Shaver police shooting
Courtesy Los Angeles Times and YouTube
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It’s time to add to our count of publications that are signing on to the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex’s primary talking point these days. To wit, the argument that no matter how bad some cops’ behavior may be, no matter how much reform may be desired or needed, we can’t possibly make any progress in that area unless we also disarm law-abiding Americans.

To recap, here are (at least some of) the coordinated posts that the Everytown/Brady/Giffords gang has ginned up using their handy-dandy anti-gun JournoList contacts:

Washington Post: Robert Gebelhof’s No police reforms would be complete without gun reforms

The Atlantic: Derek Thompson in The Overlooked Role of Guns in the Police-Reform Debate

Fast Company: Talib Visram in America’s gun violence epidemic is inextricably linked to police violence

Now comes The New Republic, a once-great periodical that was thoroughly trashed by a Facebook alum with too little to do and too much money on his hands. He quickly drove off almost all of the publication’s talent and finally moved on down the road to blow more of his pile of tech cash on other projects.

In the TNR piece, Firmin DeBrabander (yes, we’ve noted some of his hysterical hoplophobic scribblings here before) makes sure to acknowledge the work of some of the other dedicated media gun control advocates who have blazed the trail before him in this current effort:

Law enforcement has been infected by America’s gun culture, as Derek Thompson has recently argued in The Atlantic. “[C]elebrating widespread gun ownership,” he writes, “makes it all but inevitable that the United States has more armed police than similarly rich countries, more panicky officers, more adversarial police encounters, more officer shootings, and more civilian killings.”

And then comes the case for the need — the moral obligation — we should all feel for further restricting the right to keep and bear arms.

Underscoring this domestic arms race, a larger philosophical issue looms: Police have adopted the same fundamental societal outlook as gun rights advocates: Arms are synonymous with law and order. Whatever process of public safety reform may await the U.S., a radical reform of gun culture must be part of the conversation.

Consider how our gun culture makes American society needlessly treacherous, for police and citizens alike. The U.S. lacks the most basic of firearms regulations: universal background checks on all gun purchases and transfers. In the absence of such constraints, gun rights advocates have promoted laws enabling armed citizens to carry their guns in public—and, in many states, shielding them from criminal and civil liabilities for causing damage to people and property.

Yes, our pre-riot society was so very treacherous that violent crime had fallen to generational lows at the same time civilian gun ownership has more than doubled. But hold on, DeBrabander’s on a roll.

It’s a favorite saying of gun advocates that “an armed society is a polite society.” We have abundant evidence that that is hardly the case. Quite to the contrary, an armed society encourages—or even forces—people to solve problems with a gun, not shrink from violence. Police are gripped with a similar madness. Consider again how often, in recent weeks, police have blocked, bullied, kettled, gassed, and bashed protesters, rather than “pacifying” them. They simply reject the central notion that in a democracy, peace is upheld by rule of law and not rule of violence. This rejection is also evident in the National Rifle Association–supported “killology” and “sheepdog” training offered to police forces and gun-wielding citizens alike, training that treats the masses as unwitting sheep and elevates the sheepdogs who keep wolves at bay with “[s]uperior violence. Righteous violence.”

We won’t go on. After all, this is just the latest iteration of a new, urgent series penned by compliant stenographers for the gun control industry, dedicated anti-gun advocates in their own right who are only too happy to pitch in once again to piggyback their message on the current push for police reform.

Besides, they have to do what they can do right now. The usual gun control messaging isn’t getting much traction with the average American these days as more of them pick shelves clean in gun stores from sea to shining sea. So this won’t be the last we see of this meme while the current debate presents them with one of their only good opportunities to advance the narrative.

 

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65 COMMENTS

      • The buying public just witnessed the cold truth that the police will run away when they needed them the most.

        Why should someone call the police when those same caring Leftists just finished educating them that the police will kill the ones who call, or not show up at all?

        • Geoff, to be fair the police were ,often, ordered to stand down by their elected “superiors”.

      • I’m working with two people right now that are tooling up. Both independently said the same thing, the cops won’t do shit. They don’t want their faces on CNN.

        One friend is in Philly. Now there is a rogue city. He’s driven past numerous looting exercises and diverted around riots.

        • “I’m working with two people right now that are tooling up. Both independently said the same thing, the cops won’t do shit.”

          The Leftists haven’t woken up to the reality yet that they no longer control the gun debate.

          That glorious propaganda organization they have so lovingly crafted over decades has just bitten them in the ass.

          If it had happened in just one city, they could have explained it away. But, nooooooooooooooo! It happened in nearly every major city. Meanwhile, in the backwaters of central Florida, Polk county’s own sheriff Grady Judd made national news when he advised rioters the good people of Polk county would shoot dead any rioter that tried to loot a resident’s home… :

    • Exactly correct, the left needs their violent foot soldiers to do the dirty work so gunz can be demonized and blame the law-abiding for the rampant violence, yes I’m aware it has dropped lately.

    • I’ll see your ante and up it further…

      …what if we actually addressed the true root cause of our current malaise, and called out the Left’s failed social experiments?

      1. President LBJ’s Great Society, in which welfare and housing programs have been used to incentivize fatherless minority homes for at least two generations.

      2. Not just the removal of, but the prohibition to even mention God, the Ten Commandments, or any flavor of Judeo-Christian morals over the past two generations?

      3. The introduction of Marxism into our educational spheres as an “acceptable” ideology, increasing in strength and academic support over the past two generations?

      ****
      Anyone seeing a pattern here? Everyone has always known that it only takes two generations to completely gut and transform a nation from within, by the indoctrination of toxic ideas that turn young people against their forebears.

      This implosion we’re seeing today in mid-2020 will not be reversed overnight, nor without pain and sacrifice.

      • Yeah the liberal ideals and not liberal in the classical sense like freedom but liberal in the we’re going to kill you and take all your things sense has ruined our country… I think it’s gonna be darker before we see the light again

      • I think it must be hard to teach the youngsters when the first question is” what gender are you? which sex do you identify with”? Today’s teachers have other agenda besides educating impressionable kids.

      • America has been over run without firing a shot…..the non-shot unheard around the world. It is not a situation of “enemy in the wire.” Today, and for several generations, the enemy is sitting in the Command Post.
        BROKEN ARROW!!! BROKEN /ARROW!!! BROKEN ARROW!!!
        EXPEND ALL AVAILABLE ORDNANCE ON OUR COORDINATES.
        GOD SAVE OUR REPUBLIC AND OUR SOULS.

    • Ha ha come on they’d have to change their culture to not rob rape and steal… and be drug dealers that’s craziness it’s much easier to destroy our history and country..

  1. Poor psychological evaluation techniques, training and sheer lack of ability to handle firearms correctly are the more prevalent reasons for ineffective policing. The average cop probably only fires his gun once a year at qualifications. He/She probably doesn’t even break it down and clean more than once a year. Contrary to the writings of these mental midgets, the gun culture isn’t strong in today’s police forces.

    • lol wut? I mean, I agree most need more training, constantly. But maybe you are referring to the average urban officer?

      • Yes, urban and even suburban in large sprawling areas, where there are 10’s of thousands of officers. Often they have little or no firearms experience before the Academy. I have seen it. Talked with them. A boy scout who had an edge because .22 cal & 12 G at summer camp, smh

        How about a SWAT sniper shooting his commander in the head during a training exercise. True story (East Providence, RI).

        It is scary.

  2. Oh! I get it, the author wants us to shrink away from violence, ie be subservient to those using violence.
    Yeah, totally going to happen in my household. /s

  3. It’s almoa as if they’re getting marching orders from somewhere…..
    But that can’t be. Everybody knows that mainstream media outlets are bastions of integri- I can’t even finish the post without laughing.

    • elitists who control the media just waiting for the country to fall so they can fund a new one, and most like that already have their own makeshift country ready to start on private property.

    • Even in my part of the world (my tag name is a big hint) the media were rabidly anti-gun since at least the late 1980s. The media’s global abandonment of the fairness doctrine, where both sides of issue would be presented without bias (or at least too much overt bias), in 1990s really released the distortions to out and out lies from the media about guns and gun owners.

      • Hmmmm. Central Mexico, Cuba, South America, Australia, Indonesia, Central to South Africa, Antarctica… Hell anywhere in the WORLD south of 25/30 degrees N. Latitude, that’s a pretty big HALF of the world…. I could see the Southern Cross from South Vietnam, actually all over Southeast Asia… …

        • Isn’t a bit obvious when I mention or make comparison to Australia’s stupid gun laws? At least we don’t have Kalifornia level stupidity, yet.

          But I’ll give an example for Her Majesty’s Colony of New South Wales. I recently bought a Ruger Precision Rimfire for myself and my son. We cannot have the folding stock. So we have the fixed stock version, BUT the stock is pinned and cannot be adjusted!

          The police thought the adjustable stock made the gun “more concealable”! 3.5 inches of adjustment on something about 38 inches long.

          So in order for both of use to be able to use it, out went the short Arctic Fox scope and an old 4×32 Tasco with a longer tube was installed. My son can use that scope and I can use it too. But it looks funny with the scope set so far back, but I’ve seen others do that too.

  4. The first and most basic rule of any “communist or socialist” take-over is to DISARM THE PEOPLE! Leave them with nothing to fight back with. Soon, they will not even have the will to fight or resist! If they do resist, start cutting the food supply! These people are not fools, they are Marxists of the first order! If people don’t realize this soon, there may not be another opportunity to stop this madness for a long period of time! Wake up America! We are under attack from more directions than you can imagine!

    • I don’t know about elsewhere, but here in CA it’s actually illegal to cut off utilities to your own home if you return from vacation to find that squatters have broken into your home and set up residence. The courts don’t look upon such an action as a justifiable attempt to regain your property. You yourself can/will be arrested, charged, and subject to lawsuit from the squatters. Don’t ask me how I (personally) know this. Grrr.

      • Yeah that does take balls to do that. The ultimate example of not giving a shit or being afraid of authority.

      • Ha ha… I guess there is no law there… because I’m almost not 100% but a solid 80% I could run the squatters out or catch a charge with a baseball bat

        • Actually, I personally know two people to whom this happened. One was, unfortunately, stuck and could only rely on the courts and Sheriff Deputies to handle the situation, which took two months.

          The other was a bit more of a redneck, and simply enlisted the help of a (very large) friend affectionately nicknamed “Big Mike” who was 6’5″ and 250+ lbs. He simply walked up to the door, rang the doorbell, and when the squatters opened the door, walked right in to the living and room and stripped down to his underwear before sitting on the couch and announcing that he was “now living there as well”. The homeowner was able to move back within 24 hours, lol.

        • Had some on my street a couple of years back, the owner couldn’t even evict (legally) and sheriffs dept was hand tied to confront the squatters. Luckily the squatters could not endure the second summer without water or electric (A.C.) here in Fl.

      • So… enter the home with your side piece and clear it.

        Don’t talk to police, tell your lawyer “All I know is I came home, opened the door, and these random people were inside my house”. Sounds threatening enough, and its not hard to spin it that way either. Even if they were just chillin on your couch eating your cheetos.

  5. “They simply reject the central notion that in a democracy, peace is upheld by rule of law and not rule of violence.”

    Has Firmin made any attempt to spread this message about the rule of law to the members of BLM and Antifa?

  6. For some reason I picture Firmin DeBrabander mimicing Captain Queeg, rocking back-and-forth in a chair, mumbling about “guns” while clutching a handful of pretty white (is THAT “racist”?) pearls instead of steel marbles.

    Note:

    His obsession with armed Americans pleases me to no end, I hope we invade his dreams.

  7. In this month’s NRA publications there is an open letter from Charlie Daniels.
    He correctly points out that in Mexico, private ownership of firearms is virtually banned; however, the drug cartels have ever and anything they want by way of weapons.
    When a nation has an annual death toll measured in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps individual ownership should be revisited.
    No firearms does not equate to no violence.

    • Too bad the cartel run that country. Mexico could be such a nice place. It’s beautiful down there. South America in general is just all kinds of fucked up though. I would NEVER even vacation somewhere like that. People have this illusion that certain areas are “safer”. Lol… no.

  8. First of we need to have a voice and make ourselves heard. The problem is having a debate with liberals has to be done live if televised otherwise they will edit the video to make gun proponents look bad and them to look right.

    Secondly we need to call for a discussion and a vote on gun related laws. It should not be up to one party or one politician to create policy and legislation. A total gun ban would violate the rights of those who want them and go against the Second Amendment, which I don’t think anyone has the right to change, modify or eliminate, nor any part of the Constitution.

    The left wing socialistic dictators want to make across the board legislation to suit their ideology without regard for how it affects others with a different viewpoint or different needs. And the rich and powerful will retain their security by physical and electronic devices plus still have armed people to protect them. It’s okay for a few people with training to protect them with the ability to effectively kill anyone beneath their status that might try to rob or harm them. That kind of shooting is fine by them. The rest of just have to accept being raped, robbed, beaten or killed.

    Just like this rioting crap. They excuse those punks on an intellectual basis and don’t give a damn about the violence, the rapes, the vandalism and the financial loss and destruction of those communities and the lives of the residents who contributed to the town or city that those young, idealistic, self righteous dirt bags are not even a part of. They’re all from some other place, but felt entitled to invade another local and create mayhem. This is not democracy in action, but an invasion.

    They claim our weapon is the AR-15 or any firearm. Maybe, that’s not relevant, but we don’t solve our problems with guns as they want to claim. They are dependent on control, exploitation, legislation, false narratives, social media lies, etc., all stemming from their main weapon which is abuse of power. Disarming us makes that easier.

    We just want to be able to defend against a specific enemy while they consider everyone their enemy and can attack huge numbers of people with their draconian laws and dictatorial governing. But none of them will admit to their actions.

    • I don’t think they want to talk. They want to rule. And they have discovered, and proven, the authorities are afraid of them. So don’t expect a fair fight. When the cities are stripped and burned they are moving to the subs. Then the rural areas.

      And that’s going to be interesting.

    • They don’t want to talk. Police chiefs, the idiot mayors who let this happen, have already attempted dialogue with everyone from random protestors to the “leaders” of these movements. The worst part is some of the people who should have stood up to them, took knees and asked “how can we help”.

  9. The Police are Civilians. I am a CITIZEN, not a Subject. Most police are corrupt, just look around. When a “good cop, backs a bad cop, that makes him a dirty cop also. I never met a good cop. Just saying.

  10. No police reform is possible until we rid ourselves of systemic racism and capitalism. There, fixed it for you.

    • Systematic racism is a myth. It does not exist. Capitalism provides you with the ability to write that comment, btw.. Do you think the government invented the internet? Or would let you get away with criticising their rules on it? Capitalism is not perfect, the same as life is not fair. Get over it. Make something of yourself and quit whining.

  11. “You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.”

    ― Al Capone

    • Al “I’ve been pissing puss and ignored since I was 15 and now syphilis has rotted my brain” Capone. Amazing what prohibition allowed a man like that to do.

  12. Firmin DeBrabander argues that universal background checks should “constrain” gun-rights advocates from promoting laws they favor. So, an infringement on 2a rights is also supposed to limit 1A rights?

    DeBrabander has let slip the real reason for leftists’ fetish with restrictions on firearms owners. They intend to clip their political wings because firearms owners “in the absence such constraints” promote laws enabling citizens to exercise their human rights and constitutional rights.

    “The U.S. lacks the most basic of firearms regulations: universal background checks on all gun purchases and transfers. In the absence of such constraints, gun rights advocates have promoted laws enabling armed citizens to carry their guns in public….”

  13. What we REALLY need to do is reeducate the people starting with pre-school children.. Remove ALL of the history studies from school books and replace it with testing and learning how to take tests, then change the way one plus one equals two, give everyone a trophy for “trying”, entice children indoors with video games and then come up with a way for them to interact with others virtually in real time (call it uhmmmm “socializer” or I know “social media”) then buy up all the news outlets and get them on the same page by issuing “talking points” from a central location.. Finally convince kids that they are smarter than their parents and in 40 or 50 years you can have a completely redesigned society…. Oh wait, that’s basically what got us in THIS mess, sorry.. Never Mind…

  14. Let’s see if I have this right.

    One man is killed by an officer kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes, long after it was ascertained that the man was not armed with a gun. So this reflects our gun culture?

    Another man is killed with a choke hold for wrangling with officers who were trying to stop him from evading NY taxes by selling loose cigarettes. So this reflects our gun culture?

    Yet another man is shot dead after stealing an officer’s taser and first firing at him. Gun culture again, right?

    Then a guy in jogging shorts and t-shirt gets shot by two rednecks who KNOW he’s not armed. But let me guess: this too was caused by fear of guns?

    In New Hampshire, the state I call home, we have constitutional concealed carry. The police must assume EVERY one they stop has a gun. Yet, police shootings are not exactly at epidemic levels. So, although they know we’re all carrying, they are not driven to irrational use of force out of fear that we have guns. Nor the fact that we have a huge number of opioid addicts. Somehow, fear of gun culture has not infected our local or state police. Go figure. Guess they’re slow learners, huh?

  15. What else can you expect from a person who has been deprived of the knowledge of our history, how the country came to be, how the Constitution was hammered out, why we celebrate July 4th…. This person most likely has NO idea what Memorial Day is or even who Washington, Jefferson or Adams were… This is just another baseless attempt by an ignorant millennial to regurgitate the same nonsensical “talking points” garbage spewed by other ignorant “intellectuals” in an attempt to make it truth… The old progressive playbook, “shout the “Lie” loud enough and long enough and soon enough it becomes true…. Hell I’m almost ready to believe that I really am a “privileged ” “toxic” White male (already solidly bought into the WHITE part), so maybe they CAN convince me that I and my guns ARE the problem that is causing cops to kill 25 or 30 unarmed citizens each year (might take another 50 years or so to sink in), but I welcome them to keep exercising their 1st amendment rights that even allows the liars to speak THEIR “truths”

  16. Regarding Law Abiding Gun Owners, they being the vast majority of gun owners, there is no need for “reform”, this being a whole hell of a lot more than can be said for “law enforcement” in particular, and government in general.

  17. Montana Actual says: >>> June 25, 2020 at 16:44
    Systematic racism is a myth. It does not exist.

    __The term is ” Systemic Racism”” > NOT systematic racism … If you’re going to talk cheit you better get it correct.

    __Developed by sociologist Joe Feagin, systemic racism is a popular way of explaining, within the social sciences and humanities, the significance of race and racism both historically and in today’s world. Feagin’s theory and all of the research he and many other social scientists have conducted over 100 years illustrate that racism is in fact built into the foundation of U.S. society and that it has over time come to infuse all aspects of it. It is present in our laws, our politics, our economy; in our social institutions; and in how we think and act, whether consciously or subconsciously. It’s all around us and inside of us, and for this reason, resistance to racism must also be everywhere if we are to combat it.

    Capitalism provides you with the ability to write that comment, btw.. Capitalism is not perfect, the same as life is not fair. Get over it. Make something of yourself and quit whining.

    __All this is basically drivel.

    Do you think the government invented the internet? Or would let you get away with criticising their rules on it?

    __The Internet got its start in the United States more than 50 years ago as a government weapon in the Cold War. Just a FACT – like it or not. Criticising is correctly spelled criticizing by the way. … would let you get away with criticizing their rules on it…? That’s a loon and lame brain question. WTF would the government do to you for criticizing their internet rules, you nut.

    • All that wall of copy paste proved is that your a garden variety grammar nazi and systemic racism is another load of collectivist bull crap.

    • The idea of systemic racism is a tool. It’s a lie used by leftists who want to dismantle traditional America as a necessary step to a Marxist utopia. If they can convince the public that everything that makes the US what it is is rotten, evil and racist from the root, why would the public object to its demolition? It already started. See the monument and statue busting.

  18. Andrew sullivan a gay imported englishman use to run the The New Republic. And I read it all the time back then. Sullivan was a moderate guy back then. He made gayness acceptable for other like minded liberals. But he was always anti civil rights. He didn’t like the 1st or 2nd amendments. He was from england. A place where they have neither in english law.

    The TNR was never pro gun ownership in its entire history. When two other gay men took it over I knew that was then end of that publication. Because LGBTQxyz people are socialist progressive in their political orientation.

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