Previous Post
Next Post

Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs (courtesy youtube.com)

Writing for CNN, Columbia University ProfessorJeffrey Sachs took time from his busy schedule to offer a “modest proposal on guns.” Professor Sachs is too modest. For anyone who cherishes their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, the academic’s proposal is about as inoffensive as burning a flag at a VFW convention . . .

Let’s be clear about Professor Sach’s goal: “Focus the protection of the Second Amendment on keeping nonmilitary arms at home for self-defense, while putting an escalating standard of protection on other kinds of arms and uses.”

Because the Second Amendment only protects non-military firearms from government infringement. Anyway . . .

Here is an example of a regulation that could provide an effective compromise. If individuals want to own semi-automatic assault weapons, either as collectors or for practice shooting, then enforce a provision that such weapons can only be kept at legally registered shooting ranges or other registered depositories, and cannot be removed from the designated premises.

Similarly, if individuals want to use unusual high-powered weapons for hunting, and if such weapons are deemed to be acceptable for hunting purposes, then require that the hunters collect their weapons from a registered hunting depot and redeposit them after hunting, with the guns and ammunition properly accounted for. Or if gun enthusiasts want to visit gun shows, then fine, but purchases of regulated weapons would have to be delivered to designated sites, such as shooting ranges or hunting depots.

Gun ownership at home would be protected, according to the protections recognized in Heller. Gun ownership more broadly would also be protected, for hunting and sports shooting, but subject to protective regulation. We would end the day when a madman could lawfully own and keep powerful assault weapons wherever they like, and then carry them at will to a chosen location to murder those gathered, but still recognize the right of Americans to own, collect and shoot their weapons for lawful purposes.

How does that grab you? Speaking of which, to enforce this “compromise” the government would have to grab millions of guns. And millions of gun owners would go the “cold dead hands” route when directed to remove their firearms from their homes.

To be fair, Professor Sachs knows his so-called compromise sucks. Like so many gun control advocates, he takes rhetorical refuge in the “if it saves just one life” argument.

Would this compromise end gun deaths? Of course not, since so many gun deaths occur at home among family and friends. And criminals would still evade the law, no doubt, so that we would as always depend on police forces for protection of persons and property.

Would such regulations inconvenience gun owners? Yes, modestly, but not unreasonably. Would such an approach offer some relief to a society that is suffering an epidemic of deaths from mass shootings, random gun violence, and rising fear? Yes, it would.

How does he know that? How does Professor Sachs know anything? Does he know anything?

Well, he now knows that CNN will publish just about any pro-gun control rubbish. Something we’ve known for a long time.

Previous Post
Next Post

83 COMMENTS

    • Well, Statism includes our “Constitutional Republic” that everyone seems to love so well…

      It’s high time that we peacefully separate into true like minded and like value and moral groups, not only at the community level but on the political level since that seems to be a requirement.

      For instance it is clear from statements like this:

      “…so that we would as always depend on police forces for protection of persons and property.”

      that we live in a farcical world. Did you ever sign any “social contract” that says you “always depend on police forces for protection of persons and property”? I sure as heck didn’t!

      And that is but a small piece. Taxation is beyond ridiculous. I don’t remember “we the people” ever authorizing Congress, who has the supposed authority to declare war, to invade Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. So the billions being spent in “taxpayer” money is nothing but outright theft and enriching a small few who profit handsomely from conflict and war.

      This goes way beyond mere “gun control”. It’s time to get back to sane local rule. Let the ~50% of the population that identifies with left politics turn their city states into socialist utopias…I don’t care as long as it doesn’t effect me or cost me anything in my neck of the woods. I can fight battles against my mayor or my city hall…hard to fight battles when your “governor” is hundreds of miles away…

  1. The esteemed professor should have saved his precious time for something much more important, such as getting into his footie pajamas and having a cup of cocoa.

  2. Forced to leave my property in the company of others? How about NO dirt bag.

    Leave the US if you don’t like our freedoms. No one wants you here.

  3. It seems that the Professor is uneducated about certain laws and rules. My gun range won’t keep my gun overnight, due to what I think is a regulation. It has meant that they turn down business to clean guns for people who come in with guns too late in the evening, or can’t come back that same day. I don’t know why, but that’s their rule.

    • I live in WA where “we” just passed an incredibly stupid law, so I would have to transfer my guns through an FFL and have a background check each time I left my guns at the range unless the person behind the counter was an “immediate family member” (or maybe if I was voluntarily lending them my gun, which I sure as shit wouldn’t do) and the gun couldn’t be out of their possession until I took it back. Through an FFL with another background check.

      Fucking stupid morons.

    • The same proposal makes occasional appearances in Australia. It is usually rejected for many reasons including the level of security which would have to better than bank safety deposit boxes (after a few breakins at said bank safety deposit boxes), location of the repositories, operating hours, parking, costs, facilities, responsibility, etc

      Isn’t logic and logistics wonderful?

    • Your FFL doesn’t want to have to transfer it onto their books. I have left a gun for smithing work or engraving and they have to log it.

      Sounds like these depots would basically store (own?) your “evil” guns, meaning there wouldn’t be much point in actually owning anything except your allowed personal bolt action black powder pistol or revolver. The rest you would be better off just renting. Then you could tell everyone that yes, you “own” a bunch of machine guns, silencers, grenade launchers, etc. Basically like one of those boating/yacht share clubs. Except you can only use “your” boat only inside their private, Olympic sized swimming pool. This doesn’t taste like freedom to me.

    • The reason you can’t leave your firearms at the range overnight (besides storage space in a safe) is the range has an FFL, All firearms left in their possession Must be logged in to their “gun book” otherwise the ATF in a suprise visit can heavily fine, suspend their FFL or jail the FFL licensee. In order for you to get your guns back you’ll need to fill out a 4473 form and do a NICS background check, then logging your firearms out of their “gun book”
      It’s just easier for you to take your guns home at the end of the day.

  4. I remember reading another Modest Proposal in school on how to deal with the Irish. I like this solution to the gun owner problem about as much.
    Bigots and their bright ideas…

  5. Hey Professor,I hope I get to molest you like you have undoubtedly molested your 1ST and 2ND grade students since you started as a TA and worked your way up to the college level by indoctrinating kids with your thankless advice on how to be a snowflake and incite rioting as a college course. No,do not desire any unsolicited advice from someone with as much useless baggage as you no doubt have.

  6. It’s so strange how the “just one life” trope doesn’t work for immigration & border enforcement or for the sanctity of life topic. 😉

  7. So…..yeah. You can your modest proposal and shove it up your pretentious @$$.
    You want me to take my rifle to a storage facility and i can only use it there and i have to leave it there???
    Do you think we are stupid? So in the middle of the night they can be rounded up and disposed of with out anyone knowing until the go shooting again?
    Or what happens if it gets robbed and my rifle is used in a crime? Are you and your stupid idea going to be held responsible? I doubt it.
    So professor nut sack, tell me how im not being inconvenienced or infringed upon.
    Here’s any idea…. stfu and leave the country if you dont like it.

    • It’s not so bad. Let’s all store our loaded guns in the good prof’s house, you stack yours in that corner, I’ll take this one. He assumes all liability for loss, theft, or crimes committed, including paying us double if he “misplaces” any. Just leave the doors unlocked, we may want to access our guns at odd hours. Would this cause him any inconvenience? Perhaps, but nothing of any importance. When his house gets too full, he can just buy another one for us to fill.

  8. So much for an individual right to protect oneself existing outside a gun range! The Founding Fathers would throw this toad into the Delaware River to freeze!

  9. Huh, his proposal sounds just like the regulation issued by the Military Governor of Boston General Thomas Gage, who ordered all citizens of Boston to deposit their arms at the garrison “for safe keeping.” We know what happened when he sought to enforce that regulation abroad in the land…

  10. Wondering if he is serious. The original “A Modest Proposal” was written by Jonathan Swift in 1729. It is a satire “solving” the problem of Irish poverty by having the poor sell their children as food to be eaten by wealthy Englishmen. It even includes recipes and serving suggestions. Since then a modest proposal has come to mean a proposal that is anything but modest.

  11. Sounds like a UK statist.

    I guess we need to only have internet access at regulated locations so the govt can monitor what we say (and decide when it’s hate speech).

    And since lots of people die due to drunks, let’s have a govt house where you can drink. They will monitor you blood alcohol levels and shut you off when close to loopy.

    It will only be a mild inconvenience.

    What a pedantic asshole.

  12. Dear Professor Sachs,

    It’s critical that you understand something: The Second Amendment was written so that I can protect myself from people like YOU, and other tyrant wannabees, with whatever tools I deem to be most efficacious.

  13. Gee Doc, I only have one a couple of questions:

    1. Whom are you going to send to get my guns?
    2. What are you going to do when they don’t come back?

    One MORE time:

    NO, I REFUSE.

  14. It will all be fun and games and frolicking until a madman breaks into the ‘safe gun depository’ and goes on a shooting rampage and there is no one there to stop them. If a criminal can break into a national guard armory and steal machine guns (it actually happened in MA), then I’m sure this is going to be a super lucrative target for criminals, because they will know exactly where the weapons are. I wonder if the professor would require LEOs to keep their ‘at home’ AR-15s locked up in the special (“I need to feel safe”) safe?

  15. I choose to ignore Mr Sachs proposal entirely.

    He has demonstrated a lack of understanding of basic english because nothing about his proposal is ‘modest.’ Nothing in his proposal aligns with the freedom’s of this country and nothing in his proposal aligns with the most twisted understanding of Due Process of Law.

    In short…. Mr Sachs can <>

  16. (D)heads of every ilk ARE THE PROBLEM.

    The PROBLEM IS OF, AND CAUSED BY, THEM.

    The PROBLEM doesn’t get to define the PROBLEM.

    The PROBLEM doesn’t get to make offerings of a solution to the PROBLEM.

  17. Why do these goons always seem to get plenty of airtime to peddle their nonsense?

    I sometimes long for the days before the internet and the associated sensationalism & rabid 24 hour news cycle that accompanied it.

    If I want an opinion on economics and sustainable development, I might listen to the good professor. However, on any other subject, definitely not. In my experience, professors have a lot of knowledge on one very specific subject but in all other aspects of life struggle to make it through the day………

  18. So like whats to stop somebody from checking their rifle out of the depository and then killing a bunch of people?
    These clowns love speedbumps. Sure, they don’t do squat to lessen automobile deaths but lets put a few more in for shits and giggles.

  19. Sachs is a big liberal with deep United Nations connections. He has spent the last 15 years screwing up Africa. From his Wikipedia page:

    Sachs is the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and a professor of health policy and management at Columbia’s School of Public Health. As of 2017 he serves as special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, …..

    …….Nina Munk, author of the 2013 book The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, says that poverty eradication projects endorsed by Sachs, although well intended, have – years later – “left people even worse off than before”. Author Paul Theroux, commenting on Sachs’s $120 million effort to aid Africa, says these temporary measures failed to create sustaining improvements but only “created dependence”.

    He is just shilling the party line for his globalist buddies.

  20. The only compromise would be to give every American citizen a nuclear warhead in exchange for their firearms, as it would be the only other way to prevent the government/criminals (some of them are the same) from taking over.

    But that’s much more extreme than letting us own guns.

    • Jake,

      Why would anyone want the most ineffective, over-hyped, useless weapon ever? That’s presuming they aren’t the biggest scam the world has ever known (Look at the Mont Blanc explosion in 1917 if you want to see what a large ground level explosion actually does to a city…99.99% likely Hiroshima and Nagasaki were firebombed). A Japanese engineer has finally outed the scam (Death Object: Exploding the Nuclear Weapons Hoax), and unless Trump pulls a random warhead from storage and publicly tests it (in front of third party mass spectrometers), the gig is up. Nukes are as fake as the Flat Earth nonsense.

      Thermobarics…now that would be a fun range toy. And they definitely work. Just ask the Taliban in AFG and ISIL in Syria.

      • Except that nukes are actually very real things and there is more footage that you could watch in a lifetime of actual field tests. Above ground. Below ground. Even in space, for crying out loud. So, it’s actually 100% likely that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were indeed nuked. Had you ever even taken so much as a glance at the aftermath of Fat Man and Little Boy you’d immediately write off that alleged “engeineer’s” horseshit (which itself a prima facie false conspiracy theory) just as readily as any flat-eather’s garbage.

  21. Stupid question but I wonder if the criminals will comply with that “modest” plan.

    But you know, common-sense and sh!t.

  22. This is the same university whose economics think tank urged Congress to relax laws on financial controls, that led directly to the 1987 and the 2008 financial meltdowns. They are an academic adjunct of Wall Street. The same personnel who stalk their hallways have also been habitues of the White House West Wing, Wall Street brokerage firms and Wall Street investment banks. Their neo liberal mantra has infected Government circles and created poverty and division throughout the world, including America. If you want the source of more misery than all the firearms in the world combined, you are looking at it.

    • Next you’re going to say something wild like “Jeffrey Sachs is largely responsible for the bad economic/political economy advice Russian leaders received after 1991, for the oligarchs. Every summer as I stroll along the beach walk by Puente Romano, I notice a few oligarchs on vacation. I think, automatically, of Sachs, Summers, and Krugman. Geniuses all.

      Sachs has known, since at least the age of sixteen, exactly what to say and write to convince the earnest academic left that he held enormous promise for the future. Not the present, the future. Boy, did that pay.

    • Just wait. the .Gov will take care of it. There will be literally dozens of them scattered over the country for your convenience! Almost certainly something within an 8hr drive. Open M-F 9am-4pm, except Federal Holidays.

  23. Another Ivy League professor(sic). Who cares what he thinks or says. With any luck he’ll live just long enough to regret not having a firearm to save his own life.

    • Hey, wood, get this straight. Which probably you can’t. While liberal Jews in NYC love their gun control, others not so liberal have 30 rounds per mag with your name on them, SAFE Act notwithstanding, if you should be so stupid as to act on your bias in a way that threatens life and safety. Yes, this guy Sachs is a wimpy douche, but go present your thesis in one of the neighborhoods that sponsored the Jewish Defense League. At that time, it was shotguns and baseball bats. At this time, a lot more rounds heading your way. The shotguns are still legal. And there is also the baseball bat.

  24. Just a short excerpt, because it is so appropriate, from my first book copyright (c) 2016.

    On the floor of the senate, the speaker is Senator Jackstone:

    “In light of the present circumstances we are requiring that all privately owned firearms be stored in National Guard armories where they cannot fall into the hands of criminals or terrwarists. Each citizen who brings his weapons to these armories will be sworn in as a member of the Homeland Defense Force Militia, thus giving them the constitutional right to keep and bear their arms.
    “Those citizens who do not bring in their weapons will be guilty of a felony and will be subject to federal prosecution. The act requires deputized members of the HDF Militia to assist us in apprehending those of their neighbors who are reluctant to comply with the law.
    “Law abiding citizens will have free access to their weapons, so long as those weapons are not in violation of any existing or future prohibitions or regulations. They need only present their HDF Militia I.D. card and a valid hunting license or pre-scheduled appointment at an approved federal firing range and their weapon will be signed out to them for an adequate period of time, along with a travel permit authorizing them to transport that specific firearm in their vehicle, via a specific route, unloaded, to the destination certain.
    “For hunting each person will be issued three cartridges for their weapon. For practice and competitions target ammunition will be available at the shooting range and issued in lots of 5 bullets as needed.
    “Our law-abiding neighbors will also have agreed that both they and their weapons will be available to the HDF in the event of war or civil disturbance. The actual disposition of these personnel and weapons will be at the discretion of the HDF, advised by the Commander in Chief.
    “The bill further provides that failure to comply or possession of a weapon outside of these regulations makes the citizen prima facie an enemy of the state and subject to arrest and prosecution the same as any other armed and dangerous criminal.
    “You will notice as well that this law applies to EVERY American, regardless of their profession. Law enforcement agencies are NOT exempt. We have sufficient police on duty at all times in our communities so that it should not be necessary, nor is it advisable, to have off-duty police walking about in civilian clothes and carrying weapons. Else how are we to tell the criminals with illegal guns from the terrwarists from the off-duty police?
    “I urge you all to support this legislation and I thank you in advance for all the CHILDREN whose lives it will save.”

  25. “Would such an approach offer some relief to a society that is suffering an epidemic of deaths from mass shootings, random gun violence, and rising fear?

    The professor is somewhere far from reality. There is no “epidemic” of firearms murders. And, our suicide rate is actually reasonable (below a few leftist-cherished utopias like Sweden and Finland, for example).

    Bonus points: who would have guessed that Sachs is a globalist?

    “The Earth Institute [director: Jeffrey Sachs] was established at Columbia University in 1995. The research institute’s stated mission is to address complex issues facing the planet and its inhabitants, with a focus on sustainable development. With an interdisciplinary approach this includes research in climate change, geology, global health, economics, management, agriculture, ecosystems, urbanization, energy, hazards, and water. The Earth Institute’s activities are guided by the idea that science and technological tools that already exist could be applied to greatly improve conditions for the world’s poor, while preserving the natural systems that support life on Earth.”

  26. Either this guy thinks the .223 is an ‘unusual high-powered weapon’ or I missed the rash of crimes being committed with the .416 Rigby.

  27. So, I’m thinking in this fellow’s calculation, millions of the most stubborn and ardent citizens in this country would – if faced with such a law – scream and shout and then simply say, “well ok, then, because it is the law.”

    Not sure that his assumption about reactions to such a law are accurate. At a minimum, the lack of compliance would be profound. Even in NY and CT, where the states mostly knew who owned AR-15s (and similar), around 80% of affected owners simply refused to comply (from something I read, but I could be wrong on specific number). In any event, what would the compliance be in states that simply have no idea who owns such banned weapons?

    The most likely outcome if the good professor had his way would be absolutely nothing via noncompliance. Less likely, but still within the realm of possibility would be thousands and thousands dead who either fought back or tried to enforce the law.

    His calculation has some errant assumptions, I’m thinking.

  28. The essence of compromise is both parties giving up something they have in exchange for something they want.

    I see a lot of give on the pro-gun side, and a lot of get on the anti side; I don’t see much of anything going in the other direction. How, then, could this possibly be considered a compromise? (Keeping in mind that as a pro-gun owner I’m evil already and don’t care about any potential savings of life … at least that’s how I’m portrayed, so that’s what I demand the other party works with, deal-wise, if they’re going to propose nonsense like this.)

  29. This guy has a laundry list of firearms we wouldn’t be able to keep or use anywhere except a federally designated facility, and has the gall to follow it up with “Gun ownership at home would be protected, according to the protections recognized in Heller.”

    Uh…no. If I can’t buy any commercially available gun I want and keep it in my home (or anywhere else I want), then GUN OWNERSHIP AT HOME IS NOT PROTECTED. Exactly the opposite.

    Your argument fails to convince me, Mr. Sachs.

  30. What “epidemic of deaths from mass shootings, random gun violence, and rising fear?”

    Take out the suicides, which constitute the majority of so-called gun violence deaths, and the thug-on-thug gangland slayings, which make up most of the remainder, and you’re left with a U.S. homicide rate on par with or lower than that of most other civilized countries. So what’s the problem?

    Go deal with the suicidal and outlaw segments of the population, and leave the rest of us in peace to live our lives and to serve as a quiet bulwark against tyranny.

  31. “Gun ownership more broadly would also be protected,”
    Just licensed and regulated to the point no one can exercise that right.

    “enforce a provision that such weapons can only be kept at legally registered shooting ranges or other registered depositories, and cannot be removed from the designated premises.”
    For a small, insignificant, fee of $100 per month per firearm, which will increase by 50% each year, they will store your weapon. And, if you return your weapon late, by so much as a minute, that and all weapons you own will be confiscated as well as your being levied a hefty fine.

    “but still recognize the right of Americans to own, collect and shoot their weapons for lawful purposes.”
    Until eventually we will regulate the lawful purposes out of existence.

  32. There’s much suck in the rest of Jeffie’s not at all modest proposal, but right at the beginning I saw this:

    If individuals want to own semi-automatic assault weapons, either as collectors or for practice shooting…

    What does he think I’m practicing for, I wonder.

  33. Columbia University (typical), “Professor” (LOL), (((Jeffrey Sachs))), we should thank him for perpetuating a “stereotype”, he’s just another Leftist “sack of $h!t” with a degree.

    What the hell is wrong with the Jewish community especially here in the USA (and “the West” in general) that so many members who achieve positions of influence and/or power repudiate the principles and call for the abolishment of rights that allow them to exist, the same principles that would have permitted them to fight back across Europe and possibly have saved their ancestors from the Nazis? Is it something in their diet that creates these diabolical Fabian Socialists/Cultural Marxists and Totalitarians?

    • I’m surprised he had time to compile that list between handwringing over his queen losing the election and creeping about Ha, Ha, Ha. Haaaar-Vaaaard Men’s Restroom stalls.

  34. Bet he’d change his mind if an over grown nazi in a leather leotard busted into his bedroom one night as had his way with him.

  35. Step 1: Order all “Assault Weapons” to be stored at designated gun ranges.
    Step 2: Take gun ranges to court and litigate them out of existence as a nuisance because morons move in next door and hate the noise.
    Step 3: Guns have to be collected by the government because no storage locations exist anymore as they were shut down.
    Step 4:
    Step 5: Profit

  36. “If it saves just one life.” Firearms have saved millions more innocent and good guys’ lives. So there you have it. Does not require any dumb shit academic to figure that one out.

  37. Why is it tyranny always seems have it’s roots in comfortable bourgeois douchebag intellectuals? The would be commissars, like the professor and his ilk, are fundamentally authoritarians who believe it is their rightful place to hold dominion over the unenlightened peasants. Our liberty will be at risk until folks like the good professor are either refugees in another country or decorating lamp posts at home.

  38. Swift’s “modest proposal” was a single, simple policy, crisply stated. The rest of his missive was exploring the justifications for, and consequences of what he proposed.

    Professor Modesty seems to have done the opposite. I wonder what that’s about?

  39. I offer a similar reasonable compromise, in that pens, paper, microphones, cameras and cell phones be registered, licensed and kept locked up unless being used for approved purposes. Only 5 words are permitted per day.

  40. Jim
    Geez what a great idea! Put all our rifles in one place, it’ll take about 1 day for criminals
    To learn of this then they can burglarize the gun range take all the guns and sell them people that should never have them. Brilliant idea Prof. Sachs. No wonder college grads are not making the grade in the real world!.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here