a group always outgun the combined Armed Forces of the United States. We have already moved far away from the intent of the Second Ammendment by banning private ownership of indirect fire, antitank and aircraft weaponry, not to mention fully automatic firearms. The would-be Stalins and Hitlers of the Democratic party are just trying to finish the job of disarming us all by banning even the pitiful pea-shooters our lords and masters still permit us to possess. Because even today, with the public helpless against the government's tanks and helicopter gunships, the 200 million pistols and 100 million long guns in private hands still make it impossible for the jackbooted thugs of the totalitarian police state to control any ground but that directly underneath their feet.

    In 1776, the majority of artillery in America was in private hands. When the liberals quote Jefferson, they do so hypocritically, because they cannot quote Lenin and Stalin, their true sources of emulation. Jefferson today would be a member of the NRA, not the Brady Campaign.

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  13. Jefferson would think the NRA were sellouts and that the Hamiltonian elites were crushing the countryside and destroying the spirit of America

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  14. Excuse me, did you say "ambulance drivers"? We'd appreciate proper titles like police officers & firefighters are accorded in the media. For most of us Emergency Medical Technician/EMT or Paramedic/Medic is appropriate. EMS (Emergency Medical Service) works for all of us and is nice and short too.

    As for us carrying guns "in the ghetto", it's not particularly common around NYC, but then again, but that's because of the draconian gun laws here, not because some of us wouldn't choose to if it weren't a path to legal nightmares.

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  15. Anonymous16/12/12

    There is another way to look at this.

    http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.ca/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html?m=1


    "A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
    ...

    I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness."

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    1. Anonymous16/12/12

      Michael's Mother you are right. I worked in the field of education for the last seventeen years. My job started in M.H. then to E.D. now they are combining the two. It is like you said in your article. Glorified babysitters. Most of the people working that job have little to no education in that area. I totally agree we have to look harder at how we are treating and teaching our mentally challenged children, because they do grow to be bigger and stronger than we are. My heart goes out to you for the position we have put you in . I pray that congress will listen to you and others in your position to give you and your child better care and understanding.

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  16. Anonymous16/12/12

    As usual, you've hit it out of the park. This is a great piece that I intend to share with everyone I know who still has a mind and free will.

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  17. Anonymous16/12/12

    It is difficult to improve on Daniel's observations. We are surely headed toward becoming H.G. Wells' Eloi, tended and fatted for the Morlocks' dinner when the sun goes down. The Eloi knew only pleasure and enjoyment while the sun shone. They knew no better and blithely ignored their eventide fate. In our version, the Morlocks are played by the governing elites.

    Disarming the citizenry (already a tenuous descriptive term) turns them into sheep-like subjects. We are well on the way, in part because we allow ourselves to be manipulated by staged 'crises' to surrender still more individual rights in the name of "safety." Hans Hermann Hoppe, in "The Myth of National Security" well describes this scheme. The government security monopoly confiscates ever increasing (unlimited) amounts of wealth to provide an ever decreasing quality of a product called 'security,' all the while decimating individual liberty.

    Daniel alludes gently to the role of government in mass killings. In "Death By Government" one learns that 120million citizens (beyond those killed in wars) were murdered by their own governments in the 20th century. The agents of this evil, as Daniel says, were following orders. If you believe it could not happen here, you haven't read enough history, haven't understood what you have read, or are in denial of the capacity for human evil. The Second Amendment exists to forestall that possibility. So goes the Second Amendment, so goes any vestiges of individual liberty and dignity.

    Civil Westman

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  18. Anonymous16/12/12

    Perhaps, it is time to accept certain facts of life.As Dennis Miller stated some years ago, It may become necessary to literally 'cull' the herd in order to protect the innocents. We, my friends, have walking among us, scores of deviants, criminally insane, and those that are just plain evil, that exibit no potential for redemption nor ability or desire to give a damn about the lives of others. For too long we have been concerned about trying to be 'socially, and politicly correct' in our handling of same, all the while they prayed upon us, especialy targeting the young, the weak, the elderly, etc. Perhaps it is time to have a frank discussion.

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  19. Anonymous16/12/12

    This was an excellent read. Have posted for others to read. Thank you.

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  20. Would this shooter, or any other of the dirty little cowards who arm themselves and shoot innocent people, have been able to do what he did, if enough teachers in that school owned and carried guns and knew how to use them?

    Perhaps teachers by the nature of their profession woul be horrified by such a question but frankly, I believe that carrying weapons and being able to defend yourself and those you care about will be a necessity in the forseeable future.

    As far as gun control, both DG and those who commented above have analysed that well. I add that in my view if you scratch the surface of a gun control advocate, underneath you will find a potential tyrant looking to enslave their first victims.

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  21. Anonymous16/12/12

    Been my experience that (1) police take about 20 minutes to arrive when called and (2) drugs are illegal but you can get some on most any street in town.

    Just Sayin’ --

    Notice everyone in congress plans to keep their armed guards, they are just discussing disarming you - not them. It is good for you - not them, just like obamacare.

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  22. "Having a gun usually works best, but also it always puzzled me why most people tend to underestimate and ignore a plethora of very effective non-lethal protective means"


    An excellent point, Leo. Sadly, I find myself in urgent need of some sort of protection in my apartment (long story). I wouldn't resort to a gun but have found that bear spray is legal in all states and probably more powerful than regular pepper spray or cap-spray as cops call there form of it.

    But yes, all we have to do is watch Home Alone to see how to creatively protect oneself in one's home. Where there's a will there's a way.

    As for personal protection as required for my profession? I'm fair game. I accept that. Reporters don't carry guns. Even crime reporters.

    But the professionals most in need of lethal weapons are pizza deliverymen and convenience store clerks.

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  23. There's something very wrong in a world where schools have such little protection and a world where I had to be wanded by an armed guard at a sneak preview of a movie just to make sure I didn't have a recording device.

    As for these mass shootings--when people clamor for gun control etc. what they're really saying is who could have known? Chances are people in the lives of these killers had an inkling that something was wrong but ignored it.

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  24. there is a gigantic violence in the Netherlands, with and withour guns:

    http://www.blikop112.nl/

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  25. Thank you, Daniel, you are correct. The NRA are sellouts.

    The Anon talking about the Netherlands and all the folks of their type need to also remember the secondary purpose of the Second Amendment --providing for a national defense. When asked about invading the United States, Yamamoto replied "there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass". The Germans in 1900 also had not a doubt of their ability to overwhelm the US. Army and US Navy. It was the realization that every grown man in America had ready access to a rifle that put paid to the Case Orange contingency plan. For that matter, America's disastrous attempts to control Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate how little even a superpower possessing massive technological superiority can do against a determined people armed with the most basic of infantry weapons. America has drones, tanks, fighter jets, armored vehicles, eytc, etc. All the locals have are AKs, RPKs, PKs, RPGs and a whole lot of fertilizer. The Americans control nothing they do not physically occupy. Even what they occupy, they occupy insecurely. Between April and December, at least one American service member dies in Afghanistan pretty much EVERY SINGLE DAY. Think about this.

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  26. Our Constitution, WE are in trouble just like they said it would happen! Almost every person in this country is unaware, doesn't care, was not or is not educated well enough to understand it. We have a decision to make here with this gun control issue. It is a Constitutional issue and a freedom issue. We are able to do this together without the social, religious, and foreign policy conflicts. The more we yell at each other for any reason, the longer insanity will continue. It is obvious something happened and generations before did't see it or were bullied into this slavery. Either we ditch the Constitution completely and outlaw the document or we wise up and do something to unite the Union once more.

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  27. In 50's America the biggest problems schools faced were students chewing gum and talking in class.
    And then the elite with their evil agenda and their courts removed God,prayer and the Bible from the classroom.
    What we see in amoral America today is a direct result of removing God and darkness filling the void.
    How sad that Israel imitates a now corrupt,godless,perverted nation and still looks to it as a beacon of light.
    America is paying the price for our violent culture, from video games,TV and Hollywood.
    The death culture,the goth,the vampires,the occult,deviancy,you name it, are all acceptable and any mention of God or the Bible is verbotten in the classroom.
    Is it any wonder why innocent children are in ever growing danger in America.
    Tolerance for evil has replaced good common sense and opened the door wide to our destruction.

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  28. Thank you for hitting the nail on the head--again. God has blessed you with extraordinary perception.

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  29. @Chrysler 300M I never said there is NO crime in The Netherlands but like last Saturday's shooting that killed one, they are in most cases criminals shooting other criminals about sour drug deals or whatever criminals feel justified to murder one another it are not random outsiders that get shot.

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    1. Anonymous25/12/12

      As is the majority of gun crime is in the US.

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  30. Anonymous16/12/12

    OK - but you posted this gun^3 comment into coments about school children shootings. A comment made above seems more to the point:

    westbankmama said...
    All this talk about gun control makes me angry. Why in heavens name don't they have a fence around the schools and a guard at the gate? An ounce of prevention perhaps....
    16/12/12

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  31. Anonymous16/12/12

    Again, your insight and intelligence (and common sense) is amazing and refreshing.

    The battle we face today is a battle against those who deny the author of Evil, Satan, and so cannot speak its name.

    By denying evil and its source, man continues with the fallacy that if the right men had control over others, heaven on earth is possible.

    And this will be as it is until God determines it is time for Christ to return.

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  32. Suzanne Fleishman16/12/12

    The Netherlands is a filthy dirty hole of sex perversion and sin.
    They kill each other there with sex diseases and
    and politically correct conversation. So they don't need no guns.

    Marcel in the 50's school problems included zip guns, chains and heavy duty saps carried by students with greasy hair and leather jackets, you idiot.
    Gangs were everywhere. In NY alone you had the Fordham baldies, the Ducky Boys ,etc.
    What? You live under a rock somewhere?

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  33. Anonymous16/12/12

    Moshe said " Between April and December, at least one American service member dies in Afghanistan pretty much EVERY SINGLE DAY. Think about this."

    End the war then. They sign up for that.
    Newtown victims were babies. The best children in the world: American children.

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  34. Anonymous16/12/12

    "I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother."
    This is why God created abortion.

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  35. Anonymous16/12/12

    Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

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  36. Anonymous16/12/12

    Or another thought - 10000 plus americans shot - Europe less than 500 .. nope you are totally right gun control doesn't work plus we really need them guns cause you never know when we might have a native american uprising or a grizzly bear could come and tip over our outhouse when we are in there .. this is all so stupid

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  37. Well, I really don't see the purpose in regular civilians having assault weapons. Street cops definitely need more powerful weapons than 9 mm.


    As for personal protection, again, I'm going with bear spray. I honestly don't think I could fire a gun.

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  38. Anonymous17/12/12

    Keliaba you would see the need if we had a repeat of 1776 and you needed to fight against those weapons.
    Forbidding the patriot to have weapons is the first nail in the freedom of liberty in America.
    Thank God almighty America didn't agree with you back then.

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  39. Anonymous17/12/12

    First glance I thought the title was gums, gums, gums and I was expecting a post on oral hygiene.

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  40. Anonymous17/12/12

    A quick mental discussion:
    Me:"Okay if I give up my guns, can you guarantee that not one more gun murder will occur in the United States from that moment on?"
    Obama:"Nope, can't do that".
    Me:"Okay, then can I get an ironclad guarantee that if I turn over my guns and there is another gun murder, that my 2nd amendment rights will be reinstated and my guns returned to me?"
    Obama:"Nope, that aint gonna happen".
    Me:"Then why the hell am I turning in my guns to you and surrendering my 2nd amendment rights?"
    Obama:"Because I told you so, and I have a lot more so's to tell you once you turn your guns in".

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  41. Personal responsibility is the term missing from most of the bantering. Law abiding gun owners take the most significant claim as such. Leaving self protection in their own ability before entrusting it to an unknown agency. So when the abortionists call for gun control, and finger pointers want no blame, you know it's a lack of personal responsibility. Food stamps, obamaphones, and entitlements in general a cop out of personal responsibility. That must be the argument! Most of these zombies have never touched a gun, or have any familiarity with them except for Hollywood romanticism. They have been acquainted with responsibility though. Regardless of their commitment to upholding their end of the deal it a concept less fleeting than firearms ownership, and thus is more comprehendible by the the lesser willed.

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  42. Anonymous17/12/12

    "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

    ReplyDelete
  43. Comparing longbows to assault rifles and automatic pistols is quite a stretch. The former is a powerful tool in the hands of an archer with skill and the ability to send a SINGLE arrow at a target before reloading. An automatic weapon sprays lethal lead which can explode on impact at rates that can exceed 5 PER SECOND.

    If you see an equivalence between them then the logical extension is free access to grenades, rocket launchers, and flame throwers.

    Maybe even IEDs.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Anonymous17/12/12

    A gun-free zone is a murder-zone.

    When I see a gun-free sign this is what I hear:
    “Dear homicidal maniac,
    We certify there is no one inside this facility who can meet you with any real force.
    You will have approximately ten minutes to kill as many people as you are able.
    Signed,
    The Management.”

    I talked with a man the other day and he said “Well, you can’t have security guards in every school.” I said “Guards? You don’t need to employ guards. What’s wrong with all the other people in the school? The teachers, principals, vice-principals, janitors, lunch ladies, office workers, councilors, and others? These are grown men and women. If they choose to get a CCW they should be allowed to pack. There should be guidelines in schools for carrying on the job – not laws prohibiting it!”

    So many people want to live in The Shire where wolves have been outlawed.
    “No wolves here, Thank you. Why, I'm certain I wouldn’t even know how to repel a wolf attack. And anyway, we have people to do that if it ever comes up. Good morning!”

    But wolves do not disappear just because people make it illegal to be a wolf.
    And then, one day, a wolf is sniffing at your door…

    ReplyDelete
  45. Anonymous17/12/12

    The sad thing is that nobody is willing to address the real problem, the fact that it is not the guns, in any shape or form, that are at fault, be it fully auto AK47 or .22 pistol. They are just tools with the potential to kill. A knife, also with that potential, can reek havoc in the hands of those who want to kill the helpless. As we saw in China on the same day as the mass killing. Any weapon in the hands of a psycho can do a lot of damage. Would we be even having this discussion if those that possessed those knives and guns chose not to express their anger by going on a psychopathic killing sprees? Could anyone imagine these school shootings happening even as recently as the 1950's? Instead of asking ourselves the question, "Where did all these psychos suddenly come from in our society?", we instead say, "The psychos are fine, lets just take the weapons away so the psychos can't kill us." It is irresponsible to the point of madness. When I was growing up in the 1980's I was unpopular and picked on. I was what one would call a nerd. I hated the bullies and those that hurt me. I would fantasize about having my revenge. This was later popularly called nerd rage. Never in a million years would I desire to take an assault rifle onto campus and go on a killing spree. As one can see from all the school shootings, almost all those that went on these sprees were outsiders, ostracized by their peers and picked on. This is no different then when I grew up, but, in this day an age, nerd rage has taken on a whole new form. How can this be? What could have changed? I believe the sense of selfish entitlement inculcated in this generation by the flawed liberal thinking the previous generation has allowed nerd rage to move from quiet anger and begrudging acceptance to psychopathic killing sprees.
    The root cause of this is the departure from teaching our youth the realities of life. Instead of teaching our children that there are winners and losers in life and that they need to try hard to not be a loser, we teach them that everyone's a winner and that they are special just the way they are. Instead of teaching them to aspire to greatness and realize they are not great by default, we tell them to aspire to mediocrity. We can see it in the absurdity of the "self esteem movement" and the media bombarding our children with images of awkward and scrawny characters, as ideals. Instead of looking up to others who are intelligent, strong, and attractive with the impression of that as an ideal, they are told that those awkward individuals in the movies and shows are OK just the way they are and they should feel the same way about themselves. Instead of teaching them to have grand aspirations of progression as human beings, through hard work, we see a bunch of highly disappointing kids that are shocked that UPS did not deliver to their doorstep their SUV, flat screen TV and big house. When the walls of reality come crashing down for these poor souls, instead of seeing a brutal but realistic hierarchy of life, they see complete injustice. They feel cheated. Some, on a level that drives them to acts of utter lunacy, to psychopathic killing sprees. We need to let our children know that we love them but that in the real world not everything they do is golden and that they have to struggle and deal with injustice to find greatness, but that, that is the reality of life and the way of the world.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Anonymous17/12/12

    80 million gun owners didn't shoot anyone today. A fact that will be glossed over in the histrionics to create a national gun-free zone by the collectivists.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Anonymous -93817/12/12

    No you are stupid since you don't know that it is you're, not your.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Rielly THom17/12/12

    If people did not have to own guns there could be no war. Only the army should own guns and not many of them either.
    Disarmament of the entire America is the only answer.
    Only when the USA has no weapons will the world be free of murder and hatred.
    6 million Jews died because the USA had guns and murders of all kinds leading the whole world to follow them
    Pol Pot followed the USA to murder his own people with guns and weapons.
    We need legislation now to forbid weapons, to stop the arms race and end nuclear proliferation in America.
    We got to take guns out of the hands of the common man and put them in the hands of government only where they can regulate the people properly and make sure they behave.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous17/12/12

      Do not pass "Go," do not collect $200. Go immediately to www.Hawaii.edu/powerkills/20th.htm or Amazon.com and peruse "Death By Government" by Professor R.J. Rummel. The governments you would trust to make sure all "the common men" "behave" murdered more than 170 MILLION of their own citizens in the last century. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take the risk of my well-armed peasant/common man neighbor going berserk before I'd risk my life that your angelic government agents won't commit democide in their attempt to "regulate the people properly."

      Delete
  49. Daniel,

    The belief that removing guns from everyone except LEOs and military would protect us is false as well (as I'm sure you know). A guy on my squad at San Diego PD was killed one night by a fourteen year old who dressed in his step-father's deputy Sheriff uniform, strapped on his duty revolver, and took his marked patrol car for a joyride (while Mom and Step-dad were out of town).

    When my co-worker pulled his unit up next to where this kid was parked, thinking he was going to schmooze with a deputy, the kid panicked and shot my co-worker through his open window, killing him.

    Just to dispell that myth in anyone's mind. If any guns are available, the bad guys (or people who will misuse them, anyway) will get them.

    Yet, they are the only way a human being can defend him- or herself from a larger, stronger aggressor or multiple aggressors. No one has the right to deprive another of such effective self-defense, unless they have actually demonstrated they will intentionally misuse a firearm to harm others.

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  50. Richard of OZ17/12/12

    Good Lord, Rielly. I hope you had simply forgotten the tag.

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  51. Rielly THom - "6 million Jews died because the USA had guns" - really? Where did this happen? Your argument is completely factually incorrect - are you trying to discuss Hitler and his nazis rounding up UN-ARMED Jewish people and killing them? Perhaps if all the Jewish people HAD arms, a few less would have been killed.

    You make no sense whatsoever.

    America came LATE into WWII - or don't you recall that? In any case, how would American gun ownership "make" anyone else in the world do anything? By telekenitic power or something?

    You, sir, just don't get it.

    Go research the truth about history on this planet. Perhaps you'll understand one day, because today you surely don't get it at all... not one iota.

    By the way, Daniel - GREAT article...

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  52. Anonymous19/12/12

    Dear Reilly THom,

    You are the most ignorant and naive person I have ever had the pain of reading thoughts from. All your logic and facts are flawed. Please go do some historical research. Hitler instituted gun laws taking guns off the 'common man' as you say, about 3 years before he started rounding up and killing millions of Jews. This tactic was employed by Mao in china and the Ottoman empire too. Go and educate yourself for the betterment of mankind please.

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  53. Anonymous20/12/12

    I would recommend everyone yelling at ReillyThom go (re)read "A Modest Proposal." Personally I thought Reilly's screed was hilarious.

    SultanKnish, thank you for a well-written and well-thought-out post.

    MarvellousOne

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  54. Anonymous20/12/12

    great article.

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  55. Patrick21/12/12

    I drop into your blog on a regular basis Daniel, I can not fathom how a guy can be so intelligent and so prolific at the same time, I despise Islam, but your arguments about gun control stinks of I'm right you're left, just for the goddamn sake of it been right?

    Come on Daniel you're a very intelligent man??? imagine a million and one Muslims armed to the teeth?

    ReplyDelete
  56. They're already armed to the teeth.

    Who would you rather rely on to stop them if the worst happens, the usual politicians or your neighbors next door?

    ReplyDelete
  57. Anonymous22/12/12

    Gun control is not a bad idea. I am a conservative but most of us see the need to remove assault weapons from everyday hands. They are just not needed except in war.
    There must be a decent discussion of this topic rather than the stridency I see on the right and left.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous24/12/12

      I'm Australian, we have quite considerably tight gun control. I don't have a gun, and I did it wouldn't be for self defense because MOST Australians are not as violent as their American counterparts. Besides our government taking private property with a pysop for justification, crime has not really been shown to be impacted in a positive way, although the biased government will dig up slanted statistics.
      Armed robbery went up for about 2 years after the buyback of semi autos and other crime that everyone thought was on the decline since the gun control laws was actually on the decline BEFORE the laws were instituted anyway.
      BUT America is a whole different kettle of fish. I used to be irritated by Americans and all their gun loving violent culture but what I didn't see is a one of a kind system of government where the citizens are given the right, duty and obligation to be AS ARMED as their standing army in case the government got oppressive and they needed to defend themselves against it. If you think it can't happen you are just plain naive and don't deserve the freedom that the founding fathers paid for you with unregistered guns that were identical to what the 'military' was using. Adolf hitler, Mao, Stalin, the ottoman empire all agree that you disarm your citizens just before you kill millions of them. The second amendment was out in place by thinking men who didn't even trust themselves with all that power, but knew yet had to be kept honest by their citizens. The problem with the left, socialists and communists are that the trust themselves too much and think their ethics/ lack of morals are good enough of everyone.please tell me more about how you intend to remove assault weapons from 'everyday hands' and leave them in the hands of criminals who unfortunately DON'T follow laws. They will miss the memo on any gun amnesty or just forget to show up etc. Guns are not ideal but as long as criminals, armies and police have them, the common man should be allowed to possess them and defend himself from tyranny from any of these if they become part of an oppressive communist/ or other government. Obama is clearly a socialist which is well on the way to communism and of course he doesn't want to disarm americans so he can institute a government system not based on the constitution... So what is he worried about? Why is he taking away a mans right to defend himself from.very real dangers? True, Americans are so much more paranoid than Australians but they are justifiably so. Assult weapons are needed by the common man to keep the ever honest and holier than though government honest. This right should be respected. When this falls so will the rest of Americas freedoms. The first amendment has already been under attack for ages. And if you read the suggestions in the communist manifesto and then compare them to the patriot act you see it's derived from the manifesto. Disgusting; to see humans running a government not trusting other humans in areas they have far more experience in creating horror in. The American go rennet is totally corrupt and makes me sick in the mouth. Their last hope was Ron Paul... But he didn't win any popularity contests did he?

      Delete
  58. Anonymous24/12/12

    Gun control is a bad idea. It leaves the door open to oppressive governments, mass murder by those governments (see adolf hitler, Mao and Stalin on gun laws) and fails to take them off criminals who miss the memo and don't follow laws anyway. It's a nice idea that's not thought out properly.the 2nd amendment protects America from being the next communist country and should be revered. It was made by more intelligent folk than us, who were hum me enough not to trust themselves with too much power. Assault weapons are needed to be effective against any government ordered tyranny via the standing army. You are naive if you think it cant happen. Patriot act = communist manifesto

    ReplyDelete
  59. This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. -- Benjamin Franklin

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  60. Anonymous2/6/13

    No words. No words are available or necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Anonymous8/10/13

    I had an eerie dream that keeps haunting me. I dreamed a bunch of foreigners armed with military weapons stamped into my home. My spouse told me the government had outlawed all the guns from our home a year ago. The troops eyed my things and I told them to take what they wanted. With extreme disgust, they seethed, "we do not want your possessions......we want you." and proceeded to chain our children together and aim their guns at my head.
    I think of this dream every single time I hear someone talking about gun bans or further gun control laws. I would never harm another human being unless a scenario such as this one occurs. I'm certain it has in other places of the world.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Anonymous24/2/14

    There is so much argument over whether or not the founders intended for the citizenry to possess such an "instrument of evil" as the AR-15 or AK... And it is always a discussion centered around the rifle and musket, and how much firepower is embodied within respective small arms then and now. Very little is ever said about the fact that the British were as, or more concerned with taking away the instruments of war stored by communities in the form of cannon and mortar, and the powder and shot for such. The founders very much thought that the populace should have access to the firepower therein represented, as their revolutionary documents were partly in reaction to the attempts by the British to move to seize those items. Frankly, the 2nd doesn't just protect our rights to own hunting rifles, AR-15's or ClassIII... but also area denial munitions, anti-armor devices and anti-aircraft capabilities. I'm not saying that it is a good idea for those sorts of items to be freely available, just pointing out where the framers were coming from with the 2A.

    ReplyDelete

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