TTAG reader Mr. AR-10 wrote the following:
“If the gun lobby ever spoke honestly, what they would say is that of course we are broadly responsible for these killings, but regular mass killings of innocent people is the price we pay for the liberty.” I am the ‘gun lobby’, that is an NRA member, a supporter of firearms manufacturers, local 2A rights organizations, member of local ranges, a CCW permit holder, as are so many of you . . .
For this sanctimonious a-hole to lay the blame for this crime at our feet, in public and from his soap box as he does here is beyond belief! I reject this. I reject this accusation and I reject this moron’s idiotic ramblings as what they are; rabble rousing ignorant rhetoric designed to do only one thing — take away our God-given rights to self defense of my person, my family and my home.
And yet we must ask ourselves where does the blame lie? The blame for this, in large part, lies directly at the feet of the statist collectivist lunacy that this man supports. The ineffectual immigration process that is run by the leftist state that this man supports. The restriction of the rights of these citizens who where attacked and killed in San Barnardino who were refused the right of owning and carrying firearms that might have saved so many lives.
This man is not just an idiot, he is the epitome of the useful idiot, enabling and encouraging the sheeplike small thinking voters far and wide to accept their slavery to the state; to demand that their rights be taken from them, that their productivity be taken from them and that their – and our freedoms and liberties be taken from us all and given to the state that is powerless to defend us in even the slightest of ways when evil men show up at our doors intent on doing us harm.
And we all see that these evil men are there, and they are armed – well armed and well financed by international powers from thousands of miles away. Men and women who hide themselves among us and plot and work to kill us.
This attack in San Barnardino was in truth only a small example of what could have been done by truly evil men with both money and time. Their plan was small – thankfully they apparently failed at much of what they were intending to do (that is to use explosives to effect their killing).
I worry about what these men could do with their bombs and their guns were they to truly and effectively plan and execute something far worse. That is to make and use bombs with expertise; to distract and misdirect LE response away from their true targets; then to attack their targets with larger numbers and to seek larger numbers of our citizens and put them in their gun sights. We are lucky that the number of us they killed in San Barnardino was only 14, it could have been far worse, and we all know that they want to do exactly this, to kill hundreds or thousands of us.
And with all of this, the statist machine that this blubbering idiot calls on to disarm us and to make us totally defenseless talks endlessly about ‘not overreacting’ and to ‘remember who we are’ and in short telling us all to just roll over and accept our fates. That the state will make us safe when we can all see that this is false on its face, they cannot or will not do anything to stop the men already on our shores, and even worse, are bringing more of them here. So sorry.
And to top it all off, this man blames us, the red state believers in liberty and the constitution that we all hold so dear. This is beyond the pale, this is an unbelievable thing. What a disgusting piece of trash. This man is a traitor to our values and our freedom. I don’t care if he wants to remain a slave to the state, to give up his right to self defense, to meekly stand by or lie down when ordered to by a man with an AK47 at his head, and the heads of his children and his neighbors – that’s his business. But I reject any attempt to take away my rights, and my freedom.
And I am guilty of nothing. These evil men in California did this evil act by themselves, and with the state standing idly by while they planned and acted. The state cannot be there all the time, they cannot track every single terrorist and stop them before they act. This is fantasy! Wishful thinking. Ignorance and willful submission. This man wants to be a willing servant to the state and to the musloid terrorist that is his business.
I will not submit, and I will not disarm. And let’s place blame where it belongs, at the feet of the people that committed this act and the men who allow them to enter.
If the wonderful Apostles of the Religion Of Peace were better bomb builders, they could have killed more people than just using the guns.
In the final analysis, the real blame for ” gun violence” is the nut behind the butt.
I still think it is really the cream of the cream that the Acolytes of Allah killed the people that had a baby shower for them.
Of course, the crowning glory was that the Caliphate In Chief termed the whole incident a workplace dispute and still refuses to call the incident that of which it truly was.
One of those pipe bombs rolled into the room while the shooters waited outside the doors for the panicked partiers to attempt to escape would have been a devestatingly effective tactic. I’m sorry I thought of it or mentioned it.
I am no fan of Obama, but i did hear him call that an act of terrorism. Sure earlier he said it could possibly be “workplace violence” but he did eventually flat out call it terrorism without the workplace violence addendum.
Eventually.
Eventually, yes. After his head of the FBI called it a terrorist act.
Grudgingly
He still could not get to “ISLAMIC” terrorism, though, he is pretty sure they were Methodists. He keeps talking about ISIS and ISIL, when is he going to tell us what that first “I” stands for in both?
“That is to make and use bombs with expertise; to distract and misdirect LE response away from their true targets; then to attack their targets with larger numbers and to seek larger numbers of our citizens and put them in their gun sights.”
Recently watched the HBO documentary on the Mumbai Massacre. This was PRECISELY the tactic they used – two or three minor attacks around Mumbai to distract and confuse the police response. Two large bombs left in the taxis they took from the docks to their initial targets that exploded and further distracted first responders, then meet up at the main target of the hotel and proceed to shoot as many high-profile guests as they could locate.
That is what an organized and trained attack looks like, and it wasn’t pretty. And on top of everything else it took the first responders HOURS to mount any sort of counter-offensive.
Yes Cliff I am thinking that or Beslan. And I do note that I have seen some discussion about the possibility that these two mulsimahs, Tashfeen Malik and Mariya Chernykh are Chechens.
Who knows, obviously we are only going to get spoon fed intel from our government, half of which we can trust and half of which we cannot.
So yea, I think this is something that is well worth worrying about.
What I would say to Mr. Gopnik is that the right to keep and bear arms does not require any “price” in terms of regular mass shootings because regular mass shootings did not happen back when gun control laws were far more lenient. It’s not like guns were severely restricted, then very recently made much more available, and accompanied by a spike in mass shootings. We didn’t have mass shootings when you could buy a Tommy gun easily. The first major gun control law in 1934 which restricted machine guns to requiring special permission was done not due to random mass shootings but rather organized crime, itself being the product of having declared alcohol unconstitutional.
After that law, one still could buy most any non-automatic firearm they wanted with any size magazine, via mail-order (have it shipped to your home), with no background check. Yet, still very few mass shootings. Then John F Kennedy was assassinated. But he was not assassinated by some random mass shooter but rather most likely by the mob (who had gotten him elected in the first place). Congress then restricted mail-order sales of guns.
You still could buy “assault weapons” like AR-15s and AK-47s with any size magazine and no background check, yet still virtually no mass shootings. There was a mass shooting in the 1960s in which the guy went into a tower and used a Remington 700 (hunting rifle) and a 12 gauge shotgun. Then in the late 1980s and 1990s, states began passing their own Assault Weapons Bans and there was the federal AWB of 1994 to 2004. Columbine happened during the AWB and the AWB didn’t outlaw AR-15s and AK-47s, just ones with at least two “Evil Features.”
The other major portion of gun violence was/is due to hard drugs and inner city gang violence. The hard drug use was a good deal responsible for the higher levels of gun violence during the 1960s and 1970s. Some would argue that it was the cracking down on hard drug use via the War on Drugs that thus led to the decline in gun violence, but regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with that, hard drug use has since declined a lot, and violent crime, and hence gun violence, with it. So to the extent there was higher gun violence then, it was due to drugs, not guns.
Currently, much gun violence happens in the inner cities. This is due to a combination of black gangs and drugs, and the gangs themselves being a product of issues going back to slavery to the fact that most of the major cities are the product of extreme far-left policies.
Let’s say America had never had any of the following:
1) Never had slavery
2) Never had excessive leftist governance of the cities
3) Never had a problem with drugs
4) Never had a breaking down of the mental health system for civil rights reasons
Gun violence would be far rarer in the U.S. Today we are having a spike in mass shootings likely due to the long-term effect of a tearing down of the mental health system and now terrorism. The idea that mass shootings are an inevitable consequence of lax gun laws is not supported by the evidence, IMO.
What i find odd is not the lack of recognition that their “gun free zones” are not stopping crime, as they can and do blame lax gun restrictions elsewhere for the problems they still face.
But that these lax gun law places do not seem to have as high of a death toll as their havens of peace.
…please – it’s San Bernardino; B-e-r-n-a-r-d-i-n-o
Thank you, and good evening.
Unless you actually live in southern California, where it is routinely referred to as “San Berdoo”.
Sorry, my bad! Thanks for reading!
Mr. Farago, I am torn by your publication of Mr. AR-10’s response to Adam Gopnik. While the response contains ideas that I agree with, the writing is, quite frankly, atrocious. If Mr. Gopnik somehow reads the response, it will only serve to confirm what he already knows about those of us who “cling to our bibles and guns.” He is quite secure in his knowledge that he and his colleagues at the New Yorker are superior to us. They are more intelligent and much, much more enlightened. We are idiots in the eyes of Mr. Gopnik and his elitist friends.
I too reacted with disbelief and then anger when I read his column. Unfortunately, however, it only hurts our cause if we get down in the mud with the likes of Mr. Gopnik and begin calling names.
With all due respect to Mr. AR-10, who clearly is an intelligent person, a much more effective way for him to respond to Mr. Gopnik, and to expose the incredible intellectual dishonesty in his piece would be to find a good proof reader, edit his response and send it to the editor of the New Yorker.
Oh I agree with you, in fact I was just about to make a post saying this same thing. Originally this was a comment and if I knew it was going to be put up as a thread alone I would have spent a lot more time polishing it up and perhaps using a tad more restraint in a few places.
But truth be told I do take it rather personally when someone tries to blame me for this kind of evil. I am not a perfect man by any means, but I do my best, raise two daughters one of whom is disabled. We contribute to our community, and above all we practice and encourage all around us to be safe when handling firearms – and all things we do.
Being called a murderer by someone trying to take away our constitutional rights touches a sore spot for me, as it should for all patriots.
So yes, you are correct, I take all blame for the lack of polish on this one.
🙂
If the opposition wasn’t so dishonest and impervious to facts, polishing the post up and sending it to the editor of the New Yorker would be an excellent idea.
I, too, refuse to submit. It’s time to draw a line in the sand.
I feel Mr. AR 10’s pain. Usually POTUS and his worshipful dum-dums blame everything on George Bush.
“If the (AUTOMOBILE) lobby ever spoke honestly, what they would say is that of course we are broadly responsible for these (DEATHS), but regular (DEATHS) of innocent people is the price we pay for the liberty.”
Unlike the original author, I am intellectually honest enough to put up front that I DO accept (though I’m not ‘responsible’) for deaths in the pursuit of liberty.
Good response. I don’t care about spelling,syntax or sentence construction. Lighten up grammar trolls-or write your own column…
That’s very nice of you to say! Thanks!
But Wisconsin and Michigan and other places that don’t have strict gun control they are to blame . . .
There always will be some place were the weapons are and there will always be weapons that make there way where they are not supposed to be. O yeah and 3D printers 🙂
Super cool that this got posted. It was yanked from the thread before I could finish reading it, heh.
It’s a super great comment.
I think being appalled at being blamed for something, then passing the buck on to someone else (ie immigration) is a little much, but the thrust of this holds true for me. I didn’t commit those murders. Or enable them in any way.
That’s very nice of you to say, thanks!
Not sure if I follow your last paragraph entirely. I didn’t think I was passing the buck along – anyway I guess I am misreading your point.
I just mean you say, “And let’s place blame where it belongs, at the feet of the people that committed this act and the men who allow them to enter.”
You say that the attack was only the fault of the terrorists, but also pin the blame on immigration policy and politicians that put it there. Feels similar to blaming the NRA or other boogie men. Doesn’t really hold true for me.
Immigration is however a mess, and maybe you’re right.
Yes I understand what you are saying now. Thanks for clarifying.
And you are correct, these evil men took it upon themselves to do this thing, no one made them do it, they do need to take 100% of the blame.
That said, I believe that many in our government are knowingly allowing these terrorists into the country, be it due to corruption (bribery), ideology, or just plain stupidity I don’t know, but it is happening. I don’t think these men should remain blameless.
We have the same issue regarding illegal immigration from Mexico, where it is known that these illegal aliens very often drink, drive and cause accidents and injury and death of our citizens.
No the bureaucrat who let them in did not drive the car drunk, but are they blameless? They know this stuff is happening.
Personally I think there’s a lot of graft flying around, but obviously I can prove nothing at all.
So I do take your point, and while I don’t disagree on the face of it, as always these things are complex and I think we have plenty of people in our government who need to face up to some truths. Our laws need to be followed, our interests protected, and our constitution adhered to.
Blame is applied in layers, like, as donkey said, a parfait.
Freedom of speech is valuable. It’s through dialogue and rational argument that we can win over to our viewpoint those sanctimonious statist rabble rousing ignorant idiotic collectivist blubbering leftist traitor a-holes. Well, at least it’s fun to hurl some empty-headed insults their way.
I don’t see the point though. For those who already view guns positively, you’re not adding any content. For those who don’t, you’re presenting a caricature of the bible-thumping beer-bellied redneck who’s even dumber than he is angry.
There are good tools for showing that the other side is wrong (offering counter evidence, showing their hypocrisy, putting things in context). But demonizing people you disagree with just makes you look crazy and irrelevant.
“It’s through dialogue and rational argument that we can win over to our viewpoint”
I do not believe this to be true.
The people we are speaking of are intellectually dishonest power hungry statists and socialists in positions of authority in government, education, media, and elsewhere. They are also the useful idiots in the voting booths, taught by years and years in government schools, by MTV personalities and movie stars that Republicans eat babies for dinner and have actual horns on their heads – and they believe this stuff.
They have no more interest in dialogue and rational argument than they do going to George Bushes birthday party.
And what’s more, not only are they not interested in rational dialogue, they aren’t interested in the constitution, and will throw it out at the first opportunity.
Do you think John Roberts was blackmailed in making the Obamacare decision? I certainly can’t prove he was, not having any evidence of it or anything, but it’s an interesting thought experiment. I do not put such moves past people like Obama, and let’s face it, Obamacare is the biggest state power grab since social security and the new deal. They have been pushing for this stuff literally for generations, and they finally got it passed and signed into law. The statist has a lot of interest in seeing to it that this case did not get tossed out by the Supreme Court.
And look what happened, the statist won that one, all that rational dialogue those lawyers had arguing cases in front of the supreme court and all, totally rational, loads of dialogue, and guess what? It’s a freaking tax. Yea, that’s totally in the constitution there, totally rational.
So suck on your single payer healthcare people, you were rational argued into to by John Roberts.
Gun contol is the same. It’s a statist’s wet dream, the brass ring, this is winning the statist version of the lottery.
They aren’t having dialogue and rational arguments with you Mr. Gates, so sorry.
Oh and yes, the whole being directly called a murderer thing, kind of rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like that.
I don’t know if you read any of the other comments here, so I agree with you as to polish, I shouldn’t have called this Glopnik jerk so many names. I’m with you on that one.
But this rational dialogue thing? Not seeing it.
But thanks for reading and commenting!
So, Adam, let’s flip your idea and look at it from another direction. YOU and your ilk are responsible for the deaths of those people because YOU disarmed everyone in that building with your anti-gun rhetoric. YOU pushed for disarmament laws imposed on those law-obiding victims, leaving them cowering helplessly while they were dispassionately gunned down by jihadists. If there had been even one CCW in the vicinity who could return fire, lives could have been saved. Do you sleep well at night, having helped turn America into a shooting gallery?
Wrong !
The majority of voters put into office those who best reflect the opinion, desires, goals, and policies the majority of voters like. Since the government (at large) is made-up of people Mr. AR-10 “rejects”, it is Mr. AR-10 who is out of step, wrong, dangerous, complicit; vote count says so.
BTW, all those “God-given” human and civil rights are subject to the will of the majority (super majority if you like); all our rights can be nullified via the constitutional amendment process. Oh how different things would be if the founders had sensed the need to place the human rights amendments outside the possibility of being amended.
Dude, I have long said that the anti 2a crowd should be up front and honest, and do the needful to make an amendment. If this is done I will willingly comply, maybe not happily, but I believe in a nation of laws and not of men.
Put up or shut up.
Oh and your “majority of voters put into office those who best reflect the opinion”… you can see a lot of opinion lately at the gun stores and the CCW training facilities. Gun sales are at an all time high. And along with that, crime is at an all time low! Who would have thunk it?
Go ahead, ban guns. But until you amend the constitution your only option to ban them is an unconstitutional police state nazi like house to house confiscation that will have to be accomplished by men with lots and lots of guns. And no doubt you will be far off in the rear, away from the action, probably whimpering.
Face it 2Asux, you aren’t advocating no guns, you just want the guns to only be in the hands of the state. There are some history lessons about societies where the only guns were in the hands of the state, and guess what happened? Millions and millions of people slaughtered. Innocent people, men, women, children, little babies, gunned down by the engine of the statist, pushing forward into the modern age where socialism will bring prosperity to all! Power to the correct people!
Did you take a minute to look up what happened to those socialist paradises? Yea, I thought not.
The funny thing is Gopnik means something like shithead.
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