The gun issue is a classic example of how what I call the Dirt Gap divides up the U.S. into thinly populated Red Regions and densely populated Blue Regions. I wrote in The American Conservative back in 2004 in "Baby Gap:"
The endless gun-control brouhaha, which on the surface appears to be a bitter battle between liberal and conservative whites, also features a cryptic racial angle. What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety. Red-region white conservatives, insulated by distance from the Crips and the Bloods, don’t care that white liberals’ kids are in peril. Besides, in sparsely populated Republican areas, where police response times are slow and the chances of drilling an innocent bystander are slim, guns make more sense for self-defense than in the cities and suburbs.
White liberals, angered by white conservatives’ lack of racial solidarity with them, yet bereft of any vocabulary for expressing such a verboten concept, pretend that they need gun control to protect them from gun-crazy rural rednecks, such as the ones Michael Moore demonized in “Bowling for Columbine,” thus further enraging red-region Republicans.
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153 comments:
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
***"White liberals, angered by white conservatives’ lack of racial solidarity with them"***
The lack of racial solidarity goes distinctly in the OTHER direction, I think. The white liberals demonized white identity and white solidarity and made it a verboten subject, so they can hardly complain now when white conservatives don't rally to their support.
Also you are overselling the lack of utility of guns for self-protection in urban and suburban environments. A shotgun works perfectly well as a house or apartment defense gun, with little need to worry about birdshot traveling through walls to kill innocent bystanders accidentally.
Likewise "shall issue" concealed carry laws have greatly increased the numbers of handguns one is likely to encounter in public places in urban areas, and the "wild west" scenarios that the hoplophobes predicted have not come to pass. More guns, less crime. This works just as well in blue state urban areas as it does in red state urban ares.
You can't neatly divide this into a red state vs. blue state thing because the red states have lots of urban areas, just as the blue states have lots of rural areas. Police response times are quite slow in urban areas, too; you are not protected. Police are there to clean up the mess, tag the corpses, and arrest the bad guys after you're dead, if they can find them. Their job isn't to protect you, as the courts have already established.
There are lots of other ways white liberals can protect themselves that don't involve banning guns as an indirect way of disarming blacks (which won't work anyway, since criminals won't obey the gun laws), but they won't consider them for reasons that have to do with their blinkered ideology.
heh
"but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys."
actually they're a very oddly specific subset of white or white-ish guys with similar psychological issues and medication.
"If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys."
...living in lefty urban areas. Diversity leaves young white males feeling alienated, but the white pychos avoid shooting minorities to avoid being called racist. On the other hand, minority mass murderers like the Ft Hood Shooter and Omar what's his name feel free to make a statement by killing as many whites as possible.
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
The victims of spree killings constitute a tiny percentage of all homicide victims. Except for a short time period after one of these rare massacres occur, no one worries about spree killers. Gun control is usually about the 99%+ of gun violence that is unrelated to spree killings.
LA homicide report
Baltimore Murderland
BOO: The mass shootings account for just a small part of the total fatal shootings. Black people are 7 times as common among convicted murderers.
Anon,
"You can't neatly divide this into a red state vs. blue state thing because the red states have lots of urban areas, just as the blue states have lots of rural areas. Police response times are quite slow in urban areas, too; you are not protected. Police are there to clean up the mess, tag the corpses, and arrest the bad guys after you're dead, if they can find them. Their job isn't to protect you, as the courts have already established. "
This is another area where New York is unique. The NYPD prevents a lot of violent crime before it happens, through its Stop & Frisk policy, which Steve has written about, it's "broken-windows" policy (cracking down on petty crimes, which sends miscreants up river before they escalate to violent crimes), and its massive street presence in areas where tourists and upscale folks might get targeted.
Viewing this matter from a safe distance across the pond, I wonder why decisions on gun control laws can't be left to individual states. OK, OK, I know that would require amendment of the Second Amendment, and it is incredibly difficult to amend the Constitution unless you want to do something really stupid, like Prohibition, but isn't this one amendment that might be broadly popular? In states where a strong majority is anti-gun-control, people would welcome an unambiguous provision that takes the Federal government and legislature out of the picture, while in states where a majority is pro-gun-control they would welcome the freedom to do what they think best for their own circumstances. State-based gun controls would of course have to override freedom of inter-state commerce, but that is not a problem in principle.
Here's a spree for you, Boo: 500 Chicago deaths in 2012.
Hmm interesting angle. Say, who is that distinguished looking gentleman now pictured on the blog?
I'm glad I'm not a pundit, because I would catch it from both ends.
When it comes to guns, assault rifles are utterly useless for non-military things. None. There are no uses.
They are not useful for hunting. Not for self-defense. Unless that zombie horde actually does pop up, or the Crips are moving in on your territory.
They aren't even useful for people who want to fight "tyranny," or even "The Man."
There have been plenty of authoritarian countries with high rates of gun ownership, usually the ubiquitous AK-47. Iraq is one. There are others, particularly in the Mideast.
Survivalists or whatever they are called now are barking up the wrong tree. Not only would they not be able to oppose a government backed military that is willing to employ what we might call "draconian measures," they even misunderstand the threat. I'd say the current trend of the US government is kind of like a phase change to a more authoritative, intrusive one (similar to England).
But the tactics and strategies used aren't going to be anything so gauche as stormtroopers occupying your god loving hamlet. There are so many other tools available now, my head spins thinking about them.
That is a long winded way to say that assault rifles, or a rifle that can be rigged to become one (Wink* Wink*) should be illegal.
As for the rest of it, I'd say you are right about the urban/rural divide on guns, as well as the racial angle.
However both sides have good arguments in my opinion. If you pay attention to news that doesn't blow up into a media frenzy there is nothing more common or sad than some drunk person picking up a handgun and blowing someone away for something that would have seemed silly if they were sober.
And the urban thugs that use guns really aren't going through the whole permitting process.
Honestly I think this is a non-issue. I'm not going to look up any stats, but my impression is that the number of people who die due to mass killings like the current one are utterly dwarfed by people who die due to smoking, obesity, and car accidents. Heck if the 55 mph speed limit came back, that might save more people's lives than a total ban on guns.
Let's get real about the true significance of this tragedy though. The real purpose it serves is to give the networks something to dwell on ad infinitum for a while. Just like they did with Casey Anthony, or any other number of stories.
Ole Petraeus has to be kind of relieved this story came along. Now he is down the memory hole. Heck he might even be rehabbed a bit down the road, depending on his networking skills, which appear to be excellent.
The problem with your theory is that it relies on the "rational voter hypothesis." Basically, it says that people vote their interests. The best evidence actually suggests that people vote for what makes them feel good.
The logic goes like this
1) The odds of one vote affecting the outcome of an election are 0%; therefore
2) the costs of voting against one's own interests are zero; therefore
3) The only benefit to voting is that it makes you feel good. There is no incentive to be rational
That's the theoretically gist of it. Empirically, there is little to no correlation between objective interests and how one votes. See here for a sum up of a good book on the subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
Also, this article imagines a duplicity on the part of liberals that does not exist. Very few people sit around thinking "Here's what I'm supposed to say I think. But here's how the world really works." Humans evolved to accept the taboos and illogical prejudices of their society and social class, and never question them.
If liberals were as brilliant and devious as Sailer imagines, they would not participate in the political process anyway, since, like I said, for the vast majority of people the costs of participation outweigh the benefits.
It's funny how often political initiatives boomerang back on their proponents. Few people remember that the differential treatment of Crack cocaine sentencing was championed by the Urban League and Cong Black Caucus to get tough on the "blight of Crack on our neighborhoods", and it was standard talking points at the time to blame Reagan for "not getting tough, not caring about our people and ignoring the plight of our cities".
Mark my words, 20 years from now, the standard revision of history will be that White men and the hard right, after getting all the guns they could ever need, and sensing their power slipping away, "tricked" Obama in passing gun control and essentially closing the door behind them as they left power. Now, all their guns and mags are grandfatherered in, and everyone else gets hassled. I also see things like mandatory criminal background checks and the refusal to give concealed weapons for "minor" criminal offenses being pointed to as a disparate impact/racism issue at some point, just like criminal background checks for hiring is being challenged by the Justice department today. I love it when liberals, unable to think more than a move or two ahead, tie themselves all up in knots...
"What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety..."
You're saying these "blue-region white liberals" are not smart enough to competently read crime statistics, and discern that 83% of white murder victims are killed by whites?
Well, about 5 years ago, Gun Control lose its important. But people are now among whites more left or right. I'm on the middle its ok to have guns but I don't see anything wrong with a background check since I have background checks when I apply for jobs.
Well, that's not true, gun control is popular in a lot of mainly white states, like Vermont or Washington, just DC or New York Or Ill with the dangerous black. California has the dangerous Mexican and Central American ganga, the black gangs are much smaller.
Also, Red Southern states have a lot of blacks and of course TExas also has its share of Mexcian and Central American gangs.
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
Spree shooter victims are a very small percentage of gun crime victims.
The spree shootings probably have more influence on white leftist's views on gun rights than regular criminals do. Most urban shootings are blacks killing blacks, and white people definitely don't care or hear about that. But they overestimate the probability of them or their kids getting shot in a spree killing because these stories are covered so much in the infotainment they watch on Good Morning America.
Yeah, I gotta say that here Occam's razor would say that the push for gun control is about controlling these mass shootings. When you've got 20 overwhelmingly white dead little kids, you are going to get a reaction from parents. Telling them how rare these events are, their virtual non-existence in terms of overall murder stats, isn't gonna work.
I do think, however, there is a lot of symbolic politics going on here. The Narrative after the AZ shooting could be blamed on the 'climate of hat'e' in that state, Sarah Palin's map, etc. Here we have good blue-state, Obama voting folks being victimized. So the only one left to blame is the gun owner.
What is interesting, the 10 largest counties, Romeny only won two Maricopia and Orange, Romeny even lost Harris County Tx. Large metro areas support gun control more but the Texas ones probably don't except for the Democratic politicans. Republicans need to become more competative again in urban counties. If you don't want libs to ban all guns them you have to become more competitive in Urban-Suburban counties.
A lot of people who like guns are primarily into them because they are mechanically fascianting and often a sort of work of art. I have something like two hundred guns. I don't carry in public, don't hunt and go shooting maybe three timea a year. I figure my gun collection is my retirement plan since they go up in value and can always be fairly readily sold.
"White liberals, angered by white conservatives’ lack of racial solidarity with them....."
That's a howler, Steve. It's the white liberals who have a poor sense of racial solidarity, not the other way round.
And firearms are just as useful for protecting yourself in town as well as country. If your house is in the city, you are no more likely to injure an innocent bystander with a handgun firing typical loads, or a shotgun firing shot, than you would be if your house was in the country. To a certain extent that would apply to an apartment in the city too.
And the second amendment does not guarantee our right to own firearms merely for self-protection against crime (though that is one of its purposes), and certainly not only for hunting. It is intended to insure an armed citizenry, as a check on the tyranical impulses of those who would govern us. The opinion of the political elite in this country is that, absent weaponry, we are just schmucks - serfs to be lorded over.
"If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys."
Sailer's making a point about gun crime in general. These mad shooting sprees account for very few gun deaths overall. Most gun deaths are because of urban criminals.
"BOO said...
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys."
By majority to you intend to mean that whites are disproportionately responsible for such shootings. Because that is now clearly not the case. Take the most notorious and deadly mass-shootings over the last few years: Virginia Tech, Ft. Hood, Hartford, Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown. White guys were responsible in only three of those six incidents.
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
You still believe that liberal myth?
Google these names:
* Colin Ferguson
* Omar Thornton
* Seung-Hui Cho
* Nidal Malik Hassan
* Byran Koji Uyesugi
* Maurice Clemons
* Charles Lee Thornton
* Clifton McCree
* Hasting Wise
* William Baker
* Nathan Dunlop
* Arturo Reyes Torres
* Gang Lu
* James Edward Pough
* Abdelkrim Belachheb
* Jiverly Voong
* Jing Hua Wu
* Chai Vang
* Peter Odighizuwa
* Lee Malvo & John Mohammad
* Julio Gonzalez
* Abdelkrim Belachheb
* Humberto de la Torre
Actually, blacks are also far more likely to be serial killers (3+ victims with cooling off period) than whites. It's just that they're more boring serial killers. Black serial killers are not diabolical fiends disguised as the mild-mannered suburbanite. They're simply diabolical fiends who act like diabolical fiends killing various "friends" throughout their lives.
The liberal types have always had a sneering attitude towards conservative types, looking down their noses at them. Their leader Obama also slammed them all, saying they clung to their guns and bibles, revealing a very derogatory attitude towards them and their values that just oozed out of him. It seems he thinks both are bad and should be gotten rid of, first the guns and then the bibles. But he's never come out against black gangsta rap and it's subculture, things which may actually have caused some harm.
There's a lot of wishful thinking out there; just pass a law and everyone complies. We're into what year of the drug war and drugs come in more reliably and in greater quantity than ever before. The libs are just reacting emotionally with no grounding in reality: go away icky guns, icky people, icky religion.
I applaud you Steve for putting a real name and face on your blog: you're willing to stand by what you write. Can't say the same for others.
This is one of those iSteve posts that I think goes down the delusional lane.
I would only add that it isn't just the children of white liberals in our big cities who are in need of protection. Let's give those liberals a little more moral credit.
BOO,
Whites are actually NOT overrepresented as spree killers or mass murderers. They're just not underrepresented like they are for homicide in general. Yes, a majority are white but that majority is no more than the majority that white people are in the population at large.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBG1BT-3_X4
Russian 'coming apart'. Class division movie. More depressing than Kurosawa's High and Low.
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/roger-scruton-fake-culture/
Art has pickled the shark.
Well, shouldn't the current policy of resettling urban project housing residents into mid-sized and even rural areas shift everyone toward more gun control? Might not Parisification close the dirt gap in this respect?
"White liberals, angered by white conservatives’ lack of racial solidarity with them..."
Actually, given how insane and hypocritical (and oblivious to it all) white liberals are, it wouldn't surprise me that they could constantly slander rural whites, try to control the lives of them in every way, and think nothing of pushing all manner of destructive policies on them like disparate impact, etc, and then actually be angry that the rural whites don't give urban liberal whites 100% support to them on issues that they want. Even their arguments against gun rights are bigoted slurs against rural whites.
It is fun to see them constantly contort their arguments against gun control along politically correct lines, though. Yeah, its the white good ol' boy with a family of 4 in Wyoming who works a 9-5 and goes deer hunting on the weekends a few weeks of the year who poses the dangerous threat to you in NYC.
Steve, I would remove that very nice picture of you with the red tie (though it shows you should run for office). The mystery of you (who is this genius? what does he look like?) is part of your allure. Take it down. And it opens the door for more ad hominem attacks by PC thugs.
We already have a Federal law that disarms most urban worrisome blacks.
Felon-in-possession.
And whenever Democrats get in power, enforcement thereof sinks, because of "disparate impact."
Not every black ex-con caught with a gun is sent to Federal prison. Often, the local cops will hold that charge as the sword of Damocles over their heads, turn them around and turn them into stool pidgeons. So that when there is a murder, the cops can easily triangulate to the doer(s).
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
There's a greater likelihood for urban and suburban residents to get victimized by minority gun crime than mass shooting gun crime.
Steve's take is interesting, but I generally in more agreement with @anon 1:56am.
This is what makes the latest liberal frenzy for a legislative remedy to the Lanza killings so amusing (if it weren't so naked); the stacks of evidence mentioned above show most if not all the common sense assertions listed to be generally accurate, but the "reality-based community" is not one to let a good crisis escape their reach for more and more government power. Nothing more fun than forcing those red-state ignorant whites to accept the cult of global warming as the only official state religion, but we're gonna take your "assault weapons" away, too.
Best way to stop dangerous urban minorities: stop and frisk. At one point in NYC the average young black male was getting frisked every 2 months.
Also popular is to demolish public housing, block opening of low rent apartments via zoning, or convert public housing rules so they get filled up with the elderly poor, not young single mothers. Strong enforcement of parking and car registration laws makes it more expensive to own a car in an urban area, limiting crime to walking distance of home or a friends home. Gun buybacks also work well by raising the price of old used guns. I don't think a lot of murders are done with fancy new $1200 pistols.
You mean the white liberals are afraid of this?
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-885209.html
Who is James Byrd? Everybody knows.
Who is Tom Barnes? No one knows.
BOO, mass murders account for less than 1% of all murders. Much more relevant is the overall murder rate. The black murder rate is over 10x higher than the combined non-Hispanic white and Hispanic white murder rate. Furthermore, I am not aware of any statistics regarding the racial breakdown of mass murderers, but I wouldn't be so certain that whites commit mass murders at a rate disproportionate to the white percentage of the population. The black UPS/Fedex driver and the Muslim at the military come to mind, and keep in mind that whites are 70% of the population.
Yup, the numerical majority of 'active shooters' are white, kind of like America still is.
This just makes them better scapegoats than the people that wishful thinking says will be affected by gun control.
Anonymous BOO said...If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
Spree shootings are of course dramatic and terrible, but more people are killed by black hoodlums in Chicago in a single year than have been killed in sprees in the last 25 years.
I cannot concentrate on your blog with your picture there.
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
Spree shootings are blown wildly out of proportion. If you take all the victims in the US of spree shootings in the past 75 years, you'd have 500 or so victims. This year in Chicago, there will be 500 homicides, mostly by gunshot, and mostly black. This happens year in and year out in Chicago and dozens of other cities. Spree killings are nothing compared to this.
Nice photo addition. I would've bet you were a white guy.
but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
Spree killers are right up there with lightning strikes in terms of how many people they actually kill. Unfortunately they get massive press, which itself probably isn't exactly discouraging copycats.
Re: "Nice photo addition. I would've bet you were a white guy"
I suspect George Zimmerman became on object of hate because his honkie-sounding name circulated before his non-honkie mug shot became widely seen (I assumed he was a Caucasion before I saw his photo, then I realized he was a white Hisppanic [kidding]).
'Od's blud! It's Ronald Merrick, true hero of "The Jewel in the Crown!"
Areas with lots of liberals but no blacks also don't go much for gun control - look at Vermont, or the Lutheran upper midwest (MN, WI, IA), once you get away from the big cities. They're pretty liberal (though sometimes pro-life enough to vote for Republicans), but they generally don't have much in the way of gun control, and outside of their bigger cities, don't vote for it, either.
DYork:
Interesting list for LA. Jose Gallardo and Juan Solis, white men? Really?
The elderly Mrs. Galbraith shot in the hospital by her husband? I wonder what the story was there.
"I cannot concentrate on your blog with your picture there."
Is this a complaint or a confession?
Never mind. I really do not want to know.
Don't underestimate the creativity and improvisational skill of the black male.
Take away his gun and he'll still find a way to express his RAGE!
assault rifles are utterly useless for non-military things. None. There are no uses.
That's surprising to me, since I keep one for home defense. It's an excellent choice. Better than a pistol, better than a shotgun, light, maneuverable, light recoiling, high capacity, hard hitting, and with the right ammo it has less chance of over penetration.
What expertise do you have with guns, anyway? Let me guess, you looked at some scary photos on the internet, and read some ignorant reporter's third-hand mangling of the talking points of an anti-gun group. Have you practiced room-clearing with any weapon at all?
"Steve, I would remove that very nice picture of you with the red tie (though it shows you should run for office)."
He should wear a pair of shades like Peckinpah, Godard, or Kurosawa.
"I cannot concentrate on your blog with your picture there."
Cuz BIG STEVE IS WATCHING YOU?
With the facial hair gone, you look at little like James Caviezel in Person of Interest.
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
You're the one obsessing about "spree shooters". The topic is crime and gun control.
The pro/anti gun divide is largely cultural.
The antis seem to think that they have pull with the police and their needs will be looked after. They like the idea of collective action--not just for self-defense, but collective action qua collective action.
The pro-gun groups are not all comfortable with the idea of outsourcing their personal protection to the government. Perhaps because the government is a good distance away at 2 AM in a rural area, or perhaps because they suspect that police protection can be withdrawn from them for a variety of reasons, like not having enough pull with the government at budget time. There's also a lot of the traditional American orneryness.
There's some cultural signifiers in the mix, too. It's a SWPL thing to look down on those heathens with guns. You can prove you're a SWPL if you do the same!
This is another area where New York is unique. The NYPD prevents a lot of violent crime before it happens, through its Stop & Frisk policy, which Steve has written about, it's "broken-windows" policy (cracking down on petty crimes, which sends miscreants up river before they escalate to violent crimes), and its massive street presence in areas where tourists and upscale folks might get targeted.
Yeah that's what you notice when you're in New York. Cops and cop cars everywhere. NYPD has like around 40,000 officers.
Does LA have a similar heavy police presence? If not, why not? Is it because LA isn't a walkable city and everybody drives and thus is less "exposed" since they're always driving in or out of relatively secure buildings?
Steve, I would remove that very nice picture of you with the red tie (though it shows you should run for office). The mystery of you (who is this genius? what does he look like?) is part of your allure. Take it down. And it opens the door for more ad hominem attacks by PC thugs.
I agree. Take the picture down. Only give out a picture if a person asks you Mr. Sailer.
PC Thugs will hunt you down even more. Isn't a name enough?
"Diversity leaves young white males feeling alienated, but the white pychos avoid shooting minorities to avoid being called racist."
Honestly, this is bullshit. Most of the shooter types are smart, and if they thought that shooting a bunch of non-whites would solve anything or even conceived of them as a problem, they would shoot them. More likely they would copy Breivik, as what he did surely increased the personal cost on the whole liberal multicult posturing bit for leftist politicians.
Killing a bunch of random schoolchildren did none of that. All it did was ensure his name would go down in history as one of 2012's biggest assholes.
Is this a complaint or a confession?
Never mind. I really do not want to know.
I think it's because the pic is bigger than usual profile pics on blogs. And it's more intimidating than his old pic on his old site.
assault rifles are utterly useless for non-military things
Civilians in the US do not own "assault rifles".
The AR in AR-15 stands for Aramalite Rife, not for Assault Rifle. Aramalite is the name of the arms company which made a developed a number of different guns, including the AR-7, AR-10, and AR-15 rifles.
"You're saying these "blue-region white liberals" are not smart enough to competently read crime statistics, and discern that 83% of white murder victims are killed by whites?"
What would happen to that stat if you could somehow take all America's black population and sprinkle them in every suburb? The only reason that stat isn't higher is because the intersect between black enclaves and white areas is as small as it is. White flight is not caused by blacks moving into a suburb and targeting the few black neighbors they might have.
And there's a reason why SWPL buy much more home than they can afford, it ain't to prevent the 83% probability of them and theirs being murdered by a white guy.
I notice that Frank Salter has shaved of his goatee too -- is there some sort of Details for the HBD community that coordinates these things?
"I do think, however, there is a lot of symbolic politics going on here."
Of course. It doesn't take a genius to realize that there are mass shootings with regular frequency. Prepare the propaganda in advance, wait until the most egregious crime, and strike. Feinstein certainly didn't type up her AWB bill overnight. She was poised, waiting for the right opportunity.
I wonder why decisions on gun control laws can't be left to individual states.
To a large extent it is. There are some federal laws that mostly relate to selling guns across state lines. The constitution guarantees an individual right to own guns since the 2008 Heller decision in the Supreme court. But a great many states have their own laws on guns, and exactly what the states are and aren't allowed to regulate is unclear.
Connecticut has an assault weapons ban; the rifle used in the shooting was compliant with that ban. Most states allow carrying a concealed weapon with a permit; others have tried to ban the practice. California bans the private sale of guns; sales there have to go through a dealer. And so on.
There was a ridiculous federal assault weapons ban from 1994-2004. Sales of assault weapons (minus a few cosmetic features) exploded during that time, and afterwards. The AR-15 is quite probably the single most popular type of long arm rifle in America today.
The recent school shooting has caused sales to go through the roof, btw. Well over a million 30 round mags have been sold in the last few days. Factories are running flat out. Almost every AR-15 in the sales channel has been sold. Local gun stores have been stripped bare. Distributors have been ransacked. Single gun stores have sold hundreds of AR-15s. The market for stripped lower receivers (the part that legally constitutes the gun, minus barrels, stocks, bolt, and so on) is likewise through the roof.
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
White guys are under-represented among spree killers, relative to their share of the population.
Hey, TIME magazine has its own Arnold Breker.
http://timemagazine.tumblr.com/post/38488922299/this-weeks-person-of-the-year-special-issue
The free media, aka forth estate, into cult of personality. Funny how liberals are now the main practitioners of all the old fascist tricks and tropes.
Il Douche.
"The black murder rate is over 10x higher than the combined non-Hispanic white and Hispanic white murder rate."
Not true. It's a little over 7 times. Still, that's a lot. It means that it only takes an influx of blacks to make up 15% of a given formerly white suburb to double the crime rate.
The practical effect of highly crime prone minorities is analogous to a Denial Of Service (DOS) attack on the police force. Double or triple the workload on a police force, get 1/2 or 1/3 the former level of service. In areas like Detroit, they just give up.
Arno Breker.
>'there are no non-military uses for assault rifle. None. Period.'
Gophers. Rabbits. Or prairie dogs. Or rattlers, or rats at the dump, or liberals; anything from a distance, thin-skinned, and a bunch at once. When they made 'assault rifles' illegal they managed to 'accidently' word the law so it's illegal for me to take my grandkids hunting with my grand-dad's Mausers or Springfield.
If they break the NRA? Big woo. We don't run it as a cash cow. The mailing list will get a whip-round, and a new, totally unrelated magazine will start called 'Arms and the Man' or 'The American Rifleman' or something equally unrelated. Done it before, do it again.
"I agree. Take the picture down. Only give out a picture if a person asks you Mr. Sailer."
Why don't you guys and gals mind your own damn business? If Sailer wants to show his pic, he should show his pic.
But he should wear a pair of shades to look 'Men in Black' cool.
"I notice that Frank Salter has shaved of his goatee too -- is there some sort of Details for the HBD community that coordinates these things?"
When you're younger, having beard makes you look older and wiser.
As you grow older, losing the beard makes you look younger.
You know what would be rad? If Sailer got a mohawk haircut.
Steve, interesting comment from your fan base. I read the above comment to mean that when white males shoot other white males, it is the NAMS that are to blame. But if I am mis characterizing this let me know.
___________
From the above:
"If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys."
...living in lefty urban areas. Diversity leaves young white males feeling alienated, but the white pychos avoid shooting minorities to avoid being called racist
I wonder if there is a racial angle to the fact the media has such a circus over a school shooting where the shooter is white while managing to downplay the fact that most shooters are usually non-white. Of course, it's reasonable that people react more emotionally to a massacre of children, but I wonder if what they are reacting to is merely the massacre or the symbolism behind the massacre, which is that we live in an extremely violent society even when there are no massacres. We can't really collectively mourn that fact except in the aftermath of a massacre, though.
So the image of a dangerous madman in the media is a twenty year old white male; the image of the champion of guns is a middle age white male; and the political outcry is to limit a type of weapon which has little to do with the everyday violence.
"The practical effect of highly crime prone minorities is analogous to a Denial Of Service (DOS) attack on the police force...In areas like Detroit they just give up.
Here in Toronto some police have a term for it when they encounter black thugs, "FIDO". F*** IT, DRIVE ON.
"Yeah that's what you notice when you're in New York. Cops and cop cars everywhere. NYPD has like around 40,000 officers.
Does LA have a similar heavy police presence? If not, why not? Is it because LA isn't a walkable city and everybody drives and thus is less "exposed" since they're always driving in or out of relatively secure buildings?"
The LAPD has about 10k officers, and LA has about 4 million residents, so NYC has about twice as many cops on a per capital basis.
Wow, Steve is quite handsome.
Your shirt collar is much too small, though, and the red tie is ugly.
Yo Steve, what's with that tight collar? Looks like you're depriving yourself of oxygen. Or are you trying to get that NFL look by making your neck bulge out?
My state of IL has good dirt.
Steve,
Yours remains the only honest analysis of the gun debate in this country. Well done.
(Although the rural folks like the guns for huntin' too)
The new picture lacks somewhat the life-of-the-mind Feynman-esque charm of the (ancient) iSteve.com photo. It really does look like a Law & Order villain. I recognize this may be a conscious choice
The trolling of "BOO" is getting tiresome. I thought he'd give up after his initial display (it is almost certainly a he) but evidently he feels the need to troll. The SF Bay shooter at Oikos wasn't white; the shooter at Appalachian School of Law was an honest-to-God Nigerian immigrant. I know it's easier to pound the table than to candidly assess the true "gun violence" problem in this nation, but at least try to get some of your narrative right.
Does LA have a similar heavy police presence? If not, why not?
They didn't want to a large police force. It was Parker's deliberate strategy.
I'd be more freaked out by a picture of Jorge Ramos watching me...
"The practical effect of highly crime prone minorities is analogous to a Denial Of Service (DOS) attack on the police force...In areas like Detroit they just give up."
The effect of highly crime prone minorities is to vote in sufficient numbers to elect a black mayor who will appoint a black police chief and a black district attorney who will turn law enforcement into a joke and the police department into a jobs program for highly crime prone minorities.
With the shorter hair, you kind of look like a right wing Richard Gere. Maybe Andrew Sullivan will start commenting here.
@sunbeam:
You're going to have a very hard time being taken seriously in this debate when you show a complete lack of any grounding in the facts of guns whatsoever.
***"I'm glad I'm not a pundit, because I would catch it from both ends."***
Ah yes the usual pretending to be a disinterested "man in the middle" opening gambit. Smells like BS to me.
***"When it comes to guns, assault rifles are utterly useless for non-military things. None. There are no uses."***
False. There are thousands of such uses. The fact that you are unaware of them - or wish to pretend that they don't exist - is not relevant.
Besides it is precisely civilian ownership of military weapons that the Second Amendment was designed to protect. Even if it were true that they had no non-military uses (which it isn't), it would still be an irrelevant point.
***"They are not useful for hunting."***
Absolutely false. First of all, the semi-auto weapons in civilian hands are not "assault rifles" (a selective fire, ie full-auto, rifle in intermediate caliber) and even if they were, they are quite capable of taking game within the parameters of their caliber.
You think you can't hunt with a semi-auto, magazine fed rifle in a military caliber? What kind of idiots do you think we are? We know a hell of a lot more about guns, and hunting, than you do. Stop talking out of your @ss.
Not that it matters, because the Second Amendment is not about hunting. Why you hoplophobes keep bringing up this irrelevant "you can't hunt with assault rifles" talking point is beyond me. It's wrong and irrelevant in any case.
***"Not for self-defense. Unless that zombie horde actually does pop up, or the Crips are moving in on your territory."***
You can't even lie convincingly. No good for self-defense...except in actual self-defense situations. Got it!
***"They aren't even useful for people who want to fight "tyranny," or even "The Man.""***
Absolutely false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29
Question: is that (undoubtedly expensive) "Gangster Squad" movie--really just a glorified video game--ever going to get released at this point
Truly, what the world really wants to know us, what is Bill Clinton buying his mistresses for Christmas....
The endless gun-control brouhaha, which on the surface appears to be a bitter battle between liberal and conservative whites, also features a cryptic racial angle. What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety.
To emphasize this point, this is Huffington Post's dramatic front page right now:
http://www.businessinsider.com/huffington-post-front-page-guns-2012-12
No doubt most of those gun crime incidents those headlines refer to are minority committed crimes.
"The endless gun-control brouhaha, which on the surface appears to be a bitter battle between liberal and conservative whites, also features a cryptic racial angle. What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety."
There's a cryptic racial angle, but not in the manner you suggest. White liberals still refuse to admit that blacks commit way more crime per capita than whites do. Sure, they act as though they are aware of it, by moving to "safe" neighborhoods away from blacks, but this has no effect on their conscious beliefs and politics, which those safe white neighborhoods help to protect.
Liberal whites are still mostly safe from black crime. It isn't fear of black crime that causes them to desire gun control. It's your typical SWPL posturing and status games that cause them to support gun control.
Elites understand this which is why the MSM hides the facts of black crime, while sensationalizing the very rare occurrences of mass shootings. This ensures that the SWPL white liberals clamor for more gun control, out of spite against white conservatives.
At the elite level (the people pushing the agenda, not the sheeple going along with it) it is about disarming the American population. At the popular level amongst white liberals, it's all about class snubbing and regional antagonisms and moral posturing. It's about proving that you aren't one of those nasty white conservatives who probably doesn't even have a post-graduate degree, lives in an unfashionable flyover state, and probably is too religious, etc.
As for expecting racial solidarity, that's a laugh. I hope you were being ironic. Liberal whites are never going to appeal to white racial solidarity, not even covertly. Anti-white-ism is the core of their ideology. They're part of the human race, doncha know.
Actually, blacks are also far more likely to be serial killers (3+ victims with cooling off period) than whites.
Something like 7 or 8 of the most recent serial killers in greater L.A. were black. But of course not a peep on that out of the media, despite the fact that the region's black population has been ~10% over that same period.
Also, Red Southern states have a lot of blacks and of course TExas also has its share of Mexcian and Central American gangs.
Are you sure about that? I've been in Texas for 20+ years, and I've seen little if any evidence of gangs.
"'The AR in AR-15 stands for Aramalite[sic] Rife[sic], not for Assault Rifle.'
Typos aside, you are correct.
Armalite sold the design for the AR-15 to Colt, way back when. The selective fire version of it was manufactured for the army as the M-16. The semi-automatic version, the AR-15, is what's sold to civilians, IIRC.
But it sounds so much scarier when referred to as an "assault rifle". So the left, as always, doesn't bother with the facts when misinformation will serve them better.
Just like the whole "pitbull" stupidity.
Actually some civilians in the US do own true assault rifles. I am the legal owner of a NFA registered preproduction Colt M-16. It is registered and can be transferred, on a Form 4, to an approved owner. There is a $200 fee and a lot of paperwork, you have to be fingerprinted and stuff.
It's probably worth $30,000 now. No more fully automatic weapons can be manufactured for civilian sale, though, which is why the value is so high. ANY legal fully automatic weapon, such as a true assault rifle, submachine gun, or such, is very valuable today. If the law were rescinded the value would plummet.
If liberals were as brilliant and devious as Sailer imagines, they would not participate in the political process anyway
What, you are implying that liberal voters dont get what they want?
Apart from gun control what else has not the liberals way? Look back 20, 30 years, what have liberals demanded that they havent been given? Whereas conservatives, what have they won?
Reading the comments I wondered why the fuss over your new pic? I suppose I think of you still looking like you did on your isteve.com site I guess a lot of more recent readers havent seen that and thus no pictures of you. I remember one of you and Margaret Thatcher and another more recent pic too.
"Wow, Steve is quite handsome.
Your shirt collar is much too small, though, and the red tie is ugly."
"Yo Steve, what's with that tight collar? Looks like you're depriving yourself of oxygen. Or are you trying to get that NFL look by making your neck bulge out?"
Lo and behold... I didn't know Sailer so many fruit fans. Who else but fruits would notice and care about such things?
Surprised, Steve, that you haven't written anything about the convenient accident suffered by Ms Clinton recently which prevented her from testifying about Benghazi. Hmmmm... first Petraeus, now Clinton....
If we had a press with an ounce of fair objective inquiry in their bones, this would be a major outrage and page 1 news in all the papers.
It is only logical to relocate to a more affordable living space when deciding to have children, that makes prefect economic sense, but then you jump to the conclusion that the motivating factor here is not economics but the wish to isolate themselves from browns and blacks. The assumption that these same white parents would be staying in Manhattan if only they were able to “insulate” their children from the brown ones. How does that make sense when compared to the more logical motive of moving to a another city that is going to offer you a higher standard of living, regardless of number of minority children in your child’s classroom? far from it being affluent white people insulating themselves from poor brown people, it is rich people isolating themselves from poor people across the board. In reality one does not find wealthy parents, yes even the “white ones” sending their progeny to public schools in north carolina regardless of the racial demographics. The article is nothing but a lot of conjecture and guesswork based on the hypothesis or should I say fantasy of the author that all white people look down on minorities as much as he does.
If all this were actually true and all white people were secretly harboring as much prejudice as you istevesailers display openly... then how could there be such a entity as the dreaded white liberals in existence? Oh, ..that's right they are all actually a bunch of disingenuous hypocrites kowtowing to the culture of political correctness.... the one they invented. yeah that makes sense.
"Anonymous said...
The constitution guarantees an individual right to own guns since the 2008 Heller decision in the Supreme court."
No, the Constitution has guaranteed that right since 1791.
Liberals are trying to convince everyone all a sudden that only someone who murders 20 people is really mentally ill. I would argue that to kill even one person unjustly meets that threshold. The problem is that liberals would rather poke out their own eyes with hot needles rather than be caught in the same room where there was a discussion of black social pathologies so the conversation will not diverge from assault weapons and white suburban nerds. Also, if Adam Lanza could not get psychological help in a community like Newtown, what hope do blacks in Detroit or the Southside of Chicago have? My guess is that there are more shrinks in Newton per capita than Carter's has pills. There will be no high priced therapy for your basic gangbangers.
Therapist: So LaTron, how where you this week?
LaTron: Yo bitch, we fugged up dem home boys.
Therapist: Is that so LaTron? Tell me, how does that make you feel?
steve's a good lookin bloke.
The media and lib elites have no interest in having a "discussion" about homocide deaths due to guns.
It leads inevitably to the data and thus, to race.
Lots of the most ultra of libs have NEVER been fishing, hunting, camping (well, maybe they did get sent to summer camp as kids, and they certainly have never fired a pistol or shotgun.
Face it: they are Woody Allen progs.
Then the US could do something along the lines of the Swiss approach, something that may well have been the sort of thing those writers of the 2nd amendment expected to naturally happen.
Bring back universal high school rifle team (competition shooting). Kind of like driver's ed, but with more school team spirit. Upon high school graduation, issue every student who proved competent a weapon, an assault rifle if possible, and semi-draft them for a few weeks, so they can get to know the members of their reserve guard unit and some rudimentary basics, like where to report and what happens if they are really mobilized. Sort of like a week of jury duty.
Oh wait, what was I thinking? Wrong population now for this sort of thing. Sort of sad, when you think about it.
(And, humans being humans, this won't eliminate the berserk lunatic or romantic death triangle. What really did happen during that Swiss guard spree at the Vatican that killed the commander? Why aren't we talking about mental health and how to deal with people who are functional and living among us, but truly don't have full "human" mental capacity? Probably it just seems so difficult compared to some sort of ban on something...)
SAF has done a great job with pro-2nd amendment litigation:
http://www.saf.org/default.asp?p=safdonation
The look on awful Piers Morgan face was very satisfying:
http://gunowners.org/
And the great NRA press conference today:
http://www.nraila.org/get-involved-locally/secure/donate.aspx
This is really a low trust vs. hight trust culture issue. People from high trust cultures - Scandinavian Americans, German Americans, English Americans, i.e. the founding populations of New England, the Midwest and Canada - believe that a functioning civil society is the safest society and that widespread private gun ownership undermines civil society. Every single Northern European and Anglo-Saxon country other than the US has low private gun ownership, strict gun regulations and, until recent immigration trends started destroying these societies, low crime rates. For the past 300 years countries with high functioning civil societies where personal defense rights are mostly abdicated to the state have been the most succesful societies. Even today liberals will point to countries like Canada and tell you things are better there. Hell, in most parts of the Northern US you are still statistically safer if you don't own a gun because you are far more likely to die from a gun related accident or suicide than a random violent crime. On the other hand, most white gun rights advocates and passionate gun owners tend to be people from low trust cultures - Scots-Irish, blacks, Mexican-Americans, Italian Americans, etc. They tend live in rural areas where the population isn't dense enough to require a sophisticated civic structure, or in failed crime ridden parts of the US like Detroit or Miami. They don't trust government or society and see guns as a necessary for personal defense. In rural America where there is little police presense, in some parts of the South or in poor urban black neighborhoods that is probably very true, and gun ownership makes perfect sense. The big picture problem is that low trust, high gun ownership societies for the most part are failed societies - Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, etc. Long term rather than focusing on guns, the real issue is whether it is possible to turn the US back into the high trust civil society it used to be. Since that probably means immigration restrictions and jettisoning most of the Southern states, I'm not optimistic.
Current English attitudes towards guns are quite recent from a historical standpoint. Protestants were guaranteed access to guns from 1688. It's only after 1920 that the gun laws started getting restrictive due to a fear of socialist revolution.
Northern European countries don't have particularly low gun ownership rates.
Country guns per 100 Rank
United States 88.8 1
Serbia 58.2 2
Yemen 54.8 3
Switzerland 45.7 4
Cyprus 36.4 5
Saudi Arabia 35 6
Iraq 34.2 7
Finland 32 8
Uruguay 31.8 9
Sweden 31.6 10
Norway 31.3 11
France 31.2 12
Canada 30.8 13
Austria 30.4 14
Germany 30.3 15
Iceland 30.3
It's only after 1920 that the gun laws started getting restrictive due to a fear of socialist revolution.
and weapons technology..
http://www.boxinginsider.com/headlines/flashback-when-roy-jones-tested-positive/
"White liberals, angered by white conservatives’ lack of racial solidarity with them,"
LOL
It's only after 1920 that the gun laws started getting restrictive due to a fear of socialist revolution.
And socialist revolution didn't happen in USA or UK where everyone owned rifles. It happens in places with poor peasants.
It would be very hard for a guy like Che and his merry band to requisition supplies from 'sympathizing peasants' if the peasants are armed.
Che wouldn't have gotten far if he tried to operate in the 1950s Dixie.
"Who else but fruits would notice and care about such things?"
Everybody here knows I'm a girl.
(Well, a middle-aged old bag, but, hey.)
Steve looks tres Alpha.
Peter the Shark said: Every single Northern European and Anglo-Saxon country other than the US has low private gun ownership, strict gun regulations and, until recent immigration trends started destroying these societies, low crime rates.
Hunsdon objected: Switzerland?
I read an article about Texas hispanic gangs in Houston and Dallas from what I read their worst than the hispanic gangs in San Diego.
and weapons technology..
Not really, no. The 1920 Firearms Act was about licensing gun owners who wanted to keep guns for self-defense, such as the revolvers of the sort Watson slipped into his pocket when the game was afoot.
A few decades later the government decreed that self-defense was no longer a valid reason to own a gun, period.
The deadly stompings, gunplay and street fighting that claimed the lives of three teenagers became the focus of three separate murder trials last week.
Each case provided a glimpse of a violent gang subculture in El Paso that is not likely to go away soon.
"It's inherent that it will increase," said Mary Lou Carrillo, a retired El Paso police sergeant, who spent most of her career investigating gangs. "There is no way we will see a decrease in gang violence with a population increase."
El Paso is not only a growing city but also a prime spot on one of the busiest narco-trafficking corridors in the nation.
On Friday, Juárez police on a domestic violence call arrested a member of Mara Salvatrucha, a notorious international street gang. Police said Santos Antonio Hernandez, 23, a heavily-tattooed native of El Salvador, was an undocumented immigrant living in Juárez after being deported from the United States.
The arrest is one of the few confirmed incidents involving Mara Salvatrucha in the borderland.
In El Paso, investigators said gang violence has decreased compared with a year ago, but they are gearing up for the start of the school year because it is traditionally a time when problems flare.
"Rivals tend to be at the same place at the same time," said Sgt. Reginald Moton of the El Paso police Gang Unit.
And next month, the El Paso County attorney is scheduled to go to civil court in hopes of obtaining injunctions against seven
So, their no Mexican or Central American gangs, bull.
Lo and behold... I didn't know Sailer so many fruit fans. Who else but fruits would notice and care about such things?
Chicks might.
When it comes to guns, assault rifles are utterly useless for non-military things. None. There are no uses.
All rifles are assault rifles. So you're opposed to rifles in general. Self-defense is a non-military thing, ergo, you're wrong, and rifles (even the "assault" kind, lol) have non-military uses.
They are not useful for hunting.
Sure they are.
Not for self-defense.
Nonsense.
They aren't even useful for people who want to fight "tyranny," or even "The Man."
More nonsense.
There have been plenty of authoritarian countries with high rates of gun ownership, usually the ubiquitous AK-47. Iraq is one. There are others, particularly in the Mideast.
There have been plenty of authoritarian countries which are run by gun-grabbers, too. America represents by far the largest population covered by a strong right to self-defense, and it's not authoritarian (yet). And the people who show every indication of making authoritarian moves are, in the main, gun-grabbers.
Not only would they not be able to oppose a government backed military that is willing to employ what we might call "draconian measures,"
They'd be much more able to oppose with guns than without. Duh.
But the tactics and strategies used aren't going to be anything so gauche as stormtroopers occupying your god loving hamlet. There are so many other tools available now, my head spins thinking about them.
Uhm, I know this is from way out in left field, but...resisting such a government might just come down to something as gauche as shooting the bastards with assault weapons. Crazy, I know.
That is a long winded way to say that assault rifles,
I.e., rifles...
or a rifle that can be rigged to become one (Wink* Wink*)
Such as? Too much TV, too little reality and discussion for you, I think.
should be illegal.
Then Amend the Constitution to that effect. Because right now, they aren't, and cannot be.
United States cities by crime rate 250,000 and higher cities-2010. Comparing Southern Caifornia cities to Texas. Anaheim murder rate in 2010 2.1 Corpus Christi 5.6 Dallas 11.3 El Paso 0.8 Houston 11.8 Long Beach 6.9 Los Angeles 7.6 San Antonio San Diego 2.2 Santa Ana 8.2 Dallas and Houston worst murder rate than La or Long Beach since they have a higher percentage of blacks. Santa Ana high was the hispanic towns at 8.2. El Paso very low for hispanic town. San Diego which is a large town but is mainly white also a low crime rate and Anaheim thought by people in Orange County as worst and Santa Ana isn't.
"You could never beat a tyrannical gov't, assault weapons or no" is such a silly argument. It's like if a guy has five big goons on their way to kick his ass, and you want to take his baseball bat away because he could never win either way. Gee, with friends like you schmucks, who needs enemies?
Advances in weapons technology have nothing to do with the determination of would-be rulers to disarm the people - else all those many Scots would, upon English dictate against Scots owning arms, not have taken pains to stash via burial thousands of their claymores.
"Anonymous said...
""It's only after 1920 that the gun laws started getting restrictive due to a fear of socialist revolution.""
and weapons technology.."
Not true. There was no significant advancement in small arms technology between 1910 and 1930.
" the founding populations of New England"
A 1632 statute of Plymouth
Colony ordered “that every freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for
himselfe and each under him able to beare armes a sufficient musket and other
serviceable peece for war with bandaleroes and other appurtenances with what speede
may be….” By the end of the following May, each person was to own “two pounds of
powder and ten pounds of bullets” with a fine of ten shillings per person who was not
armed.8
A March 22, 1630/1 order required that every town within Massachusetts Bay Colony
“before the 5th of Aprill nexte” make sure that every person, including servants,
“furnished with good & sufficient armes” of a type “allowable by the captain or other
officers, those that want & are of abilitie to buy them themselves, others that unable to
have them provided by the town….”
http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/GunControlColonialNewEngland.PDF
JSM said, "'Who else but fruits would notice and care about such things?'
Everybody here knows I'm a girl.
(Well, a middle-aged old bag, but, hey.)
Steve looks tres Alpha."
Good to see you, again, JSM.
To this old crow, Steve looks like someone who happily ambles along to a different drummer.
@Peter the Shark:
This is really a low trust vs. hight trust culture issue. People from high trust cultures - Scandinavian Americans, German Americans, English Americans, i.e. the founding populations of New England, the Midwest and Canada - believe that a functioning civil society is the safest society and that widespread private gun ownership undermines civil society.
So where did the Second Amendment come from, if Americans of the day were against widespread gun ownership? Also, I don't know about other Northern European countries, but England had an almost uninterrupted absence of gun control from the late 17th century to 1920.
"It is only logical to relocate to a more affordable living space when deciding to have children, that makes prefect economic sense, but then you jump to the conclusion that the motivating factor here is not economics but the wish to isolate themselves from browns and blacks."
Indeed this is why so many Manhattan liberals relocate to Newark when they have kids.
So where did the Second Amendment come from, if Americans of the day were against widespread gun ownership?
The Constitution wasn't the result of a democraticc process.
There was no significant advancement in small arms technology between 1910 and 1930.
Or between 1930 and 2012 for that matter.
People from high trust cultures - Scandinavian Americans, German Americans, English Americans
Yes, Americans having some Protestant ancestors who once resided in Ulster County, Ireland, are a sub-species entirely unlike English Americans.
But it sounds so much scarier when referred to as an "assault rifle".
ANY legal fully automatic weapon, such as a true assault rifle, submachine gun, or such, is very valuable today.
"Assault rifle" -- from "Sturmgeweher [Model 19]44"-- the sort of theatrical and Wagnerian name NAZI's liked.
The essentail difference between Sturmgeweher 44 and the Browning Automatic rifle, first used in 1918? The Sturmgeweher 44 used a shortened 30 caliber cartridge, with a smaller power charge, therefore affording lighter weight, less recoil, and more accuracy for the average operator, compared to the full-sized 30 caliber B.A.R. German Fallsturmjaeger (paratroop) units had a weapon similar to the B.A.R.
The M-16 rifle and its long 5.56 mm cartridge follow the basic idea of the Sturgeweher 44. AR-15 -- basically a one shot per trigger pull M-16.
"Submachine gun" -- an automatic weapon that uses pistol bullets. The Sturmgeweher 44 was a useful compromise between inherently short range submachine guns and automatic rifles using a full-sized 30 caliber ( 7.62 mm ) cartridge.
Mikhail Kalishnikov always claimed that his Avtomatik Kalishnikov 1947 was not derived from the Sturmgeweher 1944.
"Assault rifle" is not part of the U.S. military's lexicon. Instead, assault rifles are included under the rubric "selective fire military rifle."
"Selective fire" -- a switch allows selection of one shot per trigger pull or more than one shot per trigger pull.
The Constitution wasn't the result of a democratic process.
The Second Amendment largely was. The Federalists wanted to appease the anti-Federalists, who had just lost the ratification battle, and the Bill of Rights was the Federalist concessions to the issues raised by the anti-Federalists.
"steve's a good lookin bloke."
I hope everyone saying this is a girl cuz otherwise Sailer has a huge fruiter fanbase.
And so we have a dichotomy.
Some fetishize guns, in my opinion, instead of viewing them as a tool as I do.
If I had my druthers such people would live in another country where I could happily forget about them. I kind of don't think any of them, or their posterity, are going to win the Fields Medal, or create a world class company.
Everybody wins! I don't have to deal with you, and you can get naked with your gun at your side, fondling both barrels to your heart's content.
And you are a Bad, Bad, Man.
So you never did answer us, sunbeam. What's your expertise in guns and self defense that allows you to say semiautomatic magazine fed rifles have no legitimate role? Have you ever done any practical shooting? Why should we pay any attention at all to your opinions about gun owners? Or are you just spouting off to set down a status marker?
Firearms have quite a following in Silicon Valley, btw. Show up at Metcalfe or Los Altos Rod & Gun and you'll see some nice tactical guns.
The Second Amendment largely was. The Federalists wanted to appease the anti-Federalists, who had just lost the ratification battle, and the Bill of Rights was the Federalist concessions to the issues raised by the anti-Federalists.
That's not a democratic process. A democratic process in one in which the consent of the people is obtained.
If I had my druthers such people would live in another country where I could happily forget about them. I kind of don't think any of them, or their posterity, are going to win the Fields Medal, or create a world class company.
Please tell us what kind of people are going to win the Fields Medal. Will this group of people also be the kind to create a world class company? For instance, do you think the late Steve Jobs was Fields Medal material?
Anonymous said:
"So you never did answer us, sunbeam. What's your expertise in guns and self defense that allows you to say semiautomatic magazine fed rifles have no legitimate role? Have you ever done any practical shooting? Why should we pay any attention at all to your opinions about gun owners? Or are you just spouting off to set down a status marker?
Firearms have quite a following in Silicon Valley, btw. Show up at Metcalfe or Los Altos Rod & Gun and you'll see some nice tactical guns. "
If you want a laundry list of guns I have shot, hmmm.
Okay here goes:
Handgun:
44 Magnum
45 Automatic (you know the WWII era one that stuck around forever).
38 (Several, no idea what they were)
357 Magnum
22 pistol (I own two, haven't looked at them in years)
9 mm (If I were actually going to shoot a handgun regularly I'd go for this one. I prefer revolvers though. Maybe a 38, I couldn't hit squat with a Magnum handgun, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time or money on this)
Some others I can't remember.
Rifles (a lot more of these)
30-06
M1 (the carbine, not the M1A1)
30-30
32-20 (may not be how it is usually written)
.308 something, several
Some heavy gun in 44 or maybe 45 caliber. 20 to 25 years later, no idea what it was.
A bunch of 22 rifles.
-Almost all of these being bolt action, some semi-automatic. I prefer bolt action though. Some of those rifles were lever action, but I like bolt better.
Shotguns:
hoo boy.
Mostly 12 gauges. I own a 28 gauge which isn't that common. I've shot 12 gauges a 100 times to any other kind of shotgun though.
I've used a shotgun far more than any other kind of gun.
As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure I've shot less than 300 rounds total with anything outside of a 22 caliber or a shotgun.
As far as fully automatic weapons go, I've shot an AK-47 (Chinese import), and some kind of Uzi knock off from Eastern Europe.
Now as to your other points. If you are hunting you really shouldn't take a shot unless you feel certain you are going to hit and kill. You can't absolutely guarantee this though, so a second shot is definitely a handy thing.
As for other uses, varmint hunting isn't really helped by having a a semiautomatic. Shotguns are what I kill rabbits and other such pests with. I know people will hunt rabbits with a 22, but I am never going to shoot enough to be good enough to do that.
The only thing left besides hunting and pests is self-defense if you have to.
Now what are you defending yourself from? One person? Two people? More? If it's more you really need to move or avoid that neighborhood. Come to think of it, unless you are in your home, when exactly are you going to defend yourself with an automatic weapon? Due to the magazines they tend to be something you can't stuff in your shorts.
Do you walk around with an AK or AR-15 as a way of telling everyone "Hey I'm going to defend myself."
You drive a cab and have one in a roof mount? Got a pickup and have one in the Rifle Rack? (been years since I've noticed one of those.)
You are full of crap. Automatic weapons are useless unless you are engaging in military activities. Or semi-organized in the manner of Mexican drug gangs and others.
Now if you want to be Joe Freedom and strike a blow, I'd suggest you get a rifle that shoots good, in a common caliber that is relatively cheap. Then get real good at hitting something from a long way off.
Now, like I said, guns aren't anything I'm really into. If I didn't grow up in the area and culture I did, I doubt I would have ever touched one. I have the same feeling about guns I have about shovels.
Now as regards you and your advanced knowledge let me tell you this:
If you are in a dark room, and someone says "I like slugs." Then you hear that shotgun pump..
Is that going to get your attention?
David Davenport wrote:
"Please tell us what kind of people are going to win the Fields Medal. Will this group of people also be the kind to create a world class company? For instance, do you think the late Steve Jobs was Fields Medal material?"
Go to one of these gun ... swap meets is what I guess you call them. They usually have them at Jamil Temple or something down here.
Walk around. Take in the crowd. Listen to some conversations. Then form your own opinions.
"sunbeam said...
And so we have a dichotomy.
Some fetishize guns, in my opinion, instead of viewing them as a tool as I do."
Quite right. Guns are a tool.
So are you.
... Go to one of these gun ... swap meets is what I guess you call them. They usually have them at Jamil Temple or something down here. ...
I've never been to a gun swap meet, and have no plans to attend any gun shows. I'm much too much of a snob to rub elbows with the common folk who attend such gatherings. You and I have something in common.
But distaste for one's social inferiors is not proof that more restrictive laws to control the plebs are justified.
Also, what do you think of the politics of 1966 Fields Medal winner Stephen Smale? Do you think that Prof. Smale's economic views were or are good for America's economic health?
"David Davenport said...
I've never been to a gun swap meet, and have no plans to attend any gun shows. I'm much too much of a snob to rub elbows with the common folk who attend such gatherings. You and I have something in common.
But distaste for one's social inferiors is not proof that more restrictive laws to control the plebs are justified."
Sure, it's not exactly a brain-trust. There will be a few well educated people, a lot of ordinary folks, and a liberal smattering of people who look like they are extras from The Grapes of Wrath and/or Beyond Thunderdome. But these people are much more likely to side with you than will a SWPL.
That's not a democratic process. A democratic process in one in which the consent of the people is obtained.
The BoR went through the usual ratification process for amendments (Congress, 3/4 of the state legislatures.) Nothing at the federal level is done via direct democracy.
If you want a laundry list of guns I have shot, hmmm.
...
Come to think of it, unless you are in your home, when exactly are you going to defend yourself with an automatic weapon?
So you've never really trained in self defense tactics, but still opine on them. Gotcha.
The rifles under discussion are semiautomatic, not automatic. They're widely used for hunting (wild pigs, yotes).
Clint Smith is one of the leading firearms trainers in the US. (bio: http://www.thunderranchinc.com/director.html) He recommends magazine-fed semiautos for home defense. His advice mirrors that of a great many other instructors, and that of the US armed forces. I think they have better expertise on this matter than some guy who's shot some sporting clays and fired a few guns.
Anonymous said:
"So you've never really trained in self defense tactics, but still opine on them. Gotcha.
The rifles under discussion are semiautomatic, not automatic. They're widely used for hunting (wild pigs, yotes).
Clint Smith is one of the leading firearms trainers in the US. (bio: http://www.thunderranchinc.com/director.html) He recommends magazine-fed semiautos for home defense. His advice mirrors that of a great many other instructors, and that of the US armed forces. I think they have better expertise on this matter than some guy who's shot some sporting clays and fired a few guns."
Don't care. Period.
I don't want some gun nut around me ever, if I can avoid it.
If that bothers you, I don't care about that either.
Really the best solution would be to break up the US. Who wants to have these conversations over and over? Particularly when you really don't want to talk to the person you have to argue with anyway?
If a majority of these spree shooters were minorities, then you would be onto something...but a majority of these spree shooters are actually white guys.
The point I'd like to make is that mass murderers, despite how much the media loves them for their ratings appeal, don't provide a real justification for gun control. It's the sort of thing libtards would laugh out of the public square if it was their ox being gored. The media and gov't don't even keep statistics for mass murderers (deaths per year, total deaths over the decades, etc.), at least, not any I can find. I can go right to G**gle and get numbers for bee stings, lightning strikes, and drunk driving, but not for mass murder.
No, mass murders are clearly a pretext; they get ratings, and that's about it.
Also you are overselling the lack of utility of guns for self-protection in urban and suburban environments. A shotgun works perfectly well as a house or apartment defense gun, with little need to worry about birdshot traveling through walls to kill innocent bystanders accidentally.
I've lately noticed that people keep saying "birdshot" when they make this point about dwelling-friendly penetration and shotguns. AFAIK (admittedly, I have no good source, just my impressions from use), buckshot has very low risk of over-penetration, too.
Police response times are quite slow in urban areas, too; you are not protected.
Right, but police presence is much more dense. Remember, we're talking perception of reality here, not reality per se.
"This is really a low trust vs. hight trust culture issue. People from high trust cultures - Scandinavian Americans, German Americans, English Americans, i.e. the founding populations of New England, the Midwest and Canada - believe that a functioning civil society is the safest society and that widespread private gun ownership undermines civil society."
You've got it the wrong way round. All those places had the right to bear arms while those high trust societies were developing. One of the consequences of that development were much lower rates of violent crime. Gun control only happened *after* the murder rates had dropped to historically tiny levels.
People in Europe gave up their guns - to the extent that they have - because of low violent crime rates not the other way around.
(and as those rates of violent crime are going up again now because of immigration the demand for weapons is gradually going up too.)
There have been about 33,000 gun deaths in America this year and about 80 of them have been from mass murder shootings.
Or in other words, 99.76% of gun deaths were NOT from mass shootings.
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