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I resolve to use my day planner for the entire year, this time.
Number ten in basket weaving. I feel so accomplished!
"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
This is a fine argument, but the evidence does not bear it out. The assumption here is that the majority of violent gun deaths are the result of criminals. They're not. They occur because deranged folks have access to lots of guns and some others just make mistakes. Gun fetishisation is a mistake, nothing more. A very deadly mistake. Even the most convincing sounding argument pales before the test of reality. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/26/gun-control-mass-shootings_n_8043364.html
The larger quote is more interesting as a piece of political theory - namely, that you should not sacrifice "a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience."
I would argue that the gun lobby in the U.S. has so far blocked any legislation regulating the possession of firearms that they are, in fact, ignoring the thousand real advantages (namely, lives saved) of passing some reasonable gun safety measures.
Not to mention that the only reason *guns* get singled out in this debate is because of people who have a lot of money invested in their manufacturing and sale, and who therefore profit from whipping up people into a furor about how the evil government's going to come take their guns every time a bill addressing gun safety is up for debate. Not to mention blocking funding of research on gun violence ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/why-the-cdc-still-isnt-researching-gun-violence-despite-the-ban-being-lifted-two-years-ago/ ) so we would actually have some scientific data on the issue. You don't hide from science unless you're afraid you're wrong.
Meanwhile, no one complains that I can't carry a bow and arrows down the street, despite the fact that a bow and arrows are a heck of a lot less likely to result in a massive killing spree.
So unless "second amendment rights" supporters are fighting for my right to open carry a sword and a bow and arrows the way they want to carry guns, I'm going to think of them as gun industry sock puppets. And unless they are fighting for the right of ALL U.S. citizens - including our black and brown and Arab citizens - to carry those same guns without getting shot by police or fellow citizens for looking scary, I'm going to think of them as racists.
Astarial, Kubrikistan, Small Huts, Collatis, and 1 otherContania
Eep. I would edit that if I could, but please don't think I'm calling you (or anyone else) a racist. >_<
What I mean is, there are some issues of governing principle that need to be addressed if the Second Amendment is really what this is all about, and a failure to address them undermines every pro-gun argument out there.
The only humiliation such people would feel is from poverty.
Happy new year, Equilism! :D
Small Huts and Contania
I saw this picture mocking the Kentucky marriage clerk who opposed LGBT marriage despite a court order.
First frame: Pope Francis on gays: Who am I to judge?
Second frame: (reading newspaper) .. for I'm no Kim Davis!
Small Huts and Contania
Tolerance is our chiefest virtue. Allow good will first, and foremost it will present itself.
A year of productivity for all!
North Pooch and Vodkaland and Contania
Happy New Year from your friends at TWP!
Naivetry: I do think it's telling that, in the recent high-profile incidents involving (usually white) cops killing or seriously injuring minority (usually black) people (usually men) on justifications of perceived threat (usually "having a gun"), and in the long history of exactly the same thing, almost never does the question of the 2nd amendment come up.
Let us grant that there is a constitutional right to buy any type of gun you want. If that is true, then allowing people to buy guns and then killing them for having one, is a vicious and brutal denial of that same right, particularly when those people are targeted based on their race and ethnicity. Some are killed, others are injured, and the rest live in fear of such violence - all for simply trying to exercise their second amendment right to own and carry a gun.
Similarly, I think we can all agree that killing journalists who criticize a government is a worse violation of the first amendment than restricting who is allowed to appear on television or write articles in newspapers. They're both bad and illegal! But one involves being bad and illegal and murdering people.
Naivetry, Small Huts, and Contania
This is more a matter of the 4th amendment, than the 2nd.
I think it's more a 5th amendment issue than a 4th amendment one, since killing someone seems to run more afoul of the requirement that life not be deprived without due process.
But I think it can also be reasonably said to be a 2nd amendment concern as well, for the reasons I laid out.
The Equilism Winter Ball is under way on the offsite forums. Still room for more if you're interested. PM me for the address.
How do I run for office?
Well hopefully Equilism won't let you after your behaviour in TWP. You see they are very good friends of ours.
North Pooch and Vodkaland and Contania
I like some gossip as much as the next guy. Spill. :D
Happy 100th day anniversary to Small Huts in two days!
Small Huts, North Pooch and Vodkaland, and Contania
Post self-deleted by Meriden.
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