Dave Waldrop (courtesy citizen-times.com)
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“There was a time when peoples’ consciences told them not kill people with their firearms. There was a time when assault rifles were not readily available. There was a time when people did not play video games that resulted in people dying before their eyes . . . If we could re-tool the ‘American conscience’ perhaps we could reduce killing to zero per year. But, since we can’t control consciences, what can we control? We can, if we choose to do so, regulate and control rapid-fire assault rifles.” – Dave Waldrop, I own guns, but I also have a conscience; does the NRA? [via citizen-times.com]

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66 COMMENTS

  1. Ah the good old days when the murder rate was twice as high as it is today! I have to admit I get a little teary eyed reminiscing about them. People popping cops with revolvers and metal framed wonder nines. The crack epidemic. Riots. And the AWB. Good times.

    • Hilarious. Well, Gov, evidently this goof may be old enough to be considered a proper Fudd, but not old enough to remember that crime existed before the invention of gunpowder.
      Sometimes it’s all I can do to simply close my eyes and shake my head at the idiocy of some people whose knowledge of history only goes back as far as the day they were born. 🤠

      • Hell, a lot of these peoples understanding of history seems to not date to any point prior to the 2016 presidential election.

      • Speaking of people’s knowledge only going back to when people were born, I have a question. Was there “a time when assault rifles were [] readily available?” Because they sure as hell aren’t know. I doubt I’ll ever own one under the current laws unless I refer a case worth tens of millions of dollars to a personal injury attorney or win the lottery. And he is talking about actual assault rifles as can be seen by his statement of “[w]e can, if we choose to do so, regulate and control rapid-fire assault rifles.”

        • “Was there “a time when assault rifles were [] readily available?””

          Sure. Prior to NFA ’34 You could mail order anything you wanted, like a Browning Automatic Rifle or a Thompson sub-machine gun. The Sears catalog had the Thompson for $125.

          Prior to the GCA ’68 you could mail order a 20mm anti-tank cannon like a Solothurn or a Lahti for less than $200, delivered right to your door. You could also get things like mortars – with ammo. All kinds of WW2 and Korea surplus was available on the civilian market.

        • The BAR, Thompson, and nothing bigger than a .50 cal is an assault rifle. An assault rifle is an intermediate cartridge select fire rifle. The BAR is too big, the Thompson too small, and neither are select fire.

          Too my knowledge, the M-16 was America’s first actual assault rifle to see widespread use. It was adopted by the Defense Department in 1963. In 1963, $200 was the equivalent of $1,588.37. In 1986, it was the equivalent of $441.78. And that doesn’t include any of the other costs and hassles of the NFA process. That’s a lot of money for not a whole lot of utility.

          That’s all internet knowledge. My personal knowledge of the widespread availability of the M-16 (before 1986) is limited to an old man I know from my local range who bought one from an FFL. When Colt found out that the FFL sold the gun to a civilian, they said if he couldn’t get it back, they weren’t going to sell anymore to him because it was against Colt’s policy for the guns to end up in the hands of private parties.

          Is that story true? I don’t know, and there are plenty of reasons for select fire AR’s to have not been popular; which is why I asked the question.

    • Don’t worry, they’ll credit the switch to lead free gasoline for the drop in the crime rate, not the proliferation of guns.

  2. “If we could re-tool the “American conscience” perhaps we could reduce killing to zero per year.”

    Man commits evil against his fellow man. Since the beginning of time, and until our species goes extinct. It’s why we have guns; to defend ourselves from evil. What I’m wondering about this part of his statement is, does this guy actually believe that all people could be persuaded to be good to one another? Or is he hinting at something more sinister, similar to Eric Holder’s “brainwashing” comment?

    • I seem to recall stories from my youth…

      Wasn’t it VERY early in Genesis that Cain slew Able WITH A ROCK? What if God had seen fit to provide Able with a Glock? How would that have changed history?

      And even earlier, what if Eve had a Taurus Judge and 6 rounds of snakeshot?

      • Cain killed Able over jealously, I think the point was , you’d kill your bother over jealously. Never could figure out the mark thing though? Eve wss seduced by Satin, free will. I think the moral on that is, even if your the only man on earth and you’d cut out your rib for that woman. A big long hard snake with a smooth tongue can steal her away. Nyuk nyuk

        • Jealousy is likely the root cause of more crime than any other emotion. For many the distance between envy and anger is very short.

  3. Prior to 1968 there were mail order guns, including semi autos. Machine guns were not limited in number by an arbitrary cut off of manufacture date prior to 1986.

    No background checks. No waiting periods. And crime was low.

    What does this tell us? We live in an age of heavy handed gun control laws that simply create victim rich environments.

    Make it easier for the potential victims to be armed and the bad guys lose.

    • The problem has less to do with civilian disarmament and more to do with our revolving door criminal justice system that has turned the prison system into a set of finishing schools for murderous psychopaths.

    • “Make it easier for the potential victims to be armed and the bad guys lose.”
      Indeed. And the “bad guys” all seem to be FOR gun control laws. To anybody who believes that tale, I’ve got some great lakeside property in Arizona for sale…

  4. To what end? 250 dead in place of worship bombings? Or truck murders?

    It’s like curing addiction by limiting opioid prescriptions those who have the underlying issues that cause addiction find something else. Those whose evil is unrestrained enough to commit mass murder for no reason will do so.

    Until such time as evil has been destroyed, I’ll appreciate the NRA defending my rights to defend myself.

    I don’t care for bump stocks but those dealing with politics have to consider what any language put into law may mean down the road as best they can.

  5. The 2nd amendment is intended to provide the body of the citizenry the ability to resist a tyrannical government. To do that, civilians need unrestricted access to military grade weaponry such as RPGs, M4 carbines, mortars, etc. the reality is that the occasional mass shooting is statistically irrelevant when compared the the body counts inflicted by tyrannical governments in the 20th century alone. Quite frankly, if the cost of avoiding a US Stalin is a few hundred dead from mass shootings every year, it would be a bargain.

    On a side note, the overwhelming majority of homicides committed in the US are committed by people with serious criminal or mental health records. The difference between earlier times and today, is that in earlier times, said psychos, would be kept in their cages for decades turning big rocks into smaller rocks until they were so decrepit that releasing them into the general population was a threat to nobody.

    You want to make society a better place? Quit letting the scum out of their cages.

    • Yep, risky freedom is better than a US version of “Uncle Joe” Stalin. 41 million dead is his legacy…gun controllers utopia – kill all the dissent, to achieve their utopia.

    • +1

      Lock them up forever.

      No, I don’t care if Mommy or Daddy didn’t hug you enough (or Daddy wasn’t around).

      No, I don’t care if you were economically disadvantaged.

      No, I don’t care if you are too stupid or evil to function in society.

      Life isn’t fair, deal with it.

      The last time they tried to make things “fair” 100 million+ died from it.

    • “if avoiding a US Stalin is a few hundred dead from mass shootings every year, it would be a bargain” I would agree, but it seems like the left indeed wants their US Stalin. Of course they are ok with this idea, because they think they will always be on the right side of their great leader, and the rest of us have to be liquidated of course, because our ideas stand in the way of “progress”. Regular criminals don’t matter much to progs, as in the USSR, because regular criminals are not politically dangerous elements.

      • The only solace I have is the sure knowledge that the leaders of the revolution rarely live long enough to enjoy the outcome. There are two possible options.

        1. Their revolution fails, and they get stood up against a wall and shot by the rather upset citizenry they tried to enslave.
        2. Their revolution succeeds, and they get stood up against a wall and shot by the most ruthless members of the revolutionary guard as revolutionaries are no longer useful post-revolution.

        • It seems that the left has an extraordinarily limited and myopic view of history, and thus do not understand the life-cycle of events, despite that the possible outcomes you have described have repeated about a bajillion times throughout history.

    • Most of the murders we read about, outside of gang activity, are “one off” incidents. Husband kills wife, or vice versa, neighbor offs neighbor, ex kills a new boy/girl friend etc.
      Most murderers are not repeat offenders.

      • Yes, and those one off incidents are a tiny fraction of the total. There is a reason why the homicide rate for Illinois drops to damn near zero if you exclude Chicago and St. Louis. In those cities, over 90% of homicide perps have prior criminal history.

  6. What a doofus…the murder rate in Chiraq was far higher in the 70’s – 90’s. And NYC was incredibly high…PEOPLE are the problem. Brown folks-but don’t dare say that. Oh and every freakin’ crime no matter how minor is breathlessly reported. You’d be RACISS if you told the truth…😫

  7. “Quote of the Day: Gun Control is Better Than People Control”

    Seriously…??? How hard can it be to teach your children what IS and ISN’T acceptable behavior, or how to deal with their emotions…??? This flaming liberal IS what’s wrong with this country right now, because in his mind, it’s always “somebody elses fault”…

    “There was a time when people did not play video games that resulted in people dying before their eyes ”

    IT’S A GAME!!! NOT REAL!!!

    It’s no wonder why we can’t have cartoons anymore, because it’s just too difficult to parent and say “that isn’t real”…Bring back Tom & Jerry, ban liberals…

    • To be fair… there are those who shouldn’t be playing violent games. People who can’t tell reality from fantasy/fiction… and then if parents also paid attention to game ratings instead of just grabbing one because little Johnny wanted it and the mean store clerk said he wasn’t old enough.

      That said… they love to play the blame game for their own dereliction of duty: teaching right from wrong.

      • Well, I grew up watching “violent” cartoons, playing Army in the neighborhood, etc, and I haven’t run out and committed heinous crimes…

  8. Dude, people don’t kill each other very much now. Do these people ever do the math.

    U.S. Homicide Rate 2015*: 4.88/100,000 = 0.0000488 = 0.00488%
    Therefore, the percentage of U.S. population not killed in 2015 = 99.995%

    U.S. Firearm Homicide Rate 2014*: 3.6/100,000 = 0.000036 = 0.0036%
    Therefore, the percentage of the U.S. population not killed with a firearm in 2014 = 99.996%

    In excess of 99.99% of the U.S. population is NOT murdered each year – how much closer to zero do these people really think it can get – and what cost are they willing to pay to change the fate of < .01% of the population.

    * I know these data are not for the same year – I used my most readily available info.

    P.S., that 2015 homicide rate puts the U.S. 92nd on the world stage. Hardly the home of death and destruction the antis make it out to be. We still lead the world in gun ownership though (by a lot). Funny that. It's almost like a lot of guns doesn't lead to a lot of murder.

  9. Oh, here is another fun fact: The homicide rate *per gun* in the U.S. is lower than many of the countries the antis like to toss out as examples of how we should be. For instance:

    Denmark
    Finland
    Switzerland
    Ireland
    The Netherlands

    and

    wait for it

    Japan.

    Yes, that is right, a gun in Japan is more likely to be used as a murder weapon than a gun in the U.S. Sure, Japan doesn’t have a lot of guns, or a lot of murder, but the trope the antis trot out that, “A gun has no purpose but to kill.”, is more true in Japan than it is here.

    • To be fair, that should read “gun related death” not “murder” vis-a-vis the comparison b/w Japan and the U.S. I realized that I’m not sure how Japan’s gun death info is broken down in my data.

  10. “There was a time when people did not play video games that resulted in people dying before their eyes . . . ”

    As a kid, I played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ where the point of the game was kill the Indians…

  11. Read this slowly. There will N E V E R be Zero Murder, EVER; Untill Jesus second Return.
    There has always been murder (Cain killed Abel with a rock) even from the beginning.
    Taking away the tools people need to defend themselves and their family makes you complicit in their murder.

  12. Statistics on crime from the 60’s n70’s are irrelevant now because the population of the earth has more then doubled. Even based on percentages it’s apples and oranges. Overcrowding and blah, blah, blah, stress blah blah, ethnic diversity, ,. the statistics don’t work . I think the crime rate is much worse now. Ie: my sister and her girlfriend hitchhiked 125 miles to see a concert, made it there and back. What are the chances of two 17 year old girls making it just 25 miles at late past midnight on a two lane highway now?

  13. ‘If we could re-tool the ‘American conscience’

    Then all of us commie-haters wouldn’t have to put you on your thin ice notice MF.

    ALL THE POS’s STILL TRYING TO “TRANSFORM AMERICA”. AS IF IT WOULD EVER FALL TO THEM TO UNDERTAKE SUCH A THING, AND AS IF WE’D FING LET THEM.

    I’M DEMANDING, FROM MY REPRESENTATIVES, SOME DEFINITIVE LEGISLATION THAT DRAWS A LINE ON WHAT MY GOVERNMENT’S POSITION IS ON ALL OF THIS, AND I’Ll DEAL WITH THAT ACCORDINGLY. BUT I’M GOING TO DEMAND SOME FORM OF SANTIONS ON THE POS MF’s WHO ARE DRAINING FOREIGN BANK ACCOUNTS TO OVERTHROW OUR CONSTITUTION.

  14. “Statistics on crime from the 60’s n70’s are irrelevant now because the population of the earth has more then doubled”

    Interesting to learn that increasing sample size somehow makes it impossible to make corrections for variables. Why didn’t they teach me this in statistical analysis?

    • It’s not math, it’s sociology. As humans become more congested( my theory) their propensity to do evil increases, statistics can not account for human individuality. 2 out of10 in group A puts square pegs in round holes , 3 out of 10 in group B does the same, statistically by mixing group A with group B we should get 5 out of 20, statistics go to hell when, six of them fight over the blue crayon

      • “It’s not math, it’s sociology.”

        If you believe “sociology” isn’t mathematically quantifiable, you should enlighten the engineers at Google and Amazon… They’re making billions off those ‘wild-ass guesses’…

        I acknowledge that I don’t more than partially understand the math of astrophysics. That I don’t, doesn’t make M-theory any less mathematically demonstrable.

  15. This post brings to mind the saying – STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES! First guns are not the problem. I have owned and been around guns all of my life and I have NEVER seen a gun jump up and hurt anyone. People are in control of the tool. If it’s not a gun it’s a knife, bat or jaw bone of an ass (the person that posted this comes to mind)!

  16. I’m fascinated that the same people who are funding efforts to deny our right to firearms are the same people funding violent domestic terrorists like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

    It’s obvious the end game is total government control over an impotent polulation, with two classes- masters and the rest of us. I frequently wonder at what point tyranny will be too much for patriotic Americans to tolerate.

  17. Gee, he doesn’t want us to have the model 1905 Winchester semi-automatic centerfire rifle with detachable box magazine anymore!

  18. #themaskslips, again. Yeah, they don’t think much of us fellow humans, do they — people suck too much to trust with guns (or, much else, really.) Indeed *those people* are #deplorable, #irredeemable, #bitterclingers, even. No hope for them, so let’s ban the guns. (Also, no loss if they get killed, really.)

    These maybe deserve a dictionary…

    #themaskslips — When they accidentally say what they really think about you, what they really want., their actual agenda. A special case of a #kinsleygaffe.

    #kinsleygaffe — For Michael Kinsley, who said, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”

    #deplorable — You.

    #irredeemable — You, again.

    #bitterclinger — Also, you

    #accidentallyconservative — When anti’s or the hot-take class accidentally back themselves into a conservative position, trying to zing one of their designated targets. For example, the imperfectability of humans — or at least we can’t do that yet — is a conservative, pro-gun tenet. In the “People Control” quote above, liberal anti-person argues people are too #irredeemable (#accidentallyconservative), so says disarm everybody (#rightproblemwrongsolution). We say arm the good ones. This one is a #Sowelltruth.

    #Sowelltruth — A subset of #accidentallyconservative when the excitables’ hot take is something Thomas Sowell pointed out. Happens often, since he nailed so many things that the silly people end up agreeing with when they don’t realize who said it.

    #rightproblemwrongsolution — Even when they stumble upon an actual difficulty, their solution is usually wrong, often backwards.

    #fakestats — Lying with numbers, to make the lie more compelling. For example: “mass shooting” statistics as collected exclude times the would-be multi-reaper was stopped before 3, 5, or whatever the threshold number of dead is. Bad stats. Like “gun violence” lumping in DGUs (insane), suicided (questionable), and excluding when merely having a gun available stopped the bad stuff before it got violent (completely backwards.) Often combined with a #fakegoal.

    #fakegoal — Lying with a kind of rhetorical sleight-of-hand, by pointing to the wrong thing. Substitutes a fake goal that advances some other policy position with the real goal. Usually while proclaiming “Something must be done!”, loudly. i. e. “We have to reduce mass shootings!” when the real goal is more people living.

    #logicalfallacy — The elements of “reasoning” in anti-gun “arguments.” Have the advantage of getting them to the conclusions they want, at the apparently irrelevant cost of not tracking reality. Related to #rhetoricalcheat.

    #rhetoricalcheat — The rest of what they say. See also #logicalfallacy.

    #humptyspeak — From Through The Looking Glass: Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. … “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” #assaultweapon is the canonical example. Related #Inigogetsit.

    #Inigogetsit — Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: “You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”

    #assaultweapon — A fake, amorphous category of fake, ill-defined weapons (perhaps having folding things that go up, high-calibre clipazines, or grenade launchers – hard to tell) used to get people all wee-wee’d up pushing #rightproblemwrongsolution after some tragedy. An example of both #humptyspeak, and sometimes #Inigogetsit.

  19. There was a time when people carried .22 cal. revolvers tucked in their waistbands, no permits no regulations. That was not in socialist territories then, just as now. Big cities want to make laws for the entire country, they are not content with being the only sources of easy prey.

  20. #theprocessisthepunishment — Coined by the blogfather. Law, regulation or enforcement intended to extract cost, bother and risk from doing what they don’t like, but can’t manage to prohibit. So pretty much every gun control law, regulation, or program, ever.

    #rightnexttothewordmuskets — A particular kind of willful misrepresentation of the 2A. Named for the canonical example pointed out by Carol Roth, which also earned “Musket” Morgan his handle.

    Morgan: “The 2nd amendment was devised with muskets in mind, not high-powered handguns & assault rifles. Fact.”

    Roth: “@piersmorgan It was devised 4 people 2b able 2 protect themselves w same type of weaponry used by those from whom they might need protection.”

    Morgan: “@caroljsroth Where exactly does it say that in the Constitution – must have missed it?”

    Roth: “@piersmorgan right next to the word ‘muskets.’”

  21. Such moronic drivel.

    “There was a time when peoples’ consciences told them not kill people with their firearms.

    Yeah. Teenagers could even go to their local hardware store or convenient store and buy a semi-auto rifle that could accept high capacity mags (i.e. what libs call an assault rifle).

    There was a time when assault rifles were not readily available.

    Not in almost a century. And when they were available, some 70/80 years ago, there really wasn’t a prevalence of mass murderers. So the availability of assault weapons Semi-autos that could take a high capacity mag doesn’t seem to be a root cause to the problem.

    There was a time when people did not play video games that resulted in people dying before their eyes . . . If we could re-tool the ‘American conscience’ perhaps we could reduce killing to zero per year.

    I doubt it. It goes pretty far back – even to Cain and Able. But you are heading in the right direction here! – individual people and their conscience are what is killing people – not guns! The method doesn’t matter, but the decision to do so does! Good work man!

    But, since we can’t control consciences, what can we control? We can, if we choose to do so, regulate and control rapid-fire assault rifles.” – Dave Waldrop, I own guns, but I also have a conscience; does the NRA? [via citizen-times.com]

    Epic fail. So disappointed. You were almost there, but fell short. You went into full tyrant mode with “control” talk. Since you can’t control people’s thoughts and actions, then you need to control everything else about them, like their possessions, etc. Epic fail. A rational thought, almost leading to a rational place, but then he tripped over his own lame ideology. News flash Dave, you can’t control either. But what you can do, is instill values and reason and morals and purpose into your children. Laws like “assault rifle ban” can’t do that. You can affect their future actions with wisdom you can provide today. You can do that, and that would help a lot, I think. Bans, or regulations on problems that aren’t even the root cause, is a loose dwindling bandaid that does nothing but make one feel good about doing something about an issue. You even openly admit, that guns aren’t the problem, but then continue to advocate for their regulation anyways. It’s obvious the principles behind “freedom” aren’t valued highly in your book.

    But there is one small victory out of this nonsensical heap of garbage. He conceded, that gun’s weren’t the problem. Gun control is his solution, albeit a shitty one, but at least he understands that gun’s aren’t the problem.

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