Posted on 07/28/2012 5:51:43 AM PDT by marktwain
In the wake of the Aurora mass shooting, the usual pattern is playing out with respect to gun control. People such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Piers Morgan and Bill Moyers are beating the drum to restrict firearm ownership, as others try to beat them back. One side says we'd be safer if guns were rarer; the other says that more guns equal less crime. One side says guns kill people, the other that people kill people. Facts and feelings are bandied back and forth (although one side specializes in the facts and the other in the feelings), but in all the commentary, some of which is very good, one point is universally missed.
For the sake of argument, let's accept the supposition that outlawing firearms would save lives. Does it logically follow from this that guns should be restricted or banned?
Well, it would certainly save lives and countless injuries if people didn't engage in mountain-climbing, hang-gliding, motorcycle-racing, trampolining, big-wave surfing, cave-diving, heli-skiing and a host of other dangerous activities. And, like guns, knives and baseball bats are common murder weapons. Does it logically follow that these items and activities should be banned?
The point is that we never treat saving lives as the only imperative when devising policy. If we did, we'd perhaps consider reducing speed limits on highways to 5 mph, since this might save most of the 43,000 lives lost on the road each year. Speaking of which, since 40 percent of those deaths are alcohol related, we can consider resurrecting Prohibition, too.
Now, since gun-control advocates think they have morality on their side, they may want to ponder a question: is it moral to sacrifice 43,000 lives just so we can be free to zip around at 55 or 65 mph? The answer here is that the safety imperative is balanced against an economic one, in that too much productivity would be lost with a five-mph speed limit.
But sometimes far more trivial things trump the safety imperative. No one needs to drink alcohol, go rock-climbing, or play baseball when doing so necessitates the availability of a dangerous weapon. So, imagine that, we're actually placing fun and enjoyment ahead of saving lives. In fact, some among us will even tolerate death on a massive scale if we think the reason is good enough. An example is when the anti-gun left is willing to accept 1.2 million killings a year through abortion.
So if we'll accept death through fun, should we question death through the gun? As with dangerous recreation, the enjoyment justification exists with firearms, too, in the form of target and sport shooting. As with driving, an economic justification exists in that revenue is collected from hunters and because some poorer rural Americans help feed themselves through hunting. But there is something here that is a true imperative, one that's greater than most any other:
Thwarting evil.
The apocryphal saying, "God made some men big and others small, but Samuel Colt made them equal," gets at the point here. Whether it's a smaller person or group, firearms tend to even the odds. They help create parity, and that's not what criminals want — they want easy prey. Thus, like a predator in the wilds that generally won't attack a creature more than half its size, even if a criminal is armed himself, he'll be reluctant to tackle a target that can target him back.
Even more significantly, as Prohibition, prostitution and drugs have proven, illegal isn't synonymous with unavailable. So, again, let's assume a gun criminalization that left firearms in the hands of a few criminals did save lives overall. What should we conclude if those armed miscreants could nonetheless ply their dark trade with little resistance? What should we feel if good people were declawed and rendered powerless to thwart their evil?
A virtuous, justice-oriented person should find this intolerable to the point of outrage.
He should quote Emiliano Zapata and say, "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees." Yet better still is to live on your feet. And a gun in the hand makes that more likely.
As for debating the Second Amendment, there's nothing wrong with using facts to refute the notion that more guns equal more deaths. But this should be only part of the debate, not the debate itself. Otherwise we miss some great principles, one of which is that life at all costs is too great a cost. Living is about more than just life, and whether the matter is sports that can kill, drink that can kill or guns that can kill, you can't really live if you're suffocated with a Big Brother bubble-wrap mentality.
There is one other, now well established, little factoid that completely destroys any argument for gun control: Annually, legally owned guns are used anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 million times to defend a citizen from a criminal. In most of those cases merely pointing the gun at the criminal is enough to stop him.
The life and property saved annually by private citizens with legally owned guns in literally incalculable. It is an irrefutable fact that disarming the populace will cost far, far more lives than it saves.
To this point -- I heard a host on NPR who really made this technique blatantly obvious.
She wasn't attempting to persuade anyone of a particular viewpoint.
She made no effort to put forth any facts.
She wasn't using logic to argument her point.
She simply expressed scorn when her guest expressed a view which differed from hers. She mocked them, laughed at them, asserted that they were wrong in every way. Their arguments were not worth considering because they disagreed with her.
Yes, the topic was gun control, but it could have been any topic at all. This is the only way that Liberals seem to be able to address political issues: treat their opponents as if they simply don't count.
Progressives are only interested in gun control for reasons of their own security. They don’t care if criminals continue to have guns. They’re not a threat to them, they’re part of the dependent base. But the law-abiding patriot with a gun is a threat to them.
Make it simple. Gun banners, for the avowed purpose of saving lives, want to create a culture which makes an early death seem desirable.
>>It is an irrefutable fact that disarming the populace will cost far, far more lives than it saves.
Always remember one thing: Progressives believe that there are too many people on this planet. They also believe that they are the “elite” and enlightened and deserve to have this world to themselves.
So, their goal is to kill YOU. They want to disarm you and I because we threaten their ownership of the world. The lives they want to save are theirs.
Yet we treat them a people with a different set of politics and nothing more. Trying to coexist with them is like keeping a rabid badger in your house and just moving from room to room to avoid him.
Pastor Niemolle said the following about the Nazis gaining total power in Germany:
“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
“Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
“Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
It can also go like this in the very near future if we listen to your above logic:
“First they came for the assault rifles and I did not speak out because I did not own one.
“Then they came for the semi-automatic rifles and I did not speak out because I did not own one.
“Then they came for the handguns and I did not speak out because I did not own one.
“Then they came for the rest of the bolt-action, lever-action and single shot hunting/sporting rifles and I did not speak out because I did not own one.
“Then they came for the shotguns and I did not speak out because I did not own one.
“Then they came for me and there was not one gun in private hands to defend me.”
What keeps Progressives up at night: if their next un-Constitutional step on the American timber rattlesnake will be their last.
An armed citizenry is the first line of defense against an oppressive government!!!
In a sense.
What liberals hate about guns is they give people who disagree with said liberals the ability to tell them "no" and make it stick.
Just look at the malicious contempt they show for those who refuse their contrived "reasoning."
Exactly.
Anyone who doesn't think the gay mafia wouldn't love to have the state view "intolerant" parents, "unfit," hasn't experienced the unbridled malice their kind are routinely capable of.....
A gun in the hands of such a parent is their worst nightmare.
The best argument for no gun control is the Cold War.
USA, Britain and Russia had the biggest guns.
We had the Deterrent.
We called ours Poseidon and Minuteman.
Big guns, little guns, no difference-
A deterrent is a deterrent,
Minuteman or AK-47 no difference.
If you wish to restrict these rights, either by controlling firearms, ammunition, etc., then The Constitution provides methods for Amending and changing it. So follow those methods and repeal the Second Amendment. Until such time, anyone - especially politicians - wishing to deny MY Constitutional Rights can Go To Hell!
“Yet we treat them a people with a different set of politics and nothing more. Trying to coexist with them is like keeping a rabid badger in your house and just moving from room to room to avoid him.”
I tell people this all the time and take flak for it. Liberalism is more akin to a religion or a cult than a political philosophy. Their fervent devotion to their belief allows them to commit heinous and illegal acts to further their agenda all they while telling themselves they are superior people and the righteousness of their cause justifies the means. In my opinion they should be attacked and hurt by whatever means you have available. If you can hurt them personally, or professionally, or in business, you should. They win even though their message is rejected because they believe in winning by any means necessary.
That was my point.
The word that is forgotten by some, and reviled by others is Freedom.
Mayor Bloomberg has his cadre of hired guns, as either in the office of mayor, or because he is a multi-millionaire, and we, the great unwashed, cannot.
Congress has their hired guns, but again, we, cannot.
TheSupreme Court has said, loudly and definitively, yes, we can.
Yet, our sitting President believes that, we, should not.
I believe in Freedom, and the personal responsibility, that comes with it.
My personal sovereignty, when and if ever challenged by a
government desiring to curtail my Freedom, shall be answered,
ammunition first, as our ancestors did at Concord.
The word that is forgotten by some, and reviled by others is Freedom.
Mayor Bloomberg has his cadre of hired guns, as either in the office of mayor, or because he is a multi-millionaire, and we, the great unwashed, cannot.
Congress has their hired guns, but again, we, cannot.
TheSupreme Court has said, loudly and definitively, yes, we can.
Yet, our sitting President believes that, we, should not.
I believe in Freedom, and the personal responsibility, that comes with it.
My personal sovereignty, when and if ever challenged by a
government desiring to curtail my Freedom, shall be answered,
ammunition first, as our ancestors did at Concord.
You really do get it! They are a much more dangerous enemy than islam. Oh sure, islam killed 3000 of us on 9/11. But every time an unborn infant is murdered, or an disarmed citizen is killed, or a black teen without hope commits his first violent crime, the Progressives add to their body count. Add the body count from the Progressives ideological fathers in the Soviet Union, China, etc, and you have the measure of our enemy.
The really evil part of their agenda is their desire to drive God and Christ out of society, so that even as they incrementally enslave our bodies, they demand that we give up the one thing to give us a glimpse of a better world beyond this one. They not only want us to be slaves...they want us to suffer and die without hope.
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