Kansas-City-Mayor-Sly-James

There has been much talk about how “progressives” don’t believe in individual responsibility. There’s the stereotype that liberals attribute volitional powers to firearms…that firearms cause violence. In anticipation of the Missouri legislature’s veto override of SB656, Kansas City Mayor Sly James tried to get out in front of the issue in an address to a gaggle of community organizers . . .

As fox4kc.com reports,

Violence, the mayor says is committed by guns.

I listened to the video of the speech. That isn’t exactly what Hizzoner said, but rather a paraphrasing of the speech by Kerri Stowell of Fox4 News.  As I heard it , she said that Mayor James said “Too much violence is committed by guns”.

Ultimately tt doesn’t matter much whether the Mayor said it or if Kerri Stowell misquoted him because that’s what most viewers will hear. It’s a major misuse of the language to say that violence is committed “by” guns instead of “with” guns. “By guns” attributes agency and volition to guns, a nonsensical statement. “With guns” correctly attributes agency and volition to the people using the guns.

I see and hear poor language usage repeatedly and I don’t think it’s accidental. Saying that violence is committed “by guns” removes the volition and responsibility from human hands, and offers a simplistic and irrational solution to a complex problem — remove the guns and you remove the violence. As with most simplistic solutions to complex problems, it only creates more problems.

©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch

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28 COMMENTS

  1. Does removing cars prevent drunk driving? Yes. Do cars cause drunk driving? No. Will people still do stupid things while intoxicated even if they aren’t allowed to own cars? Of course!

    • Actually removing cars will not prevent drunk driving as any vehicle being operated while drunk would still be drunk driving, bicycle, moped, horse and buggy, are a few examples.

      Cruachan!

      • The idea is that removing the tool does not change the simple fact that a stupid person is behind every crime that has a victim. This analogy works better with antis than many others because they know that cars are in common use and necessary for the workforce of society (getting to work is important, is it not?)

        • Simply amazing, checking through the latest NHTSA Traffic safety data and see that over a 10 year span, the number of deaths on our highways is -28% lower.

          But when review of the total data for over all deaths shows that reduction in deaths, is due to the reduction in drunk driving fatalities.

          So having seen a few so called enlightened people stating how regulating the automobiles reduced deaths, the fact is the punishment of those caught drunk driving along with stiffer fines and jail time which actually target and punish those committing the crime, have resulted in the reduction, end of story.

          Did the govt. ban certain types of cars from sober drivers, NOPE!

          Did the govt. ban certain types of cars from sober drivers crossing certain city or state lines, NOPE!

          Did the government impose massive regulatory BS and taxation upon sober drivers, NOPE!

          Did the government require breathalyzer locks on all sober drivers cars, NOPE!

          Isn’t amazing how if one actually punishes those responsible how a societal problem can be reduced!

          Such irrefutable facts of how the guilty and their criminal ACT and not the tool were controlled to reduce the undesired result, a fact lost on the low information low intellect anti gun extremists!

          http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
          http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811700.pdf

  3. Epic fail. Staring at data and hoping for a different conclusion. One policy after another contributing to black on black killing and the result well…nothing. Welfare, unemployment, low-cost housing, section eight, minority programs, tax breaks for business, food programs, midnight basketball, and since all that doesn’t work blame guns. Public policy administered by local, state, & federal government is nothing more than a money trough without merit, no accountability and frankly what every politician wants.

  4. She IS pretty. The mayor not so much. There’s some stupid people running major cities 🙂

  6. If you look at the behavior of his son, then you can see why he thinks guns are to blame as it could never be his son’s faults for his troubles.

  8. Fortunately, the simple counter argument to “guns cause violence” is “spoons cause obesity”.

    • Well that’s just silly. Everyone knows its hands that cause obesity. Come to think of it, hands cause violence, too. I think I might be onto something here….

      • You sure are. Remove everyone’s hands, and almost no one will be murdered. Not only that, people will lose a lot of weight. /S

        For every difficult problem, there is a simply solution that causes worse problems.

        • They will just use those vile, evil black prostetic hand claws with the shoulder thingy that goes up then!

    • Never attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by incompetence.

      The reporter has a third grade literacy level, which is typical of her profession.

  11. I have guns which exhibit good behavior and do not kill people. None of my guns are assault guns, and lovingly sit in the corner until summoned for proper exercise.

  12. Actually an assault gun or weapon would be one that has assaulted someone wouldn’t it? So “assault” weapon must be a misnomer. None of my weapons have ever assaulted anyone either. By that definition there are VERY FEW actual assault weapons in our country. And most of those that are would probably be owned by gang members or felons. Could that be something that the NRA and others could use? Say and ad with an AR-15 and the owner saying “My rifle here has never assaulted anyone. So why do the News reporters call it an assault weapon?”

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