Gun Control … Again (Sigh)

 

Here I am posting about a subject that seems so absurd I don’t feel it’s worth my time to even debate the progressives about it. Here’s what hooks me into it … conservatives. Those who should know better say things like “sensible gun control” and “no one needs assault weapons.”

Charles Cooke has a great, yet very small, article in National Review titled “Statistics Matter in Statistical Disputes.” It notes that the Associated Press counts 169 mass school shooting deaths in 23 years.

That comes out to 7.23 deaths a year! Kids die of pretty much everything else at higher rates: cars, swimming pools, balloons … on and on and on. Don’t get me wrong, This breaks my heart and rips up my soul that babies died. I sit here crying for them and their families. I am outraged. But then I see these facts:

Screenshot from https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-trafficking-hotline-statistics/ Screenshot from https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-trafficking-hotline-statistics/

Why don’t we put “sensible” restrictions on computer use? Why do we not go after Hewlett Packard for making computers that lead to sex trafficking? Because almost everyone uses them every day and they are not scary, whereas guns for most people are not something used every day. Yet guns are profoundly more important in this world for survival.

Conservatives need to be strong and not allow the progressives to switch the words and make this about the tool used to commit the crime, and to keep the focus on the person commiting the crime. Just as they want to switch the words and talk about control of their uterus and not about the life of the baby, they want to switch the words and say color-blind ideals are really racist, and that equity is better than equality.

Let’s talk about how our public schools foster the hatred that fills these shooters, the culture that tells boys to not be “toxic.” Let’s talk about the way we have cut out physical activity out of the lives of kids (especially boys), 2-15 minute recesses a day, and even then there is to be no real physical exertion. Video games and computer time, when does a boy (or girl) get to work out their bodies to make room for thought? Just like dogs and horses, you have to run the body first so you can train the mind, in humans as well.

Let’s talk about everyone getting a ribbon and no one being better than others at things. How this creates the idea that no one loses, so when they do lose and life knocks them down, they don’t know how to deal. Let’s talk about overblowing the zero-bullying idea; learning to deal with confrontation while young is a huge advantage later. I’m not a fan of bullying but not allowing any conflict in a child’s life is absurd and causes backlash.

Let’s talk about the glorification of victimhood, how kids are pressured not only by peers and teachers, but by parents to be a victim. I see parents scream at teachers, in front of their child, that their child is special and needs modified learning to accommodate the child (ILPs). I know this is controversial, as parents do everything to help their kid, but how much becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? At what point are you telling your kid that they aren’t as good as the rest and it’s okay to demand that the world bend to them instead of them becoming adaptable and overcoming? And when out in the real world, the world crushes them, and then what?

We have lots of problems, but guns are not one of them; they are a tool just like the car and the computer. Inanimate objects can be used for good or bad. Don’t let the progressives change words and make this about an object.

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  1. DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax)
    @DonG

    Sheila: Why don’t we put “sensible” restrictions on computer use? Why do we not go after Hewlett Packard for making computers that lead to sex trafficking?

    The guy that made the Silk Road website got a consecutive life sentences for his computer work.  So it is very selective.

    • #1
  2. DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax)
    @DonG

    Sheila: We have lots of problems, but guns are not one of them, they are a tool just like the car and the computer. Inanimate objects that can be used for good or bad. Don’t let the progressives change words and make this about an object.

    Yes and No.   Firearms are very powerful tools and a very good thing in the right hands.  But, they are a very bad thing in the wrong hands.   Denying that obvious truth keeps the conversation on the gun and not the wrong hands.   Conservatives have generally embraced gun control (not for felons, not in certain private locations, limitations on automatic weapons, age restrictions,…), why pretend otherwise?   Embrace the existing controls, tweak as necessary, and then move on to focus on the culture.

    • #2
  3. Sheila Inactive
    Sheila
    @SheilaP

    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) (View Comment):

    Sheila: We have lots of problems, but guns are not one of them, they are a tool just like the car and the computer. Inanimate objects that can be used for good or bad. Don’t let the progressives change words and make this about an object.

    Yes and No. Firearms are very powerful tools and a very good thing in the right hands. But, they are a very bad thing in the wrong hands. Denying that obvious truth keeps the conversation on the gun and not the wrong hands. Conservatives have generally embraced gun control (not for felons, not in certain private locations, limitations on automatic weapons, age restrictions,…), why pretend otherwise? Embrace the existing controls, tweak as necessary, and then move on to focus on the culture.

    I cant speak to how conservatives have been historically or generally, but again, a car in the wrong hands is very bad, but we aren’t talking about controlling everyone’s access to cars and computers, etc. No need to go after Ford because people do bad things with cars. No one is denying that these objects can be used in bad ways.  There is no constitutional right that says you can drive a car or use a computer, yet my right to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. And giving an inch saying we embrace gun control is giving a mile. I understand that some people should not be allowed to own guns, or drive cars or be around children, but I don’t agree with gun control for all. We don’t have car control, we have laws that hold abusers accountable.

    • #3
  4. DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax)
    @DonG

    Sheila (View Comment):
    but I don’t agree with gun control for all.

    That is where the majority of people are.  Many people want to have lots of controls.  A few people don’t want any controls.   The people asking for no controls put my rights at risk from the majority.  We are not a nation of rights and laws, we are a nation of political will. 

    • #4
  5. Postmodern Hoplite Coolidge
    Postmodern Hoplite
    @PostmodernHoplite

    Sheila:

    Why don’t we put “sensible” restrictions on computer use? Why do we not go after Hewlett Packard for making computers that lead to sex trafficking?

    Yes! And when Progressives say stupid, pseudo-clever things like, “I’m all for the Second Amendment…anyone who wants a gun can have it, as long as it’s a muzzle-loading flintlock, JUST like what the Founders intended,” we ought to ask them if the First Amendment ought to be limited to movable lead type printing presses, since THAT’S all that was available to the Founders in 1787?

     

    • #5
  6. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) (View Comment):

    Sheila (View Comment):
    but I don’t agree with gun control for all.

    That is where the majority of people are. Many people want to have lots of controls. A few people don’t want any controls. The people asking for no controls put my rights at risk from the majority. We are not a nation of rights and laws, we are a nation of political will.

    It is a fundamental problem of trust.  Half the country doesn’t trust the other half of the country at this point.  I might be willing to entertain something in a sane political environment.  I am utterly unwilling to do anything in the current environment.   

    I am not going to disarm to a government that does nothing about rioters for 4 months because they agree with the rioters cause and then declares that parents are domestic terrorists.  I am not going to disarm to a government that defunds the police and releases felons with serious gun charges on no bail.  I am not going to disarm to a government that fails to secure the southern border against criminal enterprises.  I am definitely not going to disarm to a government that says I should be demonized for the color of my skin, my religion, and my sex.

    Work to restore that trust then we can talk about “sensible” gun laws until then pound sand.

    • #6
  7. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Why didn’t the left demand more restrictions on automobile ownership after that guy ran down those people in Waukesha?  After all, it was an evil SUV that committed the crime . . .

    • #7
  8. Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. Coolidge
    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.
    @BartholomewXerxesOgilvieJr

    Two questions need to be asked about any legislation:

    1. Is there actually a problem so urgent that it needs to be solved (instead of other things we could be spending our time on)?

    2. Would the proposed solution actually solve the problem?

    We go through this every time there’s another atrocity like the one we just saw. People respond emotionally, but they fail to consider the basic question of whether what they’re proposing is actually necessary, or whether it would actually help.

    Statistics show that mass shootings just don’t happen that often. It seems like they do because they are so horrific, but they don’t. If you’re going to worry about something bad happening to your child, there are a great number of things that should be higher on your list.

    More to the point, I don’t see how “gun control” has any hope of preventing such things from happening. Not without banning guns outright and confiscating them (and we’d have to do so far more effectively than we’ve done with drugs).

    So what it all comes down to is that when something like this happens, emotion takes over, and politicians feel desperately that they must be seen to be “doing something” (whether that “something” is actually useful or not). We just have to weather the emotional storm and prevent the politicians from acting irrationally. Yeah, I know, good luck with that.

    • #8
  9. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    And the answers are

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. (View Comment):

    1. Is there actually a problem so urgent that it needs to be solved (instead of other things we could be spending our time on)?

    2. Would the proposed solution actually solve the problem?

    No and No respectively.

    • #9
  10. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. (View Comment):

    Two questions need to be asked about any legislation:

    1. Is there actually a problem so urgent that it needs to be solved (instead of other things we could be spending our time on)?

    2. Would the proposed solution actually solve the problem?

    We go through this every time there’s another atrocity like the one we just saw. People respond emotionally, but they fail to consider the basic question of whether what they’re proposing is actually necessary, or whether it would actually help.

    Statistics show that mass shootings just don’t happen that often. It seems like they do because they are so horrific, but they don’t. If you’re going to worry about something bad happening to your child, there are a great number of things that should be higher on your list.

    More to the point, I don’t see how “gun control” has any hope of preventing such things from happening. Not without banning guns outright and confiscating them (and we’d have to do so far more effectively than we’ve done with drugs).

    So what it all comes down to is that when something like this happens, emotion takes over, and politicians feel desperately that they must be seen to be “doing something” (whether that “something” is actually useful or not). We just have to weather the emotional storm and prevent the politicians from acting irrationally. Yeah, I know, good luck with that.

    I find Question 2 to be of critical importance. Certainly most of the “solutions” repeatedly proposed would do little or nothing to actually solve the perceived problem. (If we can get past that, then there’s the question of the collateral effects. Suppose we do something that reduces mass shootings, but it increases other types of crime?)

    • #10
  11. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Sheila:

    That comes out to 7.23 deaths a year! Kids die of pretty much everything else at higher rates: cars, swimming pools, balloons … on and on and on.

    Fatherlessness kills a lot of kids.  It’s not Covid or guns that’s the real problem. It’s fatherlessness.

    • #11
  12. Mad Gerald Coolidge
    Mad Gerald
    @Jose

    If we have kids so dysfunctional that they will shoot their grandmother in the face, with premeditation, guns are the least of our problems

    • #12
  13. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    I don’t think there is a technical fix, allowing the government more power to restrict guns for normal folks is an invitation for totalitarian creep, maybe not so slow a creep, but I can’t get my head around controlling the internet and the rapidly evolving technology.  We need parents to act like parents but what on earth do we do with the kids we’ve allowed  our culture to make fatherless.  The left or parts of it, maybe with Chinese pushing, and grown ups without children who knows, want chaos.  no border, no incarceration for crime, etc.  I don’t know any such people so am clueless, but it’s got to be pretty basic and some things are clearly very and obviously screwed up.  We’ve turned our schools over to left wing unions who care about their own power, not the children.  Take the schools away from them in states run by Republicans.  States with foreign borders have to control their own borders if the Federal government refuses to help they have to address that with aggressive legal, financial and political measures and sanely run states without borders have to help them.   And if the next election is also stolen those states have to leave and form a new nation.  We’re too big, too bureaucratic and if we can’t undo what we’ve become, we won’t survive.  We think we’ll have time to fix it.  We won’t.

    • #13
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