“As uber-political statistician Nate Silver pointed out this week, gun ownership is now the most powerful American predictor of party affiliation, exceeding gender, sexual orientation and even weekly church attendance. Only about a quarter of Democrats are likely to have a firearm in their home, as opposed to 60 percent of Republicans. Gun-owners, moreover, have been buoyed by the Supreme Court’s recent break with more than 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence and sudden declaration that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms rather than granting it to militias. It was a novel ruling, but for better or worse it is now the law of the land. Its writ is reinforced by gun enthusiasts’ collective tendency to be single-issue voters. Few gun control advocates or their sympathizers are likely to cast a ballot solely because of a candidate’s stand on this issue; Second Amendment absolutists repeatedly have. That makes them powerful.” – Tim Rutten [via pasadenastarnews.com]
“Gun-owners, moreover, have been buoyed by the Supreme Court’s recent break with more than 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence and sudden declaration that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms rather than granting it to militias. It was a novel ruling, but for better or worse it is now the law of the land. ”
Is there a way to call this moron on his bullshit without giving his employer clicks?
Yea, it was never “ruled” to be a “individual right” because it was so blatantly clear in the text of the Constitution that until recent years, no one was stupid enough to claim that it WASN’T an individual right.
+1. This.
F’ing Douche.
That was my first thought. WTF is this guy talking about? What jurisprudence? It was never ruled on. Even if any jurisprudence did exist it wouldn’t it support an individual right just as every other constitutionally protected right does? Ralph?
Of course. I did a paper on 2A maybe 25 years ago. My analysis was the same as in Heller and McDonald, and I didn’t have to be a genius to figure it out. There was plenty of support in the Constitution and case law.
There’s something rutten in the state of Pasadena. See what I did there?
Yes, this is the latest tactic: declare that individual ownership is a NEW idea. I dare them to read Federalist Paper No. 46 and claim that Madison wasn’t supporting individual ownership.
According to Silver, gun owners are single issue voters. I disagree, for if that were the case the overwhelming majority of voters would have voted myopically for Republicans, after all no first world country has more privately held firearms than we do. The Democratic party made their anti-gun stance a part of their convention platform, yet Mr. Obama won re-election. We have a collective vision in this nation that we are divided into 2 camps, and therefore ideology CANNOT filter through. Elections confirm this vision as incorrect. I am a left-leaning conservative pro-gun Hispanic. Said what? Yeah, oh and I did not vote for either Romney or Obama.
I read it as painting gun owners as a panicky and emotional demographic, while gun control advocates (and everyone else) are clearly rational, intellectually superior voters.
It’s just more stereotyping.
They really hate us, don’t they.
And fear. Don’t forget fear.
This “columnist” just doesn’t understand why we even have our 2nd Amendment!
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
-Thomas Jefferson
+1
I think he really does. He just doesn’t like the idea of people not being dependent on authority.
I hate to correct this but that was not Thomas Jefferson it was Cesare Beccaria.
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Actually it is well established that Jefferson read and respected Beccaria and was fond of quoting him. So yes, this is a Jeffersonian quote … of Beccaria!
The REAL questions to this shooting:
Why was the FIRST information released minutes after the shooting the brand names of the firearms used (Glock Sig Bushmaster?)
Why was the Bushmaster first not used and in the car, then solely used?
What happened to the “tactical shotgun” that was “on the scene?”
What happened to the initial reports the shooter was wearing body armor?
What happened to initial reports Lanza was driven to the school? Where did the driver go? Did Adam Lanza even know how to drive? By all reports his mother took him everywhere and he had no license.
How did a skinny semi retarded social recluse manage tactical reloads on an AR under stress?
Why no mention of surveillance video from the school?
How did the police first know the shooter’s “mom worked there so he was buzzed in” without even knowing who the shooter was until much later?
In all the gun control spew there has been very little questioning done of the basic facts here, which seem to change daily.
Your questions are contrary to the desired narrative of guns being ‘bad’, and that’s all they care to know.
It doesnt take a conspiracy theorist to see the gaping holes in this story. If the press would do their jobs and do some interviews of survivors, witnesses, etc… it would go a long way to dispelling the misconception that guns somehow are to blame and place the blame squarely on this one Ritalin junkie punk.
However without more facts this story is suspect.
Yeah, Saul. Adam Lanza had help from the CIA on the grassy knoll because he’d been kidnapped by aliens from Area 51.
Some believe that the Oklahoma City Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in 1995 was a false flag operations. One might likewise speculate that the mentally impaired are being used as patsy perpetrators for mass shooting. Their puppet-master’s goal: swaying public opinion.
I’ve started reading The Kindergarden of Eden by Evan Sayet. He talks about the “modern liberal,” someone who would embrace this Howard Zinn quote: “Objectivity is impossible, and it is also undesirable. That is, if it were possible it would be undesirable.”
If that is true i.e. our 2nd A. opponents disavow objective thinking as a matter of principle, then we need some new rhetorical tools.
The kid’s mom had taken him to the range. Changing the magazine is a simple operation that is part of showing a rifle to be clear and safe while at the range, it’s so simple that it can be learned pretty much from watching.
Tac reloads under stress are not stressful when nobody is trying to kill you. Once the adults are down the kids are no threat. First, they’re probably already deaf from the gunshots, second they weight about 60lbs a piece at most. One or two of the kids showed initiative, leading others to safety. No counterattack was coming, and the police took 20 minutes to arrive.
And finally — who says the shooter was under stress? He was probably unnaturally calm in this process, most Mass Public Shooters are. He had a plan, he followed the plan. ASD folks often have trouble relating emotionally to people, his mental issues were bad enough that he didn’t even feel his own physical pain. What is horrific to you and I, shooting people because they were in your way, was probably not troubling in the least to him. The adults were problems that needed dealing with so that he could get to the job of killing the kids, which was why he was there in the first place. Complete psychotic dissociation.
You’d think the police would have found empty .223 brass or 9mm brass in some profusion, I also found it odd that it took the coroner to come out and say that the Bushmaster was the weapon used. It’s possible that a reporter or someone else saw a long gun in the car and reported that it was a rifle when in fact it was a shotgun. The fact is that there will be no additional autopsies done and to do so would only prolong the families’ pain. It was the Bushmaster and questioning that at this point is a) well beyond the point and b) extremely unhelpful in the much longer legislative/PR campaign that will follow.
Re: surveillance video, would you trust it in any event? It is evidence at this point, there may be no one to charge but releasing it is unlikely to prove anything one way or another. Watching the office staff die will not help our side, and watching the children be methodically killed is also in no one’s interest. Gun control advocates would benefit from the video politically, they are much more likely than we are to want it released. It should be examined by people interested in hardening schools against attack simply to see what else could have been done, but I for one have no interest in seeing it. If you’re in my kids’ school and firing a weapon you need to be shot. Now. Repeatedly. Preferably before you get to where the kids are. There will be no video evidence that changes this one way or another.
I understand your questions, but going Truther on this incident can wait until the legislative battle is over and we have won.
The answer to all of your questions is “the media was making shit up.” I don’t mean it was a massive conspiracy. They were running with rumors and unfounded statements and wild-ass assumptions, because ratings. Lemme help you out… In each of the following sentences, please tell me which is the most important clause:
“In information that has just been discovered exclusively by CBS, we can now report that the shooter’s name is…”
“Next up, a witness who is only speaking to us here at CNN will tell us how he ‘knew that guy had something bad planned for today’…”
“In breaking news you’ll see only on NBC, find out how the shooter’s pet hamster died 10 years ago under questionable circumstances…”
It really is just that simple.
To call us single issue voters is to group and stereo type us. As a Black American my antenna always rises when I am grouped. Everyone’ s should. To group us is to simplify us. We are much more complex, diverse and intelligent than the writer suggests.
He is correct on our potential power.
+1
“Its writ is reinforced by gun enthusiasts’ collective tendency to be single-issue voters.” Pot meet kettle. Dumbasscrats are the quintessential single-issue voters. Look how president Odumbass got re-elected.
The constitution isn’t about group rights. It’s about individual rights. If a law violates the rights of one individual that law is illegal and wrong.
And for those that keeping spouting this “majority” crap. Does that mean that 51% of the voters can decide to do away with the womans right to vote? Or is voting an individual right?
Does that mean that 51% of the voters can decide to do away with the womans right to vote?
Since women are the majority, I’m going out on a limb by saying that if someone’s right to vote is in jeopardy, it’s not theirs. 🙂
Oh dear I knew we were in trouble!!
More than we probably know.
I have seen people state that MSR owners are a clear minority of the population and that to infringe their rights does not infringe the rights of the majority.
I plan to respond to the next person making that point that I will remember they said it was fine to impair the rights of minorities the next time same-sex marriage is raised as an issue. Also, you cannot impair the rights of a minority in this case without simultaneously impairing the rights of the majority. If no one can have MSRs, then the majority is included in that right. Whether they choose to exercise the right they are being stripped of is irrelevant, their rights are impaired either way. I don’t own a television station but if the government censored television stations then my 1A rights are impaired along with everyone else’s.
The 2A has a much higher barrier to being rescinded than any simple law. IIRC, it requires 2/3 of both halves of Congress, plus 2/3 of states. Good luck with that.
Tim Rutten has been a left wing shill for decades at the LA Times. But the good news is that he was fired from there, after 30 years, due to budget cuts. So he’s sort of a success story for us in the “vast right wing conspiracy”.
I think you misspelled “left wing sh!t.”
The dude in the photo looks like he drinks a bit too much, just say’in.
About 25% of Dems have a gun and 60% of Repubs have a gun. So what? The Dem Party has more registered voters than the Repub Party. It’s not a wash yet I think Nate Silver’s claim is excessive.
I’m a little confused. The numbers according to Gallup are 55% of Republican households and 45% of Democratic households. You can look them up on Gallup.com.
Looks like Nate’s making up whatever numbers fit for him.
I’m all about personal freedom and personal responsibilty, so any legislation that limits freedoms I take issue with. A bunch of conservative ideology results in restrictive legislation. I tend more to the left, but this liberal is armed. And I practice. And I vote for choices. I support freedom of choice in damn near everything, including the freedom to arm myself against broken people with dark intent. No, I probably don’t NEED 30 rounds of 7.62 x 39 at my immediate disposal, or the ability to punch holes through heavy steel plates at 100 yards with my 91/30, but I don’t need a car that can go 100mph either… Until I do. Maybe. But I have that choice. For now.
I’m not a single issue voter and never have been, but even if I was it wouldn’t help the demofilth, seeing that I don’t agree with those leftist kooks on a single issue. Hell I have a hard enough time voting for those left of center loons in the republican party.
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