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Over at slate.com, William Saletan is Rethinking Gun Control. No seriously. His article puts forward ten “most salient or surprising takeaways” from an Institute of Medicine study Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence. Saletan’s takes starts with the usual blather: “1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem.” And then — miracle or miracles — gets real . . .

 

“Gun violence” is going down, handguns are the criminal’s ballistic BFFs, mass shootings aren’t the problem, gun suicide is more of a problem than gun homicide, guns are used often and effectively for self-defense (!) and “bad gun dealers” are not a problem. Saletan doesn’t propose “solutions” (thank God) and some of the other points are pointless.

But this, at Slate? What’s the world coming to? Common sense? Guard up. Always. But are we, you know, winning? [h/t JJ]

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53 COMMENTS

  1. I think that overall, yes, we are winning.

    The case of that verb is important…are winning. It’s ongoing.

    We have not “won,” and doubt we ever truly will. The cancerous anti-liberty types will always be there, always looking for an “in” to gain control.

    • You meant “tense” of the verb, I think, but you make a good point. Every once in a while this question is posed and people will scream that we can’t be winning because X restriction still exists. (There are a couple of regular posters here who don’t seem to care about anything but repealing the Hughes Amendment and/or the NFA, just for instance–I guess they’re fine with all the crap in GCA 1968 and the Brady Act, even though those sorts of things impact far more people.)

      I think overall, nationwide, we are winning, but we are actually losing in the Northeast and the West Coast. CA, NJ, NY, CT, MD, et. nauseating al are all backsliding.

      I will go so far as to say it’s metaphysically possible (but unlikely) to actually win, to see all the gun control crap wiped off the books everywhere, but that doesn’t mean another war over the same turf won’t come later.

      • I agree with this assessment. I think overall we are winning but the states we have been losing for years we are going to lose entirely soonish.

        • As far as anti gun states go, I have been seeing huge improvements in Illinois. In another 10 or 20 years, I think it will be about the same as Wisconsin or Indiana.

      • Maybe we could get a Constitutional Amendment passed saying the RKBA shall not be infringed?! Just a thought.

  2. Question, RF…. Why do you have a ten-round magazine inserted? They are handy for bench-resting, and necessary where standard capacity magazines are prohibited by law, but in the Free State of Texas, why good sir?

      • It’s still an abomination. Like a factory stereo in a 1980’s car, it might have come standard, but that shit has got to go.

      • I have to admit the low cap mag was the first thing I noticed to but you made it all ok with a bacon reference!

    • “Free State” of Texas?

      The state has concealed carry permits and open carry of handguns is (currently, and hopefully this is to change very soon) prohibited.

      They have a ways to go.

      With Respect,
      An Arizonian

    • For some reason, Slate posted two old gun articles from over a year ago on their front page yesterday. The other one was about Slate’s failed effort to list all “gun deaths” since Newtown.

      • Aha– I knew I had just run into that article online, like yesterday. Was wondering why since it is indeed old.

      • “Ya don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…” The article wasn’t that slanted. They have to reset to the new normal. People are more interested in that “suppose we defend ourselves?” bit.

        We’re winning, because with the state public-employee pension funds going bust in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and more, people realize that there are going to be less cops, not more, and more punks, not less…in our future. Self-help is the American way.

    • And we are at about Round 10, on the 15 round card in Vegas, run by Don King.

      Anything can happen- and I personally fear, and expect something radical and ridiculous to be pulled out of the hat by this POTUS- some executive action that justivies a top-down gun grab as a legacy- or a power move, something un-imaginable that will shock and awe his base, perhaps.

      After all, here is no where to go but up, as he is not held responsible by the scared and boot-licking StateRunMedia. Mark my words, the fight is not over yet. We have at least ten years of time to get the SCOTUS decisions to fully secure the right to bear outside the home, and how long did it take to get here on that alone?

      • I don’t think Obama cares about guns enough to torpedo his whole party like that. If he were to try some sweeping executive action gun grab, it would destroy any chance the Democrats might have had for 2016.

  5. I think that last poll with 52% of americans favoring gun rights got these progressive news sources thinking.
    Espousing the same garbage won’t attract new readers so they seem to be pulling the stops out.

  7. I thought the anti’s wanted more gun suicides? You know, to reduce the number of guns walking among us.

  8. Yes.
    This has been a pretty good year. Georgia, and Idaho to name just two.
    Washington was a hard, tactical loss and I fear the domino effect.

    (How appropriate that the bacon maker is in the dining area)

  9. 18 months old or not- I still think we are winning. Except in places that are pretty much already lost ( i.e. Dem-controlled). Our allegedly most dangerous opponent, Wendy-Shannon Davis-Watts, is reduced to trying to pressure yuppie/hipster hangouts and grocers into banning rifles from their premises, and hasn’t even really succeeded at that (not to mention running into a brick wall with a “Krogers” sign on it). More women than ever are buying guns, states with rational people in government are relaxing restrictions on their possession, crime overall is going down, and the hysterical cries of “wolves in the schools” are being largely ignored by the population at large. The Shannons and Gabbys of the world have to operate in a “comment disabled”, “no dissenting views allowed” environment to avoid being completely humiliated having their ridiculous claims and ignorant statements called out with real-world facts and data.

  10. My observations is this: We who value the 2nd amendment are winning the moderates and shoring up the support from the right. The more the left goes off the rail toward tyranny, the more we lose their support, which is predictable. In general, the gap between the left and the rest of society is bigger than it has been in decades, perhaps over a century. There is also a truth to the saying that you can fool some of the people all the time, all the the people some of the time, but you cannot fool.all the people all the time. People are wising up…just not the loud and obnoxious true believers of the left.

    • Yup. The Democrats are doing more to kill the left’s agenda that we ever could. And the face of the Dem. Party in 2016 is likely to be either a nasty, egotistical old woman or a phony Indian princess. I think we’re good.

      • Don’t understimate that phony Indian princess. The bone that the GOP (and a whole lot of Dems) just threw Citibank gives fuel to her fire, and her anti-crony capitalism rhetoric resonates with some on our side of the 2A issue.

        • “Don’t understimate that phony Indian princess.”

          Yes. Obama’s political muscle machine is throwing its support to Princess Warren.

          There is apparently some serious hatred of the Clintons by Obama and co-president V. Jarret.

        • Fauxcahontas is this generation’s George McGovern. She’s the greatest gift that the Dems could ever give to the Republicans. I’m praying that she gets the Dem nomination. She will win five states in the general election.

        • Here is a rather arcane article describing the “bone.” There isn’t much there besides demagoguery.

          http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/12/the-wall-street-rider-whats-it-all-about.php

          There is whole set of Republican Kamikazes who are going to kill the CR because the=y are too stupid to understand that McConnell and Boehner are trying to get to January without a crisis so they can return to the normal order of the budgetary process. Normal order is where you can exercise leverage against Obama because you don’t have one big bill where if you don’t pass it you get crisis. Normal order forces the President to sign appropriations on a department and agency basis. The Republican controlled Congress can load up agencies like the EPA with onerous restriction leaving the President with choice of expecting or shutting them down until further notice. They have already done this with the DHS CR. It only goes to February at which point the Republican majority can defund amnesty by default, i.e., rescind or DHS goes to sleep.

        • @tdi

          I tend to agree with you. Fighting over DHS now is pointless; time is on the Rs side. After January 3 the Senate will cease to be procedural constipation and Rs can drop all kinds of embarrassing, awkward stuff on Obama’s desk.

      • ” ‘Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)’ …was first recorded in 1959 by Marvin Rainwater and released as “The Pale Faced Indian”. …In 1971 Paul Revere & the Raiders recorded the song. This recording was released on the Columbia Records label and became #1 on the U.S. chart on July 24.” Wiki.

        And the recording’s ready for campaign ads. “Pale Faced Indian,” indeed. True to her people she rode her first pony through law school, then picked up a fresh one in Texas, and joined his tribe, adopting his legal specialty as hers, pulling a somewhat more sophisticated Wendy Davis. “How!” And on the general change in the electorate…”Tonto, help, we are surrounded by Indians!” “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?” It’s going to be a hell of an election year.

    • The gap between the right is pretty large considering a good portion of Republicans are also becoming Independents. The growth of those that self-identify as Independent has increased substantially since the mid 90s. I believe it’s a repudiation by the American public of both the extreme left and right side of the political spectrum.

    • “Americans get the government they deserve.” –President Jimmy Carter

      Frankly, I’d like to keep the guns on the red-state side of the line where they’re in the hands of sensible people.

  12. Shame on you RF. You need to either rack it or lay it down.

    On two counts you done bad. First, when it “accidentally” slips and hits the tile floor I don’t want to hear any excuses from you for the consequences. Second, on YOUR worldwide website with millions of hits, you are setting a bad example. A really bad example. Dare I say you win the IGOTD with this picture.

    • My thought, while not as severe as your account, was that the rifle should at least be a few inches to the left to be supported by the counter support.

    • Um, guns don’t just “go off” when they fall over. The trigger would some how have to be caught on something. Not that I’m advocating throwing a gun a around like a child throwing their toys.

  13. Is it just me or did I originally expect you to look like yourself in the photo prior to seeing any images of you? Cos I think there’s a stereotype that gun owners look a bit stout or something.

    • Agree. I’m not sure I’d call it ‘winning’ just because eventually the kids on the short bus want onto the long bus.

  15. Some actual facts in Slate???!!! Cool. But one the suicide one is such a joke. While the US suicide rate with guns is high, our overall suicide rate ranks far below many gun control paradises, such as Russia.

  16. Gun controllers have worked very hard to convince American citizens that gun ownership is deviant behavior. Virtually all of the propaganda is aimed at depicting People Of The Gun as being apart from more upstanding and proper thinking people. One of their favorite memes is to try to medicalize “gun-deviance” by having politicized medical “professionals” claim that owning a gun is an dangerous pathology that must be treated as in illness.

    In order to make this work, however, they have to first convince Americans that gun-ownership is not normal behavior and, in this, they have failed miserably. Americans simply don’t see gun ownership as “bad” behavior. Increasingly, it is the gun-control movement that is being seen as outside the American mainstream. Gun-controllers are being seen a deviants. Maybe we should start suggesting that their neurotic obsession with gun-ownership makes them increasingly dysfunctional in everyday society? These people need help.

  17. Yes, “we” are winning, if you define “we” as the people who read and reason based on the facts. It has nothing to do with skin color, race, gender- or even whether you have a gun or not- its more about whether you can use your brain for yourself, or not.

    There is a coordinated messaging underway right now about gun-rights by the predictable actors and behind the scenes journolistas following the “talking points memos”. I wont speculate on the why, as their are many obvious reasons for such a strategy-

    1. Among the 15% of true believers- to distract, fire up the base, divert the news outlets- any set of eyeballs that isnt attached to a thinking brain, to something emotional…”for the children” – anything to get people to stop thinking about the failure to create jobs, the new competition from illegal employees in immigration law breaking that directly threatens labor union power, the complete and total incompetence of Obamacare, the hugely dangerous implications of foreign policy- a nuke armed Iran, for example…criminal abuse of the IRS, DOJ, CIA as used against US citizens…

    2. the desperation of individual journalists who need to pay the mortgage to somehow repair their personal reputation and brand, from the boot-licking Chrissy “Tingles” Matthews at MSNBC, to folks like Saletan, and others at HuffPo, even WAPO. They see whats happening at CNN and MSNBC as they circle the drain, and NYT laying people off without pensions…the result of the Gray Lady having Gone Down too many times…

    3. The cynicism of the owners- Arianna Huffington is the best example- to follow the decaying smell of dog meat, whatever works for the low info voters who want to be told what to think, about politics, to be part of the kool kid klub, when kardashian gossip gets old. They get that the Millenials are wising up, and way ahead- on personal freedoms, and thinking for themselves instead of following Obama Girl or Pajama Boy…
    Thats why you see more libertarian and independent writers getting space- Balko, who was way ahead on police militarization, Totten on the truth on the ground in the middle east, Professor Glenn Reynolds on constitutional issues. And the success of right and independent thinking at TruthRevolt, TheBlaze, PJMedia, following the success of conservative talk radio providing an outlet for ideas censored by the StateRunMedia…

  18. Keep bringing guests to the range.

    We win this battle one person at a time.

    Once a person learns, hands on, that he can safely handle and keep a gun, he sees no reason why he should not be allowed to do so.

    Plus it is fun!

    How can we lose this fight when we have the fun things that go BANG on our side? People just need to be exposed to them in a positive way.

  19. Winning? No, we’ve fought to a rough standstill. Public opinion favoring gun ownership and less gun control laws has just crawled into the low 50th percentile. We should be optimistic, take that energy and use it to advance our side further. It’s too early to declare “Mission Accomplished!”…..

  20. Had a Leftie tell me gun sales are down. That might be true in the near term but since The Cowboy left office and the Community Organizer came in people have tooled up at a surprising rate. So a greater portion of the country has a piece now and the Dems still have not learned to stay away from gun control. It got them kicked in 94 and the last two elections as well. Dickenlicker got reelected in CO on the pot issue but had to fight for it. Other pols paid with their jobs.

    Multiple wins are great but all they need is one big win and it’s over. Once banned they are not removing the ban. If anyone can find an instance where firearms restrictions were relaxed back I’d like to see it.

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