tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post532721070792842052..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Mass shootings, media, and gun controlUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49405138820928010092013-10-10T13:51:02.263-07:002013-10-10T13:51:02.263-07:00Remember Victoria Leigh Soto, the hero. She is th...Remember Victoria Leigh Soto, the hero. She is the cousin of the founding father, Benjamin Franklin!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8977511905662412472012-12-22T08:13:32.819-08:002012-12-22T08:13:32.819-08:00Steve, might want to check the spam filter. :)
My...<i>Steve, might want to check the spam filter. :)</i><br /><br />My bad, I guess it was the whim filter.Svigornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19062821854461690352012-12-21T09:13:59.803-08:002012-12-21T09:13:59.803-08:00Anyone who thinks that guns give the U.S military/...<em>Anyone who thinks that guns give the U.S military/government a reason to fear the people is deluded....</em><br /><br />No one's saying that a few shotguns and hunting rifles will allow you to hold off the armed might of Uncle Sam. If they're determined to come get you, they'll do so, and you'll go down. (As George Carlin said, they have all the flamethrowers.) But an armed populace means that they can't do it quietly and without risk. The cultists at Waco were able to hold off the first charge so the cameras had time to get there and force them to play it straight (to some extent). The people involved had to explain themselves to Congress and the media, though that was more of a show trial than it should have been.<br /><br />A gun gives you a chance to decide whether to go peacefully or to be a noisy martyr, at least. That may be small comfort if you or someone you care about is the target, but it's better than being dragged away quietly in the middle of the night and have your neighbors wonder what happened.Cail Corishevhttp://cailcorishev.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38906507830567828322012-12-21T07:48:02.458-08:002012-12-21T07:48:02.458-08:00Steve, might want to check the spam filter. :)Steve, might want to check the spam filter. :)Svigornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-3815338122009860222012-12-20T20:44:45.913-08:002012-12-20T20:44:45.913-08:00I am late to the dance, but nevertheless, to Anon,...I am late to the dance, but nevertheless, to Anon, 12/19, 2:39:<br /><br />God alone knows the scale of wanton depravity carried out in Africa, in Asia, in pre-Columbian America, in aboriginal Australia, but there are tantalizing hints (when it doesn’t erupt fully into view, as in the unpleasantness in Rwanda). White men, as both possessors of a conscience that would (and does) condemn such depravity and inventors of the various media that disseminate both the news and the condemnation, no doubt come off badly in your eyes.Forgot My Alias Againnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47736749645030121002012-12-20T18:25:47.607-08:002012-12-20T18:25:47.607-08:00Whoever it was who told me about the Battle of Ath...Whoever it was who told me about the Battle of Athens, thank you. I learned something. Thank you also for keeping it civil.<br /><br />Other than that, however, this comment thread has not felt like an isteve comment thread. It felt like I had been transported back to the common room of a university. Liberals snarl at people they don't agree with and use personal ad hominem attacks all the time. They also love to pick apart their opponents' spelling and grammar. The only difference here is that stupidity is measured according to whether or not you have a detailed knowledge of semi-automatic and automatic weaponry. Those of us who are not gun-nuts divide weapons into two types. Those that can be used multiple times without being reloaded and those that can't. Picking people up on minor points of semantics is a favourite liberal ploy to derail arguments they don't like. Don't you think we non-PCers should set ourselves higher standards.2Degreesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-27165454336245930982012-12-20T17:24:00.738-08:002012-12-20T17:24:00.738-08:00From Auster's (via another site):
We protect ...From Auster's (via another site):<br /><br /><i>We protect our mayors with men with guns; we protect our governors with men with guns; we protect the House and the Senate and the President, with men with guns; we protect our courts, our banks, our jewelry stores, our sports arenas, and our pawn shops, all with men with guns.<br /><br />However, our most precious possessions, our children, we protect with a piece of paper and a sign (the Gun Free Zone law).<br /><br />Now, in response to the slaughter of 20 innocents, we propose to punish those (gun owners) who are innocent, and protect our most cherished possession, our children, with a another piece of paper (a new gun law).</i><br /><br />Big-wig politicos get to arm their bodyguards with "assault weapons," but we don't. We don't have the right to protect ourselves with the same arms our betters use to protect themselves. Now the gun-grabbers want to further degrade our legal standing toward that of serf, to further widen the divide between the haves and have-nots.<br /><br />Gun-grabbing pols get the full right to bear arms, but don't think you should.Svigornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69564241683425135762012-12-20T12:58:00.509-08:002012-12-20T12:58:00.509-08:00Severn, point taken, but I believe that the main d...Severn, point taken, but I believe that the main difference from my posts from the day before and others that I complain about is that my insulting statements were about people's ideas (the one exception was when I called pro-lifers sick, which I'll now say went too far). For example, saying "you make an idiotic argument" is different from "you are an idiot." If someone calls my argument idiotic, I'll still engage with him if I think he's still arguing in good faith. Ditto if he responds to something I said with sarcasm and that sarcasm expresses a substantive point. But if someone calls me an idiot, there is nothing to be gained from continuing the conversation. Similarly, discussing whether certain ideas show misogynistic tendencies is relevant to a discussion of how conservatives are perceived by women. <br /><br />I'm not saying that we all have to be Miss Manners all the time, but blatant insults in the second person have no redeeming qualities to them and destroy the quality of discourse in ways other forms of incivility do not. <br />HARnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83348728310022566572012-12-20T12:35:34.937-08:002012-12-20T12:35:34.937-08:00NOTA said...”Otis: It's quite possible that th...NOTA said...”Otis: It's quite possible that those drugs help out their patients on average, but have ugly effects at the extreme ends...So few people go on a rampage that it would probably be really hard to figure out whether there is some drug that, say, makes you ten times as likely to go shoot up the nearest mall or school. “<br /><br />Yes, agreed. Assistant Village Idiot made the truthful statement that I don’t know a lot about mental illness, however my point was that Lanza was obviously disturbed, as was the guy in the Colorado movie theater, as was the Va Tech killer, as were the Columbine kids, etc. If we’re serious about preventing these awful events – and despite their statistical infrequency, I think we should be – it would seem that focusing on the people that are far more likely to commit such crimes would be a better start than doubling down on gun control, which we all know doesn’t prevent crime but does prevent the law-abiding from defending themselves.<br /><br />The term “anti-depressants” is a broad one and I don’t doubt that on average, they are helpful. However as you state, we know some people turn suicidal, others turn homicidal. Different people react differently to various drugs and it needs to be monitored much more closely. That certainly makes more sense than monitoring my guns. <br /><br />Your point in a different post about the “mainstreaming” of weird or disturbed people was a good one. It jibes with what I said somewhere above – there is nothing “compassionate” about pretending that mentally ill people are just fine. Otis McWrongnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77096580313546469332012-12-20T12:27:56.492-08:002012-12-20T12:27:56.492-08:00Although Tarantino's movies are extremely viol...Although Tarantino's movies are extremely violent, I don't think the main culprit for the proliferation of mass shootings. Video games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto are worse: you can kill civilians, insult other gamers, and play from first-person perspective. Video games have changed a lot from when I was a kid in the 90s, and everyone enjoyed playing the Sims and Civilization...Even violent video games were not very realistic then. Now supposed conservatives buy Call of Duty for their 10 year old sons. <br /><br />As far as media goes it's worth noting that maybe the popularity of anti-heroes/villains has something to do with all this? They aren't just for HBO/AMC, they are featured in movies/television aimed at young people too. After all, the only movie that comes to mind in which children were massacred by a main character was in the last Star Wars prequel. anonyianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47185929034352622922012-12-20T12:00:10.577-08:002012-12-20T12:00:10.577-08:00"Foreigners: The Second Amendment, like all o..."Foreigners: The Second Amendment, like all of the Bill of Rights, is about political rights, not hunting or stopping robbers. The Founders thought that the government should have reason to fear the people. This is plainly discussed in The Federalist, the series of articles written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. It is authoritative on the meaning of the Constitution, being written by the Constitution's authors, and published in order to convince the people that they ought support the new government. "<br /><br />That may be the original intent, but it is pretty irrelevant now. Guns actually have their best uses/justification for hunting or stopping criminals. That's why I own a gun. Anyone who thinks that guns give the U.S military/government a reason to fear the people is deluded....Anonyianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69973694995883652682012-12-20T11:55:23.161-08:002012-12-20T11:55:23.161-08:00This law review,"Of Holocausts and Gun Contro...This law review,"Of Holocausts and Gun Control,75 Wash.U.L.Q. 1237(online)" raises some interesting points such as this:<br />"but it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed."<br />http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/75-3/753-4.html<br /><br />What most gun control advocates want is a government controlled monopoly on lethal violence. Then the dangerous assumption they are positing is that the government, although it changes hands every four or two or six years will always be benign. Remember, the pendulum swings and the government you like today can be the tyrant who hates you, and your kind, tomorrow. Ask the Jewish people of WW2 Europe or the Armenians in Turkey or how about the Cambodians of the seventies if they thought their governing apparatus was going to turn on them lethally?<br />Do you want that tyrant to have a monopoly on lethal violence?<br />That is the very point of military style weapons in the hands of many many civilians, there will be no Holocaust of a disarmed minority if there is no monopoly. You want at least a duopoly on the use of lethal violence and yes, it is messy but there is no Utopia, and never will be. I think Samuel Butler called it Erewhon or Nowhere.<br /><br />Also R.J. Rummel wrote a book, online called" Death by government" where he enumerates the 170 million deaths by government(he calls it Democide) in the 20th Century.<br />http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTMConatushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12543138570489872681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16858216135090742972012-12-20T11:11:27.145-08:002012-12-20T11:11:27.145-08:00the shooter was mentally ill - politicians made th...the shooter was mentally ill - politicians made this into a gun control issue when it's actually about mental illness AND how DIFFICULT it is to involuntarily COMMIT someone. the laws changed a few decades ago to give the disabled MORE rights - & that's the problem!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40308647928955196802012-12-20T11:04:54.932-08:002012-12-20T11:04:54.932-08:00There have been mass shootings and other horrible ...There have been mass shootings and other horrible attacks for a very long time. I think Steve's basically right that before TV news, they were just not given the same kind of saturation coverage. I think this kind of attack is very much subject to copycat sorts of behavior--the next nut immerses himself in a week of intense 24/7 coverage of this mass-shooting, and then decides that now, he finally knows how to make them all take him seriously and be sorry they weren't nicer to him. (Or whatever.) So the constant coverage of it probably does more harm than good, though that's not something that can be fixed within the law thanks to the first amendment. <br /><br />Two other things that might have some impact:<br /><br />a. Mainstreaming and attemtps to keep various weird or unusual people in the same schools and workplaces as more normal people. I have no idea if this is important, but it has changed noticably in the last 30 years. <br /><br />b. We're a richer society now than 50 or 100 years ago, which makes it easier for more marginal people to buy a gun. I wonder how easy it was for a marginally-functional guy sweeping floors for a living to afford a handgun in, say, 1920. <br /><br />c. The end of the draft (a good thing overall, I'd say) means that in many places full of people, you will not have anyone there who has ever had any military training, or any particular experience with guns. I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes, but it probably makes some--at the extreme end, I have to guess that trying a mass-shooting in a roomfull of combat veterans works out worse than trying it on a roomfull of college kids. NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40502965765365461282012-12-20T10:50:15.192-08:002012-12-20T10:50:15.192-08:00Otis:
It's quite possible that those drugs he...Otis:<br /><br />It's quite possible that those drugs help out their patients on average, but have ugly effects at the extreme ends. I seem to recall this is a problem with some antidepressants, which make most people who take them feel better, but also slightly raise the rate of suicide. So few people go on a rampage that it would probably be really hard to figure out whether there is some drug that, say, makes you ten times as likely to go shoot up the nearest mall or school. <br /><br />Kylie:<br /><br />For a short-term problem (someone breaking into your house at night, a riot that ends when the national guard shows up in a couple days), a gun or two can help you, personally, and there would be little benefit to handing them out. In long-term disorder, a single person or small family can't stand along, guns or no. You have to sleep sometime, you can't stay locked behind walls all the time, and once the bad guys get organized, they can show up with a lot more people than you can fight off, and they can do that piecemeal to every house on the block if necessary. <br /><br />For that, as well as for some kind of uprising, you'd need a bigger group. A bunch of neighbors banded together can manage to keep a patrol going all the time, and can call out everyone in a pinch. And of course, that same pattern recurs--that's why there are nations, after all. A big enough band of warlords can swallow up whole towns one at a time, while the other towns sit behind their walls waiting their turn, and that's just as true now as before anyone invented guns. NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20561460255418995172012-12-20T10:38:59.331-08:002012-12-20T10:38:59.331-08:00Anon 1:49 am:
First, gun ownership has nothing to...Anon 1:49 am:<br /><br />First, gun ownership has nothing to do with hate speech laws. You can have laws criminalizing speech alongside widespread gun ownership, and we've had them here. We don't now because of a combination of the first amendment, a fairly activist set of courts and judges, and people willing to spend a lot of money fighting those laws in court. If you want to thank someone for not sending James Watson to jail for politically incorrect speech, go thank the ACLU. The NRA had nothing to do with it. <br /><br />Second, despite the fact that some of those countries (not all) have hate-speech laws and holocaust-denier laws--both very bad ideas I'm glad we don't have--they are still about as free as we are. Germany and Switzerland and Denmark and France and Spain and Belgium and Sweden have real, live opposition parties and press, which are not locked up for saying the wrong things. From what I can see, the press in the UK is quite a bit less muzzled, overall, than ours is--that's probably a lot more about culture and history than about laws, which are much more restrictive in the UK than in the US. More broadly, they also have much smaller frations of their citizens locked up in jails, fewer armed raids in the middle of the night on their citizens, etc.<br /><br />Armed citizens matter in the case where the government is doing something very unpopular, so that the uprising and civil war starts out with some guns, or so that the government fears using force to put down widespread protests. They don't matter much at all in the case where the government is doing something broadly acceptable to the public, whether that's sending jackbooted thugs raiding the homes of alleged small-time pot dealers, or arresting someone for giving money to the wrong charity (something we do thanks to the War on Terror and its two fathers, Bush and Obama.) NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19267444162287825702012-12-20T08:36:36.478-08:002012-12-20T08:36:36.478-08:00If any iStever's are interested in 2A issues, ...If any iStever's are interested in 2A issues, or just guns in general, check out: <br /><br />thetruthaboutguns.com. <br /><br />The site has heavy traffic, with lots of commentary. And while it is a mainstream website, the owner does not have a heavy hand and allows comments that admumbrate the issues Steve talks about. <br /><br />For instance, there was a fairly honest discusion of black crime rates at the time of the Zimmerman fiasco. Keep in mind, though, it is mainstream, so you do run into the usual bunch of self appointed PC enforcer types. <br /><br />With regards to gun toting teachers, check out Hickock45 on youtube. He makes fun and informative gun videos, and is a Tenn. English teacher. <br /><br />As for arming teachers, handgun vs. long gun rarely works out in the favor of the guy with the Glock, but it certainly is better than rushing a homicidal maniac with an AR-15 while armed with nothing but love.Just another guy with a 1911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41224600698640648502012-12-20T08:30:14.520-08:002012-12-20T08:30:14.520-08:00what is the justification for having something lik...<i>what is the justification for having something like the Bushmaster .223 legal? I just read at CNN that it can fire up to 40 or 45 bullets in a minute.</i> <br /><br /><br />You think that's a lot? You can fire 40 or 45 bullets in a minute from a revolver. <a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jerry+miculex+&mid=1E626B1A8D49B9CDFCA51E626B1A8D49B9CDFCA5&view=detail&FORM=VIRE2" rel="nofollow">Here</a> is a video clip of a man firing 12 shots in three seconds from a revolver - that works out to 240 rounds a minute.<br /><br />You don't know anything about guns. That's not a "insult" - it's just a fact.Severnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80017634483513664252012-12-20T08:13:14.878-08:002012-12-20T08:13:14.878-08:00Half Sigma does a pretty good job of not posting c...<i> Half Sigma does a pretty good job of not posting comments that are insulting and have little substance. He doesn't censor everything that can be interpreted as rude or insulting, but you rarely see something as simple minded as "Wow you leftists are really stupid!"</i> <br /><br /><br />The remarks you find objectionable say a lot about you.<br /><br />You don't seem to have a problem with outright lies, such as "What is new is the use of automatic weapons".<br /><br />You don't seem to have a problem with insults either, as long as they are insults aimed at people on the right. For example, "One thing you quickly learn by living somewthere like Austria, Germany or Switzerland is what apalling idiots most American gun owners are".<br /><br />And here are some samples of your own insulting tendencies. <br /><br /><i>.. the war against abortion and birthcontrol that Republicans have engaged in is truly sickening</i> <br /><br /><i>.. the posters here identify with "Team Red." So even if they understand why pro-lifers are wrong on an intellectual level, they don't comprehend how sick those people really are</i> <br /><br /><i>.. in a society where all other medical needs are subsidized by employers and the government, getting mad about one kind of pill exclusively used by women shows misogynistic tendencies</i> <br /><br /><br />You are the one who wandered in here and started tossing insults around. Perhaps in your liberal cocoon calling people on the right "sick" and "sickening" and "misogynistic" is considered as obviously correct as calling water wet and fire hot. But all you're really doing is proudly flaunting your own biases and calling them Truth.Severnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62176550217756502862012-12-20T08:04:50.288-08:002012-12-20T08:04:50.288-08:00@ Whiskey,
Well said, particularly this:
"...@ Whiskey,<br /><br />Well said, particularly this: <br /><br /><i>"White women live in a world..."</i>--<b>given to them by white men</b>--<i>"...where their social power of ostracism and exclusion works wonderfully -- on normal, sane, non-violent middle class White guys (which is one reason they really despise them). It fails dramatically when it leaves those guys, but they don't see it. They can't see it. Its worked all their lives so they can't figure it could ever fail."</i><br /><br />OT but that, in a nutshell, explains the increasing numbers of clueless white women hooking up with black men here in the US. They just love the danger, the difference, the otherness of black men. And even after things have gone Very Wrong, as they so often do, those clueless white women still don't get that they weren't dealing with white men in blackface, they were dealing with black men.Kylienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88394715061745589812012-12-20T07:56:23.744-08:002012-12-20T07:56:23.744-08:00Whiskey - White women live in a world where their ...Whiskey - <i>White women live in a world where their social power of ostracism and exclusion works wonderfully -- on normal, sane, non-violent middle class White guys (which is one reason they really despise them). It fails dramatically when it leaves those guys, but they don't see it. They can't see it. Its worked all their lives so they can't figure it could ever fail.</i><br /><br />Exactly right mate!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81362301672535714152012-12-20T07:43:48.851-08:002012-12-20T07:43:48.851-08:00"Ex Submarine Officer said...
People in my l..."Ex Submarine Officer said...<br /><br />People in my liberal Maryland will ask me, "What do you need a gun for?".<br /><br />I always respond, "What do you need a DOG for? Are you herding sheep?"."<br /><br />That's good. I'll have to remember that.<br /><br />Actually, their fondness for dogs is one thing I can understand about extreme liberals. If all my aquaintances were stridently liberal, I would welcome the company of dogs too.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69819269854855399082012-12-20T07:11:53.847-08:002012-12-20T07:11:53.847-08:00The media role in making Jack the Ripper famous as...The media role in making Jack the Ripper famous as the "first serial killer" also indicates how technology changes perception. <br /><br />The murders happened just after the popular press developed. The British press is known as "Fleet Street" because they were located there to be near the courts where so many colourful stories originate. Whitechapel, the barbarous slum where the Ripper murders happend is a short walk from Fleet street. If they had happened elsewhere I doubt they would have been seriously reported.<br /><br />Indeed the press played a greater role than merely reporting. It is a well known secret that the "Jack the Ripper" letter was actually written by a journalist (there was an earlier but less interesting letter which is possibly genuine). <br /><br />Without that letter we would not have the name and indeed without the entire campaign not all of the murders would have been attributed to one person - murders of prostitutes were and still are common in such places.neil craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09157898238945726349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40781854051742848742012-12-20T07:04:32.271-08:002012-12-20T07:04:32.271-08:00"As far as the women at Sandy Hook go, brave ..."As far as the women at Sandy Hook go, brave but useless. What exactly did they accomplish? Did they stop the guy from killing kids? No. Women in a brutal fight are totally useless, it takes men and armed men at that to stop armed killers. Plain and simple. "<br /><br />Actually, the reports I read indicate that it is likely that at least one of the teachers died saving some of her children's lives. Then again, I've been reading about events from the NYT, CNN, etc. so according to many here I should take it all with a grain of salt, being much better off relying on Whiskey's theorizing to understand what all women everywhere are doing. Then perhaps I'll go to National Vanguard to get an accurate picture of the Jews, and go to Gawker to learn what white males are up to...HARnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82566277559163895942012-12-20T05:59:28.565-08:002012-12-20T05:59:28.565-08:00You needn't publish this, but that Taki articl...You needn't publish this, but that Taki article is one of your greatest hits in my opinion, gotta dig around in the change purse to send you something, thanks for the great work!Evil Sandmichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06094558583013380137noreply@blogger.com