Sunday, October 3, 2010

Borepatch 101: Gun Control

It's hard to think of a political program as counter productive as gun control.  Not only has it entirely failed to achieve any of its stated objectives, it's been terribly damaging - politically - to its chief proponents.

That's a deep pit of FAIL, right there.

Still, the Intellectual Left is committed to gun control, despite the evidence.  Here's why that's a mistake.

"Reasonable" Restrictions

Most gun control proponents don't know anything about guns, so they don't have any good way to know what's "reasonable" and what's not.  Massachusetts' "reasonable" gun control laws very nearly made me a felon, and only alertness on my part prevented this.

Most gun control proponents don't know anything about guns, because all they know is what they read in the press.

It's hard to craft "reasonable" restrictions when you don't even know what a Machine Gun is.

It's about Power, and who defers to whom

Gun control's roots are explicitly racist.  It's very surprising how many leftists do not realize this.  You're not on the Side Of The Angels, guys.

Prosecutors like to win cases and put people in jail.  It's what they're paid for.  Prosecutors like to have lots of laws, so that they can bring felony charges against people that they would otherwise have to charge with minor infractions.  The felony rap hanging over the defendant's head will encourage them to plea to the minor charges.  This helps prosecutors get more convictions with less effort.  It also puts more people in jeopardy of trumped up charges.  Know your place, people.

How Supreme Court gun control precedent was actually created.  Most gun control laws trace their roots back to United States v. Miller in 1939.  The case is unusual, to say the least.

Great Britain is screwedReally screwed.  Know your place, people.  To those who say we should "be more like Europe", I don't think so.

How do the Police look at you?  How did they used to look at you?  Know your place, people.

Disarm the victims.

Philosophical Weakness

It's Rousseau's fault.

The question that gun control proponents won't ever answer.

The Evil Eye.

If the First Amendment was treated like the Second Amendment.  And what the Founders thought about the Second Amendment.

Junk Science used to justify Gun Control

Guns don't cause suicide.  The numbers don't lie.

There's actually no link between video games and school shootings.

These aren't mine, but tells you all you need to know about the use and misuse of statistics in these debates.  And the use and abuse of peer-review.

Do Democrats have a Death Wish?

It seems like it's always a party-line vote.

That's some righteous Brand Damage, right there.

Even DailyKos isn't buying it

Metaphors

Strange bedfellows.

Tigers vs. Goats. I know which I'll choose to be.

I'll just close with the statement that the Second Amendment is the most revolutionary sentence ever written, and that it's very strange indeed to see people on the Left so enamored of Counter-Revolutionary restrictions on the People.

3 comments:

Carteach said...

The second amendment recognizes a citizens right to be armed. What it really means is a citizens right to self defense. Anytime some schmuck tells you that you aren't allowed to be armed for any reason, you really need to ask yourself why does said schmuck want you unarmed and defenseless? What exactly is said schmuck planning to do to you that works better when you can't defend yourself?

Broken Andy said...

"Most gun control proponents don't know anything about guns, because all they know is what they read in the press."

Most people, gun control proponents included, don't know anything about guns, because all they know is what they see in the movies. Revolves can shoot 100 rounds without reloading, everything is fully automatic, and shooting a gun out of the bad guys hand is easy to do.

wolfwalker said...

Something else strange about Miller v. US: for sixty years gun-control advocates claimed that it said gun control was constitutional and the Second Amendment was effectively meaningless. But if you actually read the text of Miller, rather than their carefully selected quotes, you'll find it does the exact opposite.