Tuesday, August 6, 2019

The radicalization of gun owners

Eric Raymond wrote this a number of years back, but is well worth reading again.  It's futile to have a "conversation about gun violence" when trust has been destroyed:
Now comes the news that the head of the Department of Homeland Security officially thanked the Governor of Missuri for violating state law by illegally passing to the DHS Missouri’s list of concealed-carry permit holders. The Governor then lied about his actions.
The Feds, meanwhile, continue to illegally retain transfer records from federally licensed firearms dealers past the statutory time limit, among several other continuing violations of a 1986 law forbidding the establishment of a national gun registry.
The BATF also criminally violated its authorizing laws by transferring over 2000 firearms to Mexican drug gangs through illegal straw purchases (google “ATF gunwalking scandal”). Over 150 Mexican citizens and United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were killed with these guns.
Meanwhile, following scandals about “drop guns” at the sites of police shootings, some big-city police forces (notably in LA and NYC) are strongly suspected of routinely using planted guns to frame suspects they can’t otherwise nail on firearms-possession charges.
Any trust that “gun control” will be administered with even minimal respect for civil rights is long gone, destroyed by the behavior of the enforcers themselves.
This is yet another way to destroy the middle. Anti-firearms activists speak of “common-sense regulation”, knowing that the agencies enforcing these have engaged in a series of criminal conspiracies to evade and ignore safeguards against abuse of such regulations. By doing so, they annihilate any trust firearms owners might have once felt that “common-sense regulation” is anything other than a prequel to those abuses.
In the absence of trust there can be no compromise.
Raymond ends by saying "No more gun laws, ever."  In the comments, people suggest repealing a goodly number, including the licensing of suppressors.

The discussion didn't used to be along these lines - I remember a day when there was a willingness to compromise.  That started to evaporate in the 1990s, with the "Assault Weapons" ban, Ruby Ridge, and Waco.  It's grown ever since.  I think that Raymond is entirely correct that a combination of repeated lies and criminal activity by the government agencies tasked with enforcing gun laws has poisoned the well.

To well-meaning people in the middle on this, don't take this personally.  I very strongly believe that most of these people are good folks who want to do something to help.  I also think that very few of these have much familiarity with firearms, and almost none have paid much attention to the repeated lies from the gun control side.  Raymond put together and excellent introduction to firearms policy fraud.  If you're a middle-grounder, I highly recommend that you take ten minutes to read it, because it will give you a very good understanding of why people say "No more gun laws, ever."

10 comments:

  1. Concur with Raymond. Enough is enough. Their version of compromise is that we give up everything, they give up nothing... Lawdog's cake...

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  2. Oops, hit enter too soon... http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/gun-rights-cake-analogy.html

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  3. With apologies for a self-link, but hopefully worthy of the topic... my original essay on why I oppose gun control.

    https://redpilljew.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-very-personal-opposition-to-gun.html

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  4. And, once again, gun owners miss the picture. Sure, the 2A is about guns, but it's also about knives, knuckebusters, brass knuckles, cannon, rockets, spears, pikes, halberds, axes, maces, Mace, morningstars (but not The Morningstar, I think he's a democrat...) and all other arms. All arms. All weapons. That's what the 2A is about.

    Just like we see in (formerly)Great Britain. Once guns are removed, then it's knives, then construction tools, cleaning chemicals, glass, random sticks etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

    Any arms control law is a bad law.

    Plus, I think I look rather dashing sporting a broadsword...

    And the only people who benefit from bad laws are governments and special interest groups.

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  5. Being a racist white-supremacist because I don't go along with the narrative, I might as well go the whole 9 yards and not obey any gun laws as well. The constant attacks are sort of freeing - nothing I can do so I might as well go the whole 9 yards.

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  6. Well, being that Biden said he would confiscate or go after the legal guns now if there was a legal way for him to do so and BitchboyBeto flat out advocates for coming after our guns it pretty much dismisses any of the talk before about any sensible guns as they never ever wanted to come after our guns or take them away. Pretty much verifies all of us that said that is what they wanted to do all along and were dismissively written off as crackpots.

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  7. What ProudHillbilly said. So I'm a bad person for following all the current laws? Makes me want to say 'screw it' and go full 'evil white militia fudddddddd,' except that's what they want.

    Just... don't get caught with any modified solvent traps without the appropriate paperwork.

    Dangit, just when we coulda had some serious pushback against all the seriously illegal gun laws, the Repubs in both houses go stupid, NRA is more concerned about buying Wayne a new set of threads for every appearance, and the leftists are pushing their people to commit 'gun crimes' in order to force 'gun control.' Almost like they're following a script or something...

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  8. All too accurate. To anyone who wants to "have a conversation" about "common sense gun reform," I now just say, "Let me speak plainly. I don't mean to be rude, but you have nothing to sell that I will buy. Perhaps we ought to change the subject."

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  9. Red Flag laws means your X can call the cops on you to come and take away without any due process. There is just as much room for compromise here as there is in abortion law. Pity they don't see that.

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