Right, buff guy with a neck the diameter of a fire hydrant sneers at those who have guns.
"Might makes right" is a very old concept. When a buff young punk takes it in his mind to have his way sexually with a 5-foot-nothing girl, what are her options for fighting him off? When a couple of thugs break into the house of an old man to steal his money and prescription drugs, what's that old guy's option for defending himself?
Guns take youth and strength out of the equation. Thomas Jefferson said that all men are created equal. Samuel Colt made them so.
"Never fear any man, no matter what his size. When danger threatens, call on me, and I will equalize."
Which is why big-muscled men hate guns. At least, until they come across a guy who is bigger, stronger, and meaner.
17 comments:
I am looking forward to the day soon when I can teach my Great Grandson the use of firearms. He is 6 now and almost there. If he lived closer, 6 would have been fine.
My father taught me and on down the line.
Some people just don't understand that and I don't mind. It's just that they get vocal about it and that causes friction.
I don't "stick my guns in their face" why do they have to stick their nose in my guns?
w3ski
Henry Rollins has always been convinced of his own genius.
So, ol' Henry's not much different from The Donald, then.
The difference is that Henry is good at what he does and Donald isn't.
That doesn't make what he said any less stupid.
-Doug in Oakland
Sam Colt also made men AND women equal... Just sayin... And yes, he's an idiot!
A gun is no good if it gets turned on one, even accidentally.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/woman-shot-son-walmart-remembered-scientist-loving-mom/story%3fid=27929868
This is not a black and white, either/or issue, as I see it.
Unless you demand the right for everyone to have a machine gun, flame thrower, mortar, or RPG, you are in favor of some measure of gun control.
Rollins is right on "more brains, less bullets". Sadly more brains is always out of the question. This is how we became Trumpistan.
Sometimes guns are "for the weak" and important for self defense. Most times not. No matter how you crunch the numbers, in this country more guns have meant more death. That's just the bottom line.
I've owned firearms for over 50 years, starting out as a young hunter. I don't hunt anymore, but have no objection to fair sport in killing for food.
Trophy hunting is senseless killing for ego gratification and adrenaline rushes for the rich. I have no respect for that.
That said, there is no sane reason for the proliferation of AR15 type weapons in our society. These have already killed more than they have saved. And NOBODY ever needed a 30 round mag for home protection.
We had a Second Amendment right long before AR15s. We would still have the same right without AR15s. Regulating, or even banning, them will not make one person less free, or less safe. In fact, more would live. We DO still have a right to life, and there is no liberty without life. That right has been denied to far too many thousands of innocent victims of gunfire.
If you need a license to drive, and to hunt, you should have a license for such modern weapons of war. That might qualify as a beginning for the "more brains" thing.
Doing nothing, or saturating the public with more weapons of war, is the opposite of more brains. I'm betting that's what will happen. USA! USA!
Dave,
The right to drive, let alone the right to travel, is not a right that is enumerated in the Constitution.
The right to bear arms is.
Comrade Misfit,
I agree. As I said, I still exercise my Second Amendment rights. I enjoy target shooting.
Free speech is also a Constitutional right, but still has reasonable restrictions.
Both Rollins and the NRA are arguing from points that fit on bumper stickers. That simplistic approach offers highly inadequate grounds for discussion.
As I noted, almost all of us are in favor of some degree of gun control or regulation.
There are reasonable degrees of regulation that do not eliminate our right to self defense. Just not with grenades, .50 cal. M2s, or artillery.
The question becomes, "what is reasonable". Even most of the rabid NRA members would not insist on allowing a violent felon having the right to any weapon he chooses.
With rights come responsibilities.
So what is reasonable amid a million different answers from a million different people?
Of course, this is a nearly impossible question, which for both sides, is such an emotionally charged issue.
"Ban and confiscate all guns" is not a reasonable position.
So too are declarations of "no compromise" and "no restrictions". They are also not from a reasonable position.
Those latter points are extreme positions taken by the authoritarian Right, along with "No Constitutional taxes, no regulation of commerce, and no provision for the general welfare, and no checks and balances".
Of course, their Constitution begins and ends with the Second Amendment. Might makes right, from weapons, laws, regulations, economics and public health.
Imagine the outrage from the far Right if gun rights had half the restrictions they are imposing on voting rights.
Which right is more essential to freedom, owning an AR15, or having the right to vote, or a right to healthcare?
Only in America is the former "more important" than the others.
With never ending mass shootings, I'd argue that makes us less free. Less free from fear. Less free from violence. Less free from wanton arbitrary death.
The record is clear. AR15s amount to a greater loss of life and liberty than they protect. That conflicts with my values. I'm not advocating confiscation, just shutting off or reducing the influx and saturation of these types of weapons. If no more 30 mag capacity, semi-auto weapons were introduced into our society, not one person would be less free, or less safe.
That's my view. I also think this is a moderate view. If I am unreasonable, I'm open to rational disagreement. It's OK to disagree with me, too. ;-)
Dave, let me save some time and refer you to a couple of older posts of mine.
I keep asking this question: If you are proposing limiting my rights, what do I get in return? If the answer is "nothing", then it's not a negotiation, it's a surrender, and fuck that shit.
I'm not coming for your guns. I made a moderate proposal, open to compromise.
Besides, not that I'm advocating it, I see no violation of any rights with a voluntary buy back program. You are entitled to say "fuck that shit", as well as I would.
The question is how far does the Second Amendment go? If free speech is not absolute, why should it be so for the right to increasingly lethal weapons?
So we don't agree that limiting a violent felon's right to a grenade launcher, or any weapon of war, is reasonable?
I'm saying we had Second Amendment rights long before AR15s. Yes, we did. What makes regulating them a violation of those previous rights? Nothing. I suppose the same argument is made for bump stocks.
Are we insisting on ever-expanding rights to future weapons of even greater lethality? What's a mini-nuke or two among neighbors?
No compromise? Guns, any guns, for all? Fine. But I still maintain rights and freedom require responsible guidelines grounded in reason and sanity.
Real voter rights effecting real people are being stripped by the Party of the NRA. They get nothing to compensate. No buy backs for lost voting rights. There is no compromise with them.
I guess there really isn't room for discussion. People don't want to think about even talking about it. It's like abortion.
What do women get for losing that right? A rapist's child. A severely deformed/unformed child. Too bad. No compromise. That's just how it works. At least for the far Right.
And we can't even talk about it with them. No compromise. It's an ugly thing to see.
I apologize for mistakenly thinking there was a discussion here.
I'll just join the chorus. Rollins is an idiot. I guess I'm one too. Thank you.
No, Dave, you're not discussing, you're deflecting.
I don't live in an AR-friendly state (I make do with an SKS), but if I did, tomorrow or next year, I would have a right to legally buy one.
So say that I agree to give up my right to buy one. What do I get in return for giving that up?
I have a nice Russian SKS from my birth year. My older Winchester '94 carbine has more sentimental value, though.
So say that I agree to give up my right to buy one. What do I get in return for giving that up?
I don't know. What would you want? I'd want voting rights for all citizens age 18 and over. We know who doesn't want that.
Are we entitled to something for not having the right to an EMP device or high power laser weapon of the future? What do we get in return for not having the right to buy a 20mm Gatling gun?
I'm not deflecting, just trying to frame some perspective.
A lot of people are losing real rights, and getting worse than nothing in return.
At least you wouldn't be deprived of voting, representation, or reproductive rights that were once available to more people.
You would still have your other guns, so your second amendment right would be intact. My question is how far can that right be sensibly taken? It is not absolute and infinite. We can still stockpile more weapons than we could ever use.
First Amendment free speech has sensible limits. What about the Second Amendment?
I don't know if, or where, you might draw the line. I'm just saying any right can be limited. I would justifiably be more outraged at losing voting and reproductive rights than the one that allows rifles with high capacity magazines convertible to full auto, or with bump stocks.
I see that right as a luxury more than a necessity, despite the Right's lunacy over "second Amendment remedies" when they lose an election, or if a Black guy wins.
I am still quite free with no AR15. Not so much if I were to be denied reasonable poll access and voting registration.
No democracy means no freedom, and no real protection of any of our rights. We see both democracy and our non-Second Amendment rights being systematically eroded by the far Right.
There's a reason for that.
Our freedom and power of democracy lie in the ballot, not the bullet. The latter would only mean it is already far too late for debate, reason, or democracy. The Right knows this. They have mastered fear-mongering to the point bullets mean more than ballots. They oppose democracy. It is a real war on democracy, but corporate media will never say it.
Libyans have a right to AK47s. They are not necessarily safer, or more free, than an unarmed American. Guns do not equate to freedom. One more example is German civilians were allowed guns under Hitler.
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know without dialogue nothing can be done but to allow the NRA, Republicans, and weapons manufacturers to dictate public policy without consent of the governed.
Let's be real. The Second Amendment is not going away. It will not happen without unprecedented public demand, and the almost impossible consent of two-thirds the House, Senate, and of state governments.
But the fear of it happening will always be stoked. It will always empower the party that is most bent on dismantling democracy.
That is the Faustian bargain that is dooming our democracy. After the power of the ballot is lost, our right to guns will be useless. There will be no armed uprising from pro-democracy elements. Only from militias and other far Right gun nuts. And many of them would kill us in a heartbeat if Trump, or an even more evil successor tells them to.
Maybe I am deflecting a bit, but I'm trying to frame the larger picture.
The bottom line remains, more guns in an American community means more deaths will be the price. Yet almost all "pro-lifers" think that's a good deal. Go figure.
I'm just drawing a line that I can live with. (And others would too.) I'm sure my SKS would provide adequate defense of my home, or any home. And I would still be free.
My question for you is this. Where would you draw the line? What weapons, if any, should not be in untrained civilian hands?
As I said, most people and most gun owners, think there should be some regulation and limits. Nobody seems to want to talk about it though.
I'll step down from the stump now. Thanks.
First of all sir, the 2nd amendment has nothing to do with hunting or protecting yourself from burglars.
The 2nd amendment is about protection from our gvt. Period.
Now , the AR 15 works the exact same as any hand gun. Every time you pull the trigger, ONE BULLET IS FIRED. If you want to fire 30 shots you must squeeze the trigger 30 times. The caliber of bullet used in AR 15 is small.
There is NOTHING about the AR-15 that qualifies as an assault rifle.
Any large caliber hand gun can shoot just as rapidly as the AR-15 and shoots bigger bullets so OF COURSE IF YOU'VE ALREADY BANNED THE AR-15 IT WOULD BE ABSURD TO ALLOW OTHER GUNS THAT WORK THE SAME WAY BUT FIRE EVEN BIGGER BULLETS,SO WE HAVE TO BAN LARGE CALIBER HANDGUNS TOO, RIGHT? ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT FAR MORE PEOPLE ARE KILLED BY HANDGUNS THAN AR-15.
That sir, is the slippery slope that leads to the eradication of the 2nd amendment and therefore the battle to preserve that right starts right here and right now. You would not wait for an intruder to get his foot in the door
before you engage him and we cannot allow our rights to be eroded first before we defend them.
As for your argument that the AR 15 has killed more people than it has helped...
1) The fucking gun doesn't kill people, the asshole with the gun kills people and as already covered, that asshole can use almost any other gun and do the exact same thing!
Question: when some asshole goes crazy and plows his car through a crowd of people ( yes it does happen) does anybody focus on the make and model car they drove?
What if every time it happened the drivers were always in a Toyota Corolla?
Would you honestly try to say that Corolla itself had any bearing on the incident or would you understand that the common denominator behind these incidents is found in the drivers and not the fucking cars?
2) you do not know that AR-15 has killed more people than it has helped.
You don't know that at all sir. Nobody keeps track of the times that a good guy prevented a crime or defended lives with an AR15. There can be no doubt that an AR-15 has been used in the righteous defense of life or property or that AR-15 has been used to thwart crimes, but there is no way to know how often or how many times an AR-15 is used to protect and defend because nobody keeps track of that and if they did there's the fact that crimes that do not occur are generally not reported so who knows how many bad things are prevented before they happen? Nobody reports a crime that doesn't happen.
Finally the rights enumerated in our Constitution are natural rights which means that they are not granted to us by gvt or by any other human. They are rights that we all have by virtue of existing as humans, period.
Our rights are infinitely important and we need not be complacent or ignorant of their significance.
The arguments for banning AR15 are always rife with bullshit statistics , and outright falsehoods that are designed purely to evoke emotional responses and THAT FACT ALONE SHOULD BE ENOUGH TO MAKE EVERY SINGLE PERSON MORE GUARDED AND SKEPTICAL BECAUSE ANYBODY WHO IS WILLING TO LIE IN ORDER TO GET THEIR HANDS ON SOMETHING OF YOURS HAS A BIGGER PLAN THAT IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU AND ANYBODY WHO HAS TO LIE IN ORDER TO "HELP YOU" OR " MAKE YOU SAFER" IS ABSOLUTELY NEVER TRYING TO HELP YOU OR MAKE YOU SAFER.
Abandoned,
It appears your rant is much more an emotional tirade of NRA talking points than any of my reasoned points. Obviously you are no historian.
The 2nd Amendment had more to do with killing Native Americans, and slave owners with their "militias" to round up escaped slaves, than it did for waging war on the government of the United States.
Period.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say it is for waging war on, or insurrection against, the government. None of the founders made such a claim.
James Madison rewrote the Second Amendment into its current form during the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention in response to that state’s largest slaveholder, Patrick Henry, demanding that Virginia’s slave patrols be explicitly protected.
“If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress. . . . Congress, and Congress only [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia.”
George Mason expressed a similar fear: “The [slave patrol] militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them.'
If you think I have lied, then show me the facts.
And spare us your "slippery slope" fallacy. The 2nd Amendment can only be repealed by a strict amendment process:
Article 5.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;
So take a deep breath. You may stop clutching your pearls now.
I agree there are cases of defense by AR-15. I know of none that could only have been done with that specific rifle, or that required a 30 round mag. Feel free to do some research and show us an incident that required 30 rounds for self protection.
You may believe AR-15's saved more lives than were taken by them, but you offer no supporting evidence. If one was used to save a life, would there not have first been a crime that threatened said life?
Yes.
And such crimes are reported and on record. So please do your research before lecturing me with your angry outburst of all caps.
During the so-called assault weapons ban there were fewer mass shooting homicides with those weapons.
This puts the lie to your angry accusation of "bullshit statistics".
https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2019/01000/Changes_in_US_mass_shooting_deaths_associated_with.2.aspx
Changes in US mass shooting deaths associated with the 1994–2004 federal assault weapons ban: Analysis of open-source data
Conclusion:
Mass-shooting related homicides in the United States were reduced during the years of the federal assault weapons ban of 1994 to 2004.
The ban saved lives. Period.
No matter how much you shriek and howl the logical conclusion would still be the same.
The more weapons of death there are in a society, the more people will be killed by them.
States with the highest per-capita rate of gun ownership have the highest death rates from guns.
Facts are facts, no matter how upset or angry you may be.
This is going off the rails. Comments are closed.
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