Posted on 08/26/2007 4:26:37 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Most people assume that if you are a leftist, or a progressive, or just a plain old liberal you must be anti-gun. (Most people probably don't make this assumption about anarchists quite so quickly). Well, I'm not...anti-gun that is (Although for me personally the fact that I have a felony conviction on the old record makes the whole thing problematic). I'm not sure we need everyone armed with automatic weapons, but some guns, in my mind, are not a bad idea. I used to say "When guns are outlawed, only cops will have guns." The truth is cops and criminals and right wing nuts will have guns, the rest of America will be sitting behind locked doors hoping no knocks come in the night.
LEFT WING WACKOS FOR GUNS
Most people assume that if you are a leftist, or a progressive, or just a plain old liberal you must be anti-gun. (Most people probably don't make this assumption about anarchists quite so quickly).
Well, I'm not...anti-gun that is (Although for me personally the fact that I have a felony conviction on the old record makes the whole thing problematic). I'm not sure we need everyone armed with automatic weapons, but some guns, in my mind, are not a bad idea. I used to say "When guns are outlawed, only cops will have guns." The truth is cops and criminals and right wing nuts will have guns, the rest of America will be sitting behind locked doors hoping no knocks come in the night.
The liberal left and the pacifist left make light of the slogan "guns don't kill people, people do." Well, duh, it's true. I mean you might say some people with guns kill people. At least in this country. Anyway, come on folks, how do you propose to grab all the guns already out there anyway. Any government that can pull that off is a government that scares the hell out of yours truly.
Polls make it pretty clear that ordinary Americans are not the ones clamoring for strict gun control. It comes from those layers of society include academics, Hollywood stars, Washington insiders and multibillion-dollar media conglomerates. I don't belong to any of those groups.
And does anyone doubt that rich people will always be able to buy guns (or hire armed security)--regardless of the law. Laws, in general, don't really apply to the rich.
Then there is the unfortunate fact (for gun control advocates of the liberal persuasion) that compelling historical evidence shows racism underlies gun control laws in this country. On March 4, 1998, the Third District Court of Appeals in California overturned crucial sections of the State of California's ban on so-called assault weapons.Although the Court rules against the ban on the basis of the vague language of the law, the Court also pointed out:
"Early gun control laws were directed at oppressed peoples, such as slaves and freedmen, and the politically powerless, such as immigrants and religious minorities.... California followed this pattern shortly after statehood by criminalizing the gift or sale of any gun to 'any Indian.'... Such laws presume the proscribed class is likely to engage in crime..."
I won't put you to sleep with any more about the the old days. Look it up if you want. But even in more recent times the truth is out there. Old Ronald Reagan, for example, pushed gun control laws when he was governor of the late great state of California because he was afraid of some uppity Negroes roaming his state capital who called themselves the Black Panthers. They carried firearms. Ron, no liberal by the way, was having none of that. The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 followed on the heels of the rioting that broke out after the death of Martin Luther King (I know shot with a rifle). But which do you think scared the establishment that passed the bill more, one man shooting Dr. King or armed blacks battling authorities in cities across the land.
But enough of that.
Let's think for a minute about those days just after Hurricane Katrina hit (hell, take a look see at New Orleans today). Would you have wanted to be an unarmed citizen or an armed one. I mean really.
One little article from I don't know where that I ran across stated:
“Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here,” reports the New York Times. “No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. ‘Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,’ he said.”
Of course, the trashing of the Second Amendment is restricted to poor people. Rich people will be allowed to hire armed guards. Nixing the Second Amendment “apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16’s and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.”
And guns surprisingly are in some ways about equality. A gun can help a little old lady defend herself against some hulk of a man. Women and children are now the major targets of predators in our society. Government is not protecting them very well. Many women who work in cities know this and take courses in self-defense. A gun may be the only realistic self-defense against the sort of criminals and wackos who place no value on your life...or mine (and I'm a man).
None of this is to say that I have problems with things like background checks (No one has to have a gun today, they can wait a bit), curtailing automatic weapons (which no one really needs) and the like. No one should have a gun who has not been trained. No, I don't have any trouble with those kinds of laws and regulations.
So come on dudes and dudettes of the left, let's cast off our image as the people who just don't get it. Let's admit you don't have to be a right wing nut job or even a hunter to believe that outlawing guns is a big mistake.
Not only is that the right thing to do, it'll win us some friends as well who will realize that even a crazy left wing pinko commie can have some common sense.
The following is from Pro-Gun Progressive Web Site.
About Pro-Gun Progressive
Pro-gun progressives? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? How can you be a liberal and support the Second Amendment? Aren’t guns for crazy rednecks, gang bangers, one-world fearing militia members, and violent people?
Hardly! The purpose of this site is straightforward: to end of the myth of the liberal gun-hater, as well as other myths about gun ownership. The Democratic Party and the progressive movement, no doubt, bear the brunt of the blame for the current state of affairs for gun owners in the United States. Someone somewhere needs to start motivating Dems and liberals to collectively gut-check and recognize that the default, knee-jerk anti-gun stance is both a political loser and a morally bankrupt position. My motivation is to create a resource for progressives, liberals, Democrats, moderates, and others who share a few core responses to the discussion on firearms in America today.
1) There are those who are largely single issue voters on the gun rights issue who do not like voting Republican for a variety of reasons, but find themselves swinging right for fear of gun rights being retracted by Democrats on the wrong side of the issue. Now is the time for those people to have a resource to discuss this dilemma. Many moderate voters frankly have little affinity for the regressive positions today’s Neocon-dominated GOP takes on social issues, but have no choice but to pick the lesser of two evils and vote for the Republicans because they (rightly so) think the Dems are not to be trusted with something as important as the natural right to self-defense.
2) Some Progressives do not feel that anything inherent in their liberalism precludes self-defense. Social liberalism is fundamentally about bearing an open mind and recognizing that what works for one person might not work for another, and thus every American needs to be free to make choices about their personal behavior. Few choices are as intimate, as personal, and as vital as choosing to protect oneself and loved ones from violent attack. A truly free and liberal society lets citizens make these sorts of choices for themselves and encourages citizens to participate in their own defense. Progressives are on the right side of so many important social issues in this regard-the freedom to choose one’s mate, the freedom to chose one’s religion, the freedom to chose and express one’s political beliefs, the freedom to make choices about reproductive health-and should be on the right side of this issue as well.
This website is dedicated to providing the pro-gun progressive with a resource for answering those tough, nagging questions we get from our other progressive friends who question why we would want to own guns. It is dedicated to combating the myth that Democrats and liberals are permanently and forever on the wrong side of this issue. It is dedicated to helping them find the strength to admit the missteps of the past, and develop the intestinal fortitude to deny the reactionary right-wing the sole dominance on this crucial issue-and if there is one issue where the wingnuts are kicking our teeth in, it is that they are doing a good job convincing average citizens that they are more concerned with their safety and security. Most progressives and liberals know this to be, in point of fact, quite far from the truth; however, collectively being on the wrong side of the gun issue is the number one thing we do to help the GOP keep winning votes with that spurious argument. Time for that to stop. Time for the pro-gun progressives to make their voices heard. Time for people to recognize that the protection of one’s home and one’s life is not only a concern to radical right wing Republicans. Time for us to recognize that the right to self-defense is an inherent right that all human beings should enjoy.
oops. Meant “Two dead pieces of TRASH’
FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE
1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Colt: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don’t know your rights, you don’t have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
10. The United States Constitution (c)1791. All Rights Reserved.
11. What part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.
15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
16. You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.
23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don’t make more.
24. When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
“Gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.” — L. Neil Smith
Another measure we can use to judge the Gipper is how many gun control bills he signed into law as president. None, I believe.
Another conclusion: At best, Reagan was not above playing politics . At worst, maybe he had his own elitist streak. If so, He kept it sufficiently suppressed for eight years.
26. Lexington and Concord were the American response to British gun control.
But...but..but...
How do they square being pro gun and voting with candidates who openly advocate takin away their rights to self defense?
Yea but he knows who his audience is. He is pandering to them. You have to know how to talk their language to get anything through their thick skull. Throw is a little class warfare, social justice crap and racism, homophobia and sexism and you can have them standing naked on a glacier for hours for a picture. LOL.
They don’t.
How do you suppose they support gun rights when they support the very elistists who will disarm them? I, for one, won’t take dems to the range anymore. They can remain disarmed victims for the very reason something is changing in this country. There’s really no reason to help arm the very people who are willing to destroy everything the founding fathers believed in.
There is now a distinct division in this country. It’s the red areas and the blue areas. Thankfully, the blue areas have seen fit to disarm themselves. We won’t see the end to gun control until the left finally realizes they have put themselves at a disadvantage through their stupidity.
I don’t have the time, energy or the inclination.
If memory serves he signed the Machine gun import ban of 1986.
The utility argument, with a big dose of either carelessness or ignorance. There are slightly less than 300,000 “automatic weapons” in the BATFE’s registry of transferable NFA weapons. The list has been closed for about 20 years. Not every state allows citizens to possess “automatic weapons”.
I guess this author really means what is commonly called “assault weapons”, but which are really semi-automatic rifles that look especially ugly. The last time that Congress in its Infinite Wisdom defined these in law, the points system counted such urgently dangerous features such as pistol grips, threaded barrels and flash suppressors to see if the gun was an “assault weapon” or not.
As to saying that gun buyers “can wait a bit”, this is magic thinking typical of a liberal. This is like believing that the bill for dinner will get lower if you are slow in paying the bill. The amount due is the amount due. Either a person qualifies under the law to possess a firearm, or they don’t. It is not up to you to determine for all time, that waiting is a good thing and will save lives. Progressives love to use government to protect the innocent, yet government bureaucracy cannot act with efficiency nor quickly. In my own locale, a simple permit to purchase was routinely used by the Sheriff to institutionalize a delay that was never authorized by law. As strange as it may sound, because of differences in the law, in this county a qualified applicant could get the paperwork to purchase a machine gun faster than to buy a pistol.
Tell the battered woman just escaping from her abusive boyfriend that she “can wait a bit” before buying a gun.
Liberals are all about power, even when they profess otherwise. They are liberals first, and champions of civil rights only when it advances their own power. This liberal will find it very difficult to interest any other liberals in protecting the Second Amendment.
Oh, you are not from Mexico?
Oread Daily :"Although for me personally the fact that I have a felony conviction on the old record makes the whole thing problematic."
vetsvette:This jackass sounds too dangerous to carry a gun. Which, I guess, is why he has a felony record.
And he is not from Mexico...
Blah, blah, blah. This jerk is a convicted felon.
Waaaa, waaaa. Another MSM lib crying about the plight of gun controllers.
“Do you want to be standing in line for gas, popcorn or a gallon of milk and find yourself next to someone who’s packing heat?”
Yes, I do as a matter of fact Ms Washington as long is it is a fellow law-abiding citizen.
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Gun lovers disarm control advocates
August 27, 2007
LAURA WASHINGTON novakevans@aol.com
It looks like the petulant, gun-toting NRA stalwarts have won the first round.
Last time, I used this space to ask where you stand on the issue of gun control. A torrent of e-mails later, it’s clear: Gun-control advocates were outgunned, four to one.
The gun lovers were legion, robust and vitriolic. Many of you told me to go places where the sun doesn’t shine and the temperature is way too hot. Yet, if you believe public opinion polls, that reaction is an anomaly. For instance, last April, ABC News polled adults nationwide, and asked: “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” Sixty-one percent favored them, 36 percent were opposed, and 3 percent were “unsure.”
CBS News asked, “In general, do you feel the laws covering the sale of handguns should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” Two-thirds of respondents nationwide opted for “more strict.”
What is the problem with the advocates of gun control? Why are their voices not being heard? They are consistently cowed and overmatched. Gun violence is out of control, yet the gun lovers are ascendant.
You think we’ve got problems now? Just listen to Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential aspirant. At a recent Conservative Political Action Conference, he bragged, “I’m not a newcomer to the NRA,” the New York Times reported on its political blog. “I was the first governor to have a conceal-carry permit, so don’t mess with me.”
Huckabee, mind you, recently made a flashy second-place showing in the Iowa presidential straw poll.
Do you want to be standing in line for gas, popcorn or a gallon of milk and find yourself next to someone who’s packing heat? If he takes the White House, we can all go shopping for embossed leather holsters and pearl-handled pistols. I’ll be looking to accessorize that with rhinestone-studded boots.
Luckily, Huckabee is a long shot.
Still, despite the polls, it seems the gun control advocates have been outmatched. Abigail Spangler acknowledges as much. Spangler is the founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com, a Virginia-based group that has been spearheading a slew of anti-gun protests around the nation.
Gun control activists, she wrote me, “are TRYING HARD but they are seriously affected in state after state by lack of funding and contributions.” She recently met, she says, with the leader of Virginia’s only gun control group. “He says they may not even be able to afford any lobbyist at all soon in Virginia!”
This comes just four months after the Virginia Tech shooting massacre, which took 32 lives.
Our elected officials have either been bought off or are missing in action. The odds are against the majority of Americans who are terrified and sickened by the gun menace.
For Spangler, it comes down to one urgent hope. “Who knows whether our protests against lax gun laws will make a difference?” she asks. “It’s basically my ‘Hail Mary’ pass — a pass of desperation to the American people — that I hope they will catch.”
If I had my way, the gun lobby would be looking at three yards and a cloud of dust. Let’s get organized and shove tougher gun policies right down their throats.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/529247,CST-EDT-laura27.article
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