Baltimore’s Metro Industrial Areas Foundation claims to be “the nation’s first and largest network of multi-faith community organizations.” The meta-org has started a campaign called “Do Not Stand Idly By” based on the Biblical quote “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” While you and I might interpret that as a call to arms . . .
the Metro-IAF has something different in mind: use police gun purchases to force gun makers to excommunicate “rogue” gun dealers and create “smart guns.” “In a time of ever-increasing firepower will require a new approach, an unlikely assortment of allies, and a refusal to tolerate large-scale death and injury as the necessary price of liberty in America.” So, is it? Was Joe the Plumber’s indelicate post-Newtown remark – your dead child doesn’t trump my rights – correct?
I think the firearms industry can more easily forgoe the police market than the “other civilian” market.
+1
There’s FAR more of us than there are of them. Not that this is an us vs. them thing, but in terms of sheer numbers…
Well, it isn’t “us vs them” as far as WE are concerned….
And we pay (close to) full price for our guns.
i believe the gun industry can do quite well without sales to law enforcement. it is law enforcement who is dependent on the gun industry. ronnie barrett refuses to maintain his guns bought by california law because he will not do business with someone committing illegal acts (gun control/confiscation).
It’s a completely false argument. My guns help me to protect life and liberty as well. Even if I was to accept that murders are dramatically increasing, and just the opposite is true, it is not the result of liberty, or the tools that assist us in defending that liberty, but instead the result of the simple evil deeds of man.
Indeed, if anything large scale death and destruction is the price we pay for having allowed our liberties to be infringed for so long in so many ways….
Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith
Paris Nov. 13. 1787.
the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.
Large scale death and injury is the price of legalized alcohol and gun control advocates accept that price without even batting an eye.
10,000 – 12,000 people killed by drunk drivers, CDC says every year 88,000 deaths among just working age people are directly attributable to alcohol. We accept these losses so people can enjoy the freedom to enjoy their beverage of choice. Why should guns be any different?
But Alcohol is protected under the Constitution! Don’t you remember that part that goes “A well regulated beer hall being necessary to the enjoyment of a free state, the right of the people to keep and drink booze shall not be infringed.”
I need a t-shirt with this…
Wasn’t that the Sam Adams Amendment? Real shame that one wasn’t ratified.
Seriously though.
I think one could argue that the 21st Amendment guarantees that the government may not infringe upon the right to keep and drink alcohol, without a good reason. It repealed the 18th, which was the ‘prohibition” amendment.
Apparently not, because less than 1 in 10,000 people in America are killed with guns every year (and that’s counting the suicides, many (most?) of whom would kill themselves in another way if they didn’t have access to a gun). I, personally, wouldn’t count such low numbers as “large scale”, when far more people die from tobacco use, medical mistakes, alcohol, obesity, poisoning, cancer, infectious disease, heart disease, etc, etc, etc…
Came here to say exactly this. ^^
We’re in more danger from the flu than from firearms. This is a manufactured controversy.
Manufactured controversies often win.
Just like manufactured credentials and a phoney history helped President Sparklefarts win an election.
American culture is based on the concept of individual liberty. Rights are not collective. Liberty is only guaranteed by what the individual is willing to sacrifice for, and who they are willing to kill to maintain it.
Of course it is as long as people drive, swim walk up and down stairs, cross streets, eat and shoot guns and bows. Wait, did I forget anything that can cause injury or death?
As I keep pointing out, again and again, and I’ll point out again here: In Wyoming, 60% of households have at least one gun in them. We can buy a guy, load it, strap it on and walk down the street here without a permit.
And there is no bloodshed in the streets.
The problem isn’t a “price of freedom.” The problem is that some cultures just aren’t evolved enough to be able to deal with freedom. They want Uncle Sugar to pay for their healthcare, their children for whom they won’t provide, they want Uncle Sugar’s law enforcement to resolve family disputes and to tell fast food employees to make their burgers the way they want, they want Uncle Sugar to pay for their food, their housing and their clothes.
There are some people and some cultures who cannot handle any aspect of freedom. They’re superannuated children with the right to vote.
“We can buy a guy, load it, strap it on and walk down the street here without a permit.”, I thought they were too heavy, that’s why people carry a gun.
Yea, keypunch error, followed by a lack of edit here on TTAG recently. It should be a “gun” obviously.
This is what happened when I’m typing and conversing with Mrs. DG at the same time. Sometimes, she turns around and says “Huh, whut?” and you guys get a “Huh, whut?” in the writing.
Multitasking is harder than it looks. That’s why I never drink and drive at the same time: Fiddling with the steering wheel is just too distracting from enjoying a good single malt.
I figured it was a mistake, but my brother always says he carries a gun because a cop is just too damn heavy.
I thought it was because people in Wyoming were just that much stronger than the rest of us 🙂
DG, I’ve read a lot of your comments and specifically the one where you said Afghanistan or Iraq would never have liberty until they themselves brought it to happen. I agree with that.
But the idea that a diverse community will always be at it’s own throat is wrong – exhibit A is Rhode Island, which never had the religious based revolts that Maryland did by the way. RI for the most part is one of the least violent in the country.
Diversity is overrated.
Apparently you don’t spend much time in Providence. With crime well above the national average in every category, its the model of peaceful diversity.
I actually spend quite a lot of time in Providence in all sorts of neighborhoods. Never been shot, stabbed, bothered, or even looked at funny in 24 years.
Those that would give up liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
“Is “Large Scale Death and Injury the Price of Liberty In America”? ”
It’s looking like it’s coming to that. Arm up b_tches.
His statement might be right, but for totally opposite reasons.
Colt may be able to bounce back thanks to this group.. 😀
Doubtful, since Colt’s civilian sales are practically non-existent.
Doubtful, since Colt’s civilian sales are practically non-existent.
Sort of the definition of bankruptcy, ain’t it?
Exactly. How many PD’s buy Colt? Colt has been reduced to federal no-bid contracts bought by political influence.
The sooner they fold, the better.
They could go the way of Springfield Armory, Inc. After they liquidate, someone could buy the name, and the right to produce some of the designs, and then actually run the company like they had a clue.
Not that the Springfield Armory was mismanaged, but the people who bought the name recognized its worth and kept it alive for that reason. Colt could reanimate for the same reason.
I always love this shit from the anti’s:
They still marvel at centuries old technology like there are space lasers and genetically enhanced humanoids building AR’s and AK’s on orbiting platforms.
No wonder “cyber” security is such an issue. They probably think locking the Tandy behind a door is good enough. High tech. It beeps and stuff.
I would like to know what firepower the civilian market is getting that’s increasing; if anything it’s going down.
Always reminds me of this:
https://xkcd.com/932/
Death and destruction is not the price of Liberty, since those Americans who value and sacrifice most for Liberty tend to be some of the most peace loving and hard working to be found. Death and destruction is the price of other Americans utterly failing to take responsibility for their own lives and actions.
People who want to kill a lot of people turn to guns. They’re relatively easy to get and not too hard to use.
But they don’t cause “Large Scale” death and injury. To get to that level you have to put some effort into it.
People a generally lazy, so they go to guns. They find that killing “a lot” of people is much easier than killing people on a “Large Scale.”
So, get rid of guns. The hateful have no easy way to hurt “a lot” of people. They either have to setting for killing a few people with easier methods, or putting in some effort to get to the “Large Scale” tier of murder.
The lazy and stupid are going to turn to knives or vehicles, but the people who really, really, reaaaallllly want to kill a lot of people are going to find a way.
What are people going to do when the feds search a post-2A killer’s home and find a cache of chemistry books instead of rifles and ammo? How about a 3d printer or a DIY CNC machine?
There are multiple centripetal forces tearing our society apart. ‘Gun violence’ is just a symptom.
When my father was a child in the 1950s he could order a garand through the mail for $15, delivered straight to his house. He rode the subway in NYC with his target rifle.
What changed? Seems like almost everything. Relaxed social norms, equal rights for women and women joining the work force, more political rights for minorities, tolerance for gays and lesbians, the drop in the top tax rate from 90%, the rise of inequality and the superstar economy, the hollowing out of american manufacturing, walmart eating small town america, wall street strip mining pension funds.
Maybe potentiating ‘gun violence’ isn’t a bug in the second amendment, it’s a feature. It certainly brings the consequences of social problems to the fore. Maybe it forces us to deal with social problems before with have Robespierre whipping up the mob.
I’m not an expert on Switzerland, but I wonder if they wouldn’t be a better model than France or Australia in shaping our social approach to guns. Certainly they rank far lower on both the GINI inequality scale and the intentional homicide rate per capita than we do.
In all that soldier hate you did spot the inherent irony in your screen name, right?
The MIAF is a small organization that means well. They’re not too popular or well-informed on certain issues (firearms). Their “top victories” links are dead and the rest of the site is hit and miss. You’re doing them a huge favor by publicizing them.
As for their message about gun control – Way off-base, of course. It has served you well, to ignite your readers. It’s too bad the MIAF won’t listen to what we have to say…
Just the facts, ma’am. It’s not my fault the military is filled with sadistic rapists. 🙂
Re: Joe the Plumber’s remark: If one feels the need to try and draw a straight line from events like ‘Sandy Hook’, then yes, Joe is correct. Unfortunately it’s not a matter of ‘Restriction of A will halt B’. If one is determined to think that way and oversimplify the multiple issues possibly involved despite any and all evidence to the contrary, then one will come up with overly-simple ‘solutions’.
It’s tantamount to proposing to remove a teen’s sex organs to halt teen pregnancy.
The “Metro Industrial Areas Foundation” is a community organization outfit patterned after and predicated on Saul Alinsky’s methodology. There are similar organizations scattered throughout urban areas all across the country. Typically these organizations like to present themselves as benign “reformers” when, in fact, they are progressive/fascist in orientation.
Their basic political orientation is that the state should dominate the individual so it should come as no great surprise that this organization is essentially telling us that liberty and freedom should be subordinated to a desire for more “safety”. The problem with such claims is that they never quite explain just how increased government dominance of the individual is going to provide more safety. They don’t explain this because they can’t. Progressivism and fascism cannot provide for more safety because the kind of governance they create contains such internal contradictions that it quickly becomes corrupt and oppressive. Supporters of gun-rights understand that oppression—which is what they really intend—is not the same as safety.
If you haven’t already done so, pick up a copy of F. A. Hayek’s “Road To Surfdom”.
“Road to Surfdom”… Wait, I thought that was the Beach Boys.
But yeah, I’ve read Hayek too, and it’s worth it.
“Sure, like whatevs.”
Very simply, it is not the guns that are shooting people. It is inner city gangs and now terrorists.
The gang problem could be solved fairly easy by getting tough on the perpetrators. Throw them into jail and throw away the key. Make jail a place where they really do not want to be. But, in today’s PC society, prosecuting the bad guys is considered racist.
The small cell terrorist problem is relatively new in our country. The California incident proves that they are here already. It is just a matter of time until they strike again.
In either case, the individual should be able to defend himself. Disarming the people who are committing no crimes simply does not make sense.
False assumption. The only large scale loss of life occurs in a few inner city communities. The rest of the country is very safe. We must make this point on a daily basis. The country needs to address the problem of gangs not guns. Anybody who denies this is objectively racist.
Until I start hearing similar outrage to the medical profession killing 440,000 innocent and defenseless victims per year, I’m calling BS: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/05/survive-your-hospital-stay/index.htm
P.S: I’ve never had any progressive respond to that statistic, except for one, who mentioned, sarcastically, that licensing, etcetera was required of the medical profession. I reminded him that practicing medicine was not a constitutional right. Crickets… 🙂
“large scale death and injury”
Another example of public schools failing to teach basic math skills.
No, it’s the cost of the breakdown of the social contract between the individuals that make up society.
We’ve had firearms and other tools and weapons available in the hands of the population for time eternal.
While a weapon enables a black heart to do damage, it’s the heart, not the weapon, that powers the attack.
Wide spread ownership of firearms do not make a civil society. A civil people makes a civil society.
When people feel society does not protect them, or they can not rely on the society to address grievances, they turn away from it and rely on other means. Criminals by definition feel society does not protect them. A criminal can not go to the courts to enforce an illegal contract made with other criminals, so they turn to other means — including violence.
This is why Rule of Law is so important. You can’t have freedom without it. “Have’s” and “have nots” should not apply to Justice and the Rule of Law. From President to Pauper.
Now, we all know this is imperfect, and not universal. And it’s why lawyers have such bad reputation, as we see them as the agents that twist and corrupt the Rule of Law, even though that is part and parcel to how the Rule of Law works.
We are in a society where a man with a high powered lawyer is a more effective agent of change than a man with a high powered rifle. And this is a good thing. Then it becomes a process to get the high powered lawyers, people able to wield the Laws of the Land, in to the hands of more people, to level the playing field, and bring better equality. Because through laws, we enforce the social contract.
We also know that lawyers are not universally wielded, as they’re expensive. While most anyone can afford a high powered rifle, they can’t necessary afford a lawyer. And as the Laws get more and more complicated, the lawyers get more and more expensive.
But we make strides, it’s an iterative process. But justice is hard, it’s a soft-science, and it’s always changing.
Renew and restore the faith in the social contract, and violence will go down, guns or no. 300M firearms prove this every day. 99.99% of them are silent.
It is by definition, yes. Freedom is inherently messy. It requires trust and allows people to make their own mistakes. Unless you are willing to suffer complete control over all aspects of your life people will choose evil. And they will do it to others . I understand that some people want more and more and more government control in life, but telling someone else what to do without regard to their own liberty and morality is wrong. At what point do you stop pretending that evil perpetrated for “the right reason” is not evil?
Guns specifically are just a subset of this, however, and pretending that gun control is a magic bullet is stupid. Laws don’t magically stop bad things from happening. It didn’t stop France, it didn’t stop knife attacks in China, it doesn’t stop violent crime in the UK or Australia or anywhere else. It just doesn’t work like that.
The democritization of violence is a net win for the US and the world. Stop trying to set us back to the stone age. Progressive my foot.
I think all of us need to stop defending firearm ownership and start attacking, with everything we have, the real problem, thug violence.
Crime is half of what it was just 20 years ago. Even in the most violent cities like Chicago, the homicide rate is half what it was in the early eighties.
What is true, is in every City in the country where the Democrats rule, thug crime and drug wars are fueling the violence.
More guns equals less crime just like more Democratic party rule equals more violence.
+1 Bud-wiki homicide in Chicago. It’s WAY down from the 90’s. Yeah the streets are dangerous but mostly from 14 year punks. No respect so I don’t go to many neighborhoods I did then(unarmed too). Perception(and cellphone cameras/dash cam video) is reality…
100% of people who drink water die that’s a fact. Life is a inherent death sentence. So live as a free man and not a slave.
@peirsonb: That’s the joke.
Remember all the flak directed at Jesse Ventura for his “blasphemy” against Chris Kyle. And Jesse Ventura did serve in the military, he just didn’t relish baiting children and murdering unarmed civilians like Chris Kyle.
False premise.
What “large scale death and injury”?
It was already paid for by the blood of our forefathers and damned be the lazy generations that have slothfully , ignorantly , allowed those who don’t believe in individual freedoms and free states and a constitutional republic to bring us to the brink we are at , where bloodshed is not only whispered but loudly proclaimed as our only coarse left .
We are trading our God rights for trinkets , gadgets , toys and recreation . We will lay our very protection down at the feet of a cell tower as long as we get our favorite phone app when we want it .
I know most here don’t fall into this diatribe but a vast part of America does .
If major gun manufacturers would refuse to sell their products to police and other government agencies in jurisdictions which deny their own citizens the right to keep and bear arms that would lead to needed change.
Is “Large Scale Death and Injury the Price of Liberty In America”?
I don’t know. Let me ask a WW2 veteran.
Implying WW2 was fought for liberty in this nation. 🙂
Entering WWII is one of the fairly unambiguously good decisions in US history. Whatever flaws the US had in the 1940s, and they were significant, they pale in comparison to the horrors of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Had those empires managed to gain and retain control of critical resources, especially oil fields in the Pacific and the Middle East, it is possible we could have eventually fought on US soil. It is very likely that the war would have been at least stalemated in both theaters, if not lost.
That is purely hypothetical. Considering the Nazis failed to conquer Britain, a mere 40 miles from occupied France, what makes you think they could invade the US? There was no risk to American liberty.
And of course the real reason FDR wanted to entangle the nation in another world war was his personal desire to turn the US into the world police, a policy which has had disastrous consequences since.
They failed to conquer Britain because of US resources. It was a very near thing. Also, both Germany and especially Japan were severely resource depleted toward the end of the war, and that was the result of several important campaigns to deny them access to those resources during the war. Brilliant strategies and tactical derring-do are great, but what is most often decisive is logistics, and because the US was fully committed to the war, the Allies could produce more tanks, airplanes, rifles, ammunition, ships, and the troops to use them than the Axis powers, and move them to where they needed to be. There was no guarantee of that at the beginning of the war, and without that, the odds of a favorable outcome go way down.
What US resources? Like the US-made planes the Brits flew? Or the US-made ships in the Royal Navy? Oh wait, they don’t exist.
The vast majority of Lend-Lease aid to the British came well after the Battle of Britain, which was the decisive battle to prevent a land invasion of the British Isles.
Face it, the US was in no risk of an invasion during WW2.
Actually, yes on the US made ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyers_for_Bases_Agreement. It was all we had on hand quickly, and the ships weren’t great, but it was something.
In any case, you’re thinking too short term. The Battle of Britain was a great success and an important turning point, but Britain was hardly out of the woods. Even after they lost the Battle of Britain, had the Germans been able to successfully blockade the UK, then it would have been a matter of time before it fell. The millions of tons of cargo carried steadily across the Atlantic by the US Merchant Marine, which included Lend-Lease and a lot more besides, doomed that blockade to failure. And when the German U-boat attacks looked like they could disrupt that, our shipyards produced ships by the thousands to keep the convoys sailing. The US was the only nation in the world with that kind of industrial capacity. Without us, Britain might have held out a few months, a couple years, but they would have been starved out eventually.
And during the European campaigns generally, the US was the major logistical support for all the Allies, able to produce more and move more supplies than any other power in the war. Montgomery’s troops fought in Sherman tanks supplied by us at El Alamein.
It’s naive to think that the US faced no threat in WWII. Had things gone completely against our alies in WWII, then the Axis powers would control most of Eurasia, from the Atlantic Ocean to Siberia, all the way down to Australia. That’s a lot of territory and resources. What helped turn that tide was the fact that we could pour materiel into the fight like no one else, so that the Allies were able keep pressing their advantage after crucial wins, and absorb losses when they came.
>had the Germans been able to successfully blockade the UK, then it would have been a matter of time before it fell
How would the Germans have done that? The Luftwaffe failed to defeat the RAF, never mind the Royal Navy. The British could have bought their supplies from any number of other nations, not just the US. Keep in mind the initial US involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic was a disaster because the US Navy failed to learn from the experienced British Navy.
And how exactly is US involvement crucial in the Soviet victory against the Nazis?
Methinks you have a wildly inflated notion of the US role in the war.
$10.9 billion in Lend-Lease aid, in the form of 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food, for one thing. That’s in 1947 dollars. That’s the equivalent of $116.25 billion in 2015. Stalin certainly thought the US was helpful: “Without American production the United Nations [the Allies] could never have won the war.”
Of course, maybe Stalin had a wildly inflated notion of the US role in the war.
Yes! Yesterday was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor which many americans lost their lives. It was a act of out right aggression and a direct threat to our freedom and sovereignty. That’s why we declared war on japan and took the fight to them. So there would not be anymore loss of American lives on American soil.
Pearl Harbor was the end result of FDR and the progressive wing’s sucker play to drag this nation into another world war which was deeply unpopular at the time. FDR knew the media would cover up his economic scheming to maneuver Japan into a corner.
And how is an attack of an American colony, acquired by destroying the sovereign nation of Hawaii via overt military threat, was an attack on American sovereignty?
It requires seeing past the end of one’s nose. The attack on Pearl Harbor was intended to preemptively take the US out of the fight. Then the plan was to take Southeast Asia, with a major prize being the oil resources in Indonesia. With that energy supply secured in the long term, Japan could have consolidated their control in the Pacific, then made a run for North America, probably through the Aleutians into Alaska to get those oil fields, then on to the Pacific coast.
Preventing that from happening was a Very Good Thing, even if FDR was a lying bastard about so many things.
Pearl Harbor was exactly what FDR wanted and planned for by boxing the Japanese into a corner.
As for your fantasy Japanese invasion, remember the Japanese could not even conquer China after 10 years. This was after they secured the entirety of the Dutch oil fields.
They secured the Dutch oil fields in 1942, when they were kind of busy with other things, specifically fighting us. Leaving them to do it unopposed would be a bad idea.
But by bring up China, you’re making my point for me generally. We supplied over $1.6 billion of Lend-Lease support to China to help fight the Japanese off, so we were actively contributing to Japan’s failure. Had China been quickly rolled up, that’s more resources the Japanese would have had to use to fight us directly. In the Pacific it was pretty much all us, and again, it was our logistics that won out. If I’m harping big on that, it’s because it’s a giant advantage. The side with the better logistics almost always wins.
The Chinese did all the fighting and dying and you make the ludicrous claim that US aid somehow made the difference. Just like US aid made the difference in Stalingrad, eh?
Yet more far-fetched hypotheticals to defend FDR’s progressive adventure to establish his Anglo-American hegemony.
ROFL, you actually believe nations are “sovereign.” That’s rich.
Too bad the truth behind Pearl Harbor isn’t quite as clear cut as the establishment’s official history:
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Deceit-Truth-About-Harbor/dp/0743201299
Answer: no. Putting up with idiots is the cost.
Any question about gun control must not ever be engaged without first stating the facts that we are in a 20(+) year decline in gun violence and murders. The hair on fire we have to do something attitude is out of line with where we have come from.
Death and destruction is what you get for allowing gangs and drug wars. Stop that first
‘Is “Large Scale Death and Injury the Price of Liberty In America”?”
No, but if they keep pushing, it could be.
No hell no, for the most part. Anyone saying that without explaining how much more minuscule the costs actually are than it seems, needs to retake Eco100
Joe the Plumber still has it right, as does Thomas Jefferson (quoted above). Liberty, freedom, our natural rights to life and self-determination are chief among the few things in this World worth shedding-blood to preserve. The few who die because evil people do evil things to others can never justify denying the rights and liberties of the overwhelmingly larger, peaceable majority. It is just that simple.
A friend of mine in the Army once said “we bleed to keep them free and safe, all they can do is bitch about us fking up the carpets”.
The price of freedom is blood, the price for security is vigilance. If we were more vigilant we would not need to “spend” so much in blood. Some lessons are hard learned and the longer it takes to learn them the greater the cost. We shall see how long it takes this time to learn a lesson that history has taught us several times.
It is simple. If you ban an item or substance you only create a black market and a larger criminal element. The criminal element does not care that it is illegal, their business depends on that. Crazy motherfkers will eventually find a way around any security measures that you put into place so such measures must always be evaluated and updated as new information and abilities become available. The only way to stop someone from actively harming someone is for a person to be there with the ability to counter that threat. Nothing else works or has ever worked. That is the world we live in even if it isn’t the world that we would want.
“Is ‘Large Scale Death and Injury the Price of Liberty In America’?”
Yes.
Next question?
Is “Large Scale Death and Injury” the price of liberty? No. Large scale death and injury is the price we pay for complacency.
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