Previous Post
Next Post

Screen Shot 2014-04-17 at 9.24.06 AM

A new anti-gun group from the Land of Hope and Glory has pinged TTAG’s radar: Action on Armed Violence. Yesterday I received a press release from AOV that directed me to an article by Armeghan Taheri, a self-described Afghan German | Women/Human Rights Activist | Social Justice Advocate | Lawyer | Intersectional Feminist. The American Exception: US responses to mass shootings takes exception to America’s failure to enact more gun control legislation in the aftermath of mass shootings. In it, Ms. Taheri occasionally bumps into what Mr. Gore called inconvenient truth . . .

The shift towards other control mechanisms such as background checks might not be ideal from a mass shooting prevention standpoint, but it does have a potentially salutary effect by making it more difficult for those with criminal backgrounds to acquire firearms.

So universal background checks aren’t ideal and might – might – make it more difficult for criminals to acquire firearms. I’d buy that for a dollar! I mean, pound. Aside from this sop to common sense, Ms. Taheri doesn’t have an original idea in her head on gun control. Her dietribe [sic] concludes by repeating ye olde “easy access to guns” creates crime meme.

There is one commonality between mass shootings and that type of gun violence, and that is the easy availability of weapons. Until that is addressed, both types of violence will likely remain a regular feature in U.S. headlines.

So all we have to do to reduce “gun violence” is restrict access to guns to law-abiding citizens. Sigh. Anyway, I answered AOV’s TTAG-tweaking Tweet (also sent to dozens of other pro-gun Twitterers) thusly:

Screen Shot 2014-04-17 at 9.40.09 AM

Previous Post
Next Post

58 COMMENTS

  1. Her words leave little doubt in my mind: she’s far more interested in violent gun crime as an abstraction, than she is actually concerned about its effects.

  2. For the last month or so, BBC radio has been going whole hog with anti-gun reports. Not just a minute or so, but 20 minute beauties with crying moms and details of children being shot. Don’t ask why I listen to this crap, just figure that I’m taking one for the team….

    • …and at some point, someone sold the British public on the idea that only government-run media could remain impartial and unbiased.

    • The BBC is openly trying to counter the growing demand in Britain to restore some of the lost gun rights usurped by Labor. This push to legalize defensive guns and defensive gun use is no secret in the UK today.

      • I really love some of the BBC shows. Great TV. But the leftist propaganda is so thick in places I’m surprised people don’t choke on it.

        • I call it Trojan Horse TV. Subsidize left-wing Statist news programs by getting people to tune in to the entertaining shows.

      • @ropingdown,

        Unfortunately, most generally there’s no interest or a vague “guns are bad, m’kay?” attitude, which is a shame for those of us Brits who used to like practicing to protect ourselves and our families from rampaging cardboard targets. The UK lost the criitical mass of POTG a long time ago, more by accident than by design, which left us shooters outnumbered and vulnerable to divide-and-conquer (the 1998 handgun ban went through because the field sports shooters basically threw pistol shooters under the bus to save themselves)

        However, at least the media and police are being called on outright falsehoods every now and then (the latest was a ‘gun hoard’ reported found in Birmingham, which turned out to be replicas and legal airguns, no serious threat) rather than left unchallenged.

        And what is significant, is that over the last decade or so we’ve had a useful run of court cases where lawfully armed homeowners have defended themselves, and the victims have been told “tough luck, sonny Jim, don’t burgle houses where the owner’s got a shotgun if you don’t want to be… you know… shot!’ There may not be appetite to repeal the handgun ban, but if I wanted a Joe Biden Special it’s basically shall-issue.

        We’ve got as many shrill hoplophobes in the UK as in the US (as a proportion, anyway) and they’re annoyingly entrenched in politics and media; but on the other hand, some of us enjoy discussing concealed carry with our US host when we visit (Colt Defender 45ACP, in his case – not on base, though). “Shower carry” still sounds like a bad joke, though.

    • It is terrible to quote this because of where the quote comes from but seems apropos. I apologize to the good people of the UK, and feel pity for those that believe the lies. I fear that this quote is becoming appropriate to fellow Americans also.

      “The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous” -Goebbels.

      Ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie

  3. You’d think an Afhgani-German British feminist would spend her efforts on Afghani problems, or sexual assaults in the UK, or German economic exploitation of poorer countries in Europe.

    • You would think she knows a good bit about violence coming from Afghanistan, as an Englishman who has served in Afghanistan and seen plenty of it, I wonder why she doesnt bugger off back there!

    • It is quite possible that as a self-described “Afghani-German” she has as much first-hand knowledge of Afghanistan and its social/political problems as most “African-Americans” have of African social/political problems, and just about as much real concern.

      She has a left-wing agenda and she is happy with listing her leftist victim group bona fides in order to try to give herself come credibility.

      • Why does no one ever complain about self-professed “Italian-Americans” or “Irish-Americans”? No one tells them about how they’re not from Italy or Ireland.

        • Fler,

          Please don’t get me started on the ironies of “Irish-American” – many of them Protestant – enthusiasm for a mob of hardcore socialst, nominally Catholic, thoroughly murderous scumbags, such as raising money to support their arms purchases from Libya and behind the Iron Curtain. To them I was a ‘legitimate target’ for the crime of wearing my country’s uniform…

          And yet it got better. Even in the 1980s the FBI were clamping down hard on PIRA arms purchases in the US and working with us to at least get fugitives into court, and after 2001 the US thoroughly lost all enthusiasm for religiously-motivated fanatics blowing up random civilians.

          it’s one of those areas where trying to *tell* the US what to do will always blow up in your face, but being patient will work better; as Churchill allegedly said, “The United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing — having first exhausted all possible alternatives.”

    • You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

      Living in the Seattle area, we’re now having our own experiences with an Indian-born socialist/feminist/progressive by the name of Kshama Sawant, who has made it her life’s purpose to combat “social injustice and income inequality.”

      You’d think she would return to India, a country arguably vastly more in need of her services than the US.

      However, in India she wouldn’t be able to rake in the dough as the head of an influential socialist political organization, and as a Seattle city councilwoman, and as the wife of a Microsoft employee who brings in a mid six-figure salary all on his own – in addition to her own income and cushy benefits as a government employee and political figurehead.

      Yep, a near-millionaire feminist socialist provocateur, and an immigrant from a poor third-world country, who is arguing that America is treating women and immigrants poorly. Only in America.

      • As far as I can tell starting an anti-gun campaign is the new Junior League. Ladies Who Lunch are now Ladies on the NGO Take. I’m thinking of starting a non-profit focused on growing wealth-inequality, mine.

      • In NEIOWA he have one of this dimwit Indian females, Swati Dandekar. A real loon. Now running for the democrat nom for House. TV ads even point out she is board approved progressive.

        You point exactly, Why are you IN the US? Have had decades milking our system, go back to India and fit it. Same for all in Illegals from Mexico/Central America etc etc etc.

    • Yeah, you would think she would feel an urge to address:

      1. Honor killings and mutilations.
      2. Selling of underage girls into white slavery and prostitution.
      3. Underage prostitution rings cropping up all over merry England.
      4. Horrendous knife crimes.
      5. Soldiers getting stabbed to death in the street.

      etc. etc. etc.

      But nah, they is good to go in England. They got it all figured out and they want to bring their wisdom to us.

      No thanks.

      Oh, and speaking of social justice.

      I’m hearing girls I date talk about how “They are into issues of social justice.” And I’m like “WTF are you talking about?” “I said no mustard!” and they’re like “Yeah, but, yeah but, yeah but, income inequality.” and I’m like “LOLZ! grab me a beer from the fridge.”

        • No paradox there, actually. Femininity and Masculinity are inherently sexist traits and behaviors. In order to become equal to men, feminists feel they must cease to be women.

          Feminism started off with a good goal, and largley acheived it. Then it went off the deep end, and is no longer focused on advancing women in society, but rather marginalizing men and emasculating boys.

  4. Well heck, two can play it that way.
    The U.K is the only country in the world that can have a fatal shootout in it’s nation’s capital between cops and criminals, tear itself apart at the seams from the ensuing riots, and then after words pretend that nothing ever happened.

  5. This absolute fact that gun violence (all violence, and crime for that matter, well except for in liberal havens like Chicago and Detroit) has been dropping for decades always, always manages to get lost from these articles.

    That and Hurrah to American Exceptionalism! D*** Straight we are an exception to the world! We always have been, and always will be. The USA is inherently different to EVERY country in the world, and the recent poo flung around about gun confiscation (lets not call it something its not) is more proof. No, we don’t go crying to a nanny state government that’s been ordained by God to impose some new form of punishment on ourselves every time someone does something bad like you fancy pants Europeans do. This whole thing about comparing the US to the rest of “the world” these days really irks me. Why? there is no comparison. We’re better, stronger, faster, free-er, smarter, more independent, better armed, and can drink any of you wussie Euro’s under the table any day of the week, Yeah, even you Russians. We drink our whiskey straight, and piss warm like The Duke!

    We don’t kneel down in the face of tyranny, we get in its face and spit in it!!!!!

    And that spit is gonna be piss warm whiskey!

    • “Yeah, even you Russians. We drink our whiskey straight…”

      I have never bought into that old meme of manhood being measured by how well you can hold your liquor, but…

      Statistically, Vodka is the most popular hard alcohol drink in the United States, followed by Tequilla. And whiskey is European in origin.

  6. This UK group is into advocating for reducing the means of private citizens to acquire guns, bombs, etc worldwide. Their site even covers the Chicago St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1927 that killed seven gangsters. These “end the violence” groups need to cover the major killers of private citizens and civilians ie governments which kill their own people directly and indirectly individually and in large numbers.

    • These “end the violence” groups are very quick to support the use of deadly force by governments to enforce bans. On a Twitter discussion, a anti gun Brit told me he would have no problem with the government killing 250,000 people to enforce gun bans

      • Such is the ingrained hypocrisy of Leftist ideology. Don’t hurt anybody.. unless they’re your political rivals, naturally.

  7. Yep, your response is all the time she’s worth.

    Here is some more of the other obvious ones…

    America…don’t you love it?
    America…Fvck yeah!
    America…if you us ask us nice we MIGHT agree to stop your 3rd World War
    America….NOT like Europe who thought Fascism, Nazism, and Communism were “sophisticated” ideas

    • The US will be the country starting the next world war. Ask yourself this,if Britain hadn’t stepped in when Germany marched into Poland,and Europe became Nazi run, would the US be strong enough to hold back the Axis power? The turning point was the invasion of Russia not the US getting involved (although it helped some what).

        • Yes (as the grandson of a multiply-decorated Polish Air Force, then RAF, pilot; still got family near Krakow).

          Little tale from my grandfather’s funeral, when some of his squadronmates told us his story (which was awesome, if I were a better writer there’s a serious action movie in how those guys made it from Poland to the UK to keep fighting).

          “On first of September, Germans invade us, and so every day, six times a day, we take off, we fly west, we bomb German invaders. On seventeenth of September, Soviets also invade us, and so three times in morning, we take off, fly west, bomb Germans; then in afternoon, three times, we take off, fly east, and bomb Russians.

          Why we do like this? Because in Poland we have a saying… business before pleasure…”

  8. I think most folks have hot the facts in the case, but I think I have figured it out. These anti gun, bomb, whatever groups want to wish firearms and other things into non existence. I mean their entire argument is based on emotion. Like wishing unicorns were true.
    Wishing that gun powder, TNT, or anything else was never inveted is wishful thinking. You can’t in-invent the bomb or anything else.
    The fact is that the firearm, gun powder, etc are reality. In Afganistan they build guns out of garages and huts. It has come to a point where it isn’t going away.
    So now what?
    Saying that assaults, rape, and other violent crimes are ok because the bad guy didn’t use a gun is ignoring the social issue. We can point to the facts they choose to ignore, and like this author will continue to do so in the hopes that people will become willing victims. They will accept it and con coder it normal.
    I don’t think we as a society should accept that. Do you?

    • While I will not attempt to say that I fully understand this particular person’s motivations, I think I can safely say that in the greater political scheme of things the Progressives seek to disarm civilians for the sole reason of forcing them to rely on The Government for their safety and protection. From this point they come to rely on The Government for more and more aspects of control of their individual lives and begin to take this as not only the norm, but the desired state of society.

      While we understand where this always leads historically, the smell of the Kool Aid is like Lotus blossoms to leftists and the siren song of the Progressive politicians is carefully constructed and convincingly sung.

  9. In her article Ms. Taheri said,
    “Not every massacre outside the U.S. led to legislative change, but the number and intensity of American mass shootings which did not prompt any change is striking. This sad category includes the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, which occurred the morning of April 26, 2007. Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year old student, systematically shot and killed 30 students and two professors and injured 23 people at the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute before killing himself. ”

    There is another “inconvenient truth” glossed over in this particular incident which is that In 2006, Virginia Delegate Todd Gilbert [R-Shenandoah County], in cooperation with the VCDL, began working on House Bill 1572 to allow college and university students with concealed handgun permits to be able to carry a gun on campus for self-defense.

    The bill was not even passed out of subcommittee and was officially dead by January 2006.

    Upon the announcement of the failure of the bill, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker indicated that Virginia Tech was happy to hear the bill had been defeated, stating, “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”

    Tragically on April 26, 2007, the university community learned the difference between “feeling” safe and being able to defend yourself.

  10. Another person who is not a critical thinker. If she did real research she would see that there are a many mass killings outside of the United states perpetuated with arson, gas cans, knives, machetes etc. These countries also greatly restrict civilian firearms ownership.

    @Dale Feeling safe is subjective and should never be used for policy making. Too bad you showed that VT was more worried about feeling safe than being safe.

    • Yep like all those mass knife attacks in China.

      Feelings. Always the wimmenz want to make policies based on teh feelings. Like this: But she is super hot, so I forgive her. Giggle. And the morons in the audience applaud.

  11. This must be one of those “random gunsense quote generators” that Everytown just had installed. For 1 million dollars per day, it auto tweets 100 vaguely similar quotes, like when bugs bunny worked up a crowd by pretending to be a bunch of different people.

  12. We’ve seen pretty solidly that the people committing these atrocities will carry them through whether it’s a gun, fertilizer bomb or a pair of kitchen knives. You can outlaw guns, farming and cooking and you are not going to impact the violence.

    Violence is a matter of the heart not the tools used. With a world of moral relativism and post-modern philosophy what we have with this violence is nkthing more than man worshiping his (supposed) creator.

  13. “Afghan German | Women/Human Rights Activist | Social Justice Advocate | Lawyer | Intersectional Feminist”

    So she’s a communist.

    There is nothing new under the sun.

    She would be better served addressing “knife crime” in jolly old England before coming over here and turding up the place.

    Why do the English want to disarm us so?

    It’s a trap!!!

  14. There is one commonality between mass shootings and that type of gun violence, and that is the easy availability of weapons. Until that is addressed, both types of violence will likely remain a regular feature in U.S. headlines.

    Of course most readers will spot the canard immediately. They will, without prompt and regardless of ethnicity or which of twenty-three sexual orientations they declared upon entering high school, know that the two types of crimes have but one thing in common, a criminal. This Armeghan would have noticed had she had the bandwidth, as both types of event transpire even in those jurisdictions within which obtaining a gun is risky, difficult, and expensive.

    Taheri had likely set out to construct a tweet displaying razor edged perspicacity. Obviously she f’d up. Had she read the keystone publication of the dwarf prince today, she would realize the major recent contributor to premature mortality is….drugs. But she probably denominates ‘ripping on hard drugs,’ prescription or otherwise, a hate crime. Social justice, indeed.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/dataview/2014-04-17/how-americans-die.html

    • Bloomberg conquered Reuters Financial fair and square, after which he was handed the City of London. I’m not sure if he got the Royals in the deal.

  15. This is a well-written, well researched article about an important issue. I am really shocked of the racist, sexist and extremely ignorant remarks and attacks on the author. If you just want to stay in your ignorant bubble, brainwashed, keep watching Fox News, leave human rights reports for someone else to read and benefit from.

  16. The facts and statistics referenced to by the author speak for themselves.
    Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but responding or attacking another human being through accusations based upon racial or sexist arguments is just plain wrong and downright ignorant.
    It seems to me that those behing TTAG take pleasure in enjoying living inside their own blindfolded little bubble, choosing to ignore the wrongs of U.S. legislation and being miles away from even attempting to understand what international human rights are.
    Ignorance is blessed?

  17. “America is the only country to loosen gun laws after a mass shooting”…. Cue the song I’m proud to be an American

  18. just another article for her portfolio, this gun control thing is a broke’n’n’n’n’n record’d’d’d’

  19. Excellent site you have here but I was curious if you knew
    of any community forums that cover the same topics discussed here?

    I’d really like to be a part of online community where I can get advice from other knowledgeable people that share the same interest.
    If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Thanks!.
    Take a look at my consequence … best corded electric mower AGreenHand

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here