By declining to vote on a long list of gun control proposals, Virginia legislators reminded us of what is really preventing America from coming together in a bipartisan way on this issue: Americans are divided between three wildly different gun cultures.
First, there is the freedom-loving, law-abiding, gun rights culture that upholds the responsible use of guns for hunting, sport and self-defense. This includes nearly all of the more than 100 million gun owners in America today. Over 5 million people who are part of this culture are members of the National Rifle Association, where I serve as editor in chief of the NRA’s magazine America’s 1st Freedom.
Second, there is the criminal culture that thrives in spite of, or even because of, government attempts at restricting our constitutional right to bear arms.
And third, there is the part of the culture – including many members of the mainstream media – that is made up of people who have no experience with firearms, but who fear guns out of ignorance. This group often exhibits a complete unwillingness to even try to understand American freedom.
Worse still, this last group is actively blaming the gun rights segment of the American citizenry for the unlawful actions of the second part – the criminals and the mentally ill.
This sets the stage for the culture war now underway.
– Frank Miniter in To reduce gun violence, we need to do these things
hmmm. i think the number is higher than three then.
Indeed. Dan is missing the most influential far — the professional gun ban lobby — which because if its massive efficiency in laundering money for the DNC, dwarves any set of US gun owning classes in voice and power. That lobby employs hundred of full time professionals.
Astroturf? Yes, but good astroturf can have as much more more of an influence and affect culture than sleepy grassroots.
So now this NRA writer is hoping (praying?) for a civil war over guns presumably to maintain his and the NRA’s relevance. Says a lot about what the NRA minions believe America stands for.
Gawd, I hope no CV2 happens, on any level. Even a simple 10% reduction of goods delivery due to interference with the trucking industry would send entire regions into a tailspin. A handful of carefully planned events by dedicated (and twisted) individuals would accomplish that. Truly lawful gun owners will never wish that upon themselves or their families…or the families of anyone else.
He wrote “culture war”, not “civil war”, and only observed that the stage was set for such culture war as is already occurring, not that he hoped or prayed for any civil war.
You’re no better than the antis. Your head swells with assumptions, misinformation, and accusations and there’s no room remaining for facts or analysis. You come upon new information or ideas and in an instant everything’s masticated, digested, and transformed into whatever crap you already believed in beforehand.
The War of Southern Aggression (hey, they attacked first!) was a terrible bloody passage for the Republic. I do not want to see that in modern times no matter the origins or the cause.
Work it all out peaceably, that’s my point of view.
Johnathon from houston:
That’s where the term; “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, came from. Far too many humans learn the teeniest little detail about a thing, and then proceed to assume that they, based upon one tiny detail taken out-of-context, know everything. And then often attempt to teach others this thing that they THINK they are ‘expert’ in, as well.
This is why we believed the moon was made of green cheese, the Earth is flat, a red scarf will cure a sore throat, and etc., ad nauseam. This has led us around to today’s super specialized ‘education’ system, where we have heart surgeons who don’t know what a virus is, and virologists who don’t know what an aorta is. Our ‘experts’ today are so specialized in their ONE thing, that they are unable to put any of it into context to see the bigger picture. For example, think of all the people who’ve told you they know a thing because “they saw a documentary” on it. Like they can learn an entire knowledge area from watching a TV screen for 40 minutes. Or right here, where Sam Hoober says that we should avoid cheap AR10s with receivers made of steel stampings! Forgetting for the moment that there is nothing wrong with stamped firearms, if they are designed properly, No such thing as a stamped AR10 even exists. But this writer apparently thinks that they do. One would expect that a gun writer, as a professional, would know better than that, but he probably saw it on a TV documentary somewhere…
A little knowledge IS a dangerous thing, but a LOT of knowledge is a fantastic and powerful thing. I much prefer people with a lot of knowledge (like DG, Big Bill, and many others here) to those with only a tiny bit (like writers who know the words “stamping” and “bad” and not much else). Our real problem is, as a group, humans tend to be arrogant and foolish. And refuse to grow out of it. It’s really sad.
Enuf, Are you suggesting that the north attacked the South first? What about that pesky Fort Sumter bombardment?
If memory serves me correctly, I thought the war started when we had a constitutionally mandated election, and elected a Republican president whose policies did not comport with the slave owning states of the south. Because of the election of the Republican president, the south fired on American citizens serving their country in the US Army. I think that’s the very definition of treason and insurrection, not really a war of Northern aggression so much, really just treason by the slaveowning states of the south, wouldn’t you say?
And all those Confederate statues erected by the DAR are really just participation trophies for the losers, right?
You’re just trying to teach a pig to sing there M49. Wastes your time and annoys the pig.
The south apologists are a dead end. Should have been cleansed long ago. Then we wouldn’t still be fighting this stupid war over slavery.
The loser trophies were a bad idea. Winners win and loser lose. Giving the south some participation trophies just shows what happens when America tries to be nice. Won’t let that happen again.
Miner, where was Fort Sumter located at the time of that pesky bombardment? Charleston, South Carolina. Which at that time was Confederate.
How would USA react to Mexican garrison’s refusal to leave a fort in Texas?
Dan didn’t miss anything because Dan did not write this piece. Frank Miniter of the NRA is the writer.
Biggest problem I see are the busy-bodies running around trying to control what everyone else does. You know the type; those who are not satisfied with their being vegetarians or vegans. No, they insist that everyone else live their lives that way too. If you question them on it, you are labeled as a nazi or some such derogatory name.
Yes, this is a very trenchant observation.
They’re the same cohort as you saw with Prohibition 100 years ago. They’re busybodies who want to meddle in someone else’s life.
They need to be told to do something productive – like work at their local animal shelter. They also need to be told that they gain no special moral authority because they possess a uterus. We see that claim of moral superiority with the “mothers against (insert cause here)” types.
OK, so you have a uterus, and you’ve used it. That’s nice. My response to this type of claim of moral superiority comes down to:
1. So did some of your offspring drink and drive, shoot up a school or something else? Then you have some fault in this because you were a bad parent. You might have learned to discipline your children more properly and avoided this. Hectoring other people now won’t make up for your poor parenting.
2. Oh, you’re just trying to claim moral superiority by virtue of being a mother, and you’re “worried about the children?” (where ‘the children’ aren’t yours) Then adopt said children and raise them correctly.
I’ve had to deal with these hectoring harridans since the early 90’s. I’ve grown wise to their moral superiority games. The first thing to do is minimize their vastly inflated sense of importance of being a mother – far too many American women think that being a mother is terribly difficult. It isn’t. What makes it difficult for modern women is that they want to be a mother without actually doing the job of… being a mother.
Their moral superiority comes from choosing to not kill some of their children.
Hey, motherhood is the most difficult job on the planet! OPRAH said so! 🙂
https://youtu.be/L-gbacsUKpc
Quite often, firearms owners are their own worst enemies. The duck hunters don’t like the AR-15 “black rifles” so they see no problem if attempts are made to ban them. The traditional rifle owners don’t like machine guns, so they have no problem with them being legislated out of existence. Some pistol owners see nothing wrong with certain long guns being outlawed just as some rifle owners would have no problem seeing pistols banned. You see, anti-gunners want them all. They will chip away a little at a time until their goal of civilian disarmament is complete. They have an excuse for banning every firearm. Scoped bolt-action rifles are defined by anti-gunners as “sniper rifles” because they are “too accurate”. Magazine-fed weapons are suspect because of high (actually normal) magazine capacity. Handguns are suspect because they are “easily concealable”. The gun grabbers want them all and have made (flimsy and suspect) excuses for banning every type of firearm. They don’t care how long it takes. and will use incrementalism to their advantage.
Friends, ALL firearms advocates must “hang together” and realize that an assault on ANY means of firearms ownership and self-defense is an assault on ALL forms of firearms ownership and self-defense.
There is absolutely NO ROOM for complacency among ANY Second Amendment supporters. An attack on one is an attack on ALL…
ALL firearms laws are unconstitutional on their face. Imagine the hue and cry if “reasonable” restrictions were placed on First Amendment activities, especially with the “mainstream media”. The Second Amendment is clear–what part of “shall not be infringed” do politicians and the media not understand…of course, they understand full well…it’s part of their communist agenda…
Even the NRA bears some responsibility for capitulation on matters concerning firearms. The NRA failed when it allowed the National Firearms Act of 1934 to stand without offering opposition, the 1968 Gun Control Act, the NICS “instant check” system, the “no new machine gun for civilians” ban in 1986, the so-called “assault weapons” ban in 1994, and other infringements of the Second Amendment. Let’s face it. What better way to increase membership than to “allow” infringements to be enacted and then push for a new membership drive. Yes, the NRA has done good, but its spirit of “compromise” will only lead to one thing…confiscation.
If the NRA is truly the premier “gun rights” organization, it must reject ALL compromise…
Funny thing, that hierarchy of Fudds you mention only goes one way; MG owners don’t want to ban bolt actions, even if they never shoot the things. So it’s not that gun owners are their own worst enemy, but that *some* gun owners are worse than the enemy.
Fudd outreach is probably a better use of education resources than trying to reach wholly ignorant or already hostile groups. Bringing those Fudds higher up the ziggurat of gunnery as quickly as possible through exposure & knowledge is the best way to increase the number of people that actually understand the issue at hand & how to oppose the expansion of gun control. That’s something the NRA has definitely not made its mission over the years, preferring instead to simply cater to the lowest common denominator in its competitions & training.
Calling Fudds Fudds isn’t the way to do it.
If they won’t admit they’re fudds, there’s certainly no point reasoning with them. I’m not sure there is either way. Most will not admit; some are dishonest, most don’t know they’re fudds, they think they’re Henry Bowman but every chance they get donate to the fudd NRA, vote fudd and make excuses for fudd policy.
A lot of Fudds don’t even know they are Fudds. Using the term in some instances isn’t meant to be an attack but rather a description so we know what type of people we are talking about.
I agree with barnbwt that Fudd outreach is probably more useful than trying to convert the vehemently anti gun crowd. I’ve talked to many Fudds who were pretty quick to accept the no compromise 2A absolutist message I preached. Most had simply not put much thought into why had the compromising views they held. Some fully admitted that after some thought, their original position was uneducated or misinformed and wholly against what the 2A stood for.
“Look at you all. Fudds. And you don’t wanna be a Fudd. Cuz Fudds are livin’ contradictions…”
We’ll see if anyone catches that reference, lol. I don’t use Fudd in a disrespectful way, I use it as a general term for ignorant & selfish gun owners. Frankly, Fudd is and has always been more of a descriptive stereotype than a pejorative. It’s bitingly accurate, which is why Elmer Fudd had comedic value in the first place. He wasn’t funny because he was a bad hunter, but because his bumbling naiivete & cluelessness was a real thing among American sportsmen in those days. It’s still apt, today, among the subset of gunowners that don’t understand the gun issue past their own gun safes & precious wabbits.
This is something I’ve wondered why no one discussed before: converting FUDDs to militia-suitable arms and defense of rights thereto (though your phraseology is much cooler than mine).
I wonder how many FUDDs the major gun groups have converted?
It’s purely an educational thing. I once believed that banning 9mm handguns could reduce crime (even as a kid I realized AWs were a tiny contributor). Didn’t even know other chamberings existed, lol. I shot rimfire & trap in Scouts (loved it), Dad owned a shottie and granny’s rimfire. That’s the sort of ignorance I came from, and it was largely due to internet exposure & vidja games I learned about the other stuff out there. Then I got into gunsmithing from a lifetime of woodworking, which led to gun building. And from the first moment I began gun building, a visceral hatred for the loathsomely stupid and inept system of gun control laws we suffer under.
Took me a good 2-3 years to “radicalize,” with a very inquisitive young mind, motivated demeanor, and lucky chance contacts with people who helped me along the way. For someone who is older, less intelligent, or less motivated? Well, I was able to convince Dad to want an AR15, at least. Maybe he’ll get his CHL one day. Real outreach to educate folks on the basic end of gun culture would be huge. Problem is the NRA is about as bad as the worst sort of Fudd, they just can’t write off all the money from Tactical Timmies.
“”””””””””””””””””””””””If the NRA is truly the premier “gun rights” organization, it must reject ALL compromise…””””””””””””””””””””””
Much of what you said is true but you are 100 per cent wrong on your last line.
We now have roughly 330 million people in the U.S. that is 130 million more since when I was born in 1948. Psychologists who study over population and its effect on mental illness and crime have proved that when the population goes up crime and mental illness do not go up at the same rate of increase rather it goes up at a much higher percentage. As a consequence of all of this failing to prevent guns from failing into the hands of the insane and into the hands of criminals only spells doom for all gun owners because since nothing is being done the majority of people who do not own guns will see nothing wrong with banning all of them and believe me its coming and sooner than you think.
Failure to have safe storage laws result in many needless childrens’ deaths along with thousand of guns being easily stolen and failure to vet all gun purchases let anyone buy a gun no matter how insane he is or how many time he has been to prison. Its a fact no Right Wing Fanatic can lie his way out of. States with lax laws funnel tens of thousands of guns into states and big cities that have tough gun laws thereby making their laws totally ineffective.
The result of Chicago study found most guns used in crime were at least 11 years old and had gone through many hands and no they were not all stolen but often just second hand unvetted guns. No other civilized nation on earth permits such insanity and such stupidity.
Bloomberg’s favorite anti-gun sock puppet is right on time
You don’t wanna know how he got the hand up there.
Some of the fools here actually make this vlad -troll bot profile- look intelligent.
What about the fact that those “strict gun control” states do not prosecute people to anywhere near the fullest extent of the law. You have people who have 40 years worth of sentences out in less than 10 etc. Gun bans are a failure, the UK is proof. They just stab people now instead. Before you give me the “crime is lower” spiel the UK cooks the books on their homicide rates.
It’s not just homicide, it’s violent crime in general. Include robberies, rapes, beatings, etc., and the gun-controllers paradise of the UK is one of the most violent nations in the Western world.
Vlad Tepes, How about some actual facts??
“Psychologists who study over population and its effect on mental illness and crime have PROVED??? that when the population goes up crime and mental illness do not go up at the same rate of increase rather it goes up at a much higher percentage.” WRONG
Per census and statista:
1990: US population 249 million, Gun ownership 47%(117m people with at least one gun)
2015: US population 321 million, Gun ownership 41%(132m people with at least one gun)
1990 reported violent crime per 100,000 population : 730
2015 reported violent crime per 100,000 population: 374
More people with guns actually equates to less violent crime. Hmmmm
“Failure to have safe storage laws result in many needless childrens’ deaths along with thousand of guns being easily stolen” WRONG
Failure of being a responsible parent results in needless children deaths. Will this law prevent the addict mother from leaving her child unsupervised near her purse with a loaded gun inside? That just happened near me, as I’m sure it happens all over the country. Sure, sometimes people make mistakes and tragedy happens, but YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID. You idiots like to think your laws would prevent tragedies like this. Plus, you use instances like this to add fuel to the make believe fire that all gun owners are irresponsible.
Your stats tell the story. Gun ownership went from 47% to 41% and violent crime incidents dropped by 50%. Don’t let the anti-gunners see your post, it completely justifies their position.
Math is fun! You’re looking at the percent numbers without looking at the end result. The lower percentage of gun owners of 41%, when you take into account the population increase, equals 15 million MORE gun owners. At the same time, violent crime dropped by half. This is a prime example of why so many people are easily fooled.
“Your stats tell the story. Gun ownership went from 47% to 41% and violent crime incidents dropped by 50%.”
False data, people stopped answering the question truthfully when strangers called their homes asking what valuables they own.
So, they lie when asked if they own guns.
Real data you ignore is the pesky fact that in that same time period, about *100 million* new guns were sold in America while the violence rate halved.
Proof – More guns, less crime…
Here’s some pesky facts.
“The study, from researchers at Columbia, New York University, Boston University, and the University of Pennsylvania, analyzed states’ mass shooting rates, the permissiveness of their firearm laws, and levels of gun ownership from 1998 to 2015. It then tested each of these to see if there was a link.
The result: Where there are more guns, there are more mass shootings. And where gun laws are weaker, there are more mass shootings.”
Nice try Miner, a flawed and debunked study. But then lies and un-truths is all you have.
Miner,
Here are some facts that are undeniable.
1) I don’t give a shit how many crimes there are involving guns.
2) The BOR doesn’t care either.
This study has not been debunked, the data is solid and peer reviewed.
And you cited no evidence to support your claim the study had been debunked, so it’s just empty speech.
“States with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership have higher rates of mass shootings than states with more gun control and fewer guns, and the divide is growing, according to a new study co-authored by School of Public Health researchers.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that each 10-unit increase in state permissiveness was associated with an 11 percent higher mass shooting rate, and a 10-percent-higher state firearm ownership rate was associated with a 35 percent higher rate of mass shootings.”
Miner, you’re grasping at straws dude. Mass shootings are a small percentage of violent crime. What you’re implying is that stricter gun laws have prevented mass shootings, as in, someone wanted to commit a mass shooting, but the strict gun laws prevented it. If that were the case, then strict gun laws would also prevent violent crime in cities such as Baltimore and Chicago. Large mass shootings get all of the publicity while the daily bloodshed is ignored. Try again.
Columbia university, penn, the british medical journal…….all leftist institutions with leftist agendas to protect and promote……..i dont trust any data from them not to be twisted or slanted to create the outcomes they wish.
How bout we put the mentally ill back in sanitariums like willowbrook? It worked through most of the 20th century until someone had the bright idea to close them all and dump their inhabitants on the streets, creating the huge problem we have today.
Bringing up 1934 is a childish argument
You like the NFA? It’s not childish, it’s perfectly cogent. You just don’t want to hear it and are so ignorant and entitled you think you can bitch out platitudes and be taken seriousely.
I, myself don’t insist that modern citizens’ small arms be as superior to military-issue as the Kentucky / Pennsylvania long rifle to the Brown Bess.
Parity will do.
I should get to have at least everything that law enforcement gets. I’d love to see the dems try to take ARs from law enforcement. They wouldn’t let that happen anytime soon. They value their own life too much, if not yours.
“I should get to have at least everything that law enforcement gets.”
That’s a good base level, since it fulfills Scalia’s “in common use” nicely. That means Glocks with standard capacity magazines and semi-auto shotguns are ‘good-to-go’ as well.
And the upside is, with all the free select-fire M-16s handed out like candy by the government to local LE, the NFA now has no leg to stand on… 😉
That’s really the only rational and objective way to determine what the public should have. Supposedly, law enforcement is in the best position to determine the nature and extent of threat to the common good. Whatever threat is confronting law enforcement is also confronting the public in general. It logically follows then that the public has the same firepower needs as the local police and should have the same access. If my local sheriff needs an Abrams tank, well, I’ve got some space in the garage.
Funny how that last segment is also willfully ignorant of so many other things like economics, human nature, prenatal development, (actual) climate science, etc.
Well said Governor! The latter is what I like to call a “Grocery Store”
person. That’s someone who is so bereft of common sense that if they were locked alone in a grocery store for a week they would starve to death.
The question I have about “coming together” in violent crime are two fold:
-Why are we making an item illegal instead of acts?
-What will gun owners get out of any restrictions put in place that benefits them e.g. a real compromise? “Feeling safer” doesn’t count considering the statistics around it.
“-Why are we making an item illegal instead of acts?”
When the melanin count of the criminals goes up, then accountability becomes racist.
The problem is that most of those committing the violent acts are not White, which means that only the item can be blamed, because talking about personally accountability in minority communities, is considered racist.
It is like how it was easier to restrict all of American Citizens’ rights with the gun free zone act, instead of asking low income minorities to act civilized.
I have asked the same question. Even drug paraphernalia isn’t illegal to own unless it is proven that it is being used with illegal drugs, like possession of the illegal drug or THC resin on the device. But no! Guns are bad even when they are not used in an illegal manner. Just because some idiots misuse firearms doesn’t mean that millions of gun owners who are not misusing them should be punished.
One favored method for mass disarmament of a citizenry is to make high-profile arrests of those who are vocal about their firearms “rights”.
Another way is to enlist the “help” of the communist “mainstream media” to demonize anyone who has an interest in firearms, allowing the media to be present at “raids” and in general use “loaded” terms such as “arsenals”, “weapons of mass-destruction”, “weapons of war”, “machine guns” and other sensational terms, to inflame the non-knowledgeable public, introducing them to their “unstable” neighbors who are being (illegally and unconstitutionally) raided.
It’s all about perception, which the left uses to good effect, utilizing tactics from communist Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals. The “mainstream media has always been dishonest and against firearms rights.
High-profile raids will push the firearms owning public underground. Those who choose to “fight back” will be regarded as “terrorists” and “enemies of the state and good order” by the mainstream media, who will fan the flames of hysteria, attempting to get the general public on their side—supporting mass disarmament. If and when they are murdered by “law enforcement” very little, if anything, will be mentioned about the illegality of these “raids”.
All one has to do is look at how firearms owners are treated presently by the mainstream media-looked upon as “pariahs” and other unstable types.
The “key” to resistance may be to “cache” your firearms, leaving a few firearms accessible both for protection and as “bait” to “feed” the gun-grabbers if and when the raids come.
The left is expert at using “incrementalism”, chipping away at rights a little-bit at a time. From arbitrary classification of firearms, declaring certain “features” illegal, to specifying barrel lengths, magazine capacity, to outright banning the production and ownership of newly-manufactured machine guns, the left has been busy.
There are no easy answers to the situation we are presently in, but surrendering one’s rights is never the answer.
A good read, “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross, about our present situation and possible “solutions” was written in 1995 and is still available in print and as a free pdf. This book is a good reference, history lesson, and comes up with possible solutions to the assault on our freedom.
This book was considered so volatile when it first came out that sellers were routinely harassed by FBI, ATF, and DEA types for displaying and selling it.
To quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt . . .
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
The problem is, we have allowed the anti Second Amendment crowd to define the terms.
A firearm is a tool which possesses no evil intent on its own. Assigning intent to an inanimate object is the epitome of insanity. Demonizing a weapon on looks alone also marks the accuser as an unstable individual who is also insane. Call them out on their illogic and insanity.
Another dirty tactic the anti-Second Amendment crowd uses exposes children to potential and actual harm by putting them in gun-free zones. These people care not one wit about children, but uses them for their own nefarious purposes.
We need to TAKE BACK the argument
When the antis blame the firearm for the actions of a criminal, state that: a firearm is an inanimate object, subject only to the intent of the user. Firearms ARE used to preserve life and make a 90 lb. woman equal to a 200 lb. criminal”.
When the antis attempt to justify their gun free zones counter their misguided argument with you mean, criminal safety zones or victim disarmament zones.
State that we protect our money, banks, politicians and celebrities, buildings and facilities with PEOPLE WITH GUNS, but protect our children with gun-free zone signs.
When the antis criticize AR-15s in general, counter with: you mean the most popular rifle of the day, use able by even the smallest, weakest person as a means of self-defense. Besides, AR-15s are FUN to shoot. Offer to take them to the range and supply them with an AR-15, ammunition and range time. I have made
many converts this way.
When the antis state that: You dont need an AR-15 to hunt with, counter with AR-15s ARE used for hunting, but in many states, are prohibited from being used to take large game because they are underpowered.
When the antis state that: AR-15s are high powered rifles, correct them by stating that AR-15s with the .223 or 5.56mm cartridge are considered medium-powered weapons-NOT high-powered by any means.
When the antis state that: you don’t need and AR-15, counter with, Who are YOU to consider what I need?
When the antis state that: the Constitution was written during the time of muskets, and that the Second Amendment should only apply to weapons of that time period, state that: by your logic, the First Amendment should not apply to modern-day telecommunications, internet, television, radio, public-address systems, books and newspapers produced on high-speed offset printing presses. Only town-criers and Benjamin Franklin type printing presses would be covered under the First Amendment.
When the antis state that only law enforcement and government should possess firearms, remind them of the latest school shooting, as well as Columbine, where law enforcement SAT ON THEIR HANDS and cowered in fear while children were being murdered, citing officer safety, afraid to challenge the shooter, despite being armed to the hilt. The government-run murderous sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco are also good examples of government (mis)use of firearms.
This tome can be used to counter any argument against any infringement of our Second Amendment.
My favorite thing is to ask what training or credentials they have in order to make a determination of what I need, vs. my civilian training and decade and a half of military experience. Their response is usually a blank stare, because they know they are ignorant of what they are talking about. It’s the same thing as a person with absolutely no mechanical experience trying to tell a car mechanic what they need or don’t need to fix a car. Or a congress critter that has spent their entire life in government trying to tell people what they need or don’t need to start a business.
I noticed that you used “need” as it is often used in “no one needs a [insert current demonized firearm] to [insert use here] with.”
I normally respond with the statement that I have lived in places that have changed my eyes on need. all you need is a small tarp and a bowl. A tarp to cover yourself in the rain and a bowl to beg for rice with. Everything beyond that is gravy.
At that point, they seem to decide that I am even a bigger nut than they are, and wander away.
I put the NRA in the category of the third culture. No but more seriously. I would say a good portion of gun owners believe in gun ownership as a privilege. Otherwise we would always be on the offensive with laws and legislation.
I am an absolutist and am not a NRA member.
Biatec,
I also disagree with the author Frank Miniter’s statement that:
I believe that a significant number of those 100 million firearm owners are what we collectively call “Fudds” (named after the Looney Tunes cartoon character Elmer Fudd) — firearm owners who only support an extremely limited privelege to own pump-action shotguns and bolt-action rifles for hunting purposes only, subject to licensing and myriad additional restrictions.
Thus, I would say that there are four different gun cultures.
Furthermore, I would NOT characterize gun-grabbers as being nothing more than
Rather, a great many gun-grabbers oppose liberty and therefore oppose firearm ownership on principle alone.
I agree with you.
“my right to feel safe..transcends your right to own a gun”….that’s the mindset we’re dealing with…
“I am an absolutist and am not a NRA member.”
All the people I meet in this self proclaimed category have no influence. You ask them who their state legislature reps are, and they tell you who their US reps and senators.
I don’t disagree with that. Most people I know though are less than absolutists and they don’t even know how to vote. Like they have never registered or know where to even go. My county went blue during the midterms and it’s been terrible.
Honestly has not been much different.
I just couldn’t believe it.
I don’t want to say who because if it is ever known who I am on I could hurt careers of people I care about by saying names or the wrong things but Some new local politicians here think they are anti establishment like Trump but are alienating allies that would be compared to Rand Paul or other libertarian types.
It’s been nuts here.
It sounds like we might live in the same county.
Chris,
I don’t bother to learn the name of my state representatives when they are Democrats: I learned a long time ago that my letters and phone calls mean ZERO to them and they vote against our right to keep and bear arms anyway.
+1
A well written, well reasoned article that will be read by almost none of the people who should read it. Only the Democrat and independent voters who aren’t mindless zombies will benefit from it. The propaganda arm of the DNC and the Democrat politicians already know and don’t care, since we are an obstacle to their socialist ideology.
“First, there is the freedom-loving, law-abiding, gun rights culture that upholds the responsible use of guns for hunting, sport and self-defense. This includes nearly all of the more than 100 million gun owners in America today. Over 5 million people who are part of this culture are members of the National Rifle Association, where I serve as editor in chief of the NRA’s magazine America’s 1st Freedom.”
Look, another NRA-lackey who couldn’t be bothered to mention VDCL’s central role in blocking the Virginia special session gun control bills, but cites the paltry last-minute NRA involvement as being crucial to preserving gun rights. I think this is the 3rd or 4th NRA article with this same mysterious omission…
As a member of VCDL and NRA I will call you out on your bullshit post. You are a liar. NRA has been extremely active in Virginia and everyone of any note in the VCDL is a member of NRA.
Ask any Virginia House of Delegates or Virginia state senate Republican in a purple or threatened district (and that is who counts in this immediate and long term fight) they absolutely have been hearing from the NRA all along.
So don’t be an ass. I doubt you are a member of VCDL since none of u would ever claim what you aree claiming.
And you clearly do not know NRA has been pouring money into the purple Virginia state district races where if we lose just three more out of 100 it is game over. There is NO state in the US where Bloomberg spending per capita is higher than Virginia, they are forcing NRA to fight on its home turf and bloomberg is spending 50 times more than the entire VCDL budget. Your divisive and false statement is harmful and just ignorant.
KKK northam will probably get re-elected and if he gets the legislature MD rules will be laid down in VA. I don’t live there and I’m contributing to a few races next time because we need Rs to keep them from taking over. If VA falls PA isn’t far behind. Imagine an area from NC to VT of stringent restrictions.
Are you sure about red ralph? I think between this and the yearbook thing, hes pissed alot of people off.
America is a nation committed to “too little; too late”. Rarely does this work-out. Why should violence by criminals and crazies be the exception?
Violent criminals are, by definition, violent. When did they become violent? When they took a weapon to hand? In high school; junior high; elementary school? Or, was it somewhere between cradle and kindergarten?
Violent crazies are, by definition, violent; likewise, those who are suicidal. They become violent unpredictably. Can we intercept the mentally ill individual the moment before he becomes violent or suicidal?
We hold that these too-little, too-late approaches are fools’ errands. Suppose we really should incarcerate violent criminals and suicidal crazies. Would we do so? American society is already troubled by our rate of incarceration. We de-institutionalized the seriously mentally ill 50 years ago. Unless and until American society reverses course on these decisions, a too-little, too-late approach can’t help. We show no signs of reversing these decisions.
Where are the social scientists in the advocacy movement here? Are they urging us to consider measures THEY believe will reduce the propensity toward violence, suicide, crime and mental illness? As just a single example, where are the researchers into “attachment disorder”? Do they simply NOT believe in THEIR OWN findings? Do they not believe that their recommended interventions (for the short period from cradle to kindergarten) would substantially mitigate mental illness and the crime, violence and suicide it leads to? (To say nothing of mitigating the problems of productivity in school and work for a lifetime.)
Why are guns the only social problem where we do not seek out root causes and try to mitigate them?
We PotG are too busy defending our rights against the false promises of gun control to advocate for prevention being better than cure. Why are the advocates of social progress silent about PREVENTION of mental illness, school and work performance, suicide and violence? Must we, the PotG, promote the insights of the social science research?
“Why are the advocates of social progress silent about PREVENTION of mental illness, school and work performance, suicide and violence?”
Because you can’t make yourself important via tweet, if there’s no perceived problem. Also, real.solutions take work, skill, and often don’t work out as planned.
They want the issue, not a solution.
“Must we, the PotG, promote the insights of the social science research?”
Yes.
Anyone who wants to make actual progress has to promote insights on how the world works. Some people eventually come around. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes we’re stuck with getting the lesson the hard way. Reality always gets the last vote … eventually.
Personally, I’m enjoying the emerging clues among the enviromentally-woke. They’ve figured out that energy density n life-cycle costs are things. They haven’t yet noticed how their grand requirements create (or provision) captive crony systems. (For example ethanol mandates.) Nor embraced the example of killer dams, the one-time darlings of renewables, that they can’t tear down fast enough, now.
“Unexpected” consequences matter. When you get clipped by them, it means you are clueless, not cute.
Most killer dams have nothing to do with renewables, just ask the folks at Buffalo Creek here in West Virginia.
King Coal killed over a 125 people, all in a quest to put profit over people.
Perhaps you could share statistics showing how hydroelectric dams or more dangerous than Cole refuse impoundments and fly ash ponds. I’m wondering how many people have been killed by the collapse of a hydroelectric dam.
More importantly, how many black lung deaths have been caused by these killer dams producing renewable hydroelectric power?
Perhaps you might want to look up the true cost of fossil fuels, you could start with upper big branch and Farmington number nine.
Insert cricket sound sample here.
Let me point out a key piece of the article that too many gun rights advocates ignore: Devoting resources to helping the mentally unwell and at-risk communities in which crime thrives.
We could easily extend Medicare’s mental health coverage to everyone. Data shows it’s cheaper to don that then pay for all the administrative layers and duplication in the for-profit system.
We could work to improve education through high school in at risk communities. We could support a living wage to make work more sustainable and attractive than crime.
These are all good things for society that pay back in economic growth. They would all attack the root causes of gun crime. And most gun owners decry all of them as “socialist.”
You can’t have it both ways, guys. If you want society to address root causes of gun crime instead of the guns, you have to let people work on those root causes without having a hissy fit.
If this forum had an up-vote feature, I would apply it to your post.
Beyond the “socialist” argument, those efforts don’t result in less violent crimes committed with a firearm.
Additional federal spending for mental health has never resulted in a reduced amount of crime on a large scale. Locally focused programs that get family and communities involved with the patient do have a positive result, but those are almost never through Medicare or any other federal program.
A high minimum wage has historically, even recently in Washington and Oregon, been shown to increase unemployment. Seattle’s unemployment claims have even risen while the rest of the nation’s have fallen, and all data points to their “living minimum wage” requirements.
Culture and education are the keys to unemployment. But then again, spending levels have not been the determining factor in childhood achievement. As an example, the Ysletta school district in Texas has had both the lowest performing schools, and the highest performing schools, in the nation, with the same level of spending. They went from “underperforming” to “blue ribbon” in just a few years. The difference was entirely what the district would accept of their teachers and students. It has very little to do with spending.
Crime does have a lot to do with employment, but violent crime with a firearm is largely a matter of what the local culture is willing to accept.
””””””””””””””’A high minimum wage has historically, even recently in Washington and Oregon, been shown to increase unemployment.””””””””””””””’
Complete Republican bullshit. Wages used to be based on Union Wages and in the 50’s and 60’s we had high wages and almost full employment. Yes presently we have high employment because people are all working part time “less than minimum wag jobs” because they make minimum wage but do not get full time work. As a matter of fact last summer many greed monger merchants could not find enough “suckers” to work for their starvation wages. Many college kids who are in college because they are not morons simply said “fuck you” to the greed merchants and went to summer college instead because the cost of operating and insuring an automobile along with other work related expenses was a losing proposition and they knew it. Unfortunately the married worker slave class must work and even though both husband and wife now work at least 2 part time shit jobs most still qualify for welfare. The country has become the hell hole of the industrialize world due to the blind greed of the upper 1 per cent who now control all of the wealth and the bastards have now doubled their wealth in the last 50 years while the worker slave drones have had their wages stagnate and their cost of living sky rocket.
Its interesting to note that the two most popular candidates in the 2016 race were Bernie Sanders and Trump because both were “outsiders” compared to the greed driven swamp of the corrupt Congress. If Bernie had not been fucked out of the nomination he would have easily won the Presidency and most experts agree on this.
Wait, you think we had high unemployment in the 50s and 60s? Well you must be AMAZED at the low unemployment levels we have now.
In 1929 the unemployment rate was 3.2% In 44′ and 45′ is was 1.2 and 1.5%. In 1951 it was 3.1%, in 52′ is was 2.7%, in 1968 and 69′ it was 3.4 and 3.5. Other than those 7 years since we’ve been keeping count (29′), we have an lower unemployment rate right now.
And let’s see…the highest rates of Union Membership were 1970 through 75, and…yup…unemployment rates were DOUBLE what they are now.
https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506
Mr. Taylor,
You misread Vlad Tepes comment. He stated that we had almost full employment (which means very low unemployment) in the 1950s and 1960s.
uncommon sense, I didn’t misread his comment, I misstated mine. With the exception of the 7 years spread out through the decades that I mentioned, unemployment is at an all time low. It’s half what it was during the highest rates of Vlad’s beloved union enrollment.
Vlad needs to read thomas sowell and learn about basic economics
“Crime does have a lot to do with employment, but violent crime with a firearm is largely a matter of what the local culture is willing to accept.”
Exactly.
“We could support a living wage to make work more sustainable and attractive than crime.”
You *actually* believe that bullshit?
In *every* instance a ‘living wage’ or an arbitrary wage (like 15 dollars-an-hour) is forced into law, the repercussions are never what the Leftists (like yourself, who seems to believe ‘Medicare for all’ can be ‘easily implemented’) say they will be.
Seattle-Tacoma discovered this the hard way. 15 an hour was signed into law, and the net result was higher unemployment, and worse, those that kept their jobs found their paychecks smaller than before, and not by an insignificant amount.
This is what Leftists like you do, thinking an easy fix will make things better, but the result makes things even worse than before.
STOP FUCKING UP MY COUNTRY, ASSHOLE!
Quote———————“We could support a living wage to make work more sustainable and attractive than crime.”
You *actually* believe that bullshit?
In *every* instance a ‘living wage’ or an arbitrary wage (like 15 dollars-an-hour) is forced into law, the repercussions are never what the Leftists (like yourself, who seems to believe ‘Medicare for all’ can be ‘easily implemented’) say they will be.
Seattle-Tacoma discovered this the hard way. 15 an hour was signed into law, and the net result was higher unemployment, and worse, those that kept their jobs found their paychecks smaller than before, and not by an insignificant amount.
This is what Leftists like you do, thinking an easy fix will make things better, but the result makes things even worse than before.
STOP FUCKING UP MY COUNTRY, ASSHOLE!————————-
Your response is either total ignorance or blind greed or a combination of both.
In Capitalvania we now have the upper 1 per cent keeping all the wealth while wages have stagnated over the last 50 years and the cost of living skyrocketed for the lower 99 per cent of people. Unions today are only a shell of what they once were. When Reagan broke the Unions he then was able to start sending high paying manufacturing jobs overseas and the purchasing power of the workingman plummeted with lower wages and no benefits. The standard of living today in Capitalvania is beyond obscene with unaffordable health care and unaffordable access to life saving drugs. 5 million people went bankrupt last year do to health care costs and 100,000 died because they could not afford life saving drugs. Europeans have been aghast at what is going on in Capitalvania and cannot believe a country as big and as rich is murdering its own citizens due to the blind greed of the Republicans. When Trump offered the people in Denmark citizenship they said only the insane would want to live in the lawless and cruel U.S. that does not even care for its own people but lets them die int he streets like dogs from lack of health care. Mitch McConnell took almost 1/2 million in legal bribes from the lobbyists from the Drug Industry and Mitch shit canned over 300 Democratic bills that would have saved countless lives and prevented millions of bankruptcies. Its actually become that corrupt and obscene in Capitalvania which now far surpasses the cruelty and corruption of the Roman Empire.
Today we now also have more and more Robotics coming on line. European Governments have already experimented with a guaranteed wage even if you do not work. It sounds crazy but robotics will soon eliminate most jobs and not just manual labor jobs either. We live in the 21st Century today and we no longer shit in 18th century out houses. The future today is a whole new world with a new set of problems and if they are not met and met soon society will self implode in an orgy of blind greed by the upper 1 per cent and extreme poverty and revolution with the lower 99 per cent. Its that serious.
When you combine the Republican blind greed that is hell bent on destroying the environment, food shortages because of weather related corp failures (that by the way happened just yesterday in India) along with water shortages it will cause war between nations and revolutions within countries causing chaos beyond all comprehension and something never seen before in the history of civilization. In other words worrying about your guns will be the least of your problems when you run out of food, water,shelter and income. The asinine idea of “I will live out in the wilderness” is about a big a fantasy as thinking Trump is a great President.
Vlad Tepes,
This information isn’t hard to find. There was plenty of liberal spin early on, and flat out ignoring the study in the end. Here is the actual study:
https://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Paper.pdf
The average low wage worker in Seattle LOST $125 per month. Businesses left Seattle. There are fewer jobs. Some previous low wage jobs were replaced with higher wage, higher skilled, more efficient workers (in other words, employers become more picky about who they hire, which means low skilled workers won’t get hired at all). Some jobs have been and are in the process of being replaced by automation. The study mentions that the businesses that left may not have all closed. They may have just relocated to outside the city limits.
“Worse still, this last group is actively blaming the gun rights segment of the American citizenry for the unlawful actions of the second part – the criminals and the mentally ill.
This sets the stage for the culture war now underway.”
As a Conservative Christian who has supported and donated money to the Trump 2020 campaign. I totally agree with this line. The Libtard left is a blight on our society and needs to be deleted from the internet and real life. As my favorite hymnal says, “Onward Christian soldiers marching off to war with the cross of Jesus going on before” We need to win the war against the Anti-Christ left. We need to gather our forces and defeat Satan.
Vlad speaks like a true marxist. But I’m not ready to join the workers party. Maybe because I’m successful and doing just fine in this unfair country he portrays. Sucks to be a loser and envy the productive and rewarded ones.
Sigh… Even Adam Smith recognized the dangers of unregulated capitalism and advocated reasonable measures to prevent an anti-competitive environment.
People like you don’t think, or look at data.
Right now, companies use the welfare system to subsidize payroll. By mandating a living wage we get people off welfare programs and ensure that businesses are actually viable going concerns, rather than using the taxpayers to cut expenses.
The data shows that *reasonable* increases to minimum wage are a huge net benefit economically. They need to be high enough to get people off welfare programs, but low enough to minimize distortion of the labor market.
But what’s really kind of pathetic is how you reflexively attack anyone who disagrees with your myopic world-view. I’ve actually studied and analyzed socio-economic policy issues. I’m anything but a “leftist.” But I do understand that society is an ecosystem, and to be healthy, it needs care. You can’t leave parts of it to die off, like the middle class, and expect to gave optimum outcomes.
JP,
“The data shows that *reasonable* increases to minimum wage are a huge net benefit economically. ”
I’ve been a professional economist for most of the last 25 years. I’ve yet to see good data that supports your claim, and plenty of data that does not. (I’ve already pointed to it in some of my other comments.) I’d really appreciate any solid data you can provide to prove your point.
“Living wage” laws are price controls. Price controls are an attempt replace supply/demand prices with wishful ones. Prices are critical part of market regulation. Replacing a real value with a state imposed one results in less helpful market regulation and causes the market to react in unintended and undesirable ways. If a person’s labor is not worth your living wage valuation, mandating that valuation will not change that. Demanding that people pay more for something than what it is worth doesn’t have desirable effects over all. It is an attempt at obfuscated charity. Obfuscation in a market and a democracy is harmful because people then act on incorrect information. If you want to give someone some money it is much better to just give it to them rather than trying to make one subset of the population give it to them under a ruse.
The US has never had an un(state)regulated market and is less so now than it ever has been. Laws like the ones in place and the ones you champion serve only to distort one aspect of the market and ignoring the harmful distortion caused in other aspects. The northern European countries that you point to as market intervention success stories actually have less state intervention overall than the US.They gave up on a high level a market intervention quite awhile ago after it didn’t play out well.
If you would like I can give you links that say the minimum wage law has racist origins. Just as gun control laws have racist origins. Economist Walter E williams has written about this.
Minimum wage laws are a good way to keep teenagers, young adults and groups you don’t like unemployed.
Never underestimate the soft tyranny of low expectations.
….but I can’t support socialized medicine without ALSO voting against gun rights. If the left wants more support for their progressive social policies, perhaps they should offer some incentive instead of demanding my I throw away my right and ability to defend myself against their more militant supporters.
I’m all for abortion and weed, and I’m willing to discuss socialized medicine (and why I believe it won’t work the way you think it will), but any such conversation starts and ends with me first giving up my rights and property under threats of violence and imprisonment.
Somebody said it here the other day, and it’s worth enshrining, even if I paraphrase it badly: “If your virtuous ideals require a peaceful people to be forced into compliance at gunpoint…”
If a community will not defend the most innocent and defenseless among its own, then those in charge of that community cannot be trusted to defend anyone.
Per government estimates, there have been approximately 1 million average abortions per year over the past decade (CDC and other official sources). If we concede that perhaps 5% (a high estimate, but let’s go with it) of all abortions are related to the usual arguments of “rape, incest, or life of the mother”, then that means about 950,000 pre-born human lives are snuffed out due to financial or emotional inconvenience by the mother. In other words, because our government has abandoned its duty to protect and defend its own.
As certain portions of our community increasingly advocate for the deaths of “unwanted” individuals, the value of human life overall is diminished. Abortion is the camel’s nose under the tent, and leads to the acceptance of other schools of thought that don’t defend human life, such as physician assisted suicide (medical) or Communism (political).
Someone who advocates for abortion (not taking responsibility for the sex that led to new human life, and eradicating that little life) is not someone I can ever trust to have my back if the SHTF.
Amazing we have a man with intelligence posting some real solutions that would work because they already have worked in other countries willing to spend money helping the people rather than the filthy rich only. None of this is new or revolutionary but only civilized Socialist nations have already adopted it decades ago. If Socialism scares the immature and the uneducated then call it instead “Enlightened Capitalism” if it lets you sleep better at night.
“Civilized Socialist nations? What a fucking joke, just like you, ‘Vlad’ with the tiny wee-wee… 😉
I’d bet money Geoff “Guns. Lots of guns.”PR is same user as Guesty McGuesterson. And likely “Chris” also. Leg humper trying to disguise his leg humping ways by using multiple profiles. Pretty transparent.
Actually, I’m beginning to think Vlad and Pg2 are the same. Both write nonsense with the sole purpose of stirring up the pot.
That’s the definition of an online troll.
Shrek.
Geoff aka guesty aka Chris, project much?
“I’d bet money Geoff “Guns. Lots of guns.”PR is same user as Guesty McGuesterson.”
Nope, and I give Dan.Z my permission to verify I am not the same as ‘Gusty’. Not the same IP addy, sport.
There’s a funny thing going down, ‘Pg2’, and for some reason you are blind to it – More and more folks are speaking up in TTAG as to your anti-vaxx bullshit.
That’s what’s known as a *CLUE*. No one wants to hear your shit…
(*Fist-Bump* to ‘Gusty’) 😉
I found it interesting that you were thinking about Vlad’s wee-wee.
Somehow we went from a political discussion straight into Homo erotic comments.
Fascinating. POTG have an interesting internal dialogue that they sometimes share with the public.
Vladimir socialist programs only work in Europe because Europe doesn’t have armies anymore. The US uses its massive military to protect Europe, therefore Americans are actually paying for Europe’s socialism. Socialism could work here too if we didn’t need a military and had a big daddy warbucks to protect us for free.
Germany, Denmark, Norway, et al haven’t been paying the agreed upon amount for defense because they know we’ll pick up the slack. All that was asked was to pay 2%, and those assholes haven’t even been paying 1.5% of their little GDP, while we’ve been paying OVER 5% of the largest GDP in the world. They spend that money on themselves and laugh all the way to the bank. Trump was the only one with guts to call them out on it, and the insane libs loose their mind.
Who exactly do we need protection from?
Socialism is a powerful and dangerous disease that is marketed by the MSM. CNN, MSNBC, VOX, etc. are the typical outlets of such sickness. It is important that POG recognize this and fight back. Guerilla warfare has worked against larger and more powerful enemies throughout history. Use the same weapons the fake news contingent uses on us against them. Distribute misinformation and clog up their networks. The libtard left needs to be put down. God bless America and President Trump.
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””Socialism is a powerful and dangerous disease that is marketed by the MSM. CNN, MSNBC, VOX, etc. are the typical outlets of such sickness. It is important that POG recognize this and fight back. Guerilla warfare has worked against larger and more powerful enemies throughout history. Use the same weapons the fake news contingent uses on us against them. Distribute misinformation and clog up their networks. The libtard left needs to be put down. God bless America and President Trump.””””””””””””””””””””
The above Statement is not mine. This guy is using my name. I am the real Vlad Tepes and Mangagment needs to ban this guy.
NOTICE THE GUY IS USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS WHILE I DO NOT THAT IS HOW YOU CAN SPOT HE IS A FAKE.
99% of gun crime is repeat criminals, with demographics jurisdictions with more access to mental health care having the SAME rate of violent crime.
What reduces violent crime, and this is proven over both time and across jurisdictions is higher incarceration rates. Reduce incarceration rares and gun crime increases.
@Chris: “What reduces violent crime, and this is proven over both time and across jurisdictions is higher incarceration rates. Reduce incarceration rar[t]es and gun crime increases.”
This resonates with me; tragically, it’s probably true. And, if our goal were to reduce gun crime, it would probably be the cost effective solution. (Expand the goal set, and it wouldn’t be.)
The difficulty I have, as a PotG, is that I am unconvinced that a majority of voters, or a majority of legislators, will adopt this solution.
Suppose we hypothesized that cruel and unusual punishment were effective deterrents. Would our culture adopt this solution? If we WOULD not then we COULD not. That is the way a democratic or republican form of government works. Some public policy options are off-the-table when we choose a constitutional or majority-rule form of government.
Still, we are too narrowly focused on getting the gun-control monkey off our backs. (Understandable, as this is a gun forum.) Being too narrowly focused isn’t wise. It doesn’t necessarily accomplish all our social goals; nor does it help us in the PR battle.
(BTW; I suspect that it would be feasible to develop an artificial intelligence computer program that could analyze a convicted criminal’s rap sheet before sentencing and reliably predict who will go on to commit an acutely violent crime. If so, the judge could sentence that criminal to an extraordinarily long sentence without parole. It would be very “efficient” economically and socially. Nevertheless, such a system just wouldn’t fly in a majority-rules society. I might not vote for it myself because I don’t trust computers. Too much experience.)
JP, let’s ignore childish name calling and take a look at violent crime trends in the US vs the most successful and low crime Socialist countries. (Let’s just ignore their phenomenally high suicide rates as they do not treat them as crime as the US does.) These are the nations of Scandinavia. Take a look at worldbank.org and review their country criteria. Yes, you’ll see that the US is a violent nation when compared to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. We always have been.
But take a look at the trends in violent crime. There’s only data for the last 20 years, but in every case, those Socialist countries have remained pretty much level. Their crime rate barely fluctuates (with the exception of a mass murder event large enough to skew the data in Norway) on any given year. Just like their economy, culture, and everything else in those countries, things just don’t change much, including the crime rate.
Now compare that to the US, where the crime rate is about 35% lower over the same period of time. Clearly socialist practices, even in their most successful forms, compare very poorly with the Capitalist Constitutional Republic model when it comes to reducing crime.
Violent crime is actually on the rise in Sweden, and unfortunately, they’re doing their best to hide it (because it would be racist!!) instead of working to fix the problem.
We have plenty of data here in the US that is far more applicable to our crime rates, cultural and economic variations, and so forth. Crime strongly correlates with poverty. The OMB recently released a report on a proposed bill raising min wage to $15/hour, and it shows large net gains in terms of reduced poverty, economic growth, and so forth.
Honestly, just being able to have this discussion in the public arena would be a huge improvement from where we are today. So many people are just speaking in absolutist terms and demonizing anyone who doesn’t agree 100%, but in the real world the truth is often in the middle.
We could probably all agree that a nationwide $20 min wage tomorrow would significantly disrupt labor markets. We can probably also agree that taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing payrolls for inefficient businesses or to artificially change their profit margin or price structure. So we need to be able to talk rationally about where the right balance is.
And yet I’m being called a “leftist idiot.” Hmm. Not to mention how comical that would be to the actual leftists I know, who tend to think of me as a libertarian gun nut. Lol. What I *am* is an individualist who *also* understands economics, public policy, ethics, and the Bible.
JP,
See the above report for the disaster you’re lobbying for. I assume you’ve never owned a business, or you wouldn’t even need to see the report. Low wage jobs are disappearing already. This would speed up the process. Meanwhile, the same people that are proposing this, want to let in 100,000++ extra low skilled workers into this country per month.
Are you still with me, because here’s where it really gets crazy. These same people are interested in increasing government entitlement spending by several TRILLION per year! Wait! It gets better! Some of these same people want to completely remake the economy and the energy that drives it. This would only cost about 93 TRILLION according to the CBO. Clown world! Honk! Honk!
Raising the minimum wage that high would simply fix things for a couple weeks. Then prices on everything would rise and we’d be right back to square one.
The best social program is a good job. McDonalds abs Burger King aren’t good jobs. If you want a good job you have to work for it, and be willing to put up with doing things others aren’t able to.
Look, I’m technically a “millennial” (30s) effected by youth poverty, the Great Recession and the war. But guess what, I OWN two vehicles, halfway to owning my own house on 5 acres of land, own several expensive guns, and have health insurance for me and my family. You want to know why? Because I work in a fucking prison. And It blows. But you know what? It’s worth it. I could work at Waffle House too and put up with less bullshit and cry about minimum wage and government oppressing me but I don’t. Fuck that victimhood mentality. There’s plenty of good paying jobs out there right now with benefits but too many people are to weak to be able to do them.
Libertarians don’t price fix. There is no optimal amount of price distortion other than none. You are clearly not a libertarian, you are a tweaker – an interventionist.
JP, if you are referring to the most recent OMB report I believe you have left off some pretty significant findings. Specifically those that point out that it would increase unemployment.
To quote the report:
“There is a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero
and a decrease of 3.7 million workers.”
There’s about 80 to 100 million people in this country working a full time job. The loss of 3.7 million is not is not insignificant. It would be a crushing blow to the economy.
Of course forcing people to be paid more money would result in those people who are being paid money getting more. But the report is clear that it would likely increase unemployment, leaving more people to rely on social welfare.
As several others have noted, pointing you directly to recent evidence from cities in the United States, the report is directly in line with this country’s Real World experience in raising the minimum wage to a living wage. The result is always the same, higher unemployment, and eventually more people on welfare.
JP,
“We can probably also agree that taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing payrolls for inefficient businesses or to artificially change their profit margin or price structure.”
I agree with you and also disagree.
I disagree because the “taxpayer” is the business itself. Poor workers aren’t subsidizing lower payrolls with their taxes. That’s some kind of “working class” hero worship myth. 40% of American individuals pay zero income tax. It’s the businesses who are distributing wealth to other businesses.
But I agree that businesses should not be getting those redistributions, no matter who the taxpayer is. I agree because entitlement programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, TANF (welfare), food stamps, and mandatory social security shouldn’t exist at all.
to JW.
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””I disagree because the “taxpayer” is the business itself. Poor workers aren’t subsidizing lower payrolls with their taxes. That’s some kind of “working class” hero worship myth. 40% of American individuals pay zero income tax. It’s the businesses who are distributing wealth to other businesses.
But I agree that businesses should not be getting those redistributions, no matter who the taxpayer is. I agree because entitlement programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, TANF (welfare), food stamps, and mandatory social security shouldn’t exist at all.””””””””””””””””””””””””
Studies have been done proving you all wrong. Lets face cold hard facts criminal businessmen pay starvation wages to workers and the adding insult to injury only let them work part time which is less than minimum wage and they also then do not pay for vacations, benefits or holidays. This all qualifies the slave workers for welfare that is paid for not by businesses or large corporations who pay no taxes or very little rather it is paid for by the working man. Corporate welfare dwarfs the miserly benefits paid out to workers who are on welfare. Bernie Sanders is correct when he states that if Corporate America was taxed Social Programs would have more than enough money to operate on.
And your statements that Europeans do not fund their militaries is false as well. No they do not spend the money we spend because they are not constantly invading other countries and then funding large occupying armies like we have. Europeans also tax the hell out of corporations which again funds social programs. So we as Americans are not funding their Social Programs. As a matter of fact European Socialism goes way back to 1895 under Bismark and 1900 in Norway and Denmark when European Countries spent millions on funding their militaries for war but they still had more than enough to fund social programs.
Your statement that Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and mandatory Soc.Sec. should not exist is not just laughable its criminal and quit demented as well. Just what the hell would you replace them with???? And yes everyone has to pay into Soc. Security or it just would not have enough funds to sustain it. Far too many people would not use it and then what would they do when they could not work because of sudden and permanent physical impairment or retirement. Yeah I know you will say fk them let them die of starvation and disease and exposure. Well civilized countries do not tolerate such inhuman behavior .
In conclusion your way of thinking has already been tried in the 1st and 2nd Industrial revolutions which let widows and children die in the streets from hunger because in Capitalvanian Countries only the Rich lived well and the poor starved or died of disease. The French Revolution was a good example of what happens to the Rich when they exploit the people to the point where they can no longer tolerate living under slave labor conditions and the Government then refused to help them when they were starving. We today in the U.S. are only a half step away from that.
To JW
“”””””””””””””””””””””Now compare that to the US, where the crime rate is about 35% lower over the same period of time. Clearly socialist practices, even in their most successful forms, compare very poorly with the Capitalist Constitutional Republic model when it comes to reducing crime.””””””””””””””””””””””””
Your statement is false and laughable as well. The crime rate goes up in the U.S. when employment is low and down when employment is higher. What sets European countries apart is simply that when they have fluctuations in the economy they have enough social benefits that it tends to keep the crime rate much more uniform and they do not have the wild fluctuations in the crime rate. They have less gun homicides because they have much better gun control laws that weed out nut cases and criminals while we do not have those types of laws. Anyone can buy a second gun in the U.S. with no vetting.
Far from being a failure in controlling crime European Socialism has been a great success while the U.S. contrary to your post has been a great failure. The U.S. has criminalizes drug addiction which again drives up crime and homicide while European Socialism (each State is different ) has Socialistic programs that are geared to getting people off of drugs not jailing them or guaranteeing them that they cannot get the help they need to get off of drugs. Lets face facts when some European Countries give out free drugs to addicts (with rehabilitation) it runs many drug dealers out of business because who would be dumb enough to pay for drugs when you can get them free from the Government. The very Socialistic programs you rant against are actually way cheaper to implement because law enforcement is not incarcerating tens of thousands of addicts at a cost of millions to the tax payer and businesses and private dwellings are not being broken into so addicts can steal to make money to buy drugs.
That was a whole lot of words for saying absolutely nothing of value.
I cited my sources, you can look them up yourself. The proof is irrefutable. Socialist programs, even if the wealthiest, most homogeneous countries who practice socialism, have failed to reduce violent crime rates. The capitalist constitutional republic of the US has. Cisco, when your philosophy doesn’t match reality, reality isn’t wrong.
As far your weird screed, the Industrial Revolution was over for more than 100 years before Social Security was even invented in this country. That intervening century saw the largest growth, and the largest move out of poverty the world has ever seen. This nation’s poverty rate went from an estimated 84% to 24% in that time. Globally, a billion people rose from poverty.
Why do you hate poor people?
to JW.
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””That was a whole lot of words for saying absolutely nothing of value.””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Yeah sure just like your post that said 40 per cent of working people do not pay taxes. You make stuff up as you go along. Are you a Trump adviser???????
“They would all attack the root causes of gun crime“
That’s not true, actually. Surprisingly, if you study criminology, you’ll find that economics actually does not correspond to the violent crime rate. Quick example, during the Great Recession, crime of all categories, continued its downward trend at a steady pace. In the 80s and 90s, the the economy sky rocketed, crime actually increased until the mid 90s when it leveled off and began this downward trend. The initial rise had begun in the 60s, and both the rise and fall ignored the economic ups and downs. That downward trend of crime ended relatively recently and has begun to increase again, and The economy is good now and growing again.
America has a lot of criminals and a high crime rate for a developed nation for sure, but neither capitalism nor gun ownership have anything to do with it. Culture, actually, has the most to do with it, in my opinion.
You have to figure some things here. First, stop comparing the US to Canada and Europe. Those regions have very little in common with the US. European countries are much smaller, and (for now) pretty homogenous, with governments that very centralized, with police forces that have no legal leashes on them, like the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th amendments.
American police and courts could put a huge dent in crime alone, if we were to surrender those rights and allow them to behave like the KGB. But, I think we can all agree thats a pretty shitty way to go.
Now, the geographic size and culture make up of America also come into play. You have a massive multicultural empire that shares 2,000 miles of border with a failed state. That is incredibly hard to manage. Meanwhile you have several different cultures in the US, who not only clash, but one particular culture, that is inner city black youth, that encourages them to commit crime and kill eachother.
Outside of that, the general American culture regardless of race/gender also celebrates crime and rebellion. Take a look at media, music, movies ect.. outlaws and criminals are glorified and celebrated, rebellion is encouraged, drug use is encouraged, and excessive drinking across the board is acceptable behavior.
Now, not all of this even has to be considered bad. America is a country with rebellion in its heart, however other nations simply don’t have that in their culture. Many cultures such as German, Japanese, British ect.. have cultures that celebrate obedience and rule following.
Remember now as well, Europe can also afford massive social programs because Europe got rid of all its military might, in exchange for US protection. So in essence, European socialism is in fact funded by the American taxpayer.
Ultimately what all this means is America can’t be compared to Canada and Europe. It’s more accurate to compare the US to Brazil, Mexico, or Russia. Comparatively then the US looks damn good.
As a nation the U.S.A compares quit favorably to three other nations that are,… absolute shit holes. Bwhahahaha. I’m not sure if you were trying to be ironic or not. I respect were your coming from, but you should understand and accept that if you were in the military and now work for the federal or state government with a disability rating and health care through the V.A. your reaping the benefits of socialism. Your living a legally protected and tax payer subsidized life. Your cost of living is low because you likely live in an area that is not appealing to most people or at least not most people with high earning potential. It is quite likely that if it weren’t for the power of federal employees unions your job would have been 1099’ed a long time ago. I don’t mean this as an insult, not in the least but it is something you should recognize and take in to account in your judgments of other people.
Glenn did you even read my comment? You clearly didn’t, or you are not understanding what my overall point is. My point is you CANT compare the US to a nation like Norway or Germany. You can’t. Because the countries are so different policies simply cannot be copied and pasted to one another.
And reaping the benefits of the VA? Are you shitting me?
Glenn, I have the right to receive VA Health Care. I choose not to and instead use my own private insurance because it is so vastly superior to the VA system. It is worth every penny.
Also, I left a government job to take a 1099 job and then start my own company. Again, because it provides me so much more money and allows me the freedom to manage that money to a much greater benefit for me and my family.
I have found, in every instance, the quality of service as well as the financial gain of getting away from the government system is worth far more than any perceived reliable income it might provide.
@ JWT
Never been to the VA once either, don’t receive a disability rating. But I know tons of guys, “staunch conservatives” that do and about 75 percent of them are,… how shall I put this politely,.. “gaming” the system. In addition, they are by and large relatively happy with the care they receive. They receive thousands of dollars a month in free cash and services, that they lied to get. Their life styles depend on welfare, they just don’t recognize it as such. Collective bargaining, nearly unlimited over time, state college benefits for their children, super commuting to work from the outskirts of a major metro, great sick days and vacation benefits that they still max out. These are the Jenga pieces that hold up their “middle class success story” pull out just one and they become just another one of the un anointed little people. There is a lot of people like that, outside of the Veteran and law enforcement community too, they just refuse to recognize it.
Glen Frey, I should have been more clear. I was specifically responding to this statement:
“…if you were in the military and now work for the federal or state government with a disability rating and health care through the V.A. your reaping the benefits of socialism.”
My point is that you are not reaping any benefits of socialism, but suffering the depredations of it. Poorer quality care, less financial freedom, and a low quality of life is not a benefit provided. It’s a con played by both parties, and both suffer for it.
@Hank: A lot of insight densely packed into these few short paragraphs! I commend you.
We could easily deliver grass roots support, in housing, shopping, counciling, and even medical care … wearing a hunting cap.
More of a more centralized “solution” makes bigger targets for bespoke suits, comely interns, and accounting shenanigans.
Real grass roots also illustrates the ideas behind “gun rights”: citizens are competent, are the point, and come together sometimes for their own advantage.
As Barney Frank famously said: “Government is just the name for things we (force you to) do together (our way.)” An association you can leave is something else.
JP,
If we eliminate absolutely horrific poverty, then crime (especially violent crime) is almost totally a function of parenting and culture, not wages.
As for your statement
I disagree. Why would someone work 40 hours per week at $25 per hour (about $50,000 annually) when he/she could engage in various criminal enterprises (narcotics distribution, prostitution, “protection” rackets, counterfeiting, smuggling, etc.) and make 4 to 5 times that much money only working 20 hours per week? Unless his/her parenting and culture seriously frown upon criminal enterprises, a lot of people will go the criminal enterprise route, which includes associated violent crime as well.
And to prove the point that parenting and culture is the primary barrier which impedes people’s motivation to succeed, I give you the following two facts:
(1) Youth in urban poverty centers literally punish peers who strive to learn and get good grades.
(2) Youth and even adults in urban poverty centers punish peers who strive to work accusing those hard workers of either being “Uncle Toms” or helping Mr. Establishment make obscene amounts of money.
For the most part the only criminals making 250k a year wear Brooks Brothers suits. Ask anyone in law enforcement or social work for 99% of offenders crime literally doesn’t pay. Almost no one is making an even lower middle class living through narco distribution or racketeering alone. They have associates and family members with regular jobs and depend on government assistance..
Glen,
If it doesn’t pay, then why don’t they get an honest job? It doesn’t pay enough? It isn’t cool enough? They’d rather hang out and complain than go out and get a real job?
Great question, one I’ve asked myself for years. I don’t fully have an answer. In a nut shell I believe in as sense it does come down to culture. Specifically cultural mythology. Its in fact a warped variation on the Horatio Alger mythology. Or the myth of upward mobility in America or in this case the hood. Why do people start their own small business? 95 percent of them are going to fail. Why do millions of people move to L.A. every year to “make it” in Hollywood? They are not going to. Why do people gamble, play the lottery, their not going to win. To many Americans have always believed they were special, that they were going to “be the one”. “Exceptionalism” in encoded in American culture. I find that kind of self delusional pathology to be rampant in career criminals, but it is only slightly less rampant in non criminals as well, it’s part of our shared cultural mythology. Being semi functionally drug addicted compounds the dream world.
Dude, in many places, it is exactly as Glen Frey describes. Young people are sold a bill of goods.
But in some places, there simply are no other jobs. There are places in this country where the local economy is narcotics based.
“Why would someone work 40 hours per week at $25 per hour (about $50,000 annually) when he/she could engage in various criminal enterprises” — Because they were raised better than that? Because they know that would be wrong? Because they’re a contributing member of society, and they want to be role models for their own children?
Like you said, culture and parenting. Compare and contrast the most violent and least successful demographic with the least violent and most successful (it isn’t white). What’s the difference? Okay, since that was easy, then we can go about helping that first demographic and promote the family. Notice how none of the politicians that claim to be for that group of people never want to do anything to actually help them get out of this cycle.
“..You can’t have it both ways, guys. If you want society to address root causes of gun crime instead of the guns, you have to let people work on those root causes without having a hissy fit.”
No.
I have no problem letting people work on those root causes.
I have a HUGE F(*&ING PROBLEM with the idea that we need *the Government* to be the one working on those root causes.
If you want to call that a hissy fit…. well you do you sunshine.
The Government is the root cause. Hindsight and actual data shows us that democrat policy have in the past, and actually continue to contribute to the decline of the black family. Instead of honestly looking at what works and what doesn’t they are doubling down on stupid. It’s easier to gain and retain power by scaring blacks into believing that if they don’t vote for you then the racists are coming for them, than to actually be honest and offer real solutions.
You could break the “the freedom-loving, law-abiding, gun rights culture that upholds the responsible use of guns for hunting, sport and self-defense” group into many subsets including the hypocritical gun owners who only care about their taxcticool pet gun hobby and scream for smaller government when it comes to protecting their pet hobby. This same group clings to and defends bigger government, police state policies in almost every other aspect of American society.
And the one-trick-pony Pg2 continues to spam his bullshit.
Do you ever talk about guns?
Dance, Pg2, I order you to respond…
You’re in the leg-humper gun owner category. There might be a support group for leg humpers to break their habit and get a life, you might want to take a break from humping my leg and see if you can find one. You’ll thank me someday,
That’s right, you respond, just like I ordered you to do.
What the fuck are you doing in TTAG? You NEVER seem to talk guns.
Just your same old tired bullshit anti-vaxx crapola…
So which Pg2 is it this time? How many Pg2’s are there (similar to the question “how many Tylers are there posting on Zerohedge?”).
I’m still convinced that Pg2 is masquerading and pretending to be several people here at the same time.
Literally laughing…you “ordered” me to…leg humper, you make a habit of fantasizing that strangers online follow your “orders”? Get some help. For real.
“You’re in the leg-humper gun owner category. There might be a support group for leg humpers to break their habit and get a life, you might want to take a break from humping my leg and see if you can find one. You’ll thank me someday,”
My mouth is a sewer and a shit hole like S.F. I apologize.
Pg2 those gun owners you are attacking commit less crime than people like yourself who own no gun. You have proven in your prior posts you don’t knew the difference between machine gun and semi-auto guns, and now you dig yourself deeper.
As far as [police state policies, the gun control lobby aligns very highly with police state. Gun control supporters tend to support stop and frisk, reduced fourth and fifth amendment rights, even reduced first amendment rights.
and are you forgetting that Obama wiretapped more reporters than all prior presidents combined.
Or that it was Obama who took the flawed and already overbearing Patriot and super sized it with his vast increase in Patriot Act powers and surveillance of Americans in 2011?
Your posts are total nonsense. You do know US gun murder rate is half the rate it was 25 years ago. it has dropped because there are more guns and more people carrying guns, because guns are used to prevent many crimes for every crime committed with one
Damn, Pg2, more and more people here in TTAG are getting tired of your bullshit… 😉
Leg-humper, no surprise you believe the socket puppet profiles of the trolls here pushing anti-gun, anti Bill of Rights agenda.
Shrek
“Pg2 those gun owners you are attacking commit less crime than people like yourself who own no gun. You have proven in your prior posts you don’t knew the difference between machine gun and semi-auto guns”-fiction. You have me confused either with yourself or another multi-profile troll here.
Troll.
Says the guy who deleted his post accusing me of using multi profiles because sometimes the “p” in pg2 is capitalized, and sometimes it’s not…Can’t make that idiocy up.
You clearly contacted the TTAG admin and argued for my comment to be deleted, because apparently I hit too close to the truth and called you out for the fake you are.
I do have to admit, though, that it’s a wee bit fun seeing you get so bent out of shape as people here question your comments on topics you know nothing about.
Shrek.
LMFAO! Ok Geoff “Guns. Lots of guns.”PR aka Guesty McGuesterson aka “Chris”. funny stuff.
Pg2?
Ask Dan Z. if I am ‘Gusty’.
I’ll save you the effort. I ain’t ‘Gusty’.
But you ought be concerned about the growing number of folks joining me and heckling your sorry anti-vaxx BULLSHIT ass.
Look, it’s a simple request, OK? This is TTAG. Talk GUNS. At least *SOME* of the time.
Just drop your one-trick-pony anti-vaxx all of the time bullshit and try and get along with people…
WRONG! Listen!!!’ TRUMP is building CONCENTRATION CAMPS at an alarming rate out west! These camps will begin exterminating immigrants once TRUMP secures his dictatorial powers and overthrows Congress!!! There are already reports of RUSSIAN soldiers in Colorado here to assist TRUMPs henchmen in this plan. Once they kill the immigrants liberals will be rounded up next!!! Then to finish it all TRUMP will NUKE Mexico!!!!!
Ah, yes, now I see. Trump bringing the Ruskies into Colorado with the grand plan of nuking Mexico. Why didn’t I think of that?
[/sarc]
Red Dawn! Have your AKs ready!
Wolverines!
“Wolverines”…. had no AK’s to begin with….
Fairly good exposition of gun owner’s “problems”. AS IF it matters a whit(coincidentally on the 700Club they had a so-called congresscritter “Democrat of faith” calling for “common ground”. Sure buddy-stop the baby murder,gun grabs,confiscation level taxes,waving the mexican flag and pushing a happy agenda,ETC. THEN we’ll talk…
This “100 million gun owners” nonsense has to stop. Closer to 70 million.
I’ll bet it’s even higher. For example, how is the number “100 million” even reached? DROS records? NICS estimations? Manufacturers’ production output? What about all the gun owners who perhaps have only a single firearm and haven’t shot it in years? They qualify as owners.
I myself have absolutely nothing registered (for various legal reasons, though the noose it getting tighter in CA), so I’m a ghost on anyone’s radar. Yet I have enough guns to not only fill my large standing safe, the leftovers that won’t fit have to be stored at another address. I could easily arm my entire block. Again, all legal, but off the radar nonetheless, and probably not part of anyone’s official estimations.
Multiply this by umpteen people across the nation, and I think the low-ball estimate of only 70 million can easily be 100 million.
The number is uncertain and very difficult to pin down. I wouldn’t use it myself, because I have little confidence in it, but I wouldn’t use your 70 million either because it is also a guess.
“This “100 million gun owners” nonsense has to stop.”
It’s even higher than that. People are wising up when a stranger calls (the ‘poll’ you tout as being accurate) and asks if they are a gun owner.
And here’s the kicker – The political climate is so toxic around guns, that a whole lot of ‘Good Progressives who own guns will claim they don’t own guns. They fear of being ostracized by their fellow Leftists. So they have a .38 in a drawer ‘just in case’. They don’t have a problem lying about their gun ownership, because ‘they can be trusted with one’. An extension of “Guns for me, but not for thee”.
The same way folks in years past lied about being gay, a whole lot of Leftists have inherited grandpa’s guns and lie about being ‘a gun-free home’…
@cgray: “This “100 million gun owners” nonsense has to stop. Closer to 70 million.”
Mercifully, we don’t have a good way of knowing what the number is.
Nor is the number very meaningful. It includes a significant number of what I’ll call “legacy” gun owners. Families that inherited grandpa’s shotgun (etc.) but don’t use it. It just sits in the closet. For many years I didn’t shoot; I had other things to do in life. I was active as a teen; and I’m active as a retired person. Yet, I wasn’t much involved in between.
The problem with this class is that we can’t presume that they will vote their sentiments. While a member of this class, a voter’s sentiments are too shallow on this topic and much deeper on some other topic (health care, parks, roads, . . . )
A big problem with statistics is that we focus too much on the number and forget about the meaning behind the number. What does it really mean to count a duck hunter who doesn’t care about rifles? Or, a marksman who doesn’t really care about the RKBA? Certainly, grandma who still has her late husband’s guns is more worried about her MediCare than her 2A rights. How do we count these three?
Having played in the SE Asia war games, I have solid discontent for the 5.56×45 and or the .223 along with the pos 9mm cartridge!
Like reading all comments that have nothing to do with the article written, of course Blow hards, know it all’s, better than thou’s, etc, really can get into it!
there is another group, called leave me the f**k alone!
9mm has come quite a long way in recent years. All my LEO friends have standardized their weapons from .45 or .40 (with .380 backup) to only 9mm across the board. And I’ve done the same. Today’s modern loads with JHP are formidable.
Regardless of caliber, I wouldn’t want to be shot with anything. One of my best friends died from a single .22 that happened to hit a perfect location. Just choose what works best for you, and train accordingly.
Just curious, since you’re trolling…what caliber(s) do you carry/shoot/recommend, then?
Participation in the war in SE Asia 45-56 years ago isn’t indicative of any expertise in the effectiveness of cartridges today, or even then for that matter. Your comment also is not consistent with your implication that you just want to be left alone – it is more like trolling for an argument.
Huh? The US didn’t use 9mm in Nam. And no one seemed to really mind 5.56, it was more that the first few itirations of the m16 were poorly done on the military’s part. Once the M16A1 was introduced, most of the kinks were worked out making it a good rifle. It’s since been improved 10x more since then as well.
Didn’t the M16s in Vietnam have lots of problems due to rust? They didn’t use chrome lining, they didn’t clean the rifles regularly, plus they were operating in a very humid environment. ARs seem to be very reliable now.
Every time Vlad and Pg2 post something where the semantic content equals null I feel like buying another gun. Fortunately I can fight that feeling – otherwise my retirement savings account would be null as well. Oh, and now we can poor, put upon JP to that list…living wage, for crying out loud? Yeesh.
This article could have been titled “Geoff uses at least 3 profiles, each nearly identical”. Guess we can add you as the 4th sock puppet Geoff profile?
Pg2’s getting vertigo with all his/her/its paranoia. Now every commenter here is a bogeyman. Next up, Pg2 will claim that there’s only a single person on TTAG pretending to be twenty different personas, and posting all this stuff to make it seem like a group of people are having conversations.
Pg2 is listening too closely to the little voices in his/her/its head.
Luv it.
“Pg2’s getting vertigo with all his/her/its paranoia.”
It’s getting hilarious, and more than a bit sad, Gusty.
He’s now into clinical paranoia mode.
Pg2? How about talking guns for once?
Please?
“Every time Vlad and Pg2 post something where the semantic content equals null I feel like buying another gun. Fortunately I can fight that feeling – otherwise my retirement savings account would be null as well. Oh, and now we can poor, put upon JP to that list…living wage, for crying out loud? Yeesh.”
Well IF THIS WEBSITE would STOP patronizing these fools then we could have some real discussion of what exactly to do with the vermin, Dumbama, Libtard, left. I guess the keyboard commandos here cannot handle the truth about TTAG. Stop posting and these vermin will be banned. Or if it’s easier for you, do what these people are doing.
Holy fucking shit.
Even ‘Vlad’ is getting tired of Pg2’s bullshit… 😉
I did not make the above statement. I am the real Vlad Tepes. I think management should look into this this and ban this guy who is using my name immediately.
Notice this fake Vlad is using all capital letters in the name. He is not me.
“the criminal culture that thrives in spite of, or even because of, government attempts at restricting our constitutional right to bear arms” is not a group of gun supporters, they have firearms for protection against other criminals and may use them for robberies and assaults.
Which group do you use for the idiots that drink and shoot at everything (road signs, anything moving like cows, sheep, dogs, chickens, cars, busses, frogs, etc)?
Remember that the 2nd is for all, not just one or two classes. People have firearms for many different reasons, some collect, hunt, are in LE or the military,some shoot daily or weekly, some keep them for SHTF reasons. Even criminal types have a right to protect themselves from others that are trying to hurt them.
What’s the name of the famous mob-instigated citizens’ gun ban in N Y C?
My recall n DuckDuck-foo fail me just now.
The Sullivan law.
Hey, Frank, you contacted me about publishing one of my articles in America’s 1st Freedom. You had me send you a bio and everything. In the end you substituted an eagle scout’s essay that he had sent you. No problem, I am all about promoting our youth.
For the gentle readers here, my article was a bit too freedomy, I think. And I did not contact the NRA, the NRA contacted me through the Daily Caller.
I will dismiss the criminals, we all know about them. And the third group fit the dictionary definition of stupid because they refuse any attempt to understand something they are afraid of, sort of like hiding from thunder. If you don’t understand thunder and it’s origin then one day the LIGHTNING is going to get you. There are two people I attempted to train to shoot. At their request. One was taking an armed security course. He was afraid the gun itself was somehow going to hurt him. Hours of watching others shoot and just handling an empty gun didn’t convince him otherwise. The second was a friend was convinced that the gun might hurt him even after I shot a Dan Wesson .44 mag with just the right thumb and forefinger. These two was pro-gun. There are people who act as though a gun has a mind of its own but I bet we will find them driving automated cars. They also don’t understand they’re being illogical. If they checked to see where more gun crimes happen they would realize that something other than guns is the problem. Before gangs began employing guns they used knives on each other. When the mayor of London has suggested banning knives in London I asked what his opinion is on sharp sticks. Would he jail people for broken piece of wood?
America as a whole decided decades ago to let the mentally ill run free. The tin foil hat people said the govt would lock you up if you became a “dangerous” critic of govt policy. So the mental hospitals were closed. And the patients set free to the streets. And no its was not Gov Reagan. It was the man before him, Gov Pat Brown Sr. who closed the state mental hospitals in California.
Just try now to claim a person is “crazy” needs to be FORCED into mental health. Elliot Rodgers parents and Adam Lanza’s mother both tried to have their children committed to get care. The local and state gov refused to help.
I remember when the ACLU stopped the City of New York from forcing a mentally ill homeless black woman who was eating her own feces, into to a city run hospital. The city lost the case. So she went back to urinating and defecating in public. Now 35 years later San Francisco has thousands of homeless people defecating in public.
The Civil liberties freaks don’t want people to get mental health care. They also don’t support gun civil rights. These same people also live a very safe neighborhoods.
There are other another gun culture that most people forget. Like city people who dint grow up with guns. Like fatherless children who didn’t have an adult male to teach them about guns.
The anti-gun crowd terminated the public High School shooting and 2A education programs across the country 40 year s ago. They created millions of people who never learned about their gun rights. And made it easier to disarm them.
No private group not even the NRA can replace the public education system in teaching future generations about their birthright to Arms.
There’s a fourth actually: people who own guns but don’t think that we need guns like ARs. My boss is one of them. He’s an idiot. Plain and simple. Once, he even try to explain to me that we’ve evolved past needing them because mostly criminals use them, and because it’s not the revolutionary war…
Yea. I have to deal with this idiot 3-5 days a week.
The breakdown that the article mentions is outside of gun culture.
The breakdown is as follows…
1- Anti-Tyranny Gun Owners who own military grade firearms and train tactically.
2- Elmer Fudd hunting crowd
3- Self-Defense crowd that does not care about other people’s gun rights.
Hunters and self-defense people who are also anti tyranny belong to that group. Hunting and self defense are a beneficial byproduct the being able to defend against tyranny.
Basically; shepherds, wolves, and sheep.
What about the Antifa guys that are legally arming and using their guns against government? What group/culture are they?
Antifa and John Brown Gun Club member uses “ghost gun” to engage police after attempting to free illegal immigrants from ICE custody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdDBGFBbiw
“This article could have been titled “Geoff uses at least 3 profiles, each nearly identical”. Guess we can add you as the 4th sock puppet Geoff profile?”
Hello. My name is Pg2 and I and Vlad Tepes are one in the same. If you can’t figure this out you’re stupider than I thought.
I’ve been outed a multi–profile using troll. I hump other posters legs as Geoff as I sadly have no life.
And there it is. Pg2 is now fully masquerading by falsely posting under other users’ names. TTAG has been reduced to a childrens’ playground.
Oh well, perhaps I’ll just start over and use a completely new username and ignore Pg2 altogether. He’s becoming a problem, so best to ignore him.
Geoff aka Geusty aka Chris aka Ryan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Pg2 ?
Write to Dan Z. Ask him if I am ‘Gusty’ or any of the others.
I’m not.
Ozzie Osborne wrote a song for (and about) you :
“Paranoia will destroy ya…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDlrfmIo7SA
SSSUUUCK IT!!! Ultimate troll level achieved!!!
I am a social democrat and I support the liberal cause. You guys make fun of me because I used to clean toilets. Can you do better? I wear my Mommy’s panties on my head so I can breathe well. My I.Q. is 91. Can you do better? I am 65 yrs old and have a federal pension. Can you do better? I like Apple and Microsoft and I can cut and paste. Can you do better? I think AOC is hot. Can you do better?
QUOTE————————-I am a social democrat and I support the liberal cause. You guys make fun of me because I used to clean toilets. Can you do better? I wear my Mommy’s panties on my head so I can breathe well. My I.Q. is 91. Can you do better? I am 65 yrs old and have a federal pension. Can you do better? I like Apple and Microsoft and I can cut and paste. Can you do better? I think AOC is hot. Can you do better?—————–QUOTE
I THINK MANAGEMENT SHOULD LOOK INTO WHO IS USING MY NAME AND POSTING FAKE REPLIES AND BAN THIS GUY WHOEVER HE IS. THIS GUY IS NOT ME, I AM THE REAL VLAD TEPES.
That’s the name on your birth certificate?
to jwm
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””That’s the name on your birth certificate?”””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Studying the syntax of the fake posts using my name and the juvenile context its more than likely you that are the one that is responsible.
vlad. No way I would identify myself as a low iq individual such as yourself. I do have my pride.
You argue like a 13yo. Which likely means you’re a college student, male, 19-22 years old. In a liberal arts program. You still live at home with your long suffering parents and when you graduate with your ‘degree’ you will be at least a hundred grand in debt.
The real world is going to eat you alive. Have nice day.
Hey if I were the “real Vlad Tepes”, I am not sure I would admit it!
At least not in public . . . .
This is dissembling garbage. NRA trying to get Fudds and RKBA-absolutists riled up against criminals and antis to distract from the NRA’s failures and our ideological differences. Sad.
Another board member doing his job like he is legally required:
https://www.ammoland.com/2019/07/demise-of-nra-greatly-exaggerated/
Glen Frey, you are da man!
Clear and concise, with a hint of humor to soften the impact of inconvenient facts. Bravo!
Also, a great songwriter, nice vocal with just the right amount of grit.
Oh lordy, nearly lost my lunch reading that. Good find tho, as a non-member I sometimes forget the shameless depths of of groupy-ism to which they can plunge.
I scanned down through all the posts and have the following take:
The vast majority are arguing the leftist narrative or feeding the trolls. Both are a waste of time and effort.
The real goal of the left is #1 – disarm everyone, #2 – overthrow the Constitution.
All the rhetoric is a distraction to look another direction.
Keep in mind their goals and do/say things to thwart them.
Be Prepared !
dont forget group number 4:
the group that insists that if you dont carry with a round in the chamber youre too dumb and candy ass to carry in the first place and heck why dont you just kill yourself now before somebody else does
theyre no less full of themselves than aoc
Some gun owners are worse than the gun grabbers themselves.
We do have different types of gun owners in this country and we need to be united and help each other.
Hunters
Sport shooters
Tactical shooters
And regular armed citizens
Some groups dont care about the types of guns that other groups use so they sit quiet when the grabbers talk about banning the othrr types of guns. The biggest offenders are what is known as “Fudds”. Fudds are part of the hunting group (not all of it, just a part) and they are the ones that say things like “You dont need those assault weapons and high capacity mags”. They dont care about any guns except the ones they use to hunt. They are politically lazy and are used by the left to say “Even gun owners support registration and restrictions”.
And conversely, gun owners who arent hunters should help support the hunting sports as well.
We need to stick together.
It is not just murder, it is a violent crime in general. Include robbery, rape, beating, etc., and the UK’s gun-control paradise is one of the most violent countries in the Western world.
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