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“Many of our gun owners have a surplus of aggression that needs an outlet. They manage to shoot and kill about 30 U.S. citizens every day, meaning we suffer our own ‘Paris attacks’ every few days at the hands of a few of our own citizens. Why not deploy them against ISIS?” – Brett Arends, Let’s send our gun-packing watercooler warriors to fight ISIS [at marketwatch.com]

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102 COMMENTS

      • Thanks Dan! I got so pissed off that I had to go watch cartoons with my daughter for an hour to cool off. In the end I realized that this guy doesn’t get invited to any good parties and that made me feel better.

    • I don’t have any documented government proof on how much more aggression a person that owns a firearm has over a person that doesn’t own firearm, but I did see some research that was done on the crime rate of NRA members and it was far lower than the average American citizens. It was done by a popular anti gun organization who was expecting to find a high crime rate, and it turned out to be embarrassing for them. Seems like NRA members (gun owners) are very law abiding people. Not much aggression there.

  2. If you look at who is doing the shooting and who the victims are of the United states you’ll see they aren’t “water cooler” packing types.

    • Exactly.

      “Many of our gun owners have a surplus of aggression that needs an outlet. They manage to shoot and kill about 30 U.S. citizens every day,”

      More conflating the 40 million law abiding, not murderer gun owners in this nation with the very small population that is committing the murders…who, much of the time, are already prohibited persons under the present laws and definitions.

      His own manipulation of numbers is completely screwy…tens of millions of gun owners, yet 10,000 ish gun related homicides. How can he square that with his “conclusion” that “gun owners…manage to shoot and kill 30 persons a day.”

      If “gun owners” shot and killed 30 persons a day, there would be 1.2 BILLION shooting deaths in the US…every single day.

      Logic Fail so deep it tickles the toes of folks in China.

      “meaning we suffer our own ‘Paris attacks’ every few days at the hands of a few of our own citizens.”

      Hold the phone, there, Brett. When you say “few of our own citizens,” you aren’t just kidding. It is a VERY few that are committing those ‘attacks,’ and it ain’t the population of law abiding gun owners you are trying to convince people it is. It’s a population of people that are already criminals, have already committed crime(s) most of the time and have precisely zero regard for laws.

      Really, Brett. Take a look at the actual data sometime…

      Oh, but Brett, you know this, don’t you. But, you don’t care, so long as you can lie, obfuscate and manipulate words to get what you want, it’s all good. Right, Brett?

      • JR, 30 killed a day means 10,00 a year (30 x 365 = 10,950) so his numbers are OK. However, when you compare gun deaths to other causes of death, things look different. There are some 30,000 vehicle related deaths each year. The Flu is responsible for another 30,000 deaths annually.
        Now, his idea has merit. To accomplish the “Rabid gun huggers to go fight ISIS,” means each of us would be issued a fully automatic M-4, plus tanks, cannon, helicopters, ships, subs as well as the training and logistics to support them. (Be still my heart.)

        • “JR, 30 killed a day means 10,00 a year (30 x 365 = 10,950) so his numbers are OK. “

          You are completely missing my point which was to emphasize (by using the absurd) how manipulative his conflation of “gun owners” with “murderers” is.

          Let’s take his claim at face value: if 40 million people are killing only 30 people a day (by a strict interpretation of his words such as what you are using), then the vast majority members of the set “gun owners” are not killing anybody.

          10,000 / 40,000,000 x 100% = 0.025%

          And, that’s assuming each murderer killed only one person.

          He’s purposefully trying to get people to think all 40,000,000 gun owners are also included in the set “committed an unjustified homicide with a firearm” set.

          His wording is intentionally misleading. Which also means he could be trying to be imply 40 million gun owners are EACH killing 30 people per day. This is absurd.

          Either interpretation is nonsense. That’s the point…his entire premise is nonsense. It is intentional nonsense…which makes it propaganda.

  3. So gangbangers shooting up inner cities is what this hateful bigot sees as gun owners. Hate to break it to him. But I’m white and never dealt or even done drugs. It would seem we have a classic case of projection here. Let’s hope the author gets the counseling he needs to deal with his obvious anger issues.

    • Correction, the comment button is only disabled for users of Chrome. Use a different browser if you want to comment.

  5. I skimmed over the article and looked at some of the comments. Wow. I hate having this feeling of hopelessness about the mental state of so many people this early in the morning. It’s just depressing.

    • Just keep the firearms oiled and the magazines loaded. This intentional demonization and vilification is meant to get to a point where the antis hope they can rationalize to the public that violence against gun owners is necessary, preferably having government agents doing the dirty work. Seeing as this tactic hasn’t born much fruit since they ramped it up after Newtown, they are likely to hope for lone wolf style martyrs or small groups of martyrs to strike out at the evil gun owners. You know, the ones that never even had a parking ticket, but own guns for sport, hobby, and protection, those evil bastards.

      • Antis have tried like the dickens to mount an Alinskyite campaign to demean, demonize, discredit, and disenfranchise guns and their owners, modeled after the wildly successful pogrom of tobacco and its users, but just haven’t been able to get good traction. Apparently the dogs won’t eat the dogfood this time. No doubt Comrade Brett is another recruit from NPR, like the rest of the Money Watch crew, so he’s naturally onboard with this and every other leftist “narrative,” just doing his part for the workers’ paradise.

    • Looking at the comments just now there are a lot of pro-2A individuals handing him his ass as well as his clueless pro-victim followers. The comments are overwhelmingly pro-2A.

  7. Like Paris, those 30 deaths / day come from bad people like terrorisrs, using *illegal* guns, *illegally*.

    And, yes. The point is *exactly* that good people with guns can sometimes stop thugs from killing othets or themmselves.

    Since we have so many whack-jobs and predators here, how about we have more good folks armed, to.stop them.

    Thanks for getting it, finally.

    • Sorry for the typos. Editing on my “smartphone” is a chore, and I frankly, can’t see the typos when I’m working that hard to make with the words and letters at all.

      Arrrrrrgh.

  8. I can’t speak for other gun owners, but as soon as I hear ‘Allahu Ahkbar’ the bullets are going to be flying both ways.

    • Cool. Me to. And until we do hear that particular war cry 1st person, we’ll do nothing, and refrain fro supporting a single self promoting hack who excuses robbing and harassing as by referring to it being yelled somewhere out of our earsight. If only the rest of dronedom were similarly capable of making sense…

  9. If the US sent all the nations gun owners to fight ISIS the only people left in the United States would be inner city metrosexual puss!es who could only talk about feelings, micro aggressions, and their entitlements. They would be incapable of things like farming the land, processing meat, or defending this country.

  10. I would love to see this “man” in an encounter with a Japanese soldier raised in the Bushido culture. This “man” would last about 3 seconds before he would loose his head as many allied soldiers did to a samurai sword.

    His type will never understand just what it took from American soldiers to destroy the evil japanese empire.

  11. I bet ISIS types love idiots like this. They like the “I’ll just lay here and beg for my life” type of opposition.

    • I apologize for this comment. The Paris attacks have made me upset, and ignorant bigots who push the blame on people who absolutely have nothing to do with this have upset me more. But that’s not a reason for me to make a bigoted comment either.

  15. Just a typical anti rant. He’s so much above it all, so, smug. I wonder what this meto will do if someone starts yelling allahu akbar during his outing at the opera? Probably wet his pants and start bleating like the rest of the sheep.

  16. “Why not deploy them against ISIS?””

    Hey, Brett, you registered for Selective Service?

    You know, if it’s okay for someone to sit around and TELL others they are going to fight a war on foreign soil, the entire “able bodied” population should be included in the pool, right?

    Presumably, that includes you, Brett. So, you signed up?

    Or, is this more “I want others to fight my battles for me” crap? Fine to tell others what to do when you are aren’t willing to do it yourself.

    Typical braindead Progressive “thinking” …

  17. The gun-packing water cooler warriors (a.k.a. – NRA members, law-abiding gun owners, etc.) are not the people doing the shooting. The gang bangers (they don’t frequent water coolers and anr not typically NRA members and are certainly not law-abiding) do most of the daily shootings.

    If you send the gang bangers to fight ISIS, they would likely join them.

    The NRA members, law-abiding gun owners, ect. can defeat both the gang bangers and any ISIS forces in the U.S. if given the chance by society strongly upholding the “shall not be infringed” part of the 2nd Amendment.

  18. Might need the militia. Men & women are leaving the service due to asinine rules of engagement and social engineering aka political correctness. Stuff the revolutionary army were not concerned about.

  19. Italian American. Irish American. African American. Now we have Neutered American. Way to represent, Brett.

  20. He would the cry about US imperialism if gun owners were deployed in Syria. Who would we be backing there anyway? Or are we just trying to annex the place? This article sounds like it was written by a 14 year old who wants to be edgy.

  21. When I was in 1st or 2nd grade (JFK was president) we had little books to read. One of my favorites was about a bunch of guys called Minute Men. They lived on the East Coast. Yes, really! They were just regular guys with shops and farms and the like but when they rolled out it was like the Marines for about 3 days, until the militia could get there. I don’t think these guys were metro-sexuals with pent up aggression. I think they were REAL men who loved their families and communities and knew how to handle firearms, hunt and live in the outdoors.

  23. well… yes, send the thugs to fight ISIS. Why is that a bad idea? Oh wait, we don’t like drafting poor minorities.

    And, if you are male and over 18 you should be fully aware that you can be drafted (or could have been if you are now too old). That’s what that selective service registration means.

  26. I don’t feel aggressive most of the time. I doubt that many legal gun owners do. Nor do I want to kill anyone. Unless I was in a position to protect myself or someone else I would never do that intentionally. I don’t even hunt but I do eat meat. I am not one of the persons who adds to the 30 gun related homicides every day. And I would like to see that number decrease as much as anyone. So, this guy must be talking about someone else. Or projecting his own anger and frustration. But if he wants to take a group of thugs from the inner cities over to one of the war zones he should volunteer to do that. Maybe he should channel his own frustration and anger in that direction. This article is really just another anti-gun nut looking to make a buck by distorting the facts to try to get what he wants. Which is to take away the rights of law abiding citizens to protect themselves.

  27. Did anyone teach these people how to do research in school? I know I was taught from middle school in some form all through high school. When I went to my first year of college I took a writing class that had a rigorous section on research. It dealt with finding the information on your subject (both in support or against as the facts may not support your hypothesis), organizing it and then structuring your paper to present the information in a logical manner. My instructor also discussed that if your can’t support your idea with facts, you shouldn’t put it into your paper as it will not hold up to scrutiny. It is also embarrassing if you get caught fudging facts, which doesn’t seem to affect people like the guy who wrote the article.

  29. Three anti gun owner articles in a row on TTAG. What a depressing Sat. morning knowing there is so many stupid anti gunners in the a world and no way to fix them.

  31. Robert, why do you post this stuff all the time? The author of the article always writes vitriolic articles and his twitter feeds is full of stereotypes and name calling.

    His article has no substance.

    • Clickbait Jared…it sure worked on you. I come here anyway. A nice break from fakebook lunacy…

  33. Why not send all US citizens for a couple of years of mandatory service? A little reality check and personal investment might help us all make better decisions on a whole range of topics from personal defense to international policing.

    • National defense is too important to get non-productive types like this involved in it.

      They’d have to assign an NCO just to follow him around and un-fvck everything he touched…

  35. Brett the columnist,

    I don’t know if this is your lame attempt to increase your page views. As a (gay?) columnist, you know better than to generalize. Saying that many gun owners have unresolved aggression issues is highly inappropriate and inaccurate. I would ask you to join my Marine Corps as an enlisted member, then go through School of Infantry, Officer Candidate School, The Basic School and then command a platoon of 18 to 34 year-olds who sacrifice all that you could, would, but I know you wouldn’t make it through day 1 at the military entrance processing station.

    As the quote goes, “NOT THAT I COULD AND YOU COULDN’T, ITS JUST THAT I DID AND YOU DIDN’T”.

    Stick to your market watch articles. Never insult members of the military or law enforcement again by writing an idiotic article that is clearly driven by your hate of people who love guns and guns in general. Mind your own “mike foxtrot” business.

    Respect is earned and you clearly don’t know the meaning of it.

    Semper Fidelis!

    • I’ll note that he didn’t even mention the significant percentage of gun owners and/or their families who have ALREADY supported this great country by voluntarily serving in one of its military branches. He probably missed this because it’s so far out of his experience base that it never even occurred to him. Not. Even. Once.

      And that communicates more than the words in his article EVER will.

  36. Nah, already did my time over there.

    Fours years active and four reserved, I’ve done my duty.

    But hey, you put on your big girl panties and show the courage of your own conviction. I won’t stop you.

  37. The anti-gun crowd always quotes the 30 deaths per day from firearm related homicides. They never tell you that some of these are justified killings from self defense by police or armed citizens. Using the statistics from homicides rather than from murders inflates the numbers. They also fail to put these numbers in perspective.
    Some other revealing statistics for comparison: 1. more than 357 people die every day from accidents. Less than 2 of those have anything to do with firearms. 2. About 113 people every day die from suicides. About 58 of those are firearm related. 55 of those are not. 3. 6757 people per day die from diseases and medical related causes. Now does the 30 deaths per day in a country that has more firearms per person than any other country in the world sound excessive compared to the other deaths? Seems like the legal gun owners are doing a great job NOT killing people to me.

  38. I probably do have a lot of pent up aggression that stems from reading statements like this blaming me and other responsible people for the failure of progressive policies, but I also have something this asshat has no concept of: self-control. Go fcuk yourself Brett.

  39. I posted this as a comment to Mr Arends,

    Brett Arends,

    The State Constitutional Militias were commissioned to suppress rebellions and defend the states. Not go off and fight on some foreign lands.

    If you want to go do that, I suggest you join the standing army.

    You said,

    “Meanwhile, many of our gun owners have a surplus of aggression that needs an outlet. ”

    I only have aggression for people who want to attack my homeland and ignorant jerks who don’t know the first thing about the US and State constitutions and want to take away my right of the ability to defend my life.

    Is this projecting your fear of honest, law-abidding gun owners?

    They have a surplus of aggression just because they own a gun?

    Is that a blanket accusation?

    Does that include every civilian gun owner that has ever lived?

    Does that include the millions of people who have legitimately defended their lives in their homes home intruders?

    Does that include every soldier who has ever fought and died for the security of this country?

    Merely because they own a gun, they have a surplus of aggression?

    Perhaps because you do not have firearm to take seriously your right and duty to protect yourself and your family that makes you a coward.

    At least have the decency to tell your spouse or significant other that you do not have the courage to take the responsibility to defend that person if need be.

    At least let them know you are not willing to do whatever it takes to defend them.

    Let them know that at the first sign of someone attacking them you are going to kneel down like a coward and beg for your lives.

  40. It’s been reported that a Texas Judge once explained to a damnyankee know-it-all that the reason horse stealing was punished by hanging and very often a homicide was dismissed as justifiable, was because there were men who needed killing but there weren’t any horses that needed stealing. Many of the current damnyankee gungrabbers don’t want to admit that old saw still remains fact. Most of the 30 people, if indeed there are that many, who are killed by criminal and/or justifiable use of firearms are in fact themselves criminals.
    [W3]

  41. In every idea, no matter how stupid, may be a grain of genius. If in fact we are forced by our destroyer in chief to take syrians in, let the governors arrange their place or residence deep in gang territory. Should weed out the less devout and dedicated rather quickly, don’t you think? On the other hand, that might backfire, God knows we don’t need converted gangs roaming the streets shouting “Aloha snackbar” while doing drive bys.

  42. Does that number of 30 citizens dead by gunshot each day include those who have decided to terminate their own existences, those who have been shot either by the police or by an armed citizen in the course of defense against against imminent felonious harm, those who have been negligent in their handling of firearms, and those whose gunshot wounds have been secondary to gang violence? If not, then I am unimpressed by this statistic.

  44. I tell you what. If certain Washington types get their way with immigration policy, we won’t need to go to Syria to be deployed against ISIS. Knowwhutimean?

  45. Insult the very same OFWG’s who are most likely to provide for the future by investing and saving? ie: Market Watch’s target audience? Very smart.

  46. I looked at the gunviolencearchive.org site and the first incident that I clicked on was out of Spokane, Wa. It was about a man arrested for some other crime but also found to be a felon in possession of a gun. No shots fired. How the heck do they count that as part of their gun violence statistics? I think that alone discredits them if they can’t even get “gun violence” defined properly. If a gun wasn’t fired or even brandished but only found in possession then I don’t think that can count toward being “gun violence”.
    I have to wonder how many more they are counting that don’t fit.

  47. Yet another clueless egghead. Does he not grasp the fact that lawful gun owners are not and have never been the problem?
    And the majority of murders, regardless the weapon, are related to gang violence and prohibition.
    If it were not for lawful gun owners, violent crime rates, including murder, would be a lot higher. Lawful gun ownership keeps those intent on a mass body count event away.

  48. Oh yeah, this guy has a great idea. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve shot, and just this year, too. It’s gotta be like 5-10 people. I just get this sudden surge of uncontrollable aggression, and somebody has to take a bullet or two or twelve. I’m thinking my gun somehow takes control of my body and makes me do it. It’s either that, those space lizards were able to reactivate the chip the put in my brain, despite me wearing the special hat I made.

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