Meanwhile, a powder keg is building. FBI background checks for gun sales hit 3.9 million in June—an all-time high. Many of them were for first-time gun buyers—by definition untrained, possibly rash in their actions. An estimated 20 million Americans carry a gun when they leave their homes. It takes just a few trigger-pullers to set off a conflagration; even in intense insurrections, such as the postwar rebellion in Iraq, only 2 percent of insurgents actually fired their weapons. (Emphasis mine)That twenty million number links to an article with this description:
Gun Sales Skyrocket Amid Pandemic And Unrest Fears> Nearly 20 million Americans are packing when they travel out of the house…and that total is growingThe thing is, nowhere within that article is the 20 million figure even mentioned. It's part of the headline, that's all. The article goes on to undercut Slate's fear-mongering with this paragraph towards the end of the article:
Notably, states that have conceal-carry provisions have seen a decline in violent crime whereas states that do not allow conceal-carry have crime rates 11 percent higher than the national averages according to Gun Facts. After passing their conceal-carry law, Florida’s homicide rate fell from 36 percent above the national average to four percent below. Likewise, Texas saw their murder rates fall 50 percent faster than the national average after their conceal-carry law passed.Why that is so doesn't take much thought: Criminals don't care for being shot, which explains why "hot burglaries", those carried out when people are home, are far more common in hoplophobic nations.
Back to Slate: Reaching for support without reading the article is sheer laziness. It can destroy the efficacy of one's argument.[1]
For the sake of argument, let's assume that twenty million people do have carry permits. Slate is assuming that everyone who has a permit always carries one. That, based on my own knowledge of people who have carry permits, is utter hogwash. The percentage of people who have permits and do carry a gun is on the order of 15% or less.
But Slate has one thing correct: Whatever risk exists of greater violence, Trump is fanning the flames with a leaf-blower, He is encouraging violence. And so are the asshats of the far and not-so-far Right.
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1. Here's a legal story about that: West Publishing, a legal publisher, would flag cases with a yellow flag if the case's result had been questioned by another court or with a red flag if one or more points in the case had been overruled by a higher court. So there was some litigation going on, with one party represented by a solo-practitioner and the other party represented by one of the larger white-shoe law firms. The solo lawyer made an argument and cited a case. The white shoe lawyer said that the case had been overruled. The solo said yes, but not for the point of law that I'm relying on.
The judge looked at the case. The solo was right. The end result was that the judge was far more critical of the legal arguments of the bit law firm's legal team and gave more credence to the solo. The solo won.
16 comments:
"Whatever risk exists of greater violence, Trump is fanning the flames with a leaf-blower, He is encouraging violence. And so are the asshats of the far and not-so-far Right."
Not saying you are wrong....But I don't see it.
Care to show me some violence that can be directly attributed to Trump or the "not so far right"?
If that segment were prone to illegal violence most antifa and violent (as opposed to truly peaceful) BLM marches/riots would have had other endings than what they did. But that hasn't happened. Oddly, those highly armed people have obeyed the law, even when the other side hasn't.
Umm. Kyle Rittenhouse....
Respectfully B, you’re full of shit. You have evidence presented to you when you ask for proof, and then you disregard it as hearsay, unproven, uncollaborated, etc. You’ve been a lemming during this pandemic, following the company line of ‘its just the flu’. Even when presented with statistical evidence corona is deadlier, you refuse to accept the proof cause Trump says it’s just the flu. And now, Woodward has tapes of Trump, using his own words, that the virus is deadlier and knew it in January. He lied to America, but you blindly followed.
You’ve asked me over a year ago for proof of Trump inciting violence on your blog. I reposted FIVE links to videos where he told people in his rallies to rough protesters up while they were being evicted. You claimed that those weren’t facts, but only opinions.
You ask for proof, but are like 38% of Americans that listen to what Trump says and take it as gospel. Even as it has been documented over 22,000 lies in 3-1/2 years. You’ll believe a proven liar, but question any statement against him. Pathetic.
You don’t see it because you don’t WANT to see it. The guy you voted for is a scum of a person. But for you to admit that he is bringing this country to ruination would cause you to say you should have voted for Hillary. And your hatred of her won’t allow you to. So, instead, you deny reality, refuse to believe what your own eyes are showing you. You want so badly for Trump to succeed, and with each failure, with each mis-step, with each lie propagated by this administration, you firmly dig in your heels and play the contrarian. That act is getting old.
Those of us that see Trump for what he is shouldn’t have to provide proof, or examples, or demonstrate how he is ruining the country. All you have to do is turn off Fox News and look at another news source for reality. Or not. You do you. Be best.
If Trump were inciting violence, there would be no doubt. You'd see a LOT of it. You don't.
You precious BLM mobs aren't being shot at by the other side, even when they riot. The looters are not stacked like cordwood when they loot.
The possibility is there, but with few exceptions, the Right lets the law do it's job. Rittenhouse was stupid to be where he was, but he retreated when he could, and only fired at those attacking him. Had he chosen to he could have shot 20+ people. He didn't.
When peaceful protest happen, no one shoots at them, there are no crowds of Right leaning people with guns or clubs beating or shooting the protesters. The violence just hasn't happened. It is all in your mind. If it were happening, you can be sure the press would be showing it over and over and over. They aren't.
IF the opposition to BLM and their hangers-on were inclined to violence, or if they were slavishly following some imaginary advice from Trump, you'd be well aware of it.
Thanks for the word to add to my vocabulary, hoplophobia. But I would like to be invited over for a steak dinner by someone who has hoplophbia because the steaks would be tender enough to eat with a spoon. B,when demonstrators are removed by force from a church property for a Trump photo-op that is an attack even if they were not shot and stacked like cordwood.
Ten Bears, that comment was a personal attack. Red card.
B, so your defense to the charge that Trump is inciting violence is that he's lousy at it?
Comrade, it’s great to provide citations, and when the study you cite to prove your point notes:
“The new empirical results reported here provide no support for a net deterrent effect from widespread gun ownership. Rather, our analysis concludes that residential burglary rates tend to increase with community gun prevalence.”
From this I conclude that Republicans should want less guns to lower crime rates?
My biggest concern with guns is the simple existence of far to many guns in the hands of people who do not care for them, secure them properly, don’t know how to use them safely, etc, simply because of the talismanic effect that the myth of lAmerican Freedom” from the barrel of a gun has upon them. I’m fine with Auntie Jean having a gun, if she is trained or learns to store, carry and use it properly (and I’d love for her to be insured, etc,) but realize that installing requirements upon ownership is a problem in various locales at various time. I do wish that she would get it confiscated if you visit her with your two kids and she has it loaded under the pillows on the couch though, and then would be fine with training requirements to recover it.
I go along the lines of CP88. A possible backdoor Rethug
"we need to control that".
I'd say it was mostly a opinion piece so fact ns data may or may not
support it. So B not being able to see it is evasive and unimportant.
That said, yes more people with questionable experience and skills
does makes the risks greater. That said its a small percentage as
well and I support that with very few people can point a gun and
shoot even a deer never mind a person.
Eck!
No, Comrade, the only people that think he is inciting violence are those that hate him and have fertile imaginations (or delusions).
These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!" Trump tweeted shortly before 1 a.m. Friday.
One has to laugh at cowardly Trump implying he’s part of a force that will do the shooting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/back-trump-comments-perceived-encouraging-violence/story%3Fid%3D48415766
Who are we to believe B, you or the past statements of Trump.
B, here's Kellyanne Conway blowing on trump's Steam-Whistle of Hate:
President Donald Trump's close adviser, Kellyanne Conway, told Fox News on Thursday [8/27/20] that "chaos and anarchy" following police shootings are politically helpful to Trump's reelection effort.
Kellyanne's signaling to the white nationalists to ramp up their violence. Trump wants disorder in the streets, because he thinks that's good for him.
Once again, B, evidence is provided when you asked. And yet again, you bury your head in the sand and deny. You just can’t bring yourself to admit when you are in error, as you so often are whenever Trump is concerned. His incitement of violence is on news channels, on the internet news sites, and in newspaper’s across the web. Evidence is found on both left-leaning and moderate sites. And you refuse to acknowledge the truth because it isn’t found on Fox, Qanon, or OANN. Your credibility has eroded to the point that you simply cannot be relied upon to provide a reasonable counterpoint. Being contrary is in a debate is one thing, but your blind willingness to defend the indefensible is beyond comprehension.
Trump Derangement Syndrome may be real, but you may not realize that you are infected with it.
Dale
No, B, the only people that think he is not inciting violence are those
that adore him and have fertile imaginations (or delusions).
The blade that cuts...
Eck!
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?”
George Orwell.
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