going there
18 Apr 2007 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouRather than get into this on anyone else's journal -- especially anyone patently against my position -- I'll say it here. I made no attempts to be civil, because I'm pissed. Do not think for even a heartbeat that this means I feel no remorse for the dead: I am not heartless, I am furious. I am angry that those children were fish in a barrel, and thus, with all due caveats of this being my opinion...
The argument that outlawing guns will prevent murder is absolutely moronic.
I got a newsflash for you. Murder is illegal regardless of means, and it don't make even a speck of difference how it's done. I can kill you with a knife, and if we're in a district that's outlawed any knife whose blade is over 11", then I put away my chef's knife and I could murder you with a paring knife, if I get you in the right spot. I could slide a screwdriver between your ribs in just the right angle and skewer your heart. I could beat you over the head with a broken chair leg. I could drown you, I could suffocate you, I could throw you out a window. Or, I could go cheaper by the dozen, and still not need a gun.
Timothy McVeigh didn't use a gun. He used fertilizer.
It's still murder.
In fact, it's a fuckload easier for me to get ahold of a paring knife, a screwdriver, or even fertilizer, than it is to get a gun. And I don't just mean the background check or the three-day waiting period, I mean also that guns are damn well expensive. But I don't see anyone outlawing fertilizer, or paring knives, or screwdrivers, or even windows more than ten feet off the ground that don't have bars to prevent a body being thrown through them. No, I don't think that's a ridiculous response. Frankly, I think it's a good analogy because it reveals just how ridiculous it is to say that outlawing guns will cut down on murders. Bullshit. You know the old adage about the better mousetrap? It works for human vice, too: it doesn't matter what you allow or outlaw.
People determined to kill, will find a way.
Okay, so you take away our right to private gun ownership. Do you realize what this means? How much empirical evidence do you need? Look at Chicago, New York City, Washington DC: they have the highest murder rates of any cities in this country... and, curiously, they're also the cities in which private gun ownership is outlawed. The second amendment does not exist in those precincts; private citizens have no means nor right to defend themselves and their homes. And of course the criminals still have guns: if they gave a shit about the law, they wouldn't fucking be criminals.
If open-carry (let alone concealed-carry) weren't illegal on a college campus, then I assure you that at least one person in that VT classroom would've been carrying. It's Blacksburg; it's rural Virginia. Gun ownership and pride in the second amendment, in that region, is alive and strong. And, were concealed carry legal on university campuses, and were I present when that boy peeked into the classroom, paused, and then raised his gun and took aim --
I would have shot him first.
What do you want? You want thirty-two people dead? You want one person with a gun to be able to rampage freely through a defenseless citizenship, sitting ducks cornered in a one-door classroom, easy pickings? Because if you outlaw guns, if you push harder to strip our second amendment -- as we know it now and as we most commonly practice it now, as a private right -- then why don't you go over there and celebrate with the criminals, the crazies, the homicidal. They're the only ones who will benefit from your laws.
They're the ones who don't give a flying fuck about whether it's right to disarm the populace. They're pleased you're disarming the populace, they want the populace helpless and defenseless. What are we going to do when those criminals stick a gun in our face and demand we turn over our jewelry, our cash, our daughters? Hit them with a broken chair leg? Or are you gonna tell them to hold on the ten minutes or more it'll take the cops to rush to your place -- assuming you can even manage to dial 9-1-1 in your panic?
Me, I'm gonna be meeting them at the front door with a double-barrel shotgun, lock and load and get the fuck off my property and away from my daughters.
It's absolute bullshit, it's exploitative panic-mongering, to insist that 'letting' people have guns will lead to more crime, more murder. (I love that; next, will you 'let' me have the right to rant like this?) All the overwrought post-event hand-wringing of "if only we didn't let people like 'that' have guns!" is one big waste of energy and serves only the interests of criminals. I know a lot of people who own guns, who hunt or who go to the range, who know gun safety and management. I do not know a single murderer. I do, however, know people who have pulled out a concealed gun -- to the surprise of a potential mugger or rapist -- and stymied the crime. You can't, no one can, pinpoint ahead of time who'll only use their gun for range practice and the hopefully-distant threat of self-protection, or who will turn it on themselves, their spouse, their community. If only we could, but we can't -- and the empirical evidence is clear that disarming the populace only leaves the honest folk helpless.
Face it. People will commit murder. One way or another. Nothing you can do will change this.
All you can do is make sure that everyone else has the means, and the skill, to stop the crime -- and possibly save lives.
I agree the second amendment has been read many ways as our society changes over the past two hundred plus years. It seems logical -- to me -- that it's a private right, by context: all the rest of the Rights are also private, and the Founders were nothing if not logical writers/thinkers. Having a 'public' right sitting smack in the middle of 'private' rights seems illogical to the overall flow; that said, I have read an argument that the second amendment is private, yet also communal. Not in the sense of "the community (read: local government) creates and controls the militia" but in a sense more familiar to the Founders, based on firsthand experience: that gun ownership, use, and training, is a civil responsibility. That is, private citizens could have privately owned, maintained, and operated firearms, but in doing so, any privileges attached are secondary to the responsibility of community defense.
Now that, I can see -- and I can get behind.
Think about it. It is your civil responsibility to help make your community safe. Who isn't familiar with neighborhood watch, with Take Back The Night? Before we had suburbs and tax-paid full-time police forces, we had local militia, people who had the means and ability to stand up and defend their communities with force, if that's what it came to. Is it really that far of a stretch to say: if I learn gun safety, if I train myself in how to use this weapon, if I practice with it so I understand what it will and won't do, if I know this weapon, that it then becomes my civil responsibility to defend myself, my family, and my fellow citizens if in doing so I may save lives?
Sure there are gray areas. Do you pull the gun and frighten the small-time criminal who then fires in a panic and kills the same 7-11 clerk you were trying to defend? Do you assume the person holding the gun is always the criminal -- what if it's another citizen, holding the criminal at bay until the police arrive? Good, thorough, handgun training raises these questions. I would never, ever argue that gun ownership should occur without training. I do believe, strongly, that it's much like driving a car: that you should, in some way, demonstrate that you're not some ignorant yokel who thinks just waving the gun around will prevent burglary or rape. It won't, not unless you know the business end, and what to do with it.
Tangent on ignorance versus knowledge: it's commonly said (especially in college campus 'sexual assualt awareness' speeches, curiously) that it's not a good idea for women to carry guns, because oh noes, the rapist will probably take it away from you and use it on you, and that's so much worse than 'just' being raped. What the fuck, over.
What that oft-repeated chorus doesn't include is the next verse: if you raise your gun in your own defense and you know exactly how to use it, this will show. No rapist is going to be stupid enough to take a gun away from someone with a steady grip and solid aim. Any rapist stupid enough to try just might get his damn fool hand (or dick!) blown off; I say good fucking riddance and he undoubtedly won't try that stunt again -- attempted rape or attempted gun-grab. But that self-defense confidence and skill requires classes, it requires time, it requires practice, it requires willingness to take on your personal safety as your personal responsibility. It requires that you stand up and realize, honestly and pragmatically, that there will not always be someone else there to protect you: that there may come a time when you must Do It Yourself.
Why is it so much easier to just tell women, "don't carry a gun, it'll be taken away from you and used on you" -- and never add, "unless you take classes and learn..."? Why does this make me feel like the speaker(s) want me helpless, wants me to suffer the rapist or mugger and cling to the hope that someone overhears me screaming and calls the cops on my behalf? Why only warn me that being ignorant will work against me -- big fat fucking DUH there -- and why never give me the chance to become powerful? It's fucking insulting, is what it is: "don't carry a gun in self-defense, you're not smart enough or good enough or strong enough to use it." What's really being said is: "you can't really defend yourself, so scream loud, and hope you survive long enough to enjoy the humiliation of a rape kit exam." So much for empowerment.
[As CP just quoted: "why do people think that a woman brutally raped and strangled with her own panties is somehow morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet?"]
But back on topic: I fail to see even the remotest shred of 'gray area' when it comes to one armed person unloading on a classroom of college students. I'd call that a damn well textbook case of an excellent time to practice your marksmanship.
You just might save lives. Thirty-two of them, maybe.
...Unless, of course, you're unarmed, by dint of the bleeding hearts who insist that, somehow, guns are automatically -- and nothing ever more than -- murder weapons waiting to happen, and that those of us who own them, practice on them, use them, take pride in that skill, are just unconciously holding on to the distant day when we go SNAP and decide to take out a busload of nameless bystanders. Or worse, you really did swallow that line, you agreed with and believed the passionate insistence that no-guns-for-citizens means less crime, that a disarmed populace makes for safer streets.
First, I hope you don't ever decide to test that theory by walking in Chicago after dark.
Second, I hope you make peace with whatever god you choose, because when that kid at the classroom door raises his gun, takes aim, and starts firing... ain't nothing your defenseless ass is gonna be able to do about it.
Don't you feel safe now?
Gee. I sure do.
The argument that outlawing guns will prevent murder is absolutely moronic.
I got a newsflash for you. Murder is illegal regardless of means, and it don't make even a speck of difference how it's done. I can kill you with a knife, and if we're in a district that's outlawed any knife whose blade is over 11", then I put away my chef's knife and I could murder you with a paring knife, if I get you in the right spot. I could slide a screwdriver between your ribs in just the right angle and skewer your heart. I could beat you over the head with a broken chair leg. I could drown you, I could suffocate you, I could throw you out a window. Or, I could go cheaper by the dozen, and still not need a gun.
Timothy McVeigh didn't use a gun. He used fertilizer.
It's still murder.
In fact, it's a fuckload easier for me to get ahold of a paring knife, a screwdriver, or even fertilizer, than it is to get a gun. And I don't just mean the background check or the three-day waiting period, I mean also that guns are damn well expensive. But I don't see anyone outlawing fertilizer, or paring knives, or screwdrivers, or even windows more than ten feet off the ground that don't have bars to prevent a body being thrown through them. No, I don't think that's a ridiculous response. Frankly, I think it's a good analogy because it reveals just how ridiculous it is to say that outlawing guns will cut down on murders. Bullshit. You know the old adage about the better mousetrap? It works for human vice, too: it doesn't matter what you allow or outlaw.
People determined to kill, will find a way.
Okay, so you take away our right to private gun ownership. Do you realize what this means? How much empirical evidence do you need? Look at Chicago, New York City, Washington DC: they have the highest murder rates of any cities in this country... and, curiously, they're also the cities in which private gun ownership is outlawed. The second amendment does not exist in those precincts; private citizens have no means nor right to defend themselves and their homes. And of course the criminals still have guns: if they gave a shit about the law, they wouldn't fucking be criminals.
If open-carry (let alone concealed-carry) weren't illegal on a college campus, then I assure you that at least one person in that VT classroom would've been carrying. It's Blacksburg; it's rural Virginia. Gun ownership and pride in the second amendment, in that region, is alive and strong. And, were concealed carry legal on university campuses, and were I present when that boy peeked into the classroom, paused, and then raised his gun and took aim --
I would have shot him first.
What do you want? You want thirty-two people dead? You want one person with a gun to be able to rampage freely through a defenseless citizenship, sitting ducks cornered in a one-door classroom, easy pickings? Because if you outlaw guns, if you push harder to strip our second amendment -- as we know it now and as we most commonly practice it now, as a private right -- then why don't you go over there and celebrate with the criminals, the crazies, the homicidal. They're the only ones who will benefit from your laws.
They're the ones who don't give a flying fuck about whether it's right to disarm the populace. They're pleased you're disarming the populace, they want the populace helpless and defenseless. What are we going to do when those criminals stick a gun in our face and demand we turn over our jewelry, our cash, our daughters? Hit them with a broken chair leg? Or are you gonna tell them to hold on the ten minutes or more it'll take the cops to rush to your place -- assuming you can even manage to dial 9-1-1 in your panic?
Me, I'm gonna be meeting them at the front door with a double-barrel shotgun, lock and load and get the fuck off my property and away from my daughters.
It's absolute bullshit, it's exploitative panic-mongering, to insist that 'letting' people have guns will lead to more crime, more murder. (I love that; next, will you 'let' me have the right to rant like this?) All the overwrought post-event hand-wringing of "if only we didn't let people like 'that' have guns!" is one big waste of energy and serves only the interests of criminals. I know a lot of people who own guns, who hunt or who go to the range, who know gun safety and management. I do not know a single murderer. I do, however, know people who have pulled out a concealed gun -- to the surprise of a potential mugger or rapist -- and stymied the crime. You can't, no one can, pinpoint ahead of time who'll only use their gun for range practice and the hopefully-distant threat of self-protection, or who will turn it on themselves, their spouse, their community. If only we could, but we can't -- and the empirical evidence is clear that disarming the populace only leaves the honest folk helpless.
Face it. People will commit murder. One way or another. Nothing you can do will change this.
All you can do is make sure that everyone else has the means, and the skill, to stop the crime -- and possibly save lives.
I agree the second amendment has been read many ways as our society changes over the past two hundred plus years. It seems logical -- to me -- that it's a private right, by context: all the rest of the Rights are also private, and the Founders were nothing if not logical writers/thinkers. Having a 'public' right sitting smack in the middle of 'private' rights seems illogical to the overall flow; that said, I have read an argument that the second amendment is private, yet also communal. Not in the sense of "the community (read: local government) creates and controls the militia" but in a sense more familiar to the Founders, based on firsthand experience: that gun ownership, use, and training, is a civil responsibility. That is, private citizens could have privately owned, maintained, and operated firearms, but in doing so, any privileges attached are secondary to the responsibility of community defense.
Now that, I can see -- and I can get behind.
Think about it. It is your civil responsibility to help make your community safe. Who isn't familiar with neighborhood watch, with Take Back The Night? Before we had suburbs and tax-paid full-time police forces, we had local militia, people who had the means and ability to stand up and defend their communities with force, if that's what it came to. Is it really that far of a stretch to say: if I learn gun safety, if I train myself in how to use this weapon, if I practice with it so I understand what it will and won't do, if I know this weapon, that it then becomes my civil responsibility to defend myself, my family, and my fellow citizens if in doing so I may save lives?
Sure there are gray areas. Do you pull the gun and frighten the small-time criminal who then fires in a panic and kills the same 7-11 clerk you were trying to defend? Do you assume the person holding the gun is always the criminal -- what if it's another citizen, holding the criminal at bay until the police arrive? Good, thorough, handgun training raises these questions. I would never, ever argue that gun ownership should occur without training. I do believe, strongly, that it's much like driving a car: that you should, in some way, demonstrate that you're not some ignorant yokel who thinks just waving the gun around will prevent burglary or rape. It won't, not unless you know the business end, and what to do with it.
Tangent on ignorance versus knowledge: it's commonly said (especially in college campus 'sexual assualt awareness' speeches, curiously) that it's not a good idea for women to carry guns, because oh noes, the rapist will probably take it away from you and use it on you, and that's so much worse than 'just' being raped. What the fuck, over.
What that oft-repeated chorus doesn't include is the next verse: if you raise your gun in your own defense and you know exactly how to use it, this will show. No rapist is going to be stupid enough to take a gun away from someone with a steady grip and solid aim. Any rapist stupid enough to try just might get his damn fool hand (or dick!) blown off; I say good fucking riddance and he undoubtedly won't try that stunt again -- attempted rape or attempted gun-grab. But that self-defense confidence and skill requires classes, it requires time, it requires practice, it requires willingness to take on your personal safety as your personal responsibility. It requires that you stand up and realize, honestly and pragmatically, that there will not always be someone else there to protect you: that there may come a time when you must Do It Yourself.
Why is it so much easier to just tell women, "don't carry a gun, it'll be taken away from you and used on you" -- and never add, "unless you take classes and learn..."? Why does this make me feel like the speaker(s) want me helpless, wants me to suffer the rapist or mugger and cling to the hope that someone overhears me screaming and calls the cops on my behalf? Why only warn me that being ignorant will work against me -- big fat fucking DUH there -- and why never give me the chance to become powerful? It's fucking insulting, is what it is: "don't carry a gun in self-defense, you're not smart enough or good enough or strong enough to use it." What's really being said is: "you can't really defend yourself, so scream loud, and hope you survive long enough to enjoy the humiliation of a rape kit exam." So much for empowerment.
[As CP just quoted: "why do people think that a woman brutally raped and strangled with her own panties is somehow morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet?"]
But back on topic: I fail to see even the remotest shred of 'gray area' when it comes to one armed person unloading on a classroom of college students. I'd call that a damn well textbook case of an excellent time to practice your marksmanship.
You just might save lives. Thirty-two of them, maybe.
...Unless, of course, you're unarmed, by dint of the bleeding hearts who insist that, somehow, guns are automatically -- and nothing ever more than -- murder weapons waiting to happen, and that those of us who own them, practice on them, use them, take pride in that skill, are just unconciously holding on to the distant day when we go SNAP and decide to take out a busload of nameless bystanders. Or worse, you really did swallow that line, you agreed with and believed the passionate insistence that no-guns-for-citizens means less crime, that a disarmed populace makes for safer streets.
First, I hope you don't ever decide to test that theory by walking in Chicago after dark.
Second, I hope you make peace with whatever god you choose, because when that kid at the classroom door raises his gun, takes aim, and starts firing... ain't nothing your defenseless ass is gonna be able to do about it.
Don't you feel safe now?
Gee. I sure do.
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no subject
Date: 19 Apr 2007 05:34 pm (UTC)I guess that means -- to misquote CP -- that my rolling pins must be defective!