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The Unbalanced Scales of Las Vegas
Over the last 24 hours, I’ve been doing something I don’t normally do: I’ve been debating the right of self-defense with gun-control advocates on social media. I don’t normally do this because I find most gun-control arguments rather tiring. However, it’s been interesting to note the assumption of guilt in the minds of a great number of gun control supporters, and the National Rifle Association in particular as the source of their wrath, as if the NRA itself gave somehow gave tips to the Las Vegas murderer on how to perform his horrible deed.
The NRA is not responsible for this, neither are its millions of members. I am not in favor an entire group responsible for actions of one man, because the minute you do such things, you lay down tracks for the boxcars headed east.
Why then do people see a need to scapegoat the NRA here? I can think of a number of reasons why:
- A horrible act requires a horrible villain, and the villain we currently have on our hands just isn’t horrible enough. It offends our sense of proportionality that such a crime could be done by one man, so we invent a supporting cast for his movie. For those on the political left, the NRA fits that bill quite nicely.
- Someone or something could have prevented this, and the NRA allowed it to happen. This argument tends to focus on the use of the now-notorious “Bump Fire” stock, however, how the NRA could have prevented a product coming to market that was approved by Obama’s ATF remains a mystery to me.
- The NRA needs to stop getting in the way of “common sense” gun laws that might somehow have prevented this from happening. What laws in particular might have stopped a quiet accountant with no history of mental illness, no significant run-ins with the law, and no track record of violence from doing such a thing are left unspoken in this argument.
NRA members are a powerful political force, and Trump appealed to gun owners early on in his campaign, to good effect. To my friends on the left, I ask you, when your boogeyman behind the evil in the world just happens to be a big supporter of your political opponents, are you really worried about changing the world, or is scoring political points the ultimate goal here? If it’s changing the world and making it a safer place, I share those goals, as does every single NRA member, and we also share a desire not to be labeled accessories to a crime we had nothing to do with.
Published in Domestic Policy
I was accosted by a patient yesterday about this, since they know I have an NRA sticker on my car. The lady has a Jewish name but isn’t religious. She blamed the NRA and me for the shooting. So I blamed her for killing Jesus.
Michael Moore and some others have finally come out and advocated for repealing 2A. I’m with Jim Geraghty on letting them take a shot at that. It will be like protesting the flag and the National Anthem, only exponentially so. The ‘tards actually tried to repeal the First, so this is actually a possibility.
Frankly, I’m more concerned with them achieving their
idioticcommon sense idea of simply banning (again) scary looking rifles.Disclaimer: The NRA pays me to write for them, and if that makes you doubt my editorial fairness, they also weren’t that happy with me when this happened, either.
Democrats have had plenty of opportunity to do whatever controls they want.
They don’t want to pay the cost at the ballot box, so they use mass shootings for emotional appeals to get us “on board” for their cover.
That’s the insidious nature of these arguments, the lack of wanting to be responsible but rather to get people to vote against the interests of the long term due to the emotions of the now. Don’t get me wrong, I think some people have genuine good ideals, but not the loudest and dumbest.
If only Republicans would get on board or if only a Judge would declare this illegal = it wasn’t our idea.
I’ll admit that I haven’t read everything out there that the anti-gun left is arguing. But I have yet to see anything concrete. Everything seems to be along the lines of “This has got to stop; The Republicans have to stop blocking sensible gun control laws; If you don’t support gun control laws, then you’re responsible for Las Vegas!” Nowhere in any of this is there any indication of just what law could be passed that could have prevented the mass shooting in Las Vegas (or at the Pulse nightclub, or at Sandy Hook, or at Columbine, or in San Bernadino, etc.). The bottom line is that the anti-gun left wants the 2d Amendment repealed; it wants all guns confiscated; it wants only police and the military to have guns (and it’s not too sure about the police or the military having them either). Of course, having armed personal bodyguards or armed security guards at their gated communities is okay. But seriously, what gun control law (that doesn’t already exist) would have prevented any of these shootings? Has some responsible person proposed some rational gun safety response that I’ve just missed? Or is it, as I suspect, just an opportunity to use a tragedy to score political points for their side?
I’d consider myself a 2nd Amendment backer and believe it was clearly placed as a block against government tyranny. That said, do the hardcore 2nd Amendment advocates here feel that the existing restrictions on fully automatic firearms is Constitutional and should be dropped? Do they feel that the high rates of fire from modified semi-automatics (the ‘Bumper Stock’) do not fall under the automatic weapons restrictions? I get that mechanically/operationally they may be different but with the rates of fire shown in Las Vegas – do you feel that there should be no restrictions on them, similar to the existing automatic weapons restrictions?
Again, I consider myself a believer in the 2nd Amendment but there are adherents that are losing me on this. I realize he passed all the existing background checks and the bumper stock is essentially a spring, but you guys are OK with the level of restrictions on that rate of fire?
As the gun-ignorant are slowly becoming more informed about the meaning of semi-automatic and automatic, and how “assault weapon” is a made-up category, I’m noticing a decline in the useless calls for banning “machine guns” and “assault rifles”.
They are starting to realize that what they really want is to ban semi-automatic guns. I have seen two different friends (non-gun owners) write long posts on Facebook proposing a complete ban on semi-autos. I think the political battleground might be shifting on this issue.
Well people have proposed just banning guns out right. I think Michael Moore even had the sense to propose an Amendment to the constitution that would replace the 2nd Amendment. While this is politically fanciful I think it is at least honest, and I would have to agree that if guns were made illegal and therefore harder to obtain such acts of mass shooting would decline considerably. So while any partial measure is purely cosmetic the full measure might in fact be salutatory at least in this respect.
No, I am not ok with restricting “bump fire” stocks, because the legislation that has been proposed, banning modifications that “increase the rate of fire,” would also ban aftermarket triggers and trigger work in general.
It’s a silly idea because you can learn to run a trigger faster. Heck, it’s an essential part of learning how to compete in practical shooting, as Jerry will now demonstrate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddPTyoV-Irc
Follow up question: Do you REALLY think it’ll stop here, that this will be the absolute last gun control proposal they’ll ever throw at us, that they’ll see how we caved on a stupid thing like a bump fire stock (and they are stupid, to be sure) and then NOT go after semi-automatic firearms next?
No quarter.
The NRA is a convenient whipping boy.
Most gun control people do not reconsider in the face of facts. From Reason’s website Oct 4, 2017:
“With so many people insisting that the Las Vegas massacre confirms what they’ve always thought about gun control, it is refreshing to hear from someone who changed her mind on the subject after considering the evidence. “My colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States,” Leah Libresco, a statistician who used to work for the data journalism site, writes in The Washington Post. “We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence.”
Setting aside the trigger issue for a second, what sense does it make to enforce a ban on automatic firearms while allowing semiautos to be modified to make them practically equivalent?
Are questions like this rhetorical or are they genuine? I thought there are only two people on this site who are on the left, and only one of them (me) is a US citizen. Are questions like this asked in the hopes that me or some other liberal US citizen on this site reads them?
The claim that the NRA and all Second Amendment supporters are to blame for any all shooting deaths is far weaker than is the claim that all liberals and Democrats are personally responsible for the slaughter in our inner cities. Guns will not magically go away. No “common sense” gun law would have prevented the Las Vegas atrocity. NRA members very rarely shoot each other or anybody else even though they tend to be especially well-armed. The phenomena of gun violence is not explained by the mere existence or quantity of guns nor by the mythical “gun show exception” nor by the fantasy that machine guns are readily available at Walmart or Amazon.com.
Shooting deaths in Chicago alone, for example–more than 12 Las Vegas-equivalent shooting death totals every year-– occur where there are tougher restrictions on and penalties for gun possession than elsewhere.
Inner city shooters are typically the direct beneficiaries of the Great Society. They are also now four generations deep into the denormalization of American morality and the assault of family life borne more heavily by the poorest Americans. Add to that the over-regulation of the workplace and the mass import of illegal alien cheap labor that all seems designed to end all hope of a steady stream of entry-level work and job experience for inner city youths. The final injury is a public education system that abandons all academic and behavior standards to seal off any chance of escape by way of character and intellectual development. White liberals also carefully patrol the borders of the plantation, enforcing a layer of a grievance culture to kill off any disturbing indications of self-reliance. The result is an enormous population of malformed, resentment-filled, economically useless youths lost to an inherently violent subculture that will gravitate to weapons of all kinds.
Maybe somebody could point out which of the injuries listed in the preceding paragraph is the fault of the NRA.
Any liberal who wants to hold me accountable for any shooting death because I do not believe in repeal of the Second Amendment had better first accept personal responsibility for every inner city murder or else STFU. I am bloody sick of moral preening that thinks itself to be a rational policy argument.
The left/media suddenly stopped blaming the NRA and went completely quiet when the Scalise shooting turned out to be one of their own, a Bernie Bro.
No, I don’t think it will stop there. They want to take away your guns, I don’t. But you watch that video of the ‘bump’ vs trigger and you’re right, not much difference, that’ll scare them just as much and they’ll want to ban semi-automatics as well.
So back to my original inquiry- any restrictions on rate of fire, magazine capacity (caliber? Full auto?) all unreasonable and off limits?
What do you feel is reasonable? Start from scratch. Assume they’re aren’t any laws just the 2nd Amendment.
Seconded.
In the 80’s I lived with a buddy whose Dad was in the TV repair business. He got a device that jimmied our cable and was able to get free pay-per-view (Mike Tyson party anyone?). Essentially, he used a legal product to modify and enhance an existing product, which combined would have been illegal to sell. (30 years is beyond the statute of limitations, right?)
That modification device was eventually made illegal as well. I don’t know enough about “bumper stocks’ but why is this any different?
None. Which is why this is such a slippery slope, because people will then move on to semi-autos.
Heck, you can use a BELT LOOP to do the same job as a bump fire stock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD213VW6WjY
I think we should give up on the idea that it will ever “stop there”. It hasn’t stopped here, and it didn’t stop back there either. It has ebbed and flowed. Maintaining our civilization is a constant, long-term struggle. Our rights will always be under attack, whether we’re talking free speech, free exercise of religion, keeping and bearing arms, keeping the fruits of our labor, etc. We shouldn’t oppose a measure that we would otherwise find reasonable and prudent solely based on the “if you give a mouse a cookie” argument. We should always expect to have to keep fighting.
Do we need more than that? Sounds pretty hard-core, but in reality, the economics of buying and supplying something like my favorite dream gun, the M163 Vulcan Air Defense System, make laws pretty much an afterthought. I’m ok with keeping the existing background check system in-place and I’d even be ok with Universal Background Checks (aka The Gun Show Loophole) if the records self-destructed after each check, like a Snapchat text or something. I want nation-wide concealed carry reciprocity. I want a ban on assault weapons bans. I want the “Sporting Purposes” clause tossed on the dustbin of history. Full-auto, suppressors, short-barreled shotguns… I want them all of the National Firearms Act, and I want them off now.
Can you belt-loop bump fire effectively in a tactical situation, change a mag, and continue? I mean, to the extent that it would improve the shooter’s performance?
How is something this simple possible? How are there no triggers (for lack of better term) to prevent that happening? Like a governor on an engine.
None asked, and none given. Why does anyone propose we compromise our natural, Constitutionally protected rights? The Colonel puts it best:
And
No quarter asked. None given.
-Dan
This is my problem as well. In fact, I think even if we made a concession on bump stocks, someone to appeal to their base will try and insert something else stronger just so Republicans would have to vote against it and Democrats could fundraise.
I have to see that Franklin liberty/security quote every time a Republican wants to enforce the law in any way that disturbs the ACLU or leftist dogma. Most insulting of all is the Left never bargains, it never offers compromise, not that we have to, it’s an actual natural right in black and white as opposed to pretzel logic on rights like healthcare and abortion.
How about we enforce the laws we have that make you uncomfortable. Do the little things like eliminate parole and close the border. Deport the illegal alien criminals in our overloaded system and build more prisons to prevent recidivism.
I find these “Bend the knee” demands with crying Jimmy Kimmel as the “voice of reason” insulting while Hillary calls me complicit in murder with no apology. You need to prove your solutions logical, we don’t need to defend not wanting to try them.
Even Pelosi knows it’s a foot in the door.
No. Quarter.
It’s semi-automatic. Every time you pull the trigger, one bullet goes out.
You pull the trigger really fast, and lots of bullets go out.
This is why it’s a slippery slope.
Trigger mechanisms are quite simple. Hard to explain in a short comment, but poke around on Youtube and you can find lots of videos showing how to install and/or modify them. One of the reasons they are simple is that they do a very limited task – releasing an internal spring a single time when a lever is pulled. When you try to add a ‘governor’ of some sort, the complexity and cost will increase and reliability will decrease.
We have an example in hand: ‘select fire’ military firearms are capable of firing three (and only three) round bursts. The gadgetry to accomplish that ‘governing’ adds complexity to the trigger group – and likely contributes to the impression that making a firearm ‘automatic’ is hard. It’s not, in many trigger designs it is pretty easy to convert the ‘one shot every time the trigger is pulled’ logic into ‘keep firing as long as the trigger is held back’, with tools as simple as a metal file.
I don’t know if this will be considered a dodge to your question, but I think, since I agree the 2nd is about checking tyranny, we should be at the least able to arm ourselves with small arms that are comparable to the military. If they have an m240, I should be able to buy one if I so choose. I understand that I am not going to be able to purchase a tank, fighter, destroyer, or keep a nuke in my garage, but I should at least be able to arm myself the same way as your average grunt in the infantry. Of course the other way to handle this is to disband the standing army, return to a national defense regime of state militias providing the ground forces and maintain a global navy, and get out of the business of foreign crusades. Since I know that won’t happen, I want my 240.
That helps clarify things. I appreciate your candor. I’m not comfortable with that but clarity over agreement (Dennis Prager) is important. I’ve been very skeptical of gun control laws effectiveness but feel it important that we ‘police our own’ before someone else does. I’m afraid that is going to happen here- bend or break. I’m not some naive or sentimental ‘good government’ type but the horrific murders of this type, met with no introspection or openness to any restrictions will doom that movement. I’d recommended that the NRA organization officers (?) get ahead of this before they become truly marginalized.
I’m a gun owner but don’t feel mass attacks are acceptable (I’m sure you and other NRA Memeber don’t feel it is acceptable either) but feel your organization will lose if it doesn’t soften its stance.
Thanks for nothing, NRA.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nra-says-bump-stocks-devices-used-by-las-vegas-shooter-should-be-regulated/