“Saying you’re pro-gun is just an identity. A lot of people who are pro-gun still think our controls are not appropriate right now. Clearly they would say they were pro-gun, then two seconds later they’re asking for insane gun control measures.” – Sociology Professor Rachael Woldoff in Study: Rural deputies’ view of guns complex, nuanced [via wvgazettemail.com]

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121 COMMENTS

  2. Unfortunately, she’s right. The people who call themselves “pro-gun” think it’d be fine if Hillary banned everything but their shotgun and lever action.

    I work with a guy, “pro gun”, deer hunter, who thought I was a mass murderer when I had a single case of 9mm range ammo shipped to the office, and loved Bernie, voted Hillary, and hates Trump with a passion.

    • … Which is why I don’t ship ammo to work.

      Although, Mrs. C. does tend to appropriate the .45acp if she gets home first…

    • FedUp,

      As you well know, your coworker (as you describe him) is the quintessential Fudd.

      Liberty is icky to people who fear how the masses could use their liberty in a destructive manner. Rather than face their fear, they would rather pay the state to restrict everyone. Of course paying the state to restrict everyone is just an illusion since the state is utterly and totally incompetent in that regard.

  3. Totally right. If I had a nickel for every time Obama or Hillary said they were pro second amendment, I’d be quite rich. It’s how anti gun people try to appear “moderate” and “reasonable” in order to deceive.

    • That was my take on it. Even in rural ‘pro-gun’ areas the self appointed elites are easily infected with the mental disease of statism.

      ‘Several officers told Woldoff people who have been diagnosed with depression should be barred from owning a gun, even if that meant compelling doctors to release medical records to the government.’ – So much for doctor-patient confidentiality. The state must come in and trample your rights for your own good. (BTW, implementing such measures will only result in people who own guns refusing to get professional help.)

      ‘Other officers who had served in the armed forces thought people who own guns should have to be better trained on how to use them.’ – So the RIGHT to keep and bear arms should be subject to their veto.

      ‘It goes against this narrative that people from West Virginia are just ignorant. The NRA wants you to believe that, but they don’t really have views like that,” Woldoff said. “They’re much more nuanced.’ – She asserts that rural people who oppose gun control are ‘ignorant’ but that they aren’t really ‘ignorant’ because the anti-constitutional propaganda that’s been drilled into our heads since kindergarten has undermined the belief in individual liberty. Outstanding!

      • Great. Nuanced became the liberal speak for “Contradictory bat guano that I don’t want you to question.”

        Check. Got it. Now stop trying to convince me your unexamined life is going to produce anything on purpose. But a blind squirrel can find a nut, so here’s hoping you get lucky in your prosperity.

      • I don’t think they’re nuanced at all. What she describes is a group of people with membership in two different sub-domains of gun culture—cops and traditional gun owners. What she was encountering were individuals who were simply attempting to balance competing statuses within a single lifestyle. The idea that this was somehow “nuanced” is more a function of her own estrangement from gun-culture and gun ownership.

        I’ll give her a solid “B” on this. Her main problem is that she attempted to study something she really knows very little about. This is a common conceit for many social scientists.

  5. ‘Pro-Gun’ doesn’t seem like a term I would use to describe myself. I’d rather use pro-freedom, pro-civil rights, anti-fascist, pro-selfdefense, pro-sports, pro-conservationist, pro-civilliberties. Pro-Gun seems too much idolatry and falls into the progressive belief that it is all about the tool rather than the activities the tool is used for.

    • Well put. I’m no more pro gun than I am pro torque wrench, or anti crescent wrench.

      (Well, actually, I am both of those things too, in the proper context… sigh. Never mind.)

  6. The academic journal ‘Rural Sociology’ is probably read by fewer people than her so called sample.

    This whole thing smells of BS. Maybe the reporter fucked it up in the retelling?

  7. Remember that VICE video about guns posted a while ago?

    That fudd of an “instructor” in there pissed me off to no end.

  8. 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.
    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…

  10. FAKE research when citizens cannot verify or duplicate. The other tell is the pillars of anti gun religion woven into the article.

    “Woldoff said WVU research policies prevented her from revealing which county’s sheriff’s department was included in the study.”

    It’s reported by the student body her class is an easy A, that she’s “hot” signified by a red pepper in the evaluation, but has a funny voice, talks very fast and answers every question. Since she’s Jewish, border super model, perhaps RF can offer her a real world platform for her views. Perhaps a date in Austin, she would be smoking hot with a AR…don’t ya think?

    http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=281375

    • “It’s reported by the student body her class is an easy A,…”

      When I first read that, I thought it read “…reported by the student body her class is an easy Lay…”

      🙂

  11. “I believe in the 2nd Amendment, but…..”

    Why not, “I believe in the 1st / 4th / 5th / 6th / 8th Amendment(s), but….”???

  12. I support the 2nd Amendment.

    My only caveats:
    1. The 2nd Applies to legal citizens.
    2. Border security.
    3. Real background checks prior to becoming a US citizen, and requiring new citizens to support and defend the Constitution.
    4. Violent felons getting out of prison must complete 10 years of peaceful, productive probation prior to having gun rights restored.
    5. Searchable, gun free probation / parole / suepervised release for specified violent offenders.

    That’s it for me. I fought hard for Trump, Pro-gun politicians, and gun rights in 2016. I don’t see that changing for 2017.

    Also, I haven’t forgotten that many on TTAG have voted for Obama back in ’12. Others were convinced Trump wasn’t serious. There were Bernie supporters on TTAG as well. Plus there are commentors here who aren’t even NRA / FPC / SAF members.

    Clearly cops have a long way to go when it comes to supporting gun rights (and shooting in general), but let’s not lose sight of the fact that we all can improve. Kudos to RF, DG, Tom in Oregon and others who have been apt with gun rights politics as well as support.

    Let’s help guide Trump into a Scalia-sequel SCOTUS and renew gun rights advocacy in ’17. We have a golden opportunity.

    • Let us also not forget the approximately 100 other judicial appointments that Trump gets to make.

    • Gotta disagree with you on your first one. Legal permeant residences don’t have a right to self defense?

    • From observing him so far, I’m not 100% convinced Trump is serious now. From “lock her up” to “drain the swamp”, it’s clear there are things he promised emphatically on the campaign trail that he in no way intends to follow through on. I’m “wait and see”, hoping that gun legislation and court appointments aren’t part of that category.

  13. Sort of like people who claim to support individual liberties and smaller government, but at same time grovel at the mandatory vaccine altar.

    • No it’s not sort of like that at all. Your analog might as well be something along the lines of the right to have intercourse while known to be infected with aids because hey.. individual liberties and small government et al.

      If you want to benefit from herd immunity, then you need to participate. If you wish to put the herd at risk then be prepared to be banished from said herd.

      I am not for government mandated forced vaccines. I do think that one’s participation in certain activities, establishments, social circles need depend upon their willingness to cooperate with proper disease precautions.

      You can’t come in my restaurant with excrement on your hands for example as that is known to spread disease. You also can’t send your biological bomb of a child to my school without proper immunizations, because that is known to spread disease.

      • Vaccine conferred herd immunity……you’re repeating unproven pharmaceutical talking points. We know any immunity attained from vaccines is temporary, if any at all. Where are the massive outbreaks? Oh yeah, the majority of people in the small clusters of people catching mumps, measles, pertussis etc are vaccinated.

        • “We know any immunity attained from vaccines is temporary, if any at all.”
          *Sent from my iPad equipped Iron Lung.

          How quickly we forget. It simply takes one generation of separation to forget the horrors that disease can ravage upon a family, upon a society. So many sit here in relative comfort, where nary a worry about polio, whooping cough, black plague, smallpox, et al.

          Where did they all go? As population has went up on this earth – by what mechanism did these diseases essentially vanish from the planet? You seem so unworried, but if vaccines were ineffective and had no meaningful effect – why are you not concerned????

          I love this trend of science deniers. Absolutely ridiculous.

        • @yada, you’re hitting most the often used propaganda talking points, small pox and polio were not eradicated by vaccines, and if you take the time to look at infection and mortality rates for most if not all of the diseases we started vaccinating for mid last century, you would understand the declines in both disease rates and mortality had dropped precipitously prior to the vaccines being used. Not only that, diseases including Scarlet fever, typhoid, and several others, which no vaccines were introduced for, showed similar decline rates. Your ignorance on this subject is only outdone by your emotion.

        • LOL, of course they dropped before vaccines – why? Well because science helped us understand the pathology of the diseases – a necessary precursor to creating a vaccine – and that knowledge allowed us to exercise good disease hygiene. This brought the rates and mortality down prior to the vaccines being created.

          Once the vaccines were created, entire diseases were eradicated as a result. Others were suppressed to the point we can live llfes without a meaningful fear of said disease. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE PRIOR TO THE VACCINES. I will ask you again – by what mechanism do you attribute this to since you deny it is vaccines?

          Vaccines have risk/benefit like everything else. Science is clear. The benefits are clear and tremendous for mankind. The risks are minimal.

          Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me how gravity is but a theory. Which it is. But when used in a negative connotation to disparage the science, only shows the ignorance of the meaning.

          Good luck to you. You’re not welcome in my herd if I have anything to say about it.

          Educate yourself:
          http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/vaccines/

        • @yada, you’re either a lying troll or an idiot. I dare you to post a measles or rubella chart from 1900 forward.

      • Btw, your comment was high on emotion and very low on fact, exactly like the agitprop anti gun rhetoric we are all too familiar with.

        • Here is an interesting analogy. Vaccinations are to herd immunity as carry is to crime prevention.

          Anyhow, for both, mandatory, absolutely not, however a really good idea for all those able, definitely.

        • @5, there is no evidence vaccine induce herd immunity exists, despite the phrase being often used. Herd immunity was observed in communities that gained immunity from the wild infections. All references to herd immunity in vaccinated populations are based on guess work and assumptions, some of which are very questionable when these diseases often affect highly vaccinated populations.

        • @Pg2. I don’t know, the math seems pretty straight forward to me on both accounts, it’d take some new and conflicting information to make me revisit either premise.

        • @5, what math is that, exactly? Even if vaccines worked as we were / are conditioned to believe, they carry potentially catastrophic(brain damage, death) side effects.

        • Vaccines have brain damage and death risk? LMFAO

          Try some black plague, let me know which one has more risk.

        • @Pg2 A series of probabilistic set-ups should model it pretty well. Take a Group A of 10 kids, throw in an 11th infected kid. Now you get to make assumptions of exposure rate, unprotected infection rate of those exposed, vaccination rate and vaccination effectives to get the probability of n number of the original 10 being infected. You can then continue that with assumptions on group overlaps, say group B of 10 kids has a two kid overlap with Group A, you can take the chance of any 1 kid in A being infected, double it and do the whole thing again with group B, and then you just keep building up the (yes, overly simplistic but good for example) model.

          But yes, vaccine effectiveness has a huge component to play, so after balancing severity of the particular disease, effectiveness of the vaccine, possible complications of the vaccine, chances of being exposed to the disease, etc. (many of those are individually different for each person) then for somethings it’ll make sense and for some it won’t. The tuberculoses vaccine is a pretty good example of a vaccination that often does not makes sense, despite the severity of the infection (however given the rise of antibiotic resistance strains of TB, the vaccine might start to make sense again). You do have to take each vaccine and each person individually.

        • Keep laughing Yada, it’s a natural way to deal with a subject that don’t understand. You’ve apparently never heard of The1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, VAERS, never looked at an actual vaccine insert, never heard of Former senior CDC researchers Dr. Thomson and Dr. Thorsen…..

        • @pg2. That is how medicine works. Even if the flu vaccine may not be effective 100% of the time it is still worth taking because the potential benefit far exceeds the potential risk.

        • @ad, “@pg2. That is how medicine works. Even if the flu vaccine may not be effective 100% of the time it is still worth taking because the potential benefit far exceeds the potential risk”……Prove it. That is your opinion, and we all know what opinions are worth.

      • This has so many holes I don’t where to begin, but your ending statement is priceless, and it’s a compliment not to be part of your “herd”. Anyone who can formulate their own thoughts probably doesn’t fit in your sheep herd. Too funny. So you can’t deny vaccines had no impact on the decline of most of diseases they were used for, but you give them credit for the decline anyway and accuse of me of being anti-science, without of course citing any of the science I am supposedly opposed to. Priceless Yada.

        • Still waiting for you to explain by what mechanism Measles and Rubella rates suddenly dropped following the delivery of vaccines for the same…

        • I caught measles when I was a baby before I was vaccinated, and I almost died. You can say what you want, but I got my kids vaccinated as soon as it was safe to do it.

        • There is no controversy in the medical community regarding vaccines. Absolutely none. You may think there is, but there is not. There is an eradication rate of 99% for the 9 diseases that are commonly vaccinated against. This is not a coincidence. Further, herd immunity does protect those that are not immune, and, again, this is easily proven and not controversial. Only clean drinking water has been more effective at eradicating disease. The benefit of vaccination relative to the risk is unlike anything else. Again, you may think that this is controversial but it is not.

          • A CDC “scientist” spilled the beans recently when it was stated that vaccines were administered to infants, even when vaccination immunity against diseases was ineffective in children so young, in order to “train” parents into taking their children to medical professionals for vaccinations. This, in itself constitutes medical malpractice of the worst kind…
            The CDC and the vaccination establishment must think parents are stupid…
            When multiple vaccinations are administered to a child and the parents notice a “change” in the child’s demeanor or personality, they are automatically labeled as “uninformed”, “uneducated and misguided” and “unwilling to see the benefits of vaccination”.
            It is true that not all children react the same way (or negatively) to vaccination, but there are many children who DO have negative (adverse) reactions. This happens to more than “just a few” children and has become epidemic in some areas.
            The causes may be thimerosol or just the fact that multiple vaccines are administered at one time for the “convenience of the medical professionals”. It is FACT that infants’ and childrens’ little bodies may be “overloaded” by these multiple vaccination doses.
            Scientific inquiry and investigation has been tainted with “funding” from various “special interest groups” and should ALWAYS be “taken with a grain of salt” and should always be investigated independently. The days of pure scientific investigation without “taint” from some advocacy group are pretty much over.
            FOLLOW THE MONEY…

            …all one has to do is to look at the dishonesty and results-driven agenda of the “globull warming” (oops I mean “climate change”) crowd to see that scientific hucksterism and dishonesty is rampant throughout the whole “scientific community”.

        • This is easily disproved and you could be no less credible than if you were claiming that the earth is flat or the moon is made of cheese.

        • Yada, as you have already had to admit, these infections had all shown significant decline prior to vaccines being introduced. Your attempt to post 1960 and 1990 forward graphs was not even close to being clever. Oldest troll trick in the book. Post some longer, prevaccine charts. I wait with bated breath.

        • @ad….what rock are you living under? Vaccines are the biggest controversy in medicine. Nurses are suing hospitals…and winning, for being fired after refusing the flu shot. Just because the bought and paid for anti gun, fake news mainstream media doesn’t cover anything that negatively addresses vaccines doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Get your head out of the sand.

        • @Pg2. Indeed, the flu vaccine’s effectiveness rate is 50% to 60%, according to the CDC. And it gets more complicated because what constitutes “effectiveness?” Yet the likelihood of side effect is minuscule, so the potential benefit still far outweighs the risks. That is how medicine works: potential benefit > potential risk. Vaccines for Polio, Measles, Smallpox, Rabies, Rotavirus, Pertussis, Chickenpox, and HPV are all between 90% to 100% effective at immunization. There is a live example in the Ebola vaccine, which has just been developed and is 100% effective at immunization. There is no debate. Vaccination is second only to clean drinking water in its significance to public health. I do not doubt that you believe that there is a debate and that your echo chamber sources of information confirm this, but there is no debate.

        • @Ad, how can the CDC accurately state the effectiveness for any vaccine that is not tested against a true placebo or non vaccinated group? And you are right that clean water supply lowered disease rates, as well as better living conditions, better nutrition, refrigeration for food, personal hygiene, child labor laws, ect. You keep bleeping about an echo chamber, but you’re the one that sounds uncomfortable with facts and opinions that are outside your comfort zone.

        • @Ad, you’re making a case for the flu vaccines when even the CDC admits they don’t work most of the time? Only on TTAG….

        • @PG2 I was responding to your statement that vaccines do not undergo randomized testing, which is demonstrably false. As are all of anti vaxxer’s pseudo scientific claims.

          You are correct in that the flu vaccine does not work all the time. And yet the point is moot. Even if it works only some of the time, it is still worth getting because the benefit is massively disproportionate to the risk. Simply put, if [(probability of benefit) x (benefit)] – [(probability of negative outcome) x (negative outcome)] > 0 then it is worth it. The fatal flaw in anti vax thinking is that it misappropriates negative outcomes (autism, which has been proven false time and time again, for instance) or massively overestimates the probability of actual negative outcomes (an allergic reaction, for instance). Because the anti vaxxer mind fails to understand this it subscribes equal weight to positive and negative outcome. There is no debate. I know that you think there is, but there is not.

        • @Ad, you apparently did not read own link, I have. I suggest you re-read it and cite the actual double blind, true placebo efficacy and safety tests for the flu vaccine. So typical, people that are bluffing will often resort the appeal to authority ploy, hoping the official-ness will scare people off from calling them out. While you’re at it, feel free to cite any of the true placebo safety and/efficacy tests for any of the childhood recommended vaccines. I’ll get some popcorn and wait for your response. Btw, you better mention your theory that vaccines do not cause autism to the ‘vaccine court’, they have paid out over $3,000,000,000 in damages to children, many autistic.

          And this case. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-to-receive-15m-plus-in-first-ever-vaccine-autism-court-award/

        • @pPg2: The case was conceded without proof of causation. Poling was diagnosed with encephalopathy caused by a mitochondrial enzyme deficit. There is no evidence that childhood vaccines cause or contribute to mitochondrial disease, and there is no evidence that vaccinations damage the brains of children with mitochondrial disorders. Although many anti vaxxers view this ruling as confirmation that vaccines cause regressive autism, few children with autism have mitochondrial disorders. Again, I do not doubt that you think there is a debate, but there is not.

        • @Pg2 RE randomized studies, here are the titles of five. There are literally hundreds of these.
          1. Efficacy of nine-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease in The Gambia: randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial
          2. Randomised placebo-controlled trial of rhesus-human reassortant rotavirus vaccine for prevention of severe rotavirus gastroenteritis
          3. Safety and immunogenicity of live attenuated quadrivalent human–bovine (UK) reassortant rotavirus vaccine administered with childhood vaccines to infants
          4. Safety and efficacy of MVA85A, a new tuberculosis vaccine, in infants previously vaccinated with BCG: a randomised, placebo-controlled phase 2b trial
          5. Prevention of Perinatal Acquisition of Hepatitis B Virus Carriage Using Vaccine: Preliminary Report of a Randomized, Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled and Comparative Trial

        • @Ad, do you know how to cite a study? If there are hundreds to true placebo trials cite some of the commonly used/recommended true placebo tests as administered. Your above descriptions are not citations. Here, let me help out…..MMR, DTaP, IPV, Hep B, PVC to name a few of the recommended vaccines, and make sure your citations prove the point you are trying to make, that these products are tested against true placebos as they actually administered to infants and children. Btw, maybe you missed the memo that a senior CDC researcher who worked on the CDC’s autism studies has come forward accusing the CDC of fraud and manipulating the data in autism studies, and that another of the lead authors in the same studies is wanted by the OIG for fraud. Anyway, I look forward to seeing some of the hundreds of true placebo tests for the above childhood vaccines as they given in combination in real life.

        • @Pg2 ? Those are literally the names of the studies. Feel free to look them up. Again, there are hundreds of them.

          Are you referring to Bill Thompson? He long ago came out and admitted to omitting statistically significant information in his Pediatrics article and his article in Translational Neurodegeneration was retracted by that journal’s editor and publisher. He released a statement through his lawyer about this, which you can google. The money shot is:

          “I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.”

          There is no debate.

        • @Ad, perfect, I knew you would dodge my request. For good reason, the studies you are implying exist do not exist. Love you truncated Dr. Thompson’s statement and left out the opening…”My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998. I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”
          You predictably didn’t respond to Dr. Thorsen, the senior CDC researcher who is wanted for fraud. Guess that doesn’t fit your agenda.
          Ad, only someone with financial interests would intentionally omit this information and lie by omission as you have throughout this thread. You’re a legit troll/shill. You can repeat the “there is no debate” lie all day long, doesn’t change reality.

        • pg2: Sorry, it is hard to keep track of all of the frauds associated with the antivax movement. My apology.

          As it relates to Thorson, indeed, he embezzled money from the CDC. But the anti vax argument against him has nothing to do with science or data. It is ad hominem. I guess there is a legitimate argument of not making health care decisions based on the work of fraud, but that would force me to bring up Andrew Wakefield, the scientific fraud and moses to the antivax movement. His fraud is actually relevant because it was not financial (although he did have massive undisclosed conflicts of interest) but scientific. His Lancet study remains one of the greatest frauds in the history of medicine and yet is the bedrock of the anti vax movement.

          I am surprised that you have not brought up the movie Vaxxed yet. The reviews are quite entertaining.

          If I was an antivaxxer, I would defer to the “waaahh, I dont wannaa” er “personal liberty” argument. At least you can defend this position. Making the argument against vaccination with fake/misunderstood science seems like a fools errand.

        • Do you know what ad hominem is? And you want the public to believe Thorsen being wanted for fraud has no bearing on his character? That’s actually funny, thanks for laugh, though you meant it seriously. You finally pulled the Wakefield straw man, gotta give you some credit for not using it immediately. Guess you’ve run out of ways to dodge the questions? Whats your financial stake in this?

        • @Ad, btw, I googled your studies, all were conveniently behind paywalls so unless you pay to access, you can’t see the methods used and cannot see if the “placebo” was another another vaccine or aluminum or another adjuvant which is often the case when “placebos” are used in these vaccine studies. You’re a fraud. Busted.

        • @p2g: Webster defines ad hominem as “an argument or reaction directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.” Anti vaxxers bring up Thorson not in relation to his research, but because he committed financial fraud and just so happens to be involved in vaccine research. That is the very definition of an ad hominem attack, a common tactic of anti vaxxers since fact is not on their side.

          Lets discuss Wakefield, since you brought him up. He is hardly a strawman. His fraudulent claim of a connection to MMR vaccine and autism is the very basis of the modern anti vax movement and he remains a prominent voice. He is behind the Vaxxer propaganda movie and is an editor to a number of the fake journals that continue to promote anti scientific myths that anti vaxxers embrace (e.g. natural immunity, herd immunity does not exist, vaccines cause autism, thermisol, big pharma conspiracy, etc.). He is the Goebbels of the anti vax religion. Which is what anti vaxxery is, pure and simple.

        • @pg2 Sorry mate, I cannot help you with paywalls, but trust me, they are there. Perhaps there is a medical school library in your area? If so, ask a research librarian for peer reviewed research into randomized studies on vaccines and she will come up with a stack as high as you. I do hope you make the effort; I think too highly of you to make an accusation of intellectual laziness 😉

        • @Ad,thanks for laughs, you’re a bottom shelf vax troll. I’ve called every bluff you’ve tried. You’ll always be the shill that claimed ‘there are hundreds of true placebo tests’, yet was unable to cite a single one.. People who don’t have a financial interest typically do not take the time to post this type of premeditated misinformation. Your technique of using emotion and avoiding anything factual is very typical, just like the anti-gun agenda, which was exactly my original point. Thank you for showing a good example.

        • @PG2: Yes, there is quite a bit of money in debating flat earthers on the interwebz. You disappoint me. Given the strength of your conviction, I had hoped you would have some good arguments and yet are only capable of parroting discredited mythology of anti vax mommy blogs. You could have brought up the Denmark MMR study, or at the very least, Mark Geier’s work. Perhaps worked in the claim that the Amish do not get autism because they are not vaccinated. Of course it is junk science, but it sounds credible. The studies into mercury poisoning in baby monkeys are interesting although they don’t seem to prove much. You could have made the point that Hep vax is not necessary since it is not contagious. Alas, you stick with barking from your cave that anyone that disagrees with you is part of a vast conspiracy.

        • @ad, still trolling this thread? Let me know when some of those “hundreds” of true placebo tests you stated exist. Until then, you fail.

        • @pg2: I cannot help if you are too lazy to go to pubmed or google scholar. Its really is not that hard, assuming you want to fact check your argument, which you do not. Since we are talking about facts, please point me to peer reviewed research that supports any anti vax claim e.g. natural immunity, herd immunity does not exist, a link to autism, that babies get “overloaded” with vaccines, any others you want to throw out. Your response of ad hominem or ad hoc will be the signal that there is no data. Which is expected since anti vaxxery is a religion and has nothing to do with science.

    • Oh ffs people stop feeding pg2. Maybe then he’ll get bored and stop hijacking threads on his anti-vaccine jihad.

      • No worries. Pg2, and his kind will die off from stupidity eventually. Sadly, it will also have an effect on the rest of us as well. I wonder how many generations it will take for anti-vax nutjobbery to be selected out of the gene pool.

        • Says the poster that raised himself to the level of Jesus Christ, choosing and guiding his herd…of sheep. Who talks like that? Seriously? You are right about 1 thing, people that remain part of your herd will see their numbers drop off as the neurological and immunological destruction of today’s youth continues at the guidance from fake experts like yourself.

          • Do you have a child with autism? I do. And both of my children have substantial sensory issues. There was a time when I wondered if it could have been caused by the vaccines, but I honestly don’t believe that is the case. I think it more likely that we are seeing an uptick in neurological disorders because the vast majority of us are genetically damaged due to long-term exposure to the various chemicals in our environments. I have always struggled with OCD, and I have had Adult ADD since I was a teenager.

        • @Cjstl, vaccines are not the only cause of autism and neurological disorders, you are right that our environment and food supply are contaminated with dangerous pollutants.

      • My original post was an observation. Nothing more. Yada posted himself into a corner with his first post. Ignorance on that level needs to be called out.

        • Still waiting for you to explain by what mechanism Measles and Rubella have dropped to almost non-existent rates. You keep avoiding answering by waving your hands and yelling…but never explain the drop.

        • @ yada, already covered in this thread, better nutrition, better nutrition, better nutrition…and clean water, better personal hygiene, refrigeration for food, less crowded and improved living conditions, child labor laws…..

      • I may have replied to this elsewhere, but the CDC’s own numbers don’t look very convincing….17%? These studies make the assumption that all the vaccinated subjects would have caught the flu if they had not been vaccinated. Flawed.

        • @Pg2 And yet statistical methods are used to account for differences in age, race and underlying medical conditions that might influence vaccine effectiveness. It is rich that an anti vaxxer would pick apart a CDC white paper and yet believes that herd immunity is a myth and claim that the eradication of measles post vaccine is a mere coincidence.

  14. Just to play devil’s advocate here for a moment, it’s the absolutionist viewpoint that causes many gun owners and antis alike to take issue. Sure, “shall not be infringed” seems pretty cut and dried. That’s IF you agree with current interpretation that WRM means nothing. I personally believe it means that the Founders wanted the people to be skilled in the use of our weapons and ready to defend our freedom from a tyrannical government. Others believe it means something else. Absolutionists believe it means nothing, and antis don’t care what it means, but will seize upon it however they can in order to accomplish their goals. See how that works?

    It’s all of those people in the middle that the absolutionists need to worry about. Because while they largely support gun ownership, they are opposed to certain aspects of gun ownership. Or opposed to certain people owning guns. And that makes them highly susceptible to the arguments/propaganda of the antis.

    In the interest of brevity, I will pick one example – The Wild West Mentality. Absolutionists can very easily be perceived as believing the answer to everything is more guns. Any attempt to restrict certain persons from owning or obtaining guns has the potential to cause collateral damage that might impact a law abiding citizen’s RKBA. A bitter woman, for example, might falsely file a restraining order against an ex. So absolutionists would say that there should be no avenue for police to remove guns from the accused while a domestic violence case is being investigated. Their solution? The woman needs to buy guns to defend herself from an abusive ex with guns. What happens then? Maybe he comes after her and gets scared off when he sees that she is armed. Or more likely there is a shootout, and the guilty party has an even to good chance of winning. Yes, probably he gets caught and goes to jail, but that doesn’t help the woman if she’s dead.

    The problem here is that a large majority of Americans support the right of the woman to arm up in self-defense. A majority of Americans do not want to see the woman get into a gunfight with her abusive ex, who most likely has a lot more training and skill with his gun. The antis would say neither party should have ever had a gun in the first place. The absolutionists would say that a dead woman does not trump their 2A rights. But the rest of Americans, who outnumber the other two groups combined, would prefer some level of government infringement over a death that could have been prevented.

    • The thing is, very few are absolutist and the vast majority of Americans are in the middle. Only 11% of the population supports gun laws that are less strict than they are now. The coming fight over gun laws will not be at the federal level – this was won long ago – it will be at the state and local level by way of referendum.

      • Yes, the percentage of absolutists (autocorrect really screwed that up in my OP) is astronomically greater here on the TTAG blogs than it is in RL. I think constantly hearing reaffirmation from people who share your beliefs really skews you to what the rest of the world actually believes.

        Out of curiosity, how do you think the battle has already been won at the federal level? It doesn’t seem that way to me. I feel like we need to push for a set of well-defined reasonable laws at the federal level. In some cases, this would be a repeal of certain existing laws (NFA, anyone?), and in others new laws, such as a federal carry permit that would be valid in every state. Any conflicts between state and federal laws would then default to the least restrictive.

        • If we were to hop into a time machine and go back in time 20 years and I told you about Littleton, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, VA Tech, Pulse, etc. would you believe me that the outcome of this would be no new gun gun control legislation? Nothing even introduced. During a period in which democrats controlled Wh and senate no less? You would think I was crazy. That’s what I would point to say that the fight is over.

          • Excellent points, but it helps that a majority of the electorate currently opposes measures such as re-instituting the assault weapons ban. Most politicians are unwilling to completely ignore popular opinion. But popular opinion is subject to change with the wind.

        • ? This is from the August 2016 Pew Research report. Support for:
          – background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows: 81%
          – laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns 76%
          – barring gun purchases by those on government screening lists 71%
          – a federal database to track gun sales 68%
          – bans on assault-style weapons 52%
          – ban on high-capacity ammunition clips 50%

          Further, these all shape up along partisan lines as you would expect, with a majority of repubs friendly to guns and hostile to any legislation and dems hostile to guns and friendly to new legislation. My point is that there is no war if dems cannot pass any legislation – let alone introduce any new legislation – when they have all the power and during a period of relatively broad public support.

    • I always thought of the WRM preamble as a warning to the States not to hamstring their own security and thusly that of the nation. You have to think of the 2nd Amendment in a pre 14th Amendment world and enumerated powers context. To the framers, the Federal government as the constitution was written, even with-out the 2nd amendment had no power to regulate firearms and weapon ownership. However, the states did (pre 14th amendment). The 2nd was meant to have a two fold impact, first to prevent the Federal government from ‘finding’ that power, but also to prevent the states individually from baring firearm ownership. Thus the preamble to the 2nd was to insure it applied to both state and federal governments.

    • The “wild west” was neither wild nor violent. Most of the reports out of the western frontier were written by reporters who embellished their stories, along with newspaper editors back east. You see, a normal mundane existence is not “newsworthy”. Yes, there were presstitutes and “lugenpresse” in those days as well.
      Yes, “frontier justice” did exist…in the absence of legal authority, self-defense was a real necessity…horse thieves were “strung up” from time-to-time, as stealing a man’s horse was tantamount to a death sentence.
      For factual non-biased accounts of the REAL west, please read novels by Louis L’Amour…

  15. I for one am pro gun (rights. And pro all other human rights.) And yes, I do think our controls are not appropriate right now. As a matter of fact I believe they are very inappropriate. Every single one of them is an infringement of our natural and constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

  16. “Because of the limited number of responses, she is unable to make broad claims about rural law enforcement in the report, but Woldoff said further research is needed in the area”
    Then why publish this crap? I also believe it would be different with responses from deputies than city cops. And western U.S. Versus eastern U.S.. Redoubt states versus the heavily populated eastern seaboard.

  17. anarchyst Is correct that shooters are our own worst enemy. One main reason was no effective gun lobby here in Australia is that there were over a 100 groups for clays, pistol hunting, semi auto etc. Still only 20% in SSAA now.

    I agree with Five-
    “Gotta disagree with you on your first one. Legal permeant residences don’t have a right to self defence”

    As someone who will be legally in USA for 3 or 4 months plus Canada for a month next year I would like to be able to have firearms for self defence/ hunting. But not allowed.

    • If you are a green card holder (legal permeant resident) then you are allowed to buy. I see vacationers from Canada and what look to be student visa holders from China and Europe renting at the range I go too, so I’m not entirely clear on the where the dividing line is, maybe one of the other commenters knows better?

    • My alternate suggestions would be: a good pocket knife, a can of combo cs/pepper spray, a good doorstop-alarm, and if you can afford it, a semiauto pcp air rifle. Be careful of local and state laws where you live, in some progressive s**tholes all the aforementioned (and even their defensive use) can be illegal.

      As for just casually renting and shooting guns at a range, gun ranges are very popular tourist destination for many foreigners. I’ve taken a number of overseas coworkers to the range for what would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them. Battlefield Vegas is the thriving example of this.

  18. She interviewed law enforcement professionals. They are biased ( sorry LEO you are) everyone who does a job can see ways to avoid problems. Who does not want less problems? Obviously more authority more rules, more access make it easier to solve their problems. Thus the inherent creep of government into our privacy. This interview of 20 LEO’s proves that academia in their ivory towers lacks the ability to identify what peoples norms and standards actually are.

  19. Five
    It varies a lot.

    Range in Florida told me I could rent if I had a state hunting permit and I had to apply before I left Australia! As it was a last minute side trip not possible

    Next trip is Oregon then down to Arizona and New Mexico then BC side of Canada

  20. Five
    It varies a lot.

    Range in Florida told me I could rent if I had a state hunting permit and I had to apply before I left Australia! As it was a last minute side trip not possible.

  21. C.S.
    Thanks
    Knife and spray goes with me everywhere it is legal.

    Vegas is fun and I’m thinking of trying M60 for old times sake if we are near there. It doesn’t seem over 40 years since I first used on but it is.

  22. A lot of cops, not just rural WV cops, are pro-gun. Not your guns or my guns, but they are pro-their-own-guns.

  23. This contradicts the massive Police One survey back in 2012 as well as on the ground actions of sheriffs in New York who gave essentially refused to enforce the SAFE Act.

  24. – background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows: 81%

    So….now you know why Universal Gun Registration is coming to a state near
    you… Those “background checks” come with GUN REGISTRATION. Here in
    Oregon after Mr. Bloomberg bought off our state legislatures every gun
    purchase needs with the firearm registered with the Oregon State Police,
    an organization notorious for abusing that paperwork to harrass folks.

  25. That’s what I would point to say that the fight is over.

    This statement is also utterly false as gun bans like we see in California this month and
    the “background checks” i.e. GUN REGISTRATION (you know gun registration ends don’t
    you…(ask folks in NY and Connecticut who own “assault rifles”) ? Gun control is actually
    increasing…its just switched to the state level. I expect California to shortly ban guns
    completely (except for LEO’s obviously) in just a few years.

    • You just proved my point that the war at the federal level is over. The new front will be at the state and local level, as we have just seen in WA, CA, ME, and NV.

  27. Simple tribalism at work. Cops support gun rights, but only for themselves and their bootlicking cheerleaders.

  28. Pre-1968, one could walk into a store and purchase a firearm without any “paperwork” or background check”.
    One could also order a firearm by mail order and have it shipped directly to one’s residence without any “paperwork” or “background check”.
    How I long for the “good old days”…

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