"The worst thing about America is GUNS!" I'm told, and if I disagree, I've been brainwashed by an organization I don't belong to or listen to and have contempt for. Why? because zealots argue by the numbers the way a salesman is trained: with lists of objections and standard responses but without the yelling and insulting that make it hard to sell insurance or swamp land. When it comes to guns, food, cars, economics, taxation, immigration, religion and a few other subjects dear to the brainwashing trade, it's mostly about avoiding the facts to avoid refutation. "Don't ask questions, just look at the bogeyman!"
One preempts the calm, rational approach by attacking first. Nebulous and ill -- defined attacks are best for this purpose. Sure, guns frighten the hell out of some people and everyone has the right to their fears, but other things may be more dangerous. That's why when I suggest banning the most dangerous feature of any gun, I get "no, only assault weapons, read the script or shut up," If you want to see a working definition of "conniption" just keep calm and stick to the facts.
Sign here to send a petition to "Help stop the use of bee-toxic pesticides!" Could we keep a bit more calm because there's no particular evidence that pesticides are causing or contributing to this apparently widespread phenomenon of hive collapse syndrome, and even if the EPA has the power to ban or eliminate such things if they do exist, it doesn't mean there's any scientific consensus on the etiology of this disease which may not actually be new and appears on more than one continent. There's plenty of activist consensus, but as with the fanatical but unsupportable assertions about Autism spectrum syndrome and vaccines, it's based on rumor and conjecture and hysteria, just as the previous notion that it was all about cell phones because after all, Post Hoc means Propter Hoc. Certain people prone to see real and imaginary ills to be the product of evil corporations (aren't they all evil?) won't question it though, and if you don't, well you're brainwashed. Science? Just keep banning until the problem goes away.
"I don't need any facts, I just know" said one Solon after I asked him whether a proposed measure had a record of previous successes. I'm afraid that response is too commonplace when certain, activist-dominated subjects are involved. But what do I know? I've been brainwashed by the facts and made a fool of by calm reflection. The 'solution' has been an abject failure more than once, but he just knows it will work which is a form of the argument from ignorance. After all it's a gun control proposal and so it will, ipso facto, control guns, just as all those "Crime Bills" we were urged to support in the 70's and 80's that made things worse. Or those bills to "untie the hands" of the police that also made things so much worse and the Drug bills that filled our jails with harmless and ordinary people, destroying the lives and families we were supposed to be protecting. As old Daniel Webster said:
"the strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many a bad measure."The end may justify the means sometimes, but the urgency and fear don't justify all proposals. None the less, if your plan fails, you can always blame it on the appropriate bogeyman to escape the inevitable "told you so."
I'm looking at a list of statistical rankings of fatality risks in our country. It's in response to the "worst thing" assertion. Of course as with all such things you have to define terms and I'm taking the liberty of defining worst as the most dangerous, the most likely to kill you, and of course Heart disease, stroke and cancer are by far the leading causes of death. Odds are it's curtains for you and me sooner or later, I'm afraid. It's full of many interesting observations including that bicycles are enormously more dangerous than motorcycles in terms of how many people are killed on them.
Assault by firearm? It's number ten at 1 in 300 and that's terrible at first glance or at second glance, but then as with motorcycle accidents at 1 in 802 and death by drowning and immersion at 1 in 1073, those are averages for the entire population and if you don't go near the water and don't ride a motorcycle these risks don't apply, just as if you don't live in certain neighborhoods and don't get involved in gangs or drugs, your odds of firearm assault may vary - enormously.
Cause for some thought here about apparent risk and actual risk? Nah. We just know we're right and reflection is weakness and if the group advocates something but I advocate something stronger, I must be a dupe, a stooge of the standard bogeyman. Pick one from the menu.
The overall likelihood of a fatal drug overdose is almost on a par with fatal shooting, but of course neither you nor I is likely to do them, (although I can't be too sure about you) Averages can be hugely misleading and they certainly are when used to frighten people into grasping at straws or laws. So if I say that chances are something other than guns is gonna gitcha even if you do watch out, it's not because there's no danger from firearms and killers, but it's not the worst and I can prove it. There may be something worse in other senses than guns - say like injustice or the lack of access to medical care or higher education voting rights or legal council or even safe water, for our suburban Detroit friends.
But there is no anti-motorcycle advocacy group. The Motorcycle Haters are far less organized than the Monsanto Haters and of course since hardly anyone is an organic chemist or geneticist, has a degree in biology or agriculture, it's a perfect windmill for the bee saving Quixotes of America to tilt at. Bike haters? They're around but not nearly so outspoken. I think they're afraid of us.
As with all things relative to our fear and anger industry, the Worst Thing, as Orwell told us in 1984 is very personal. The worst thing may just be your own fear. It may be something you haven't thought about while being terrified of something else because what you fear is mostly about partisanship and manipulation. It's about preventing calm and objectivity. It's all about what group has washed your cerebral cortex. It's less about the principles than about the principals.
Since only 32% of US households admit to having firearms, we suspect those that those who own them own many. Perhaps the rest of us suffer from irrational hoplophobia . The 'fear and anger industry' IMO is a fairly logical counter to the NRA civilian armaments
ReplyDeleteindustry: my state recently passed a law that anyone may carry a concealed weapon:
no training, no background check, no questions asked. Presumably this would include those with 'fear and anger', those with IQs down to single digits, those
with grudges ... and admittedly a few that may have a good reason. You argue for
magazine limitations and I have no argument with that, but betcha Wayne Lapierre
does. We have created a gun culture, a strong one, but a minority one. We worship the 2nd Amendment because we are told it has no relation to a 'well regulated militia', that the old flintlock in the cabin corner is basically the
same as the Bushmaster that can spray magazine after magazine as fast as the
trigger finger can pull (and the other thumb can hold down that frisky muzzle)
and that a personal weapons cache will prevent 'them' from taking over. I would
argue that there is more than enough fear and anger out there and more than 50%
of it is NRA fomented. Yes, the statistics are not all that horrid at 10.54 per 100K, where we note other countries in
our hemisphere are far worse. I figure if some maniac is slicing up grade schoolers with a machete, even at my age I might take him out with a chair,
but with a few glocks, sig-saurs and a big mag 5.56 and we wait around for the
swat team. So, we are all frustrated, no?
America. Where else can you say that all lives matter and have that seen as proof of racism. It's not about one's principles, it's about how well they mesh with commercial racial tension industry. Argue rationally that magazine size should be somehow limited and you're interfering with the people who make a business about lying about weapons and rates of fire; about murder rates and trends thereof for profit. Try to apply facts and you're drowned out by chants of NRANRANRA.
ReplyDeleteThe number of households containing guns has declined steadily for many years. Any hunter or sport shooter may want different guns for different purposes but it's always an "ARAENAL" isn't it? a box of shells or a small collections is always a weapons cache.
Fear and anger are by definition not logical and saying so is an attempt to promote fear. Nobel prize laureate Daniel Kahneman has written at length about how intensely illogical we are in our fears, being terrified at a one in a million chance of harm and ignoring the one in three near certainty of other risks. I'm not going to summarize it again because it would be another bit of proof that there is no discussion about certain subjects in our country because of the way our passions and fears are stage managed bu entities. I note with sadness that no one I have discussed weapons with has ever bothered to look up the military definition of assault rifle or the definition of assault weapon as congress defined it in the 1990s. Whether we decry the firepower of autoloading pistols or assault rifles which are not actually assault rifles depends on the latest incident and the latest directions from our chosen but usually invisible leaders.
Assault weapons do "spray" bullets but you can't buy one or own one. No matter how you emphasize the epithet "semi-automatic" such weapons spray nothing but we're so conditioned by partisanship and obstinate passion that Alan Grayson the Florida democrat can claim the AR-15 can fire 700 rounds per minute, an utterly dishonest attempt at hyping up the fear factor. For a few seconds it can fire about 300 but only by a highly trained individual and only for a few seconds. Nobody looks it up. A autoloading hand gun can carry an equal number of rounds and fire somehwt faster over a period of time it being very much easier to reload, but who at the moment wants to interrupt the flood of "assault weapon" rhetoric? It just not in this weeks script. Rational? hell no.
ReplyDeleteI listen to endles lies about super powerful ammunition when in fact and by definition assault rifles use a reduced power cartridge. I listen to people tell me with smug faces that a .223 is "big bore" ammunition and everything faster than a musket ball is "high velocity" 7.62X39 is always said to be more powerful than 7.62X51 or 7.62X54 and .30 caliber is only bigborehighvelocity when it suits the fear industry - truth be damned.
I could go on and i have been for a long time, but there's no point to it. No matter what proof is offered, it always reverts to bigboprehighvelocitysemiautomatic weapons of war spraying bullets. I long ago becaue a gun control advocate, but not to the point where I cooperate with liars, con men and manipulators of public hysteria.
The current New Yorker magazine has a lengthy and detailed article about this factual gerrymandering and fear dysphoria. In a time of declining murder rates, we continue to give out outdated and wildly inacurrate date and stick to it like a Remora fish to a shark so that the cause continues to be well fed. We obsess about mass shootings that constitute less than 2% of all gun deaths but ignore others and insist on calling suicides murders and all to hype up the fear and inevitably we produce yet another bad, useless or counterproductive bolus of legislation.
Our biggest mass murders are done with bombs and airplanes. We don not mention them at all. Rampage shootings are a tiny fraction of a much bigger problem that can't be controlled by permits and bans and checks, but no improvement will occur as a result of anything we're being urged to do and I'm simply not going to waste my time selling flyswatters or giving a platform for passion plays.
So I have more pressing things to worry about these days and I'm done with this.