Gun control advocates use the words “common sense” to describe laws that degrade and destroy Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Background checks are “common sense.” Ammunition magazine capacity limits are “common sense.” Gun bans in schools and stores are “common sense.” To paraphrase The Princess Bride, I don’t think those words mean what they think they mean. In fact, I know it. When deployed by the antis, “common sense” means “park your brain in the corner.” It’s time the pro-gun side reclaimed the term. So here’s my common sense, my stat and citation-free guide to gun rights . . .
Guns save lives
Common sense says that a firearm is an effective tool for defending innocent life against the threat of death or grievous bodily harm. Shooting someone trying to attack you, your loved ones or other innocent life demotivates them. In fact, common sense tells us that just pointing a gun at a criminal may be all that’s needed to make a criminal cease and desist.
Guns are simple
Common sense – and a quick trip to any gun range – says that it’s easy to use a gun. Load, point, shoot. Despite the antis’ oft-expressed fear that “untrained” civilians will shoot the wrong person, people who use guns defensively use their common sense. They make sure they fire when they have a good chance of hitting their target. (Again, simply pointing a gun is usually enough to stop an attack.)
Guns aren’t dangerous in and of themselves
Common sense says that no gun shoots someone without human manipulation – any more than a knife stabs someone all on its own or the poisons under your sink pour themselves into children’s mouths. There are dangerous people who use or store guns irresponsibly or criminally, but common sense says that people are to blame for firearms-related injuries and death.
Gun owners are mentally stable
Avoiding stats, a LOT of Americans own guns. If a significant number of them were mentally unstable, common sense says there would be a LOT more firearms-related “crimes of passion” and spree killers.
Gun owners are patriotic Americans
Common sense says if gun owners wanted to overthrow the U.S. government they wouldn’t pay their taxes, vote, wear patriotic clothing or use patriotic imagery when asserting their gun rights. While the antis claim that gun owners are “secret” insurrectionists, common sense says gun control advocates are making the claim to justify gun control laws and further their anti-gun agenda.
Gun owners don’t suffer from feelings of sexual inadequacy
The antis claim that gun owners own firearms to compensate for feelings of sexual inadequacy due to below-average penis size. (I swear I’m not making this up.) Common sense says that male gun owners are no more or less sexually endowed than the general population – without considering the fact that a LOT of women keep and bear arms.
Background checks don’t prevent crime
Common sense says that anyone with a criminal record knows they will fail a criminal background check when trying to purchase a gun from a legal source. So criminals avoid background checks entirely by stealing a gun or purchasing a firearm from the black market. When and where background checks are expanded to gun shows and legal private sales, criminals avoid those sources as well. And steal or purchase a firearms from the black market.
Ammunition magazine capacity limits don’t limit carnage
There are millions of standard capacity ammunition magazines in America – even in places where they are banned. Common sense says a someone committing a crime with a firearm won’t care that he’s using an illegal magazine in his illegal gun when committing an illegal act. Common sense also tells you that a mass killer will find a way to increase the number of bullets he can fire if he so desires (e.g. by swapping magazines or carrying more than one gun).
Gun violence restraining orders don’t work
Using a gun violence restraining order – due to become law in California – a judge can order firearms confiscation from people considered dangerous by a disaffected spouse or partner – without the owner’s prior knowledge (i.e. a chance to refute the charges). Common sense says that a person subject to a GVRO who’s bent on hurting or killing a spouse or partner will withhold a gun from the police, secure a gun illegally or use some other method to attack their target.
“Assault weapons” are effective for self-defense
Common sense says that if the police use military-looking semi-automatic or automatic rifles to protect innocent life, [non-law enforcement] civilians can use them for the same purpose.
“Gun-Free Zones” don’t save lives
Common sense says that armed criminals don’t disarm where they’re legally prohibited from carrying firearms (convicted felons are prohibited from carrying a firearm period). These so-called “gun-free zones” – schools, hospitals, New Jersey – disarm law-abiding gun owning citizens, who do respect these prohibitions. Common sense says that armed criminals have enough common sense to know they’re less likely to encounter armed resistance in a gun-free zone, and thus consider these areas a relatively “soft” target.
Feel free to add to this list in the comments section below.
Robert, may I have permission to repost this on my Facebook page please?
Of course. Our content is available for reposting anywhere, was long as there’s attribution and a link back.
Thanks.
When I was studying law and CJ my CJ professor used to work in the courts in NYC. He was clear: very few abusive men shoot their spouses. When they do go armed with gun it’s because they want to safely engage and kill the new boyfriend or spouse.
They prefer slower and messier means to kill their women so as to maximize the terror and physical harm.
That is, until the abused spouse has the temerity to leave and file for divorce. Such a person is a traitor and must be punished. If they can no longer be abused, they might as well be dead.
Common sense: gun free zones do not save lives. On the contrary, they create scores of sitting ducks. Almost every mass shooting is committed in gun free zones.
+1. Common sense says that anyone inclined to go on a “shooting spree,” is likely to avoid places where people are likely to be armed, and go instead to places where guns are not allowed.
Added. Thanks!
@ Ditto:
Like that church in South Carolina.
Hammer it home; gun free zones create death zones.
“…for the children”, of course!
In fact it should be; ‘Gun free zones ARE death zones’.
“Gun free zones are death zones for the children”. Pretty much, unfortunately.
GVROs don’t go into effect in California until Jan 1, 2016.
Text amended. Thanks.
And disaffected spouses and partners are not eligible for GVROs under the California law as written, as they are no longer “close family members” as defined by statute. Instead they can use the DVRO–which is in fact far more effective and lasts for years, especially since a shove (without injury) constitutes domestic violence under the law. One of these days, Robert, maybe you will learn the difference. In almost all cases in which a GVRO is appropriate, so will involuntary commitment for a 72-hr (or longer) hold for psychiatric evaluation and treatment. But the law only allows the police and medical professionals to impose a hold, not family members. Moreover, an involuntary hold under Welfare & Institutions Code section 5150 (up to 72 hr hold) and 5250 (up to 10 days) results in a ten year ban (after a recent amendment to the law. Used to be five).
Common sense. The Police have two responsibilities. First is to prevent crime by their presence. Failing that, they are to investigate the crime and assign blame. What happens inbetween is on you.
Absolutely correctamundo. Police have no duty to protect you from impending harm, regardless of what’s plastered on the side of their black-and-whites.
Good point, and probably worth adding to the article text. Police have no duty to protect life. The Supreme Court has so-ruled repeatedly. Gonzalez v. Castle Rock (2005) is a recent example where police did not enforce a restraining order, children were kidnapped, their lives were lost as a result, and SCOTUS ruled that the police had no obligation to enforce the restraining order or investigate the kidnapping.
Great. Now I can’t stop about thinking about hugging a street sign.
Common sense: The 2nd Amendment is in place to allow the people to own enough arms to unseat a tyrannical government. When Diane Feinstein asked Ted Cruz if we need bazookas, his answer should have been “Madam, God I hope not, however that option must be allowed or else the 2nd Amendment is meaningless”.
Most U.S. politicians lack common sense, decency, courage and many other qualities.
What is “common” and “sensible” is subjective to personal beliefs, social structure, and verbal community, and therefore, always changes, as people always change.
It was, at one time and in some cultures, common and sensible to bleed people who suffer from a fever, or to own other people, or to bind women’s feet, or sacrifice humans. Common doesn’t make it right.
I like to think of laws as they are, either restrictive to the people, or liberating to the people. Gun control only goes one way, restrictive.
What I was thinking. “Common sense” tells you the sun travels around the earth. “Common sense” tells you that the earth is flat (altho somewhat less common sense will tell you that such is not the case, at least if you happen to live at the seashore or on the Great Plains). “Common sense”, at least as often as not, is not necessarily sensible at all. Especially when you claim as “common sense” that which is really just intuition.
This post may make fence sitters think, but it’s ineffective against the True Believer antis. They’re not interested in facts, logic, or real common sense. Their personal crusade is built on emotional insecurity, mental imbalance, and the delusional need to assuage their irrational fears. That, or they’re just simpleminded tools of their overlords, too stupid or unwilling to question it. Essentially, antis are like ISIS without the proactive attitude.
“True believers” of any ‘religion’ are not worth worrying about. They are too few in number and too deeply steeped in their own ridged world-view that they will not be persuaded. Nor does it matter whether the belief is objectively true or false. If one is absolutely convinced of a proposition which – coincidently happens to be objectively true – he will not be persuaded by plausible arguments which are false.
We need to concentrate on converting politicians, voters and youth who are at the margin. The only “truth” of any relevance to a politician is what will get him re-elected. Look at politicians who are apologists for Islamic Jihadists; do you think they chose their political rhetoric because they believe in the Koran? Look at voters; are they more interested in defending themselves and families or the Utopia of a gun-free world? Our youth; whether they play video games or dodge bullets in the inner city. Do they think that guns will be purged from society the same way as pot has been kept out of their schools’ playgrounds?
We need to distinguish between our target and the background; that is what is required to win the game.
Honestly, I don’t think guns are easy to use- particularly handguns. My first experience with a handgun at the age of 19 was when a buddy brought me to the local range. We rented a Glock 17, watched the safety/training video, and went out to bust some caps.
We didn’t hit shit, I bet only half our rounds hit the man-size silhouette at 10 yards. Poor technique, flinching, trigger jerking, etc. Now, fast forward to 2015, and I can show you ragged-hole slow fire groups at 10 yards with my P226 and decent performance at the local speedshoot competitions. But it took a few thousand rounds of practice to get there.
Manually-operated long arms are a bit more intuitive, I imagine most people have seen enough movies (or played enough video games) to understand the manual of arms, and point-and-shoot with some success. Semi-auto’s can have a somewhat complex manual of arms, I once had to teach someone what the charging handle was on their AR-15 at the range (the rifle still had a pricetag on it).
One doesn’t need to be a marksmen to effectively use a handgun defensively in most any common DGU scenario. Besides, cars are easy to drive, but it took some practice to fully ingrain it. Guns and cars and a million other things are easy to use, so long as you know how to use them.
Criminals don’t obey laws. Gun control laws, “common sense” or otherwise, do not deter criminals. Rather, they merely serve to inconvenience at best, and violate the rights at worst, of the law-abiding.
A point to drive home, in my opinion, is that highly motivated killers such as these spree shooters are already planning on committing the worst crimes possible. The Sandy Hook killer got up that morning planning on killing his own mother and a bunch of little kids. What’s a few possession or transactional felonies compared to that?
Common sense dictates that a normal gun owner won’t jeopardize losing his personal property and risk going to jail by committing a crime with his gun.
It’s why it DOESN’T happen a couple hundred million times a day.
Common Sense says – I don’t need to ask your permission to defend myself; that my right to declare CIVIL WAR would not logically require the permission of any other person; that anyone wishing to conduct a CIVIL WAR themselves would not first seek my permission; that conduct of a CIVIL WAR will likely require firearms; that CHINA or Mexico will not ask permission before they wage (further) war on us; that PROSECUTION OF A WAR WITH AN EXTERNAL ENEMY OF THE U.S. will require firearms, and it will be too late by light years to have an “authority” dole out the firearms [or the right to bear them you assh_les] then; that AMERICA won’t outlive my right to make a New America should I so choose, and that might require firearms; that nobody asked gun-grabbers what their ‘good idea’ was.
Common Sense is neither.
Common sense says a criminal bleeding profusely makes it easy for the police to find them later. Criminals are more afraid of victims with guns than the other way around.
Also owning a gun is not like wearing “the one ring to rule them all”. It will not corrupt you. I am no more likely to want to kill something than I was previously (no desire, for the record). I am on the other hand aware of the great responsibility I now have over my tools to see that they don’t get misused
Common sense says that those who vilify guns as tools of death and destruction overlook their utility as deterrents. Were guns not capable of inflicting death and destruction they could not as effectively deter violence. Common sense says those who vilify guns are mistrustful of others, because they too readily assume anyone who carries a gun (except maybe police or agents of the state) has no honorable purpose to do so and is not sufficiently well-trained to safely use their firearm in public.
“Guns save lives” is no more true than “guns kill people”. Can’t have it both ways, sorry.
True, but the average person is incapable of a deep enough thought process to get beyond the rhetoric, so we have to match buzz phrases with our own.
Common sense says that training and safe storage are generally good ideas but laws mandating these things are not.
Common sense says that free people should not accept slave-minded subjects as countrymen.
Common Sense says that when the irrational fear of guns becomes the norm, then police will feel justified in shooting children playing with toy guns.
President Obama just made claim in other civilizes country’s because guns are illegal that they do not have type shooting that happen like one took place in South Carolina. So president Obama common cents if ban all firearms events like South Carolina do not happen. Than went on make case in public why go do ever thing in power over events happen like South Carolina make all firearms illegal. So now gone hear even more ant gun common cents remarks as Obama push for even more gun control. Like said Robert Farago common cent does mean what mean to president Obama. He prove with remarks attack on gun owners over event that happen with South Carolina blame ever gun owner for these type events.
When has Obama ever said anything that was “common sense”. Everything that comes out of his mouth is designed to further his authoritarian socialist political dogma. He doesn’t give a wit about victims other than their value to help showboat his anti-freedom government dependency views.
Is it so much to ask in this day and age for a President who doesn’t wish we were more like the European tyrannies this country was founded to flee from?
Roscoe trying point out lack common sense Obama has on firearms issue but you did better job than I did expressing that point.
Just another perspective; you did just fine!
Common sense dictates that people of the gun must not allow the antis to define the narrative with hijacked ‘trump card’ phrases like “common sense”, and “if it saves just one child”.
Common sense should direct us to turn the antis examples around on them to reveal the fallacy of their statements in the real world environment, and to spread true, evident logic in short, sweet, easy to remember ‘catch phrase’ rebuttals of the antis invalid claims in a clear, conclusive tone.
Gun free zones create free fire killing venue for criminals and mentally broken assailants.
If the good citizens are disarmed, your child will NOT be saved.
Sexual inadequacy is a sign of fear. Law abiding gun owners are calm and confident.
You get the idea.
I like the sign.
In my office I have two sheets of paper hanging on my wall,
One has the familiar
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The other
“This page intentionally has words printed in the middle of it”
Gun owners are mentally stable.
If they were not, all the anti-gun people would be dead.
As I learned to say from the Cathechism, “This is most certainly true”.
“Common sense” is subjective, manipulative wordsmithing used in arguments, debates to make the opposing opinion seem irrational and extreme. Don’t fall for it and always call it out when you see it. It’s use is becoming more common when the better funded side has the means to use it as propaganda tool in the media as a way to discredit opposing opinions. It is commonly used in global warming, vaccine, gun control, and many other agendas being currently pushed.
Common sense says that possession of a firearm by normal, law-abiding citizens doesn’t mysteriously turn them into raving lunatics who shoot people over the slightest provocation. Being armed doesn’t make you cocky, impulsive or aggressive, it just helps you to be able to defend yourself.
Common sense does not exist in reality.
“Background checks don’t prevent crime
Common sense says that anyone with a criminal record knows they will fail a criminal background check when trying to purchase a gun from a legal source. So criminals avoid background checks entirely by stealing a gun or purchasing a firearm from the black market. When and where background checks are expanded to gun shows and legal private sales, criminals avoid those sources as well. And steal or purchase a firearms from the black market.”
With the caveat that I do not favor or encourage statist regulation of rights inherent to ones very existence (or statism in general)…
No one can know this for certain. I’ve personally witnessed folks at Cabela’s and a couple of LGS’s be denied a firearms purchase because they were rejected after the background check revealed they were felons. A few genuinely looked surprised that they were prohibited. Did that end their quest? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not. But we cannot take it on faith either way and certainty is not. While much of the conclusion of the premise is true the notion that they do not prevent crime is unknown. It would seem to follow that at times it does and at times it does not. Perhaps more often it does not. But concrete proclamations shouldn’t be made in this regard.
I’m glad you are addressing this. I am sick of hearing politicians say that it’s just common sense. It’s not just common sense to take away other people’s rights.
Where is Common Sense? I’ve been driving all around in LA and can’t find it.
Common sense says, if most people are decent and responsible, equipping them to be as capable as can be makes the world a better pace. If not, we want them as helpless and ineffective as possible.
“Common sense” says, wanting to disarm citizens means you have a pretty low opinion of the. (- er, us. – er yourself, perhaps?)
BTW, one of the more difficult problems in the application of artificial intelligence is “common sense.” The machines have none, and it’s horrendously difficult to replicate.
The default approach, from back when I followed this, some time ago, was to create an populate a “common sense database”, full of the myriad odd, unfathomable, pattern-free “common sense” exceptions that make up the world. They usually failed – they’d encounter a situation where their big-brain patterns got it wrong, yet wasn’t covered by the big pile of common sense exceptions.
Common sense, in fact, isn’t so common. Also, seems to be a collection of exceptions to what you can derive from big general principals. How about that?
the “appeal to common sense” is logical fallacy and should not be your sole basis of lecture.
From the ORIGINAL Common Sense
Common sense will tell us that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others the most improper to defend us…Wherefore if we must hereafter protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves?
Thomas Payne
Common Sense
Self defense is common sense.
It was true in 1776 and it still remains true today.