“Only in America. Every country has, along with its core civilities and traditions, some kind of inner madness, a belief so irrational that even death and destruction cannot alter it. In Europe not long ago it was the belief that “honor” of the nation was so important that any insult to it had to be avenged by millions of lives. In America, it has been, for so long now, the belief that guns designed to kill people indifferently and in great numbers can be widely available and not have it end with people being killed, indifferently and in great numbers. The argument has gotten dully repetitive: How does one argue with someone convinced that the routine massacre of our children is the price we must pay for our freedom to have guns, or rather to have guns that make us feel free? You can only shake your head and maybe cry a little.” – Adam Gopnik at newyorker.com

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45 COMMENTS

  1. He’s a New Yorker living under the rule of a crazed despot who uses force to keep the peasants in line. What else would you expect?

    • I believe, all you need to know is his Bio and you will see that he is on the far far left of everything:

      “Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was raised in Montreal, Quebec. Gopnik’s parents, Irwin and Myrna Gopnik, served as professors at McGill University, from which Gopnik received his Bachelor of Arts degree. While there, he was a contributor for The McGill Daily. He completed graduate work at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts”

      He also spent time living in Paris, France — enough said. An insular state with itself. He should visit other parts of Europe to get a clue. As a European-American, he is full of sh** and his book on his time in France was full of sh** too. The Euro-zone is going to hell specifically because of “honor” and the racial tweets from the two olympians who were booted gives an view of a less PC Europe though each country likes to keep a facade.

      What would he really know of America? This is also typical of anyone who has lived mostly in liberal urban centers or New York. They are insulated from the real world and they live to some liberal utopian ideal. They live with the belief that only what they believe is both important and correct and no other ideas matter. As a matter of fact, if people do not agree with them, they will make stuff up to make their case — truth and fact have no room if it iterrupts their ideal. Once again, trained in schools of speach of the far left, he invokes emotion and makes up his own facts. He I am sure would do away with the constitution and obviously does not believe in the right of self defense. Far more dangerous than guns held by legal gun owners is the upholding of utopian ideas when real crime, malnutrition, poverty and other ills that plague the city of New York. Once again, focus away from the real issues to blame something that does not matter.

      • He’s right though.. the price of the 2nd Amendment is a higher death rate enabled by a more armed populace. So be it. The 1st Amendment allows for a lot of bad things as well.
        But they are our rights, and they are there for a reason. 2nd Amendment is tyranny prevention, but has the collateral damage of higher levels of bad guys, nutjobs, and kids getting their hands on guns. Its the price we pay. Everything has a trade-off. Japan has the the most restrictive gun laws in the world, and the lowest gun homicide rate as well… doesn’t mean I’d want to live there…

  6. Oh don’t start crying. For chrissakes get a hold of yourself, man up.
    This, right here, is an example of sheeple.

  7. Another Canadian hectoring us Americans on how we should live.

    God Almighty, I get tired of the preening, unctuous twaddle that emanates from Canadians.

    • Whoa, whoa, whoa. According to Pascal above, Gopnik was born in Philly. That makes him American not Canadian. So it’s actually another American hectoring Americans on how they should live. Being raised in Canada doesn’t make him Canadian anymore then the time he spent living in Paris makes him French.

      “Another Canadian hectoring us Americans on how we should live.
      God Almighty, I get tired of the preening, unctuous twaddle that emanates from Canadians”.

      As a Canadian/American living in CA. (not my choice) I love America and I’m raising my family here. I also love all the rights associated with it, and will protect those rights to the best of my ability.

      The only “twaddle” I consistently read these days comes from the US govt. (be it national or local), and Jackholes like this (Gopnik) that haven’t got a clue. The fact that he now lives in NY is apropos, although I’d like him to go back to France!

      Maybe you just didn’t read the article clearly enough as I have read your other posts “Dyspeptic Gunsmith” and I know your much better than this.

      • Being raised in Canada doesn’t make him Canadian anymore then the time he spent living in Paris makes him French.

        Yes, yes it does. It doesn’t matter where you popped out, it matters where you were were raised and the culture you were raised in. Why do you think the location of the hospital where a baby was born means anything?

        • “Why do you think the location of the hospital where a baby was born means anything?”

          Because it proves your birthright to receive the rights as a citizen of that country (location). As an example. Why do so many pregnant Mexican women hazard to cross the border? Answer, so the child is born in America, and as such an American citizen (location) with all rights and privileges.

          You’re right the culture you were raised in does matter. Example, my Canadian grandparents had many trophies (deer, moose, owl etc..) mounted on the walls of their house in Toronto and their cabin in the woods. Also a large approx. 3ft. high, wall to wall glass gun case (unlocked) full of rifles and shotguns in my grandfathers upstairs den/office. Never touch one (would’ve got my ass beat), just drooled a lot as a kid.

          So my Canadian heritage, pro gun. Gupnik’s Canadian expatriate heritage, well……..not so much. Both being in Canada are Canadian cultures/environments. Just like both (unfortunately) exist in America. But it still doesn’t make Gupnik Canadian.

          You just can’t lump all Americans or Canadians into the same philosophical melting pot.

  8. I have a bunch of guns, not one of them is designed to kill people, indifferently or in great numbers. All of them are designed to ignite a powder charge that sends a projectile forward to… well, you get the idea. Along the same lines, my car wasn’t designed to be driven recklessly above the speed limit (even if I do that sometimes), my phone wasn’t designed to butt-dial my parents at the worst possible moments, and the internet wasn’t designed for por… ok, scratch that last argument…

    • I wonder what he’d say if I told him my Mosin’s had likely been used to kill lots of Nazi bastards who murdered children and Jews (among others)?

  9. Of all the millions of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) in the US, how many have been used in crimes before, during and since the expiration of the AWB?

    • I love how he claims the existence of guns causes death, yet ignores the fact that with 90 guns per 100 people (including children), we’d all be dead if guns caused violence.

  10. what about the 77 people killed in norway? with quite substantial gun laws?
    since the colo shooting Anders Breivik, the young Norwegian who killed 77 people in Norway by bomb and gun has been completely forgotten by our media.

    i guess it wouldn’t support their template to mention a massacre in a country that already has the gun laws that they want here.

    • Not to mention the thousands killed in Mexico by gangsters. I don’t see that happening here.

    • Breivik hasn’t been forgotten by the media or the gungrabbers (sorry for being repetitive), just conveniently ignored.

  12. “How does one argue with someone convinced that the routine massacre of our children is the price we must pay for our freedom to have abortions, or rather to have abortions that make us feel free?”

    Abortion, or “a woman’s right to choose,” is a favorite cause of lefties like Mr. Gopnik. There have been over fifty four million abortions since 1973. If it’s the “our children” we’re worried about “being killed, indifferently and in great numbers,” then why not extend our teary-eyed concern to all children? Just sayin’.

    • Both the left and right like to cherry-pick which rights they’ll support. This is an extremely important concept to grasp.

      • Right, “cherry-picking” issues to support is like discrimination: essential to survival. Of course we choose some issues over other to support, how else could we function? If I got worked up over every issue I would become useless, unable to put my energies to the daily necessities of life.

        I am merely pointing to what I perceive to be an inconsistency in Mr. Gopnik’s thinking. For instance: we’re all thoroughgoing Darwinists here, Right? I’m willing to bet Gropnik is too. So where in the scheme of natural selection are guns somehow “wrong?” Or the Europen “conquest” of the New World? Or modern American “imperialism?” George Bush? Etc, etc….

        Again, I’m just saying that their thinking is a little inconsistent, that’s all.

    • Because abortions don’t involve loud noises, which scare effeminate members of society such as Mr. Gopnik.

  13. what a tool. another jew for gun control? nazi’s probably would have trusted him to handle the ovens.

    • “nazi’s probably would have trusted him to handle the ovens”

      If you study deep enough into any gun-grabber – a disgusting prospect, I know – you’ll see that at their core, they’re exactly these types of people in every regard.

    • Gupnik — in fact, every media dipshit — is a Judas goat. He’s the animal that happily leads his bretheren to the slaughter.

        • “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself” ~ Mark Twain

  14. how about that haven of inner madness that resides on Wall St. in his home town? I can think of several other forms of inner madness, many of which stem from the island of Manhattan

  15. And how does one argue with someone convinced that Constitutional rights are worthless and should be sacrificed for the illusion of safety?

    This guy certainly is the authority on inner madness, I’ll give him that. You don’t like it, scumsucker? Go live in some polite Euro police state, it’ll feel just like your home dictatorship of NY. But nah, he won’t do that…people over there are already under total government submission, he’s gotta spread his filth here.

    You know, if there ever is a SHTF scenario or domestic conflict or whatever, the one silver lining is being able to watch lemmings like this get what they deserve.

  16. You have to hand it to journalists… they always manage to come up with creative ways to say the same stupid things over and over again.

  17. I have an idea to set this guy straight…let’s dump a few hundred wild boar into Central Park and watch Manhattanites run around with nets. Although that might be too cruel as they’re still struggling to contain the bed-bug outbreak.

  18. ‘How does one argue with someone convinced that the routine massacre of our children is the price we must pay for our freedom to have guns, or rather to have guns that make us feel free?’

    Well, by pointing out that the assertion in the statement is a false strawman to begin with- there is no routine massacre of our children. I then point to the millions of men, women AND children over the last 120 years who were massacred by their own governments. In numbers so vast that the lives lost to criminals are round-off error in comparison. By Governments who had seen fit to ensure that guns were confiscated and not widely available to their citizens. In places like Germany, USSR, China, Cambodia, etc. etc. etc.

  19. But think about the innocent children!!!! Oh geez, I have heard this to many times, but simply put remove 16 to 20 year old’s from the numbers and sort of blows their ideas out of the water.

  20. I don’t necessarily think gun ownership makes us free since most Americans are socially brainwashed sheeple and financial serfs owned by the political elite and super rich ruling class which still makes most decisions regardless of the laws and will of the people. Gun ownership has helped keep outright and direct overbearing oppression and intrusion by the ruling class of the common citizen from occurring. Unfortunately, the ongoing and growing police-nanny state continues to outgrow its duties and role in America challenging and violating the barrier to citizens privacy and freedom. The chains of those are heaviest who do not realize they are enslaved.

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