fantods... OK, i had to look that one up
Posted on 05/19/2013 7:44:08 AM PDT by marktwain
So let’s review our recent national paroxysm about guns, shall we?
Gun control was a complete non-issue during the 2012 presidential campaign, and for good reason: the rate of gun violence — like the rate of violent crime — had fallen by about half since the late 1980s. During those two decades, gun laws got looser almost everywhere, so whatever was driving down the crime rate, it wasn’t gun control. But then came the shootings at the Aurora movie theater and Sandy Hook Elementary, and suddenly nobody could think about anything else. Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, and New York passed restrictive laws concerning thirty-round magazines and various weapons based on characteristics — like pistol grips and flash hiders — that have nothing to do with a gun’s lethality. Congress also debated a ban on something called “assault rifles,” which, despite the impression created by the marquee massacres in Colorado and Connecticut, are used in about 2 percent of gun murders. As for the class of firearm that is used in more than half of gun murders, handguns, no one suggested restricting those. Nor could anybody explain how tinkering with rifles’ cosmetic features or the number of rounds they can carry was going to make safer a country that already has about 300 million guns in private circulation.
So the post–Sandy Hook gun debate was about as divorced from reality as could be. But that’s okay, because it all came to naught anyway. By muddying the genuinely useful suggestion of better background checks with inflammatory attempts to limit Americans’ consumer choices, the Democrats managed only to cement their reputation as freedom-hating elitists eager to ban things they don’t understand. The Senate rejected every single gun-safety measure they proposed, and — poof — the issue disappeared. I was pimping a new book about gun culture at the time, doing one media interview after another in the superheated gun-debate environment, but the day of the Senate vote, two public-radio stations cancelled interviews with me that had been scheduled long ago. Game over. Our national distress over gun policy vanished as though it had never existed. The country moved on to the North Korean missile threat, the Boston Marathon bombing, and Angelina Jolie’s breasts.
Gun control will be back, though. Not because bans are sensible policy (see: Prohibition, alcohol; and Drugs, War on), but because guns are a perfect stand-in for one of the fundamental, irresolvable, and recurring questions we face: To what extent should Americans live as a collective, or as a nation of rugged individuals?
We have the same fight over health care, welfare, environmental regulations, and a hundred other issues. The firearm, though, is the ultimate emblem of individual sovereignty, so if you’re inclined that direction, protecting “gun rights” is essential. And if you’re by nature a collectivist, the firearm is the abhorrent idol on the enemy’s altar. This is why no amount of bleating about crime statistics ever seems to change anybody’s mind, on either side.
In the past few days we’ve been momentarily distracted by the plastic pistol. Cody Wilson, about whom I write in my piece in this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine, successfully produced on a 3-D printer a bulky single-shot pistol, then posted the code on the Internet for complicated anarchic reasons of his own. The State Department immediately demanded that he take the code down, which he did, although once something is on the Internet it is beyond anybody’s control — precisely Wilson’s point — and the plastic gun has already been photographed in Europe, well beyond the State Department’s control.
The idea that such guns are undetectable by airport security remains a red herring; the gun is harmless without ammunition, which is readily detectable by X-ray. Neither is the issue the “ease” with which people can now acquire guns. Making a crude single-shot pistol on a $1,500 printer is far more cumbersome than buying a factory-made multi-shot gun, for a fraction of the price, out of the newspaper classifieds. What really has people upset about Wilson’s plastic pistol is the absence of permission inherent in the project. The idea that people might own something as dangerous and personally empowering as a firearm without society’s permission is what has always given gun-control advocates the fantods. That’s really what we talk about when we talk about guns: the power of the individual in relation to the collective, and the extent to which each of us needs to live by the permission of the rest. That argument is going nowhere, in all senses of the word.
“Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it”
Henry David Thoreau
fantods... OK, i had to look that one up
Me too.....cool word.
i wonder how long he's been waiting to use that one? i have a fair command of the english language, but that was sure a new one on me... from 1839 no less
The above goes directly to the problem. How free am I to live without government intruding in my life as long as I don't harm anyone? Am I my own person or does the government own me? Can I have whatever I want in my house or can the government tell me what I can have and what I cannot have?
Years ago I was in mainland China with a guide and we went to a village in the country. Well, let me back up. When we entered China at Macao, we had to go through customs. We had been told to leave our jewelry at our hotel in Hong Kong. Custom agents in Macao, listed every thing we had on our body. Watches were listed as to the name of the watch. Wedding rings and other rings were listed. If you wore a bracelet, that was listed.
We were told the reason for the listing was, we would be checked when we left the country to make sure we still had the items on the list. That was to prevent us from giving a Chinese citizen something and then that Chinese person would have more than another citizen.
When we went to the country village, the guide told us every house has the same thing and she warned us again not to give away anything we had to make a person have more than another. Every citizen knew what was in each house - how many pots and cups, how many sets of chopsticks, how many blankets, everything.
When we left the country, we were checked against the list we filled out when we entered to make sure we still had those items.
That is communism and that is where this country is headed. How long will it be in this country when I know what my neighbor has in her house and she knows what is in mine? Our government right now wants any gun I have removed from my house so no one has a gun. I will know the house next door doesn't have a gun and they will know I don't have one. That is the beginning of making us all alike.
I think Texas will be the last holdout - the last to be conquered - the last to be beaten into submission.
Please list the number of case knives, spoons, and forks you have so I will know if you have more than I do (I will report you if you have more). Just list the metal ones, I won't keep count of your plastic ones (they probably come from China). Thanks for your cooperation, however, we will have to come to your house and count them to make sure you are not lying to me.
Ping to an interesting op-ed from a liberal.
A “liberal” or a classical “liberal”?
Most of us here are liberals by the original definition - one who embraces liberty.
In re: “fantods”.
That is marvelous, a classical American word. Closest synonym is “the heebie-jeebies”.
Mark Twain used it in Huckleberry Finn: “These was all nice pictures,... but I didn’t somehow seem to take to them, because... they always gave me the fan-tods.” In this passage Huck is describing pictures drawn by a girl who died at the age of 15.
Other great near-synonyms include “having a dog-stroke”,
Rare varieties include: “goin’ all ahoo”, and “anxioused up”.
you sure have a better memory than i do... i read Finn back in grade school and didn't remember that one but heebie-jeebies and dog-stroke i've heard of
learn something new everyday
Arizona with its recently enacted Constitutional Carry impresses me. How do you think Arizona and Texas compare?
Me three!
Also strikes me as the perfect gift to give your liberal acquaintances who have everything.
Holy crap! I had no idea
Wee-weed up?
“Holy crap! I had no idea”
Does that mean you are not going to voluntarily tell me how many knives/forks/spoons you have? We, the community committee on equality, will be at your house tomorrow to count them ourselves.
I think Texas is so large with its own resources that top any other state (even our power grid is separate from the rest of the Union), it could kick sand in the face of the government longer than other states. Plus, our economy is the best in the country with less unemployment.
Let's say to punish states that wouldn't bend, federal money was shut off. How would Arizona fare as compared to Texas if that happened? How does Arizona unemployment compare to Texas? That fact would be important.
believe me, i try my best...
Excellent. I’ll bring the forks right to your eyes for most detailed viewing. Momentarily. I’m a good serf.
Well, if the feds have decided Arizona isn’t part of the union for the purposes of receiving baksheesh, then what’s to stop Arizona from saying “Well OK, Nancy”, and not sending in withholding? The money’s just moving around in a big circle anyway, and when it comes back it’s ALWAYS with cut missing plus strings attached, usually liberty-abridging strings at that.
Thank you, comrade, for complying - I do wear glasses.
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