Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Quote of the Day: Peggy Noonan on Guns
Last weekend, in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan asked a rhetorical question: Why do Americans have so many guns? Here is how she answered her own question:
Americans have so many guns because drug gangs roam the streets, because they have less trust in their neighbors, because they read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Because all of their personal and financial information got hacked in the latest breach, because our country’s real overlords are in Silicon Valley and appear to be moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength. And they’ll be the ones programming the robots that’ll soon take all the jobs! Maybe the robots will look like Mark Zuckerberg, like those eyeless busts of Roman Emperors. Our leaders don’t even think about this technological revolution. They’re too busy with transgender rights.
Americans have so many guns because they know the water their children swim in hasn’t gotten cleaner since Columbine, but more polluted and lethal.
Ya think?
Published in Guns
Americans have guns to stop wanna-be Bill Clintons from turning into Adolf Hitler so, Pol Pots, and Joseph Stalins.
Say what you want to about only needing one shotgun to kill Bambi. That’s not the point. The point is to stop 1984 from turning into a documentary.
Unfortunately, the a*holes read Brave New World, too, and have a multi-pronged attack they’ve been prepping for for a century, and we’re busy fighting amongst ourselves.
Good times.
People have guns because when seconds count the police are minutes or maybe more away.
I have a friend that had his house broke into in Cincinnati. When he called it in the police showed up the next morning, about 12 hours after the discovery.
When my mother in laws car was broken into the police did not even bother to show up but directed her to their web site to fill in the info so a police report would be mailed to her in a week or so for insurance purposes.
People have guns because the only person that that you can count on to take care of you is yourself.
I suspect that most people that are anti gun live in areas where police protection is good and parts of nature is not actively trying to hurt them.
Even if it were the point, it’d still be wrong.
My, my, my, but that’s a mighty fine quote. Let’s also not forget that guns are just part of our heritage, and that they are fun to shoot, especially at tyrants.
This conversation is an entry in Ricochet’s Quote of the Day Series. If you have such a wonderful quote sitting in your back pocket, perhaps you would consider picking an open date and signing up? In October, we still have the 26th, 28th, and 30th open.
And people who own guns because they love to enjoy their liberty of hunting are just chopped liver? Noonan needs to go visit flyover country sometime.
No mention about the tradition and need for a strong militia. Peggy, please read the Bill of Rights. It’s not only our out of control neighbors and government Americans have concerns about. Defending the country from encroachments and invasions is a positive reason for owning guns.
Americans have guns because when the USSA (United Socialist States of America) is finally forced upon us, we won’t be protected like the court eunuchs and court jesters like Ms. Noonan.
I own guns because I can.
Americans have so many guns because how many is none of your damn business, really.
Good quote from Peggy. She does that sometimes.
Maybe we should ask them to check their privilege.
That whole quote sounds way off to me. I doubt a single person owns a gun because they read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”!
And guns were common way before cyber hacks and robots. And crime used to be a lot worse than it is today.
@fakejohnjanegalt is correct about property crime. Seattle does exactly that, and property crime has skyrocketed. Upscale neighborhoods have been hiring their own security since they can’t trust the police.
Would Peggy Noonan know which end of a gun is which?
Yes. All such people really need to get out more.
I don’t particularly like guns, but I hang around a lot of people who really do. And unless you know a few of those folks, you don’t have the faintest idea why people like guns. Quite apart from the obvious (personal safety, hunting, militia) people like guns because guns are cool machines. Not to me—who thinks the coolest machine on earth is a hand-cranked sock-knitting machine, followed closely by an apple–peeler-corer, but to fine people I know and love.
Since some of those fine people are willing to defend me with the aforementioned cool machines (while all I can do is knit socks and make pie) I’m good with their passion.
I agree. This is 2nd and 3rd level thinking. Things are getting more dangerous — the times are changing — and that’s even more reason (aside from the obvious) why we want and need guns.
I’m not sure that most people are willing to pay the taxes necessary to put a police officer on every front porch, or inside every apartment to prevent a burglary. I’m not even sure how many Americans look out for each other in their neighborhoods, or even know their neighbors names for that matter.
The upside of private gun ownership is that in the United States the rate of home invasion robberies is lower than it is in Canada, or England. Burglars spend a lot of time casing a residence in the States because they know there is a good chance if someone is home they’ll be shot.
The best deterrence to being burglarized is to keep a dog in the house when you’re not at home. Not some little yapper, a dog that is loud enough to irritate your neighbors when you’re not at home. Burglars do not like a dog that calls attention to them during the day or night. An alarm system that is not only monitored, but also has an ear splitting siren is also good. Make sure it is an alarm system with a battery back-up.
If you have an automatic garage door opener and the electrical box is on the outside of the house a burglar will simply turn off the power to the house to open the garage door, and to disable an alarm system without a battery back-up.
Peggy writes like someone who does not own a gun, though with her usual flair.
Owning a gun is not necessarily a reactive gesture by urban Americans who feel threatened by social breakdown nor is it indicative of a mobilization by rural Americans expecting to fight government overreach. Most gun ownership has affirmative roots. Hunting, self-defense, pest control and hobbyist appreciation are traditional and normal reasons. And by “self-defense”, I do not mean a nouveau-paranoid response to the times but a natural element of life like having a roof, a spare tire, a fire extinguisher or a generator.
For insular communities of upscale white collar urbanites who have never been in the military or around guns, inner-city gun violence is both horrific (no disagreement there) and foreign–guns are not part of their world and easily mistaken as a strange element thrust into their cities and thus a primary cause of such violence.
A very lefty in-law of mine is violently anti-gun. She experienced a very scary moment at the hands of an armed robber. I do not in any way diminish the awfulness of her experience and would happily contribute to the defense fund of anyone who blew away her assailant but her reaction is born in large part from a very narrow cultural perspective that now shapes the American left on all issues. I have never bothered to respond that I too was once robbed at gun-point. In my case it was by an idiot using what appeared to be a nickel-plated Colt 1911 style handgun. The experience confirmed my hostility to armed robbers, not guns. (That fool went to jail within days.)
Yeah, I know. ;)
I thought people bought guns for the same reasons they bought hammers, fast cars, and electronic devices, because they are freaking cool, and in some cases have a practical application, and in other cases because everyone else around them does. Why do so many Austrians have skis?
Guns aren’t magical things that you need some special reason or mentality to own.
I can’t tell if she’s mocking gun-owning Americans or making a good point.
To clarify, the question Peggy herself asked was this
So, she was asking about a different phenomenon than some people think.
I understand what she is saying. I’m 52 years old and I purchased my first firearm last year and plan to start buying more soon. I live in a suburb of Chicago that banned handguns until my town lost their court battle at the Supreme Court (alongside Chicago, funded by my tax dollars). I do fundamentally believe the feces is going to hit the fan in my life time. As I tell my unarmed neighbors all the time, when that happens, I don’t have to kill them all, I just have to scare them one unarmed house down the block.
If liberal women truly understood and appreciated the proper use of a firearm, let’s just say that a “Harvey Weinstein” would be a synonym for a colander.
Because I can.
That’s why.
She’s 1/2 right. Which is a huge step forward for her. I think the demand for guns isnt driven by a mistrust of neighbors but a mistrust of strangers.
She’s right in that the policies of the Democratic party are driven by people who will never be subjected to them. The rich donor class. The live in gated communities, behind walls and armed guards, their children will never attend public school. They can propagate a crazy social experiment on the rest of the world, and watch in amazement as their engineered utopia burns down.
Scott Adams has this to say:
That’s a fair point; I didn’t realize she had qualified it like that.
But what if the people she “doesn’t mean” account for most gun owners?? It sounds like she’s asking, “Aside from people who like guns or need guns or were given guns, why do all those other people have them?” What other people?
Or is she really asking, “Why do some people have a lot of guns?”
Exactly! And why not? I’m amused at the commentators so shocked by the fact that Paddock owned 40 guns! 40!! Nobody needs that many guns!
As if there aren’t many many collectors and hunters who own that many, and have never done any injury with them. As if you need 40 to carry out a massacre.
When it comes to guns, reason not the need.
In his heyday of collecting, I believe my father would have called that a good start.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/16/dana-loesch-forced-to-move-due-to-repeated-threats-from-gun-control-advocates.html
Maybe this is why. Will any of the deplorables of the Left be brought to justice?
I have long suggested the same, or at least similar. One need not get the leaders, but the implementers and those that support them to limit the effect.
I would also like to add that, in some cities because of state law, e.g. New Jersey, the gun laws make it nearly impossible for an average citizen of a high crime area like Camden, NJ from owning a gun. These residents — highly minority in demographics and living in economically depressed areas — are forced to depend on the efficiency of a police department that is run by Camden County (CCPD), since the city of Camden went bankrupt and can no longer afford its own police department. These residents and those in other crime-ridden cities would likely want to own their own firearms if they could.