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AG_BY_BL_2009

“There are many issues—the overwhelming majority—on which we need an ongoing public ‘conversation.’ On a few, we don’t. Gun control stops gun violence. Gun possession does not deter crime; it merely makes it more lethal. Making these inarguable truths into necessary law takes the work of persuasion and legislation and litigation. The mental work finished, the moral work goes on, often in modest invisibility. Every day, something good happens at the state or community level that makes getting guns a little harder—and keeps families a little safer. That it might happen a little faster is a rational hope, and a proper holiday wish.” – Adam Gopnik in Newtown Lawsuit and the Moral Work of Gun Control [at newyorker.com]

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99 COMMENTS

    • Funny thing, in russian there is a word ‘gopnik’ (Гопник), the joke here is the meaning – it’s kinda equivalent of ‘thug’.

    • Isn’t it wonderful to have these intellectual elites around to tell us peasants that we no longer need to try thinking for ourselves? /sarc off/

  1. Ah, the old liberal mantra; “if the facts don’t support your cause, make ’em up!”.

    Judging by recent election results and legislation of the rest of the country between NY and CA, I’ say the gun grabbers are actually losing ground. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop snotty, elitists like Adam Gopnik from writing excrement like this from within the relative safety of his NYC bubble.

  2. I don’t think “truth” means what you think it does. I think you meant to say wishful thinking. The “truths” you describe exist only in the utopian universe found in the minds of you, the demanding moms and the rest of your ilk.

  3. When will these Utopians understand their dreams aren’t feasible, that history is littered with failed Utopias, and finally give up? Do they not understand that human nature is essentially rotten and self-destructive?

    • They never give up and will never learn. Rationalization is a powerful defense mechanism and tool of self delusion. To acknowledge the animalistic core that is human nature means the need to confront it and do the hard work to evolve as a civilization and human race which will take centuries if not eons. Demonization and vilification is easier and makes them feel good right now.

      • Well said.

        As of note, we have made a lot of progress since the beginning of the Enlightnment and the spread of individual rights, including right to self defense.

        Objectively speaking, we live in the most peaceful and violence-free period of history. Intrestingly enough, we have the most firepower in private posession in all of history. I do not think that is a coincidence.

        Mister Gopnik apparently believes he is student of the Enlightnement, but his irrational dismissal of clear evidence and clear disdain of individual rights clearly demostrates an anti-Enlightnment mindset.

        • Yep; intellectuals helped to set us free from the tyranny of the idea of “Divine Right” of kings and how freedom starts with the individual.

          Now we need another Reformation and Enlightenment to free us from the tyranny of current intellectuals attack on personal liberty and individual freedom in their promulgation of the “religion” of progressivism.

    • They know the total truth. The only thing standing in the way of the total truth is those who do not acknowledge the totality of the truth.

      In order, the attempt to establish the total truth against the unbeliever is:

      1) Ignore and dictate;
      2) Persuade while dictating;
      3) Eliminate dissenters to the dictate.

      There is never any need to correct the error in a total truth. There is only a need to compel, convert, and then eliminate the uncompelled and unconverted.

      If you see any parallels between this and Islamist strategy — you are not wrong…

      • It was also the methodology of the Catholic church in supporting the divine right kings.

        It is now the intellectuals as the clergy of the church of the progressive in dispensing the orthodoxy of the submission of the individual to the state instead of to god.

        And they will punish and even kill all those unwilling to be shown the error if their ways.

        Change to a new boss. Same as the old boss.

  4. ” In a process familiar to any student of society, the majority of people in favor of gun sanity care about a lot of other things, too, and think about them far more often; the gun crazy think about guns all the time, and vote on the issue with fanatic intensity.”

    Yeah, dude, that’s it. You guys are too busy thinking of more important things. If only God saw fit to bless us with more of you benevolent ivory tower twits, why we could have full on social justice in no time, it’s just most of us would have to enjoy it from inside a prison.

    • The Progressives (especially those in NYC) believe in situational ethics and contradictions. They never examine themselves especially when in comes ethics and contradictions.

      Ask them the same question about abortion or other progressive sacred horses — then you can rewrite the sentence “the abortion crazy think about abortions all the time, and vote on the issue with fanatic intensity.”

      When they do it, it is just fine. When someone else does it, they are just “crazy”

  5. “Gun possession does not deter crime; it merely makes it more lethal. ” – only if you ignore every shred of evidence

    • And we can tell they are unarguable because there is no comment section for this piece of “work” written on digital toilet paper.

  6. Well, if anyone needed confirmation that the people of the gun need to stay ever vigilant because gun control advocates never give up… there ya go.

  7. Yet another anti-gun article from a New York liberal who feels above adding a comments section for the flyover-state rabble to voice their uneducated opinions…

  8. The mind boggles. I wonder what sort of cloistered life he must live, in order to come to such “inarguable” conclusions.

    • LT spoke at my high school as part of his community service back in the very late 90s. He was all over the place. His closing line was great: ‘IF you gonna smoke crack, great, but do some for LT because i’m done with it”

      we we’re all like “Did he just tell us to smoke crack??”

  9. I didn’t see a comment section. It figures.
    Nothing like living in an ivory tower in which no one among the un-edjumakated rabble can tell the Olympian that he is delusional and in denial.

    That he believes with a fanatics “unarguable” certainty that he is right.

    “Progressivism”; as is obvious by this man’s unquestioning faith in his acceptance of its tenets, is a religion; with the state as their god.

  10. This is the kind of arrogance, that if it ever gets hold of the reins of power, is truly dangerous. But luckily, he’s going to be relegated to the world of opinion pieces and hand-wringing diatribes at the local coffee shop. I clicked on his bio to confirm that he was not a lawyer, legal scholar, or even researcher. He’s not. He’s an art critic and fiction writer.

    • Well Jan; I don’t think you’ve been keeping up with current events.

      This mans “arrogance” in the certainty of “Progressivism” triumph is the norm in most universities.

      When everyone around you believes the same way, especially when those that leave and go on to positions of power, (like our current president,) it very easy to believe they have won the debate.

      And they have been very dangerous indeed. Murderously so.

      It is this type of fanatics certainty that has allowed those that are “progressive”, with its roots in communism/Marxism; to murder hundreds of millions of people in the last hundred years.

      • I didn’t mean to imply that such people haven’t already gotten into positions of power, just that they are the type that are most dangerous, because they have no regard for the facts or the law, and a drive by blind “moral” rage.

  11. What’s great about his litany of false statements is that every one can be factually shown to be wrong. Nothing like having your enemy summarize their catalog of propaganda points neatly in o9ne place. He looks despondent in the photo….maybe he re-read what he wrote after it was published and realized what a complete idiot he is….nah!…too much to hope for…the Left’s desperation in the face of the massive failures of the Obama Administration is getting more fun to watch day-by-day.

  12. Just one of many factual errors he spews is the myth that gunmakers can’t be sued for defective products.

    I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read the law myself, online, and it’s clear to even a Flyover Country redneck like me. He should spend the 5 minutes it takes to google and read it. Dumbass.

    • Wish I could believe he’s a dumbass. He’s a liar, and believes he is so sly and sneaky that no one will detect that he is lying.

      • Probably true, and to paraphrase something I read elsewhere, he knows his readers are cloistered, ill-informed and easily led. He knows they won’t take the 5 minutes to google up that law either.

    • If semi-auto guns only purpose is killing a lot of people in a short time, why do the police have them and have them ratcheted up one notch to automatic?

  13. “Gun possession does not deter crime …”

    Really? Then perhaps Mr. KnowItAll could explain why so many criminal attackers immediately break off their attack when their victim produces a firearm and demonstrates the conviction to use it.

    • You are setting an incorrect scenario. Once we have reached nirvana, your possession of a firearm will not reduce crime, he is precisely correct. Your gun will be locked downtown in a police station, no ammo will have been produced for it in over 100 years, and defending yourself from a criminal will be punishable by death without a trial. Criminals will b able to borrow guns from the police station by producing a “convicted felon” ID card. Do you see now?

  14. A good many New Yorkers have a mindset in which nothing important or meaningful happens outside of New York city, and whatever happens inside New York city has meaning and importance to the entire rest of the world just because it happened in New York. It’s an odd combination of prejudice and myopia.

    Gopnik watched crime go down in New York city while the City had strong gun control. Therefore, in his mind, strong gun control will make the same thing happen everywhere else as soon as the idiots everywhere else get half as smart as New Yorkers.

    The scary part, though, is most of the country tends to eventually follow what California does. I’m sure it confounds Gopnik that California, and not New York, tends to lead, but he’ll be pleased enough with the result if it happens.

    • I don’t agree that New York’s lower gun crime rate had to do entirely with gun control laws. I believe it had more to do with the stop and frisk laws. Nothing like having a cop arbitrarily stop and pat you down to keep you from carrying an illegal gun.

      But now that they’ve stopped stop and frisk, and with Deblasio hostile towards the police and more supportive of the criminal class; I bet we will see a major upswing in violent crime, including crime committed with a gun.

      • Ah, but we could also see a major upswing in otherwise law-abiding residents illegally carrying firearms for self-protection. As in Chicago.

        • Yep. Nothing like having a progressive in charge to get the exact opposite of what they say they want.

          “I want peace, harmony and everyone to just get along”; as rioting, looting, arson. assaults and general mayhem starts outside their police and private armed security protected enclaves.

      • There’s more to stop and frisk. It’s a policy of not ignoring tiny infractions. Thing is crime rates have been declining before stop and frisk.

        This article has the phrase, “they think about guns all the time.” Trying to make abnormal or exceptional your opponent is an old tactic. Stating a semi fact or fact followed by an opinion is a tactic to have you assume that both are true. The Right does this too.

        He is declaring the war is over. Then we believe him and go home? It seems the increase of gun ownership over the past five years is directly due to people not fearing inner city folk as much as people knowing their government is only there to wrap up and wipe up and indict. That is not to be taken as an anti police phrase. They do their job. They just can’t teleport.

        It’s a shame when it’s easier to latch onto an idea and believe it without question. It may be human nature but it’s lazy.

    • I always like to compare areas with similar demographics, like TX and CA. CA’s murder rate is higher than the nation’s murder rate, and TX’s is lower.

  15. If Bushmaster was ‘held accountable’ for the deaths at Sandy Hook, then how is it that GM is not held accountable for the actions of drunks who should have never had access to a motor vehicle?

    They try to pass themselves off as intellectuals, but they fail to do the simplest analysis of their line of thinking. They don’t like guns, so anything that punishes a gun manufacturer is a good thing. That’s as far as their intellect will take them. They never stop to consider the giant can of worms they’d be opening up with every other product that is capable of criminal misuse. The only thing worse than being dumb is being dumb and thinking you’re smart.

    • Actually after skimming through some of his rubbish, he does make an automotive comparison. But he compares an AR15 to a car that is ‘wildly unsafe’. He doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between a product that is criminally misused and a product that is defective.

      • Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the NPR Car Talk guys, once seriously suggested that power to weight ratios be limited by law and that almost every car on the road was more powerful than it needed to be. According to them, we’d all be safer if we’d just agree to give up all that unnecessary acceleration and speed.

        Sound familiar?

        • Tom Magliozzi died a few months back…

          For being a coupla funny guys with an NPR show, they were both graduates of MIT.

          At least they had some academic cred, compared to a nattering nit-wit like Gopnik.

          I liked listening to Click and Clack the ‘Tappet Brothers’…

        • True enough. If we lowered the speed limit on interstate highways to 25mph it would save lives. But the public would rather take the risk and actually get to where they’re going.

  16. Unfortunately I think he may be right. In 2 or 3 generations they will be have their utopia. The liberal school systems and media are indoctrinating our youth with left-wing ideals. People are being brainwashed, coerced and laws are being made to outlaw freedoms. Good parents currently exist. They are trying to maintain constitutional and common sense ideals. The number of good parents is getting smaller and will continue to do so. Parental rights are being phased out of existence. You can no longer discipline your children for fear of being convicted of child abuse. Police are interviewing children in schools without their parents knowledge or consent. Children are being asked about guns in the home. Children are being told what to eat for lunch. If you watch the liberal news you know the list goes on and on. When the number of people receiving “free” things is greater than the number providing them, freedom is doomed.

    It has always amazed me how science fiction writers have such a clear understanding of the future. Ray Bradbury’s 1953 book Fahrenheit 451, written during the McCarthy era, comes to mind. Books outlawed by government are burned. It is currently being done in a more subtle way. The “mistaken” omissions or re-writing of historical facts in textbooks is but one example.

    • Look up “The Weapons Shops of Isher” by A.E. van Vogt, written in 1951. A science fiction look at individual weapons ownership on a faraway planet. Over each shop is the logo,

      “Fine Weapons. The Right to Own Weapons is the Right to Be Free.”

      This author understood gun rights, long long ago.

    • “The liberal school systems and media are indoctrinating our youth with left-wing ideals.”

      Hollywood has told the liberal left to fvck off. The evidence is the movies that feature guns.

      Good guys with guns are going after bad guys with guns.

      To get the media on board will require that movies treat guns as nothing but evil.

      And good luck getting Rap and Hip-Hop artists in line with their agenda…

  17. Did you notice that there was no comment section at this New Yorker article?
    This, “We’ll tell you what the truth is.” is propaganda masquerading as opinion. If you want to know how so many Americans have been fooled, conned, lied to about the truth about guns, here it is. This propaganda train jumped the truth rails before it even left the station. And they think WE’RE dangerous?

    If your truth is personal, then it’s not a truth, it’s a belief.

  18. Mental work is over eh? Then I guess that’s how he managed to miss that over the past couple decades, violent crime in this country has been going down steadily despite most places loosening gun control laws and most enacting carry laws of various sorts. Meanwhile in the gun-free utopia of the UK, violent crime has been steadily increasing since the late ’60s. And that’s AFTER the constabulary has fudged the numbers so they can get their performance bonuses.

  19. This guy is the quintessential liberal: “We’ve already done all the thinking for you. It’s just a matter of getting you to see how right we are.”

  20. This is standard liberal fare. When the facts aren’t on their side, then shift the discussion away from any mention of the facts. Better yet, they just assume the facts are on their side and unilaterally declare them thus.

    We saw this with the “global warming” hoax. We still see this with welfare, school choice, and taxes. Examples include pronouncements like “the science is settled” or “94% of Americans support universal background checks” or similar.

    Liberals attempt to fast forward to a faux consensus, so as to leapfrog actual examination of the data and to bully skeptics into alignment, or at least into silence.

    Don’t let them define the outer ambit of the debate. Confront them and challenge them every time on the facts.

  21. Not surprised. Gopnik grew up on Canada and lives in New York. Of course the only purpose he, and the rest of the New Yorker’s see for guns, is killing small children and babies.

  22. I have to admit, he’s right.

    All we had to do to get rid of drug addicts was outlaw drugs. It worked like a charm.

    If we would just outlaw guns there would be no more gun crime, just like there is no more drug crime.

    They did it in Chicago, and now Chicago is free of gun crime.

  23. “F- Factual areguments not cited. Please see me after class.”

    Why don’t we hold people accountable after they leave school?

  24. “…Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an Canadian American writer, essayist and commentator. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, …”

    It’s quite clear this was one of his “fictional” articles.

    >>Fiction is the form of any work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not real, but rather, imaginary and theoretical—that is, invented by the author. <<

  25. Adam Gopnik’s “inarguable truths” don’t seem to match the recorded metrics published on the FBI website. Imagine that.

  26. Writes an editorial demanding a conversation about “gun violence”. Doesn’t allow commentary by others. Why am I not surprised?

    • That’s because he’s using the word conversation to mean “let’s just do what I say and the hell with you and your rights and your facts.”

  27. He actually lists shaming as an item on the antis’ to-do list.

    I’m virtually certain that this tactic is at the core of MDA’s strategy. They just don’t say it in public.

  28. No comments enabled there.

    And he cites no evidence to support his assertions (most likely, of course, because there isn’t any).

  29. A person can keep trying to spoon feed me dirt and tell me that I will like it, but I know what dirt is and I know I won’t like it.

  30. The irrational bleatingsg of a gun hater on his meds. Yes, I said on his meds, it’s an obvious case of Prozac psychosis…. or maybe Paxil.

  31. The news that the parents of the children massacred two years ago in Sandy Hook, near Newtown, Connecticut, by a young man with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, were undertaking a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer was at once encouraging and terribly discouraging. The encouraging part is that those parents, suffering from a grief that those of us who are only witnesses to it can barely begin to comprehend, haven’t, despite the failure to reinstate assault-weapons bans and stop the next massacre, given way to despair.

    Assault weapons bans will not stop the next massacre. As this author already detailed in his article – the navy yard shooting was performed with a shotgun (not an assault weapon). The boston massacre was performed with fireworks and pressure cookers (not assault weapons). The Covina massacre was performed with fire, flamethrower, and handguns and 10 people died (not assault weapons). The Sivas massacre killed 35 people who were burned to death inside a hotel in turkey – no firearms were used. This list goes on and on. Assault weapons bans will not stop massacres.

    Like Richard Martinez, after his son was murdered by a weapon that should never have been in the hands of a lunatic, or anyone else, for that matter, they’re allowing themselves to be angry, and then turning their anger into action: they’re naming the business that helped kill their children and asking a court to hold that business responsible.

    Or anyone else for that matter? Like law enforcement, military, etc? What about them?

    How did bushmaster (the freedom group) help kill those children exactly?? If a man poisons a child with bleach and dies did Clorox help kill them? If some is burned to death with gasoline do we raise a lawsuit against British petroleum? If Adam Gopnik writes an article that a crazy person reads and then kills some people, do we claim that Mr. Gopnik helped kill them? This whole statement is absurd.

    The filed complaint—the numbered paragraphs give it an oddly religious feeling, like theses nailed to a church door—is worth reading in full, however painful that might be, not only because of the unbelievable suffering and cruelty it details on that terrible morning but also because it offers, in neatly logical fashion, an indisputable argument: the gun manufacturer is guilty of having sold a weapon whose only purpose was killing a lot of people in a very short time. Despite the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives having previously declared that such weapons “serve a function in crime and combat, but serve no sporting purpose…”

    The filed complaint does not list out safety issues with the firearm, or criminal accusations against bushmaster – it does state some “opinions” about the AR15 rifle and it supposedly devastating firepower… which they claim “The defendants know.” It does explicitly state:

    “13. Plaintiffs seek nothing more and nothing less than accountability for the consequences of that choice.”

    That choice listed – meaning to sell to the civilian market. Forget about how the AR15 platform is America’s favorite rifle. Here is a (incomplete) list for 61 different chamberings for the AR15 platform:

    http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=337969

    The AR15 firearm can be used to hunt almost any game. How come these details weren’t in the complaint?

    Bushmaster sold it anyway—and precisely on the grounds that it could kill many people, quickly. “Forces of opposition bow down. You are single handedly outnumbered,” the advertising copy read.

    On the grounds that it could kill many people? A lot of things can kill many people. They sold it on the grounds to make money – just like every other business in America.

    The lawsuit is discouraging because the death-by-gun lobby has successfully advocated for legislative prophylactics that prevent gunmakers, almost uniquely among American manufacturers, from ever being held responsible for the deaths that their products cause.

    I believe it. Probably for protection against the illogical nonsense brought against them. See noted above regarding bleach and Clorox.

    If a carmaker made a car that was known to be wildly unsafe, and then advertised it as unsafe, liabilities would result. The gun lobby is, or believes itself to be, immune. Some experts have outlined legal principles that might let sanity triumph, but it is hard to think it will.

    That is not comparing apples to apples. If a carmaker made a car and someone drove that car into a giant crowd of people and killed 26 people would they file a lawsuit claiming the car was unsafe? Of course not. The AR15 is completely safe when performed as intended. It is not safe to people who are victims of criminal action, with a gun or a car.

    (Right-wing judges tend, these days, to be more creative than liberal ones in creating legal precedents that no one ever before imagined possible.)

    ?? Legal precedents like individual accountability rather than statistical, societal nonsensical policies? Is the America? Land of the free – home of the brave? Or a statist welfare state?

    Indeed, one of the ironies of the whole story is that there already is a long-standing ban on truly automatic weapons—machine guns—whose legality not even the N.R.A. or their allies dispute.

    The ban does not ban me from owning one manufactured prior to 1986. Gopnik needs to get his facts straight here.

    If anything, they tend to make a sniffy point of discriminating actual machine guns from mere semi-automatic ones, among them the Bushmaster. (Back in the twenties, the availability of the tommy gun to gangsters meant that the police were often brutally out-gunned.)
    But all of the talk about legal and illegal weapons, automatic and semi-automatic—as about the treatment of the psychologically troubled—evades the simple, central point: it ought to be very, very difficult, as it is in every other civilized country, to get your hands on a weapon whose only purpose is to kill people quickly.

    Every other civilized country? You mean like Switzerland where you can own as many guns as you want and the government issues you a “fully automatic” firearm after your training? Also, the crime rate there is ridiculously low. This tells me… it’s probably not due to the ownership of firearms.

    The N.R.A. and their allies make it very, very easy.
    The underlying politics of gun control has always been the same: the majority of Americans agree that there should be limits and controls on the manufacture and sale and ownership of weapons intended only to kill en masse, while a small minority feels, with a fanatic passion, that there shouldn’t. In a process familiar to any student of society, the majority of people in favor of gun sanity care about a lot of other things, too, and think about them far more often; the gun crazy think about guns all the time, and vote on the issue with fanatic intensity.

    ? Unsubstantiated claims based on opinion with what looks like attempts to discredit gun owners who enjoy their rights and label them as “crazy, insane, and fanatical.” Where is the logical argument?

    On some subjects on which we wish sanity and common sense could prevail over fanaticism and irrationality, it’s apparent that the mental work is not yet finished or even entirely begun. In public life, there are subjects about which the mental work is done, but the moral work still needs doing. Or to put it with another neatly alliterative pair, where the intellectual work is not yet complete even as the inspirational work takes flight.

    “Subject” is the correct word. I’m sure that is how you see us. On some individuals who write articles for publications we wish logic, reason, and facts could prevail over opinions, bias, and hopeful wanting of establishing and inspiring that 51% so they can “win” and take freedoms away from the other 49 rather than expressing tolerance for our fellow citizens.

    … Skipped lengthy digression about opinions of mental and moral work…

    Funny he wants a public discussion but there is no comments section on the article – only a tweet and facebook share so his page can get more hits.

    But on the problem of gun control, no matter how far we may seem from a sane solution, the public deliberations are finished. Instead of bleeding natural allies, new ones join all the time, including the voters who rejected attempts to eliminate checks and delays on weapon sales in the last election. No honest or scrupulous person can any longer reject the evidence that gun control controls gun violence.

    Where is that evidence Gopnik? Not up for scrutiny I guess. So if we disagree with your assertion that gun control works (where you provided no evidence) then we are not a scrupulous person? Gopnik should host a class called propaganda 101.

    It can be rejected only by rage and hysteria and denial and with the Second Amendment invoked, not as a document with a specific and surprising history, but as a semi-theological dogma.

    Apparently it can be supported only by rage, hysteria, and denial and with the bloody shirt waving to further an agenda for the forcing of a particular person’s opinion on the whole of the US because of their “feelings.”

    The argument has been revealed conclusively to be between people who actually want to reduce the number of gun massacres and those who prefer an attachment to lethal symbols of power. (There are other symbols of personal autonomy, safer to small children.)

    I disagree. And again… where is this “conclusive” evidence? Gun owners don’t want massacres of any kind (gun or otherwise) – but good job on dividing everyone into a false dichotomy.

    The majority is there, and the mental work is accomplished. This means that though the moral work—of persuasion, conviction, and shaming—needs to go on, we can be confident that it will go on and win, too, in the long run.

    It is debatable that the “majority is there.” But again Gopnik actually comes and says it: 51% is better than 49 – and the moral work (Gopnik et al.) of persuasion, conviction, and shaming – needs to go on because? (Gopnik et al.) believe it should.

    There is nothing so irresistible as an idea that happens to be true. Piece by piece, legislation by litigation, the curse will be lifted. Time and temperament and patience will win out. This is the belief that the Victorians called “progressivism” and it is still much mocked. But the neat thing is that it happens to be true.

    Because Gopnik feels the “human condition” is improved by more laws, more regulations, less accountability, and less freedoms.

    There are many issues—the overwhelming majority—on which we need an ongoing public “conversation.” On a few, we don’t. Gun control stops gun violence. Gun possession does not deter crime; it merely makes it more lethal. Making these inarguable truths into necessary law takes the work of persuasion and legislation and litigation. The mental work finished, the moral work goes on, often in modest invisibility.

    Gopnik has asserted that the “mental work” is finished. Did anyone else hear that big announcement? When did everyone come to a consensus? It appears Gopnik is the only one who has come to a conclusion.

    Regarding public conversation – why don’t we start on your article. Why is there no comment’s section Gopnik?

    “Gun control stops gun violence.” – It certainly isn’t working in Mexico. I would say it’s working really well in North Korea. Certainly debatable.

    Every day, something good happens at the state or community level that makes getting guns a little harder—and keeps families a little safer. That it might happen a little faster is a rational hope, and a proper holiday wish.

    I agree – the intolerance and oppression certainly is progressing to all areas. I also agree that it is getting more difficult to obtain guns each and every day. Keeping families safer? Debatable. But also questionable in that is safety always better than freedom?

    • In a republic, the natural rights of the people are not subject to the tyranny of the majority (the 51%). Somebody forgot to tell Goop-nick that the USA is a republic, not a democracy, for that very reason.

  32. JOHN HINDERAKER: Liberals Can’t Argue, They Can Only Bully. “Of course, no such evidence is cited. As always, when liberals say the debate is over, it means they are losing. Actually, the evidence shows that the places with the strictest gun control–Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example–have more gun violence than average, not less. More broadly, the homicide rate today is only about half what it was during the Clinton administration. It has steadily declined as gun rights have expanded. The causal relationship certainly can be debated, and lots of ink has been spilled analyzing data, but the argument is empirical and the New Yorker contributes nothing to it.”

    It’s not meant to, merely to comfort the New Yorker’s poorly educated and easily led followers.

    UPDATE: From the comments:
    The anti-gun writers seem to be engaging more in social signaling than in argument. Their articles are asserting their own membership in the Great and Good, unlike those awful gun owners, who are probably toothless, married to their sisters, and church-goers. You don’t want to be like THEM, do you?

    Gopnick’s article is hilariously pretentious, even by the lofty standards of the New Yorker. “Moral work?”

    Heh.

  33. Ah THE TRUTH…as in Pravda comrade. Goopnik. I never tire of the rhetoric from my so-called intellectual overlords. And what’s wrong with thinking about guns all the time?

  34. “Gun control stops gun violence. Gun possession does not deter crime; it merely makes it more lethal. Making these inarguable truths into necessary law takes the work of persuasion and legislation and litigation.”

    So, we are to accept these “inarguable truths” as the given, and get on with the business of legislation to correct these errors in our society.
    How typical of the anti-2nd Amendment usurpers of the people’s right to arms. The lies which they cannot disguise as truth are simply defined as “self-evidently true” to avoid any further debate that embarrasses their views. Then we are simply told that it is time to “move on” to more productive subjects, e.g. just how stringent these new laws must be, how much “teeth in them” is needed to replace those “weak” gun controls that are not effective.

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