“The basic fact is simple and obvious. The widespread presence of guns dramatically magnifies the lethality of the range of mental illness, political dispute, personal vendetta and untethered anger that is more or less universal in modern societies and frankly the human condition. Certainly this would all be different if firearms were not so widespread in the United States, easy to acquire and so deeply imbedded in American culture.” – Josh Marshall in Guns and Political Killing [via talkingpointsmemo.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

90 COMMENTS

    • What is “simple and obvious” about what he said? He left out that is “simple and obvious” is that the “Monopoly of Force” with the firearms and other lethal tools in the hands of government has been the greatest cause of democide of over hundreds of millions of people murdered by that Monopoly.

      What he also left out that is “simple and obvious” is that when the Monopoly of force is spread out among the general population with a concurrent social contract that the general population is the first line of defense against enemies of that society; That society is overall peaceful, productive, wealthy and with a great support of personal freedoms and rights. As our country has been for most of it’s over two hundred years of existence.

      What he also left out that is “simple and obvious” is that the liberal/regressives are doing their level insane best to change this social contract to give the government total control over all of us, along with our guns, to create their communist/socialist “utopia”, leading with absolute certainty to massive blood and death.

  2. Just another Democrat wanting to ensure his victims are disarmed and unable to defend themselves…..

  3. So… the leftist commies want to use an incident they instigated to justify their policies? THREAT DELETED

        • ”As God is my witness, I thought Commies could fly”

          I haven’t had a laugh that good in *years*.

          *Fist-Bump*

    • Always. It is called: Problem, Reaction, Solution(among other names). It works by figuring out what laws, as a politician (wanting control because its what you do), you want to pass. Then you design a problem that you can spin as an excuse for the policy you have already decided upon. Pull off the incident(whatever it may be) and wait for the public to clamor for the solution that you have already designed.
      You didn’t think it was an accident that they always have hundreds of pages of proposals already written within minutes or hours of a ‘crisis incident’, did you?

    • Pwrserge,

      So… the leftist commies want to use an incident they instigated to justify their policies?

      This is perhaps the most profound statement that you have ever typed.

      Paraphrasing: violent Progressives have a penchant for killing their political enemies. Therefore, we should disarm everyone because it will be harder for violent Progressives to kill their unarmed enemies. Got it.

      We would be wise to point this out to the masses and SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS.

      • It’s such a shame someone burned down the reichstag. If only we had a strong man in power.

        [off to the side]

        Go away Schultz, and go take a shower, you reek of kerosine.

      • Progressivism and numerous other ideologies are, by their nature violent and oppressive because at their core they contain the notion you mention of utopia.

        Utopia isn’t achievable but it’s a great excuse to do just about anything to the people who stand in the way of getting to utopia. The notion will always pit people against each other because everyone has a different opinion of what utopia would look like. Bowhunters imagine unlimited deer. PITA folks imagine no hunting. Both imagine a world without the other group, so whichever gets into to power fires up the ovens. (Just an example, not saying either of those two groups would commit mass murder, just pointing out that their views on utopia are divergent.)

        What makes Progressivism especially dangerous is the way it’s adherents are programmed not to ask questions but also to flat out deny facts that are presented to them by attacking the person presenting those facts in a way that justifies action against that person.

        This is why I say that it’s intellectual cancer. You simply can’t argue with a Progressive because there is no agreement as to what facts are. To them facts are what support their argument today and anything you counter that with is dismissed as an artifact of your racism/xenophobia/sexism/whatever.

        Progressives were always dangerous but they became infinitely more so when they adopted postmodernism as a justification for not just ceasing intellectual inquiry themselves but actively stomping it out in others by applying labels that mark someone as abhorrent.

        • Been listening to Ben Shapiro, eh?

          Excellent analysis by the way. I am going to share your comment with other people.

        • I was having lunch with a guy this week. He brought up politics and asked for examples of scandals in the Obama administration (because there weren’t any). I did, and he immediately said “is that your first instinct, to blame Hillary (I got to Benghazi) when ever someone scores a hit on your guy?”

          Fast and furious was the FBI’s idea. (He even asked me how many people it got killed because he apparently thought no one died. I responded at least one LEO and a shit ton of Mexicans).

          He called my mom a liar because Obamacare is great, and she totally could find a doctor to accept it. She couldn’t.

          My point is you are absolutely correct. That’s why I just try to piss these people off.

    • Create a problem, control the narrative and media influence, set forth origin agenda. Helgilian dialect(sure it’s misspelled) but you get the idea.

  4. I have a slightly different angle on the same idea. This incident does illustrate the need for guncontrol. I’ve never even thought about the possibility of having to shoot through a chain link fence. I wonder if there’s a way I could practice that at the ra nge? Anyway, as Clint Eastwood said, ‘if there’s a g un around me I want to be in control of it.’

  6. “Politics is, has and will always be a blood sport.”

    politicians have been giving each other the chop since long before guns were invented. Anybody remember the incident in Japan where the killer pushed thru a crowd of reporters and killed the pol with an edged weapon while the whole event was being filmed?

    Guns do not protect the pol. They protect the common man that cannot afford a protection detail.

    And what is it with white folk(am one) that they always want to control everybody and everything around them?

    • I’m not sure why that applies top some folks, speaking for myself, I learned better long ago.

      The only person you can control is yourself. You can lead, inspire, bully, cajole, con, persuade, whatever – but in the final analysis, you aren’t really in control of anyone else.

    • I don’t feel the need to control everything…except when I have to wear a suit. Then I just really get the urge I gotta start taking over sh!t.

    • Really jwm? You mean why does the yellow folk want to control everyone in China?, or the black folk want to control everyone in Africa,? Or the brown folk want to control everyone in Asia?

      A few people wanting to control everyone around them is a people problem, not a skin color problem.

  7. In the 1950’s mentally ill people with known violent tendencies were lobotomized and sent home. They were still crazy, but they couldn’t get violent about it. These days. medicine is used to do the same thing, but the coconuts quit taking their meds and mayhem ensues.

    • Well, we still have ballistic lobotomies but they have to do something really crazy or you’ll be in big trouble for performing one of those.

  9. What the author of this story fails to realize is look who is causing the shootings. Mentally ill people and nut jobs from the Democratic Liberal Party.

    What does a Democrat and a nut job have in common they’re one in the same. As far as I’m concerned you don’t see people of the gun that actually safely use firearms basically the Republican Party going out and shooting up democratic congressman and senators. Why don’t you see this it’s because the people of the gun have been raised around guns they’ve been brought up to treat guns with respect and handle them safely.

    I knew as soon as I heard the body count on this shooting that it wasn’t a person of the gun it had to be a Democrat someone whose first time shooting was on that baseball field. His choice and weapons down to the color of his shirt Soviet Red. This guy is the problem in the United States today you have all these Democrats that are so mad and so angry that their contestant crooked Hillary Clinton didn’t get elected that they choose to take a firearm and go shoot a bunch of defenseless helpless people.

    This guy was a complete pussy. I hope this guy’s family rots in Hell along with this a****** whole.

    Something has to be done about these irrational violence liberal globalist socialist and it needs to be done immediately. The entire Democratic party should be labeled as a terrorist organization and disbanded in this country. Oh and I left out jihadist which are all over invading our country by the thousands. These Muslim nutjobs that come from Pakistan Iran Libya Iraq Afghanistan all these people need to go. We are at war with your countries you cannot come to ours anymore end of story.

    This is got me really really upset but still I choose to voice my opinion level-headed me on a Blog instead of taking a firearm out and doing damage to human people why you ask because I’m level-headed and not a freaking nut job like all these Democrats are.

    They had a rally last week in front of my wife’s Bank where she works protesting the pipeline again because the bank she works for helped loan the money for the pipeline. These people were accosting customers as they were coming into the bank shoving signs in their face actually making physical contact to the point where they had to call the police and when the police department showed up they said they didn’t want to get involved in a political matter.

    When she called me and told me that I hold my ass down there and ask to speak to the sergeant in charge and when he showed up I said look here these people are allowed to protest peacefully on public property they are all standing on the bank’s property right outside the door which is trespassing you either get them off the property or I want you to put them all in cuffs right now.

    I have a little bit of a relationship with our local PD I’m a gunsmith that does a lot of service on their patrol rifle and in the sergeant new me so he quickly told his officers to get these people back on the sidewalks and away from the entrance and exits and if anybody violates it they’re going for a ride and handcuffs.

    These nut jobs were also Pat signs death to president Trump. Who does that just because you’re such a little b**** that your your contestant didn’t win the election you’re going to make death threats what kind of people are the Democrats these liberal disgusting pics of humanity that’s what it is period we should just push these people out of our country I hear Laredo Texas the border right there’s a good place to start will just throw them all over into the flip side of Laredo Mexico see how long they like it over there and that country bunch of dirtbags.

    Sorry for the use of language I just really really am hot this morning over all this anti-gun nonsense it’s been going on since this shooting where a liberal Progressive Democrat socialist decided to take shots at people.

  10. I have a soft spot in my heart for counterintuitive results. It is an endless source of amusement for me, the sheer number of things that are simple, obvious, and false.

  11. He’s not wrong, but it’s genie-out-of-the-bottle stuff. Try to disarm us, or coerce us to hide our firearms, and the consequences are far too great to ever consider.

    • Oh, but he is wrong. Gun ownership and gun prevalence have been growing for decades. Just look at the gun sales records. Lest you fall for the “that’s just morr guns to the same small number of people” myth, understand that there is a similar growth in unique identifiers of gunowners, like ownership and carry licenses. All 50 states have now have concealed carry laws, too.

      Compare all that vast and rapid proliferation of guns in our society to the decades long decline in homicide rates in this country. If more guns means more unstable people committing more violent crimes societywide, then why doesn’t our actual experience reflect that?

      • They claim that it is a result of super-owners who have many guns, when in reality individual ownership of guns is quite prevalent, but the owners lie when a stranger calls claiming they are conducting a ‘survey’.

        “Oh, no! I would *never* own a gun!” *click*…

  12. It’s simple and obvious that you sir don’t have a clue! The human condition is such that bad people will ALWAYS find a way to hurt other beings, even if there were no guns. Removing the right to self defense, by whatever means, will result in more deaths, not less. Another educated idiot.

  13. Josh Marshall: “We are left with the simple reality that high levels of violence are deeply rooted in American society, especially in specific regions.”

    Does Josh really want to go there? Because those “specific regions” are the urban bedrock of the democrat party.

    • a/k/a: the evil (D)’s “We’re F’d up, we need to fix you so that we can do tyranny” plan.

      F dat.

    • Unfortunately he is probably referring to all those backwards, rural areas that cling to their Bibles and guns…ya know, Heartland, the South, Appalachia.

      • So Swilson. Are you being ironic or actually insulting to the rural people of the “heartland, the south, Appalachia”? with their Bibles and guns?

        I know for me, being born and raised in the “advanced and civilized” Bay Area and Santa Cruz of CA, with a history of being an agnostic libertarian/progressive; with a conditioned hatred and fear towards firearms, there was much real contempt by most of the regressives for the backward Bible beating, gun owning people of the heartland and the south.
        I admit, I had some of that attitude growing up, as a good brainwashed regressive. Until I moved to New Mexico. Then I actually got to meet some of these “backward gun owning Bible clingers”., And became a Bible clinging gun carrying throwback, myself and I am loving every moment of it.

        What I found was a people and cultures that really do focus and vocally committed to G-d, family and gun ownership. Free to OC pretty much every where, even in the cities. Almost all of the born and raised New Mexicans hunt, and farm and have extensive multigenerational family connections. A high percentage serve in the military and take great pride in being proud americans. There is a problem among certain families and groups with drugs, gangs and domestic violence, but I find that is a relatively small percentage, with the larger percentage of the population committed to hard work and making money by honest efforts.

        And if you are friends with them they will give you shirt off their back, and if you are out with them and bad people want to do bad things, I know they will be right there, side by side, kicking ass and taking names, not like the “liberal pussies” I grew up with that would fall down and cry if someone looked at them cross eyed, let alone threw a fist or pulled a gun on them.

        • Yeah. I think that’s partly why when a leftist goes off, they typically go for a gun and attack defenseless people that can’t fight back. They have no constructive and allowable outlet for standing up in defense of themselves, so when they explode, they embrace the violent and homicidal side we all have in side us all and they go for maximum body count.

          But then you have the weird flip side of the coin of the madness of the regressive left which is based in communism/Marxism in which all normal rules of ethics and moral direction is tossed out the window. Then the true believer replace these ethics and morals with “if it feels good, do it” and “the ends justify the means”. So these types of leftists will become the bomb throwing and mass murdering revolutionary where any amount of blood, and death and tyranny is acceptable for the “collective good”. Because embracing that violent and dark side in ourselves and being really bad and committing any bloody act for some “greater purpose”, in it’s own perverted and evil way, can feel really good.

        • This is also, I believe , one of the major appeals of Islam. It fully supports the embracing of the darkest, bloodiest and most destructive aspects of human nature, and calls it holy and commanded by Allah. This is why the leftists embrace and make excuses for Islamists jihadists. Like attracts like.

  14. That kind of deep thinking must have really hurt his precious snowflake brain.
    I have a better idea…. what we really need more of is liberal control. You know like passing a backround check to be a liberal…. liberal free zones…. a permit to be in public while being a liberal. Must be locked in a case in the belly of a plane for the duration of the flight.
    I mean its for the children.

    • Lol well said. Control is the key word for all these low life supposedly intelligent types. They want government to have the monopoly on violence. Yet somehow think that all the past reasons to not allow the government to have that monopoly are illegitimate. Just another spineless moron.

  15. So, this guy was a Bernie supporter, who shoots a bunch of republican, never minding that the democrats colluded to steal the possible election from Bernie in favor of Clinton. Why did he shoot republican again? Damn fools dont even know who they should actually be pissed at!

  16. Just to repeat a point of fact that most everybody already knows – in American politics almost every assassination has been attempted or completed by a left wing assassin with one exception – Garfield – who was shot by a mentally deranged supporter upset that he was not appointed to be Ambassador to France. It was believed that his brain was damaged due to untreated syphilis.

    Islam claims to be the religion of peace
    Democrats claim to be pacifists

    Don’t believe either.

  17. Hey, let’s not do anything about the high levels of rage and anger. Let’s disarm the people who are able to control their rage and leave them at the mercy of hose who have so little impulse control that anything (bike locks, flag-poles, paving stones) can be a weapon for them. That will fix everything!

  18. Wow I never knew that guns made me think, do and say crazy things. Truly incredible that political strife, violence and mental illness all started when guns were invented.

    Absolutely incredible the leap (off the cliff) in logic that these people have to make to justify their position. Now they are claiming guns actively make you think evil thoughts….

  19. So could if the guy couldn’t have obtained a gun, he’d’ve just driven over them. Drive onto field, run over senators.

  21. So firearms are widespread in the USA, embedded in the culture, and easy to obtain, but the proposed solution is to ban them in some way? These two ideas don’t mesh – if something is everywhere, it’s near impossible to remove.

    Clear evidence that he doesn’t listen to anyone, not even himself.

    • Well, the name is used colloquially to mean teasing or kidding. Studies suggest names do influence people. Is it that much of a leap to think being named essentially ‘unserious’ leads to being unserious?

  23. “The widespread presence of guns dramatically magnifies the lethality of the range of mental illness, political dispute, personal vendetta and untethered anger…”

    By jove he’s right!

    Why, the Roman Empire never had violent political disp…. Well, the Greeks at least were paragons of civil…. Persia? No? How about the Chinese? Hrm.

    Aha! The Incas! They never… Oh.

    Guess the root of the problem is human nature after all, and not the technological accoutrements of the particular age. Who’d have thought?

    • But at least the newage pansies in Euro have fixed it all. Not sure that they have gotten the message across to their newly arrived buddies from sandland. Kumbaya kumbaya. head in the sand kumbaya.

  24. Gee the POS shooter from Illinois was able to keep his guns even after he should have gone to prison. For VIOLENCE involving guns. Why is it any of our problems when local po-leece didn’t at least slow him down in his rampa!ge?!? And I know he could’ve caused more mayhem with his van…

    • And he was the “right” color to send to the big house. Think his political affiliation gave him a pass?

  25. there are two “types” of shooters. Some “just snap” without warning. When their history is studied, some indicators can be found. However, these are not enough to result in any action. The second group is known to police and mental health. Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, was repeatedly seen by mental health professionals. Holmes, the Aurora theater shooter was seen for three months nths before he left school and care stopped. A months later he started shooting.
    In short, you can’t always predict behavior. Even identified there are few things that can be done. Last, a broad action would sweep up too many innoucent people.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/seung-hui-chos-mental-health-records-released/story?id=8278195
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/16/us/james-holmes-theater-shooting-fenton/index.html

  26. “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

    — H. L. Mencken

  27. Certainly this would all be different if firearms were not so widespread in the United States, easy to acquire and so deeply imbedded in American culture. – Josh Marshall

    So, the recent murder of hundreds of people in the gun-control utopias in Europe did not really happen then? And removing firearms stops someone from setting a building ablaze and killing several hundred people how exactly?

  28. What these people don’t understand (because they think they are better) is that every country that has tried to outlaw guns has ensured that only the outlaws have guns. Well, except fot eh government thugs who must enforce the rules, of course.
    IOW, there are far too many guns to think they can somehow magically be made to go away.
    But thees idiots think THEY know how to do it right, by passing even more laws that will be ignored (see New York and California). Their goal isn’t to control crime (which simply can’t be done), but to control people, mainly to keep themselves on the government tit. And they know it; witness how much OPM they spend to remain on that tit.

  30. You guys have got it all wrong, we should take advantage or this opportunity to disarm the real dangerous people and the enemies of freedom, the liberal Democrats.

  32. Dwight from the office needs to pump his brakes. There is not much in the way of empirical evidence suggesting a correlation with a history of mental illness and more violence compared with the rest of populace. Furthermore, a warped view of reality does not imply lack of conscious or empathy. Maybe everybody with depression needs to be denied a driver’s license. Or, every vet that comes back with PTSD should undergo a background check before buying knives. Right…. What society needs to be looking for is the sociopath/psychopath. We really should let the LGS do the work. A responsible gun seller should be versed in reading people. Is the guy sweating bullets with dilated pupils? If I was a dealer I wouldn’t sell to the guy in the above picture based on his shifty I-might-snap looks alone. Background checks are good at history on paper, but that is much less important than reading people in the flesh.

  33. “Certainly this would all be different if firearms were not so widespread in the United States, easy to acquire and so deeply imbedded in American culture.”

    Hey Libtard! Here’s an idea. Instead of promoting multiculturalism, and “equality of outcomes” so much, how about working on re-embedding the idea of “self-discipline” and “self-control” and all these other problems and firearms will cease to be problems.

  34. Headline from Washington (com)Post:
    The Daily 202: A sense of déjà vu as the debate over gun control reignites post-Alexandria

    There is no debate. It is only demands from the left.

  35. It’s the same old tired nonsense. Frankly, the LAST thing that I would think to be a solution to the ever increasing vitriol and violence perpetrated by those on the political left is “maybe I should disarm”.

  36. All modern mass killers have been leftists or muslims.

    Seems the answer isn’t to ban GUNS. Seems there are two categories of people to remove and the problem is fixed.

  38. I was taught not to use adjectives such as clearly or obviously in writing because it indicates that the author has nothing to back up the point that is supposedly clear, obvious, or whatever. The author uses such a term because they want it assumed that the point is correct. The reason the author wants the point to be assumed is because it is difficult or impossible to prove.

    Also his point that “mental illness, political dispute, personal vendetta and untethered anger” is universal in the human condition is frightening. Seeing as he used the conjunctive instead of the disjunctive, he is saying that all of those traits are universal. If he believes they universal to the human condition, then he has these conditions. If he didn’t have these traits, he would know for a fact that they are not universal. It is frightening even if he meant that everyone has at least one of these things that are lethal when guns are added to them. He is saying that but for the means to kill, he would kill. The only reason he doesn’t kill people is that he is incompetent in the field of violence. He also believes this is true of everyone.

  39. The author makes a very good point at the end of the article:

    ” We should remember that historically, it’s not just that widespread gun ownership drives high levels of violence in the US but that endemic violence has driven gun ownership. It’s not a way one relationship. The two phenomenon have synergized each other over time.”

    He’s 100 percent correct on that observation…

  40. I have to agree. Gun control is very important. Can’t hit a thing without it. You must Practice. Oh wait silly me. You mean anti 2A gun control. That’s why I practice!!!

  41. It would be interesting to know if Hodgkinson was taking SSRI anti-depressant drugs. There’s a dirty secret why the Mainstream Media TV Newspapers Radio doesn’t even begin to mention that every major spree killer in the last 20 yrs or so has been a) a Democrat and b) on SSRI drugs

    Columbine School – the two kids were from homes where the parents were Democrats and leftist activists. Both kids were on SSRI drugs.
    Denver Moviehouse shooter – Democrat voter, on SSRI drugs
    Adam Lanza/ Connecticutt School shooting – Democrat voter, SSRI drugs. Mom was a Democrat voter too.
    VA Tech shooting – Democrat voter, SSRI drugs.
    Arizona Gabby Giffords shooting – Democrat voter, stalker of Giffords since 2007, SSRI drugs.

    I’m sure I missed a few other examples. But the fact is that the leftist Mainstream Media gets tens of $billions$ in drug ad dollars from the Pharma Industry every year. No way in Hell they are going to jeopardize those ad dollars when they instead can scapegoat guns and fulfill their Disarming Of America agenda. For them, it’s a two-fer.

    “Side effects may include an erection lasting longer than ten years, dizziness, loss of appetite, drymouth, wet eye, jimmy-legs, clammy hands, suicidal thoughts involving killing Republicans and taking out a shitload of people along with yourself….If any of these symptoms occur, stop taking KillEmAll and call your doctor….”

    • Former U of A Huntsville biology professor Amy Bishop rarely makes these lists. Perhaps the press wouldn’t have lost interest in her so abruptly if she hadn’t been such a huge Obama supporter.

  42. “The basic fact is simple and obvious. The widespread presence of guns dramatically magnifies the lethality of the range of mental illness, political dispute, personal vendetta and untethered anger that is more or less universal in modern societies and frankly the human condition.

    We like it this way. It’s called freedom. It has it downsides. But it’s upsides + it’s downsides are a net positive compared to a world of endless government nannyism. Furthermore, these people (the human condition) as you call it, won’t change if guns are greatly regulated. Instead, methods of killing people will be performed by circumventing regulations. They will build bombs (against the law), they will build guns (against the law as you would like it to be). You’ll never have full control unless you go full North Korea (imprison/execute the perpetrators whole family for his crime).

    Certainly this would all be different if firearms were not so widespread in the United States, easy to acquire and so deeply imbedded in American culture.” – Josh Marshall

    And it’s not going away. In fact every single moment their availability increases. In 10 years we’ll be able to print a steel gun right from our desktop with 3D laser sintering.

  43. “The basic fact is simple and obvious. The widespread presence of guns dramatically magnifies the lethality of the range of mental illness, political dispute, personal vendetta and untethered anger…”

    Since even un-magnified lethality is pretty lethal, let”s have fewer mentally ill, politically agitated, vendetta-prone, or untethered.

    Meanwhile, until then, let’s not infringe on peaceful, responsible people arming up if they choose, to protect themselves from the apparently unavoidable mentally ill & so on.

    The armed capitol cops shot no one but the assassin, and only after he started shooting people. Disarming them seems counter-productive.

    So, we need to keep the mentally ill, politically agitated, vendetta-prone, and untethered angry away from guns, while making sure good people continue to be able to arm themselves, to deal with the whack-jobs, armed or ottherwise.

    that is more or less universal in modern societies and frankly the human condition. Certainly this would all be different if firearms were not so widespread in the United States, easy to acquire and so deeply imbedded in American culture.”

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