Fox, without of course admitting any culpability or telling it's viewers that they were
doing it, has demanded it's talking heads tone down the rodeo of rage. Sarah Palin redacted the hell out of her web site and that picture of smiling Beck pointing two pistols at the camera suddenly disappeared from view so that they can say who me?I don't expect any public self-examination and I do expect the hunt for false equivalence to escalate on the Republican side along with the effort to portray the shooter as being outside the ring of righteous wrath, around which their circus tent is pitched. I'm sure that soon enough, Michelle Bachmann's desire to have people "armed and dangerous" so that they can "fight back" will be cleansed of inherent irresponsibility and any trace of inappropriateness, but I'm not sure the idiot rage can be stopped at this point even if God raptures up the entire Fox staff and Bachmann loses the power of speech. (please, God?)
The hoplophobes, the safety nuts who would dearly like and fatuously think they can legislate away all they are afraid of, (and that's lots of things) from cars that go faster than a Model T to McDonalds Happy Meals are pushing
more gun control and usually without any knowledge of guns or how they're already controlled. There's a great deal of hoopla about "extended magazines" from those who call them clips and confuse cartridges with bullets."Why would anyone want one?"is the loaded question as though they weren't the choice of many yacht owners who find themselves in an updated and unwanted episode of Pirates of the Caribbean - and many of my friends have been. It's either that or buy an Uzi at twice the price. They used to be banned! it's said, and that's true - or sort of true since they weren't really taken off the marked by that ban. With a supply of tens of millions of units, banned weapons and accessories actually saw a boost in sales of "pre-ban" items, but that remains news to those who really are so far out of the great loop of reality they think a semi-automatic rifle is far more dangerous when it has a plastic military stock instead of a nice walnut one. No military in the world uses what we're told is an "assault rifle" and of course the famous ban didn't actually ban these civilian weapons -- but who reads? Who needs to when we have those freeze dried, microwaveable TV Dinner opinions available? Solidarity, on both sides of the mainstream, is too much fun to risk and emoting is the American pass-time, of course. But I digress.
writes one website Jeremiah. How could we have made that illegal without making it illegal for millions and millions and millions of people who like to shoot targets, clay pigeons or real pigeons? How could we make it impossible when all our efforts to make things go away by outlawing them have failed and made the alleged problem worse? Are Democrats all about not trusting the citizenry and imposing prior restraints without probable cause? It's too easy for their opposition to make that case and apparently it's too hard for Democrats to recognize the contradiction or that they're equally the party of fear as the party that obsesses about taking away guns and imposing Sharia law. In fact this incident could be a gain for Republicans who have used the fear of more gun bans to make Democrats into depraved authoritarian bogeymen.
"That Jared Loughner was legally able to obtain the gun and ammo that he used to attempt an assassination of a member of Congress, slay a federal judge, and kill others should send a shiver down the collective spine of this nation."
Hey, that a handful of Saudis and Egyptians could hijack a plane because reinforcing the cockpit doors was an unnecessary government regulation is scarier, but that's just me. I still don't want to make all sharp things illegal. That Tim McVeigh and accomplices were able to buy fertilizer and fuel oil and rent a truck was more deadly. Where's the Mothers Against Ammonium Nitrate movement? What's to stop me from buying some and going spontaneously insane?
Frankly I'm more spinally shivered that people drive drunk while talking on the phone and smoking cigarettes at 40 over the limit in 7500 pound vehicles with bumpers at the height of my face. It's a clear and present danger. I'm in danger from people who run jet skis through packed anchorages at 60mph and towing their kids behind on inner tubes more than from madmen with guns in a country where violent crime has been declining for decades. If I go 6 miles southwest of here, I'm in more danger from alligators and wild hogs than from any man sane or otherwise. But even if we do ban everything that has the potential for mayhem -- like alcohol or drugs or 1200 horsepower speed boats; kitchen knives and chain saws, most of us are smart enough to know it won't solve the problem. Most of us.
The problem is crazy violent people. Instead of providing care and treatment, we protect their freedom to roam about, soak up the Fox fantasies about overthrowing the government with violence until they flip and buy a gun or drive the wrong way down the interstate -- or fly a plane into an IRS office.
Freedom isn't safe. I wish I could make those words flash like a neon sign and I wish the Democrats would not so quickly and obliviously shoot themselves in the foot by making this about more ineffective gun control. That's not because I like them so much. It's because what I want is something between the "we can't trust you to be responsible" and the "why should I have any responsibility for anything" attitudes.
Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI guess I missed the story about the toll on human life extracted by 'alligators and wild hogs'.
I agree with you. Just day-to-day living is an enormous risk. Prohiition helped the rise of organized crime. Gun control would have a similar result.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add the shark stories. Florida also leads the nation in lightening deaths too. Golf clubs kill in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteBut you're welcome to go out in the glades unarmed and yes, wild pigs are a major problem in this county. Can I have your stuff if you don't come back?
But I'm not going to get involved here with this type of argument. I have my fill with the teabaggers and libertarians and the like. Guns are a symbol more than they are objects and this will be no different than the self contradictory and somewhat neurotic arguments and utopian visions of the smaller government, zero regulation anarchists. The idea of a zero danger, weaponless society with no sharp edges or high voltages or excessive rates of travel is as fatuous as infinite personal freedom, no responsibility, no taxes and all the rest. Exaggerated data and hysterical hyperbole are no longer my department anyway.
Just as our taxes have reached their lowest point, the tax protest is at its peak. We live at the safest time in our history and it's getting safer as the fear grows and the ban everything because some one of our 300 million might go nuts. Odds are you will die of heart disease or cancer or a stroke or a car accident and never in your life have a weapon pointed at you.
The lesson in this incident is not that we won't have irresponsible calls to violence if it's made illegal to own a handgun and certainly not that there will be a fringe element that is only violent because there are guns for sale if you can pass a background check and like me have your prints on file with the FBI. Such people as do, do not as a rule go on murderous rampages.
If I were irresponsible, I'd illustrate a dozen better ways to have pulled off that crime, but I won't and anyone with experience in Iraq or Afghanistan knows what I mean.
We need to resume mandatory evaluation for people with obvious mental problems. We need to make sure such things are reported to those with the power and duty to block a sale and make sure they do that duty.
Most of all we need to introduce the folks at the GOP and their News network that incitement to commit crimes is a crime.
We keep coming back to the root of the problem that everyone wants to ignore by saying, "forget the rotting roots, look at the yellow leaves - that's the problem!"
ReplyDeletePathetic metaphor, I know but it's been a long day and I'm tired now.
American adults have the freedom to form any opinion they wish and give voice to it. But then they want the opt out of any responsibility for what is spewing from their mouth. Sarah Palin and others did not load this kook's gun and he may not even have been that aware of them. But to live in America and try to deny the effect of the last few year's constant violent rhetoric is having on society is stupid and irresponsible.
Freedom of speech isn't free - there are still consequences.
Deinstitutionalization and the continual mantra of "less government" has resulted in more of the mentally ill roaming the streets and filling our jails. At least in jail, though, the mentally ill receive medications.
ReplyDeleteTwo mentally ill adult nieces got Social Security Disability after YEARS of advocacy by their parents and out of pocket costs for attorneys to fight their automatic denials.
Loughner's parents told the press that they noticed the kid spiraling into delusions. The truth is there is little anyone can do until a person becomes a danger to themselves or others. He cannot be checked into a mental institution without his consent, and even if he did, who would pay for it?
We are all "individuals" in this country, free to fend for ourselves whether we have the capacity to or not. It is irrelevant that Loughner used a gun or knife or vehicle; he needed help and intervention. Our country makes it clear that "we don't pay for that".
Robert - I wonder if the college had called the police instead of their security, they might have been able to get him into the system. The police already had him in their radar so they would have welcomed an excuse to lock him up for a while where he would have been evaluated and medicated.
ReplyDeleteI used to work in a jail and in winter or with chronically ill homeless like diabetics, the cops would drop them off in front of a "no loitering" sign and then put them right back in the car. It was the only way some of these people could get medical care.
How sorry has this country become...
We need to keep in mind that far more legal gun owners -- very far more, virtually 100% -- go a lifetime without endangering anyone or using them criminally. Few drivers are that responsible and yet I can be a convicted felon and a schizophrenic and a Republican and drive every day. I can drive a 1200 horsepower boat without any kind of license and I'm not breaking any law. Where is the panic and outrage? Where is the sense of proportion?
ReplyDeleteSomething is out of balance.
I can't vouch for Arizona, but certainly it would be more effective to require some kind of reporting to the authorities that would show up in the mandatory background check than to have a fit about bans and pretending you weren't at a higher risk for heart attacks and strokes.
Florida required my fingerprints and a training course in gun laws and usage - isn't it obvious that I have no intention of committing a crime? In fact if I were to do that and my gun was at home locked up, the punishment would be as draconian as though I had used it in a crime. If someone steals it, I may still have to prove I didn't make it too easy for the crook. And they keep telling me there is no gun control with hands over their ears lest they hear anything.
Can it be that we pass gun controls that are no more than grandstand plays, that supporters never read or understand? Can it be that we would rather feel safe by passing "gun bills" and "crime bills" without regard to content than be safer by taking the trouble to enforce them?
And yes, we need to make the chickenshit "we can't afford it and besides they're faking it" idiots shut up.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteWith regard to your comment just above, I think we know all this, but it seems to me we also know that the extreme anti-gun arguments you refer to every time guns come up as a subject really haven't been advocated forcibly since the 1970s or 80s. Why, then, do you set them forth and demolish them? What purpose does it serve, aside from making anyone who thinks there should be ANY legal checks on ANY sort of weaponry sound like a hysterical advocate of a total ban on all firearms stemming from the naïve belief that life can be stripped of all danger? And whose interests does that serve? I think your rhetoric is leading you in a direction you probably don't want to go.
You refer in some of your comments to statistics to back up what you write. I don't give half a tinker's damn what the statistics are: six people who are decidedly not reducible to statistics just died in Tucson partly because some deranged chucklehead managed to get himself an extended clip of the sort you don't seem to think matters very much.
As for doing a better job of sussing out people who aren't stable enough to be possessing firearms, sure, that's a good idea, and we should devote the necessary resources to it. But so is making it impossible to buy what amounts to a machine gun and blow away an entire assembly of innocent people, and saying so doesn't make anyone a member of some eponymous coterie of utopian-liberal hippie fanatics who want to take everybody's gun away. I say all this by way of honest critique, not unfriendliness.
"What purpose does it serve, aside from making anyone who thinks there should be ANY legal checks on ANY sort of weaponry sound like a hysterical advocate of a total ban on all firearms stemming from the naïve belief that life can be stripped of all danger? "
ReplyDeleteThere have been restraints since my parents were children. They were increased steadily until recently and I think with minimal effect. I'm not complaining about it and I think it's certainly proper to limit the power of weapons in private hands. I think it's quite proper to restrict sales and to require background checks and assuredly, although there are loopholes that need to be closed we are doing more in the way of gun control that the angriest of us are aware. Opinions such as this are among the reasons that I do not belong to or side with the NRA. there is a lot of territory between an outright ban and unlimited license That's the territory we should be exploring and that's not what I'm hearing suggested by extremists on both sides. Perhaps we've been listening to different people, but ban, ban, and we'll all be safe, is what I'm hearing elsewhere.
"making it impossible to buy what amounts to a machine gun and blow away an entire assembly of innocent people"
What I'm complaining about is the (in my opinion) substantial error of saying that the use of a Glock with an optional 33 round magazine is far worse than having used a civilian Uzi pistol with a standard, but equally high capacity magazine, or two Glocks or one Beretta with two standard 17 round magazines. I simply do not see these things as significantly different choices much less the rational choice for a would-be murderer. A strange thing to say, but professional murderers don't use them. One frequent choice of CIA and Mossad assassins is a .22 caliber revolver. Witness Hinkley and Sirhan Sirhan.
But of course - if it pleases congress to limit magazine size and if they do that without the fraudulence they exhibited in pretending to to that in the 1980's, that's fine by me. In fact the hunting laws in many states do just that and nobody's complaining very loudly.
An autoloading firearm is not the equivalent of a machine gun. It isn't. I've been around firearms since I was a little boy and I've seen exhibition shooters get a similar rate of fire from the Colt Peacemaker Hoppalong Cassidy might have used. For up to 6 shots of course, but then he carried two of them. An antique double action revolver can achieve a remarkable rate of fire. I've seen it done. I'm sure there would have been a similar number of casualties if he had made other weapons choices and I don't think it's an uninformed opinion. More importantly I hate to see this as the focus of discussion because it's distracting from the real issues of national security and our tolerance for irresponsible rhetoric and incitements to mayhem and the sad need to keep our representatives away from the general public for safety's sake.
I spent hours yesterday reading lachrymose comments about Bush having let the Assault Weapon Ban lapse on schedule and the need to re-instate it immediately and I get frustrated at the obstinacy of those who will not, will not, will not let anyone explain the facts to them as if I were spoiling some tenet of a dearly held religious belief. That was the environment I left before arriving here. I was in a bad mood, I confess and there is no unfriendliness toward you of any kind in my words or thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI'm not accusing anyone here of the utopian beliefs our enemies accuse us of, but like it or not, many self-identified Liberals are of the safety-at-all-costs mindset and I think it hurts us, gives the Republicans ammunition to put us up against a wall as the party of bans, the party that hates freedom. When I hear "if only one life is saved, it's worth it" I despair, because that fatuously utopian idea is certainly the prescription for a police state.
Anyway, I had thought to take down my comments this morning, because I'm sick of guns and talking about them, but you responded and I have to leave them up. I'm not getting my point across, or I'm not making one. Either way. . . I'm done.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteNo offense taken. I understand what you're writing perfectly, and I disagree with it. We need to be able to do that on this site, with civility, as we are doing here. You're not convincing me because there isn't a convincing case to make, in my view. People shouldn't be allowed to buy what amounts to damn near WMD, and in my dinopinion, shark-bite-and-lightning-strike stats and techno-talk about the difference or non-difference between an UZI and a Glock with a special clip amount to obfuscation of the clear need to place sensible, relatively minor limits on an otherwise strongly affirmed right.
Of course, I don't have to worry about any of this -- I have teeth the size of railroad spikes, and a winning snarl. And since I don't have opposable thumbs, guns of any kind are quite useless to me.
I hear your disagreement and I raise you another.
ReplyDeleteBut first, let me mention that two of these rare but emotional incidents could have been prevented in recent times if schools had reported obviously loony students to the authorities, who would then, by law, prevent the sale of guns and ammunition of any kind. Neither shooter cared or needed to care about all the other regulations born in ignorance and fear and political deception. They shouldn't have been allowed any firearms at all - the law strictly forbids it. This is what we should be talking about, but it's difficult, it's challenging -- while repeating the same old articles of given us to accept on faith is easy and comforting. Safety isn't free and ultimate safety is very, very expensive - and I'm not talking about money alone.
Psychotic killers, people with histories of violence need to be kept away from weapons and from us - kitchen knives, scissors with sharp points, golf clubs. . . we need to get better at information sharing and law enforcement and spend the money to do it, not look for cheap solutions based on misrepresentation and blind fear.
No argument? The argument is fundamental. How much trust we put in the citizen versus the random probability that he's a potentially violent criminal. How much power we give that citizen and just exactly what technology do we allow him to have and under what circumstances - and who gets to decide - it's fundamental to freedom to define it's limits and do it calmly, with due deliberation and with some consideration for our constitutional freedom.
I'd rather that bozo had been turned away at the cash register and not been allowed to buy a BB gun than argue about how many rounds can dance on a magazine. In fact the current law was designed to do just that and why aren't we talking about making it function as designed? We can do it.
ReplyDeleteIn general, most attempts at regulation are drafted by people who don't understand what's being regulated, what regulation we already have and who rarely stop to think about the consequences or the difficulties of enforcing or the consequences of passing unenforceable legislation or legislation likely to be enforced selectively for political reasons. That's the source of my discontent and I could fill pages with tales of high minded proposals that created disasters, from Prohibition, to the CAFE standards that were supposed to make cars smaller, but gave us Hummers instead. Please lets not keep doing this. Please Progressives of America, let's stop demanding agreement as a precondition to dialog.
The way I see it is that the controversy has once again been framed by extremists and each side has barricaded itself behind shibboleths which must be passed before you'll be listened to. On one side we have the oooh oooh nasty scary guns, don't tell me anything - just take them away! And the other, "cold, dead fingers" side that equate firepower with freedom and manhood.
Neither side will admit to not being in the majority. I don't think either side is. I'd rather just ignore the hysterics and examine the statistics. I'd rather approach dangerous technology - cars, guns, speedboats, airplanes by defining, educating, licensing who gets to use it, than give in to demands that I not have anything like that because it scares people in disproportion to the chances of misuse. Those things will always be dangerous in the wrong hands.
This is a fundamental argument indeed.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeletePoint of critique: I wish you would avoid adding in flourishes such as "not look for cheap solutions based on misrepresentation and blind fear." Invariably, your readers will take this as a direct accusation of whomever you are addressing whether that's your intention or not. There is no need to build in strawman pointers. I and others on this site are not looking for "cheap solutions" or "repeating the same old articles given us to accept on faith." Such language is unhelpful, in my view. We all use it now and then, but the less we do so, the better.
I suppose the recent shooting might well have been prevented if someone had got the accused into treatment for his obviously erratic and frightening behavior. But I don't think any mental health system we can devise is ever going to be perfect -- some people can be quite ill and mask their symptoms because they themselves are so withdrawn from society, family, and friends. So the question still arises, as I think you are pointing out, as to what exactly anyone at all should be allowed to manufacture, buy, possess, or use. Does anyone really need a semi-automatic for hunting or personal safety? No, that seems extremely unlikely, so this is where some limits might be imposed without infringing on our rights.
This is not an either/or issue, as I see it; it's a both/and issue: try to help unstable people, and make as sure as we can that certain gratuitously "capable" weaponry isn't available even if they slip through the cracks and obtain a weapon. Why should we have to choose either option as if accomplishing both shouldn't be the goal?
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteCan you point me to an instance of the anti-gun "hysterics" to which you allude? I can recall none myself, at least in reference to the current bad event. I don't hear any "extremists" coming from the liberal side, though I've come across a couple of the usual "nothing whatsoever can be done under any circumstances, ever" statements from the enthusiastically pro-gun side. Where's your evidence, please?
Bloggingdino and Captain Fogg 2.0,
ReplyDeleteA modest proposal, if I may. Perhaps we should let all gun owners have the option of trading in their weapons for thermonuclear bombs under the old cold war logic of "mutually assured annihilation" (or MAM for short). If it worked for the USA and USSR, why not for everyone everywhere. Most folks would be too frightened to use them for anything.
Of course, I admit, wham-bam-thank-you-MAM would not deter a crazed individual or a nihilist or a terrorist from using their newfound fire power; but that is precisely the point. If the crazy crowd used them, at least it would put an end to all arguments, pro AND con, and that would be a win-win for our side.
As a person who has never owned a gun and has no desire to do so,I have a sincere question. Why is there a desire to be allowed to purchase automatic or semi-automatic weapons at all? What does one use such weapons to do?
ReplyDeleteI recall some of my uncles having hunting rifles in my childhood. They used them to hunt rabbits, squirrels, and deer, all of which showed up on the dinner table.
My father was a police officer and he had his service weapons which he always kept unloaded in the house. I was an adult before I finally learned that while he kept his weapons in the house, he kept the ammunition in the car which was locked in the garage. He wanted to be certain threat none of us, including my mother encountered a loaded gun. He once told me that I should never point a gun at someone unless I was certain that I planned to pull the trigger. He said, "Hesitancy will get you killed." I've never been able to be that certain so I've never wanted a gun.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteWell, bring on the music track for Dr. Strangelove, then....
Sheria,
I guess that in response to your question about why anyone would want outrageously high-capacity weapons, I can only offer the phrase "culture of hyper-masculinity." Seems to me that it's pervasive in the USA.
Bloggingdino,
ReplyDeleteOops, my apologies if my lame attempt at Stephen Colbert style sarcasm went awry. Personally, I do not like guns. I do not own a gun and never will (especially in view of my hotheaded cephalopod temperament). Perhaps the caricatures of General ‘Buck’ Turgidson and Major Kong can only be lampooned once in a generation (or perhaps there are too few to make a lasting impression).
Humor is a self-defense. I brandish it when I am feeling dispirited … and recoil when my aim is off.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteI didn't see anything wrong with it at all -- it's sort of what I meant by "hyper-masculinity." Kubrick really has a field day with that in Dr. S, doesn't he! Loss of essence, precious bodily fluids, and all that. That film never goes out of style even if it's dated. How's that for a Yogi Berra-ism?
"Point of critique"
ReplyDeleteOK, point taken. Cheap flourishes are a vice of mine. I find myself orating to a crowd and not to the addressee and I tried to make a point about public reaction when talking to an individual. It's difficult in this medium -- wouldn't happen in person, but I will be as Vulcan as possible.
But I've read over and over again in the blogs that "we need to bring back the assault rifle ban." No, you didn't say that Dino, but I see the points of light visible here as part of a greater constellation (oh shit, there I go again) The assault rifle ban was a smokescreen like so many others that had no positive effect but to sell even more guns and provide false security.
Few know what gun control there is, how complex it is or what the effects of it are in terms of crime fighting - but they want more, none the less. I don't want more, I want better, more effective, not more emotionally appealing to the fearful.
I have to remain firm that in my opinion which includes over 50 years of familiarity, a 30 round magazine, sticking a foot out of the grip of a pistol had nothing to do with the shooting having occurred at all and to a large extent, how many people were shot. If that were an effective weapon system, the police and military would use them. They don't.
I disagree strongly that "it's the equivalent of a machine gun." It isn't.
Does a hunter need more than a single shot or bolt action rifle? Like most of these questions, that's one that goes away as familiarity with hunting increases. It depends on where you are, what game you're seeking, what's allowed by the rules of the season and what game is seeking you. Grizzly bear? Wild boar? Lion? Sorry, I want firepower and even for small game I want that second shot, a wounded animal being something to avoid.
And when I suggested better cooperation between law enforcement and mental health programs, it wasn't to say that someone might have cured the guy, but that the sale would have been thwarted if he had been reported. I know of several cases in which someone purchased a gun only because it was unknown to authorities that the person was ineligible - one in which a psychiatrist "didn't want to embarrass" a well known local family. ( I knew them too )
ReplyDeleteThe result of that case was that my nearby town attempted a blanket handgun ban - which local law enforcement staunchly opposed. Not a damn thing was done to require doctors to report people with conditions indicating impaired responsibility.
OK, better, smarter gun control(if that's not too much of a flourish) not more of what keeps being demonstrated as non-functional. Please let me make the point that I think the focus on magazine capacity or type of loading mechanism is a distraction so I can stop talking about this.