Sunday, July 29, 2012

Confidential to the Gun Grabbers

Attention please, Chuck Schumer, Barbaras Boxer and Feinstein, Frank Lautenberg, Carolyn McCarthy and all the rest of you who get your talking points from the same place.  Yes, that goes for you, too, Peter Bogdanovitch and Harvey Weinstein and thanks to Improved Clinch for reminding me I wanted to rant about this.

You've all seen some variation of this argument at least a dozen times since last weekend, when the young feces-brained-psycho decided to act out his frustration over his pitiful life by ending a lot of lives worth infinitely more than his.  This one is from Weinstein, but could have come from any one of them.
“If we don’t get gun-control laws in this country, we are full of beans. To have the National Rifle Association rule the United States is pathetic. And I agree with Mayor Michael Bloomberg: It’s time to put up or shut up about gun control for both parties.
C'mere, scooter.  Let me learn you something.  The National Rifle Association is not taking over the country.  The NRA is doing exactly what its tens of millions of members want it to do and pay it to do: it's guarding our constitutionally recognized, God-given rights.  This isn't some sort of bizarre aberration by a rogue organization on its own, they're lobbying for exactly what we want them to lobby for.  It's not the NRA, it's the tens of millions of citizens.

Unlike you folks, the vast majority of Americans now realize that gun free zones don't work, and all that gun control does is disarm good people while allowing those who don't care about laws to do what they want.  There are many examples of attempts at mass murder headed off by someone with a gun.  Mass murders only happen in gun free zones.  I'd bet real piles of money that someone with practical training and a handgun could have ended that mess in the theater before the body count got anywhere near what happened.  (h/t Confessions of a Street Pharmacist)
Don't give me that crap about "military weapons".  Every single category of weapon there is has been used as a military weapon.  The 12 gauge shotgun, like the 115 year old M97 design, there are tens of millions of them in American's homes, was so deadly in World War 1 that the Germans thought they were inhumane and should be banned!  A shotgun was inhumane, but mustard gas was fine?  Bolt action rifles with built-in box magazines, like the Remington 700, are not only direct descendents of the "military weapon" Mauser used in WW1, but the 700 itself is issued as the M24 Sniper Weapon System.  The first revolver was a major technological breakthrough, allowing a horse mounted soldier to shoot multiple times without reloading.  You'd ban 160 year old technology? 

Don't give me that crap about "they're only designed to kill as many as possible" as you hide behind your armed guards and protection details.  Evil lives in the heart of the person behind the gun, not the gun itself.  The AR-15 you want to ban is the most popular rifle in America.  There are millions of those with 30 round magazines and all they have ever done is punch holes in paper or go hunting.  Why does any civilian "need" a high capacity magazine?  You display your ignorance.  First off, I need one because I said so - you have no right to tell me what I need.  Second off, I know you're ignorant of self defense and target shooting, or you'd never say something like that, so let me tell you: there's a handful of reasons, not the least of which is it gives me more fun per trip to the range.  It's more fun to shoot than to load magazines. 

And confidential to Bill O'Reilly, I know you're sure you're smarter than the world and have The Only Right Opinions there are, so you wouldn't listen to this, but all you will do by limiting ammo purchases is get a list of every competitive shooter, everyone who is training for some goal, everyone who doesn't live near an ammo shop and buys in bulk, and every other active shooter in the country.  6000 rounds sounds like a lot to an outsider, but a competitive shooter can go through that pretty easily in a few weeks.  I seem to recall an interview with Jessie Duff where she said she ran through a thousand rounds a day, or every couple of days, during the peak of the season. 

The NRA is unique among organizations in being denounced by its detractors and its members.  Critics, like Weinstein, think the NRA is taking over the country; members think they're not doing enough to ensure that members are simply left alone.  Members routinely want the NRA to "stop playing DC insider" and speak up more strongly for our rights - even first amendment and other issues that aren't strictly firearms related. Disclaimer: I'm an NRA member frequently critical of those things myself.  I'm also a member of the other big gun rights organizations, SAF, JPFO, GOA and NAGR.

Finally, with all due respect to the victims, why is this getting the fully saturated media treatment?  Granted, the situation is unusual, but more people get shot in Chicago most weekends than in that theater.  Oh, I know, Chicago already has among the strictest gun control laws in the country, and that hurts your argument. 


12 comments:

  1. Excellent post. Chicago shooting incidents is one of those things the Marxist wish they could just keep hidden.

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  2. Diane Feinstein is a total hypocite. When she was Mayor of San Francisco, and she pushed to have everyone turn in their handguns, she had six handguns registered in her name. I happen to know that for a fact, as someone in our communications division at the California Highway Patrol ran her for weapons registered in her name. In California - at that time, at least - when you had a CCW permit, you had to list the make and serial number of any gun you wanted to carry under that permit. She had six listed. She probably owned more than that, and I have no idea how many firearms her husband might have owned.

    Many years ago (1968), a British author named John Brunner wrote a dystopian novel about a future America. In it he explained the stance of liberals on any issue: I can't, so you can't. I CAN, but you musn't.

    The bastards haven't changed

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    1. Plus, she has been a contender for the "Upper Class Twit of the Year" for the last 20 years, and even won it a few times!

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  3. Sorry. that should have read "hypocrite"

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  4. Excellent arguments, I'll link to this.

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  5. What I can't stand is when the anti-gun and pro-gun people debate the issue on liberal media. Feinstein was on some news show right after the Aurora shooting complaining about why a person needs a 100 round magazine to hunt with and ties it in with how the 2nd Amendment was never intended to cover this. Then the pro-gun person stooped to her level of the argument trying to explain why you don't need a 100 round magazine hunt, but how the 2nd Amendment still covers your rights to purchase one. It makes the whole argument stupid, which in turn causes the 2nd Amendment to look stupid. Look! The pro-gun answer should have been something like this (just more elegant with big words to make the person sound smarter), “The 2nd Amendment is not there to protect my hunting or shooting sports rights or to tell me what sort of gun I need for protection. The 2nd Amendment is there to protect my RIGHTS in CHOOSING what sort of ARMS I need to have to protect myself from all enemies foreign and/or domestic EVEN if that include my own government from City Hall to Washington D.C.. This is what I believe the Founding Fathers just fought a war over, the right to choose and to be free. The right to own a gun needed to hunt with or to complete in sport shooting is a by-product of that right. If I believe if I need military style weapons with high capacity magazines to protect myself and my family, that is what the 2nd Amendment protects. Any law that chips away at those rights in this area should be and in some cases have been found to be unconstitutional.

    So, the gun I hunt with as to the 2nd Amendment, apples and oranges argument. What guns, ammo and magazine capacity I need to protect myself from a gang of blood thirsty people hell bent on death and destruction, or a pack of hungry wolves, or zombies or my government that is being taken over from the inside by some socialist dictator and his/her political party as to the 2nd Amendment, that is a true debate. The pro-gun person should ask Feinstein, “What weapon(s) would you have on hand go to war with at a moment’s notice?” If she can’t answer that, then she is way out of touch.

    Oh, and to give a hint to her, going to war includes protecting your family, home, block, sub division, city, county, state, country and so on from… (fill in the blank).

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    1. I think an important point, and I forgot to make it, is that the 2A gave the citizens at the time access to the most state of the art military weapons of the day. Everyone had a musket, whether British Redcoat or American farmer.

      By that standard, we all have the right to any fully auto weapon in the arsenal. I'd like a Ma Deuce, thank you. If what Justice Scalia was saying yesterday about "'to bear arms' means to carry it, so the right doesn't apply to weapons like cannons or artillery that one man can't carry" is the limit, (I probably butchered that quote), the 2A should include RPGs, Stinger missiles, and all sorts of heavy weapons, but stop short of B-2 bombers and M1A tanks.

      Senator Feinstein? Why do I need a 100 round magazine? Because f*%k you.

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    2. Prior to 1934 the civilian market was better armed, and trained than our military. Thompson designed the 1921 for the Army, but ended up selling on the civilian market,due to peace dividend savings in Washington. Revolutionary militia men were better armed than the military, because the military used muskets, and minute men/ woodsmen used rifles with a much better accuracy range, effect. The NFA of 34 was instumental in reducing nothing criminal, and has only been a revune generator for the gov., and left a toxic legacy known as the BATFE, which I never understood since tobbacco, alcohol, and firearms are all now legal.

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    3. Yeah - I blew it on the "everybody had muskets", and really do know better. This was when the German rifle makers were first getting started in Pennsylvania. The history of all this in Rose's American Rifle: A Biography - a really cool book.

      I'm also under the impression that the whole reason the BATFE started was to keep the IRS officers hired during prohibition on the government payroll. Except for killing folks in Waco, shooting dogs and stomping kittens to death, they are largely just a tax agency.

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  6. As always... u da man!!! Well done. Now if only the NRA talked like that.

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    1. Thank you very much.

      I guess the beauty of the web is that if enough people like it and spread it around, the NRA might even quote it!

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