"He Shot My Hair!"
Posted on 08/16/2023 5:16:29 AM PDT by Heartlander
In a recent opinion piece in The Kansas City Star, sociology professor and military veteran Doug McGaw argues that the Second Amendment is “a relic of the 18th century” that needs to be repealed.
Although McGaw certainly is entitled to his opinion, his “argument” boils down to little more than a litany of common gun control talking points, all of which are readily refuted.
McGaw argues, for example, that the Second Amendment’s mention of a “well-regulated militia” refers to the National Guard. (It does not. Moreover, the right to keep and bear arms belongs broadly to “the people” and “shall not be infringed.”)
He insists that the Framers of the Constitution never anticipated modern advancements in firearms technology. (They did. They also intentionally protected “arms” as a concept instead of listing specific types of arms that existed in their own time).
Throughout the piece, McGaw dismisses any notion that the right to keep and bear arms has a role in securing the rights of peaceable Americans today. He not only thumbs his nose at the premise that “good guys with guns” are a solution to “bad guys with guns,” but flippantly suggests that there is little difference between the two.
“I assume that the good guys will be the ones in the white hats?” McGaw asks. “Otherwise, who can tell which is the good guy?”
This is silly, of course. It’s abundantly clear that the right to armed self-defense is just as important today as it was in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified.
Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.
For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read other accounts here from past months and years. You also may follow @DailyDGU on Twitter for daily highlights of defensive gun uses.)
The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use that we found in July. You may explore more using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)
As these examples help demonstrate, more often than not it’s pretty easy to distinguish the “good guy with a gun” from the “bad guy with a gun.”
They don’t need different colored hats. It’s simply a matter of common sense—who was using a gun to harm the innocent, and who was using a gun to defend the innocent or ensure those who harm them are brought to justice?
With all due respect to McGaw, human nature hasn’t changed since 1791. And neither, therefore, has the utility of the right to keep and bear arms in self-defense.
The Second Amendment isn’t an outdated relic of another century, but an ever-necessary tool in an ever-present battle against those who would undermine the natural rights of others.
Profiling will help in the determination
We all know the profile most likely to produce all sorts of badness
Guilty until proof of innocence
But when its going down in the middle of it, cops will shoot everyone and sort it out later.
Ping.
“McGaw dismisses any notion that the right to keep and bear arms has a role in securing the rights of peaceable Americans today. He not only thumbs his nose at the premise that “good guys with guns” are a solution to “bad guys with guns,” but flippantly suggests that there is little difference between the two.”
Hollywood does the same, which ticks me off. All too often someone will produce a gun on a movie and the person next to him will say: “AHHH! A GUN!” Or some guy will buy a gun and his girl/wife will condemn him for it. There are a few other scenarios where Hollywood makes gun ownership evil.
And in the meantime, Hollywood glorifies gun ownership by having all the action stars toting them and shooting up the bad guys. Which is typical leftist hypocrisy.
And the Hollywood elites producing the anti gun and action films either own guns themselves or have armed guards.
I use the claim of a ‘sociology degree’ in my profiling list.
It really must suck being a dimocRAT afflicted with cognitive dissonance. It affects or infects them the minute they declare allegiance to the RAT’s and never goes away, it passes on, kinda like grandma & grandpa’s voter registration cards.
Doug McGaw is a military veteran of Vietnam with a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Infantry Badge. He was a professor of sociology at Emporia State University until the mid 1980s. He then worked in computers and information technology, mostly in health care, until retiring to do consultant work and substitute teaching. He is now fully retired and active as a volunteer for the local chapters of League of Women Voters and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense.
Why on Earth would you inject a leftist argument into a thread on different subject matter?
So?
Credentials are all nice and lovely on someone’s LinkedIn profile, but when the person continues to espouse their ignorance of human nature and natural rights, what good are credentials, other than put the person to actual shame - since they should know better.
"He Shot My Hair!"
Military service is irrelevant to this issue.
Senator John Glenn left his brain in orbit.
This jackass left his brain in Viet Nam.
Hollywood also promotes unsafe gun handling. If you look at movie posters or DVD covers for some movies where the actor/actress is holding a gun, they always have their finger on the trigger.
Eight years ago he wrote another bit promoting Syrian immigration and protesting actions that would limit it.
He appears to have been run-off by Emporia State over thirty years ago but still tries to come across as a professor.
Here is a recent bio:
“Doug McGaw is a military veteran of Vietnam with a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Infantry Badge. He was a professor of sociology at Emporia State University until the mid 1980s. He then worked in computers and information technology, mostly in health care, until retiring to do consultant work and substitute teaching. He is now fully retired and active as a volunteer for the local chapters of League of Women Voters and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense.”
As you can see he is an all around failure subsequent to his service.
Its not a leftist argument. Thats why. As a grou0, CCWs are more accurate than officers and they hit less bystanders than cops do.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not about guns nor really about any thing other than a means of protecting a citizen from power mad men who would otherwise turn the country into a dictatorship.
Our founders where students of history and understood that the human race is basically the same as it was 2,000 years ago.
They also understood that the Constitution would only prolong that day when liberty would be lost....that the Constitution would not permanently prevent the loss of liberty.
They also discussed what would be required to get liberty back.
We are very close to that day, if is is not already here.
You may have a point about this debate, but please everyone remember that the cops have no right to be assumed to be good guys, and there is ample evidence that there are many stupidos and liberals on the police force who will shoot anyone they see with a gun.
One notable example is Kraig Brownlow of the Arvada CO Police Department who killed the man who had just stopped a mass murderer intent on killing the cops.
If you want to say that Johnny Hurley was dumb that day and got himself killed, well, have at it.
If you want to say that you support the men and women in blue who put their lives on the line every day, etc. etc, well, have at it.
If you want to say that we better not give any credence to a liberal talking point, well, okay if that is important to you, and I agree, but I am telling you something that may save your life! You are not out of danger when the bad guy is dead; you are in a new danger from the people who adamantly believe that law enforcers own an absolute monopoly on the use of deadly force. If all they do is arrest you and cost you crippling sums of money...
It is rare, thank God. But when it happens they will all feel appropriately regretful in public, and they will also justify themselves to each other when the cameras are turned away. Brownlow, one of the three cowards who hid while Hurley did what they were supposed to do, at least had the decency to resign. So now you want to say that there are just a few bad apples, blah blah, which can be said about any group of humans including the entirety of all humanity.
Well, have at it..
Just looked back over and realized that I sound like I am correcting you logi_cal and I do not mean to do that. I am talking to everyone who carries not you. I just thought of this because of what someone said that you responded to which I agree with, but don't have time to rewrite this. You are one of the best here and I always appreciate your thinking. I could write this better but not quickly. Sorry.
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ask a fuddy lawyer what is meant by ‘arms’, and immediateely anythingg looking black and wwith a handle will come to mind.
‘arms’ includess edged weapons, pikes -often carrried bhy sergeants and color guards -, spears, maces, war clubs, axes, slings, and shields and bucklers, andd lastly, rifle/musket, pistol, modern pistols and revolvers, submachineguns - i.e., tommy guns, uzi’s, sten, grease gun, ppsh, schmeisser,.
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