“Although having a gun may provide only a sense of security, it’s still a First Amendment right for all Americans. Knowing that our neighbor cannot legally own multiple high-powered weapons or explosives makes my family’s odds for safety far more favorable than having any weapons of protection in my own home. Inalienable rights and laws together provides for a safer environment for us all than having 100 guns in every household.” – Bill Thompson, LETTER: Nothing Nazified about NJ gun laws [via mycentraljersey.com]
Actually, my neighbor does own multiple high powered weapons. So do I.
Hugo Boss for the win. Now for the moron’s comments that went with the pic. How safe was the Petit family for not having a gun in the house?
That there, JWM, is actually some good “marketing” (referring to the post the other day about how pro-gun advocates can reach people more effectively with better marketing).
In my opinion two or three examples, two or three statistics, some history (illustrating tyrannical takeovers either by a nation’s own government or invaders), and a simple explanation that my rights are my rights — is all that we need to “market” our position.
More importantly, we MUST frame the discussion … as JWM did with his reference to the horrific, almost unspeakable Petit family attack.
Where do you even start with someone like this?
We start with better “marketing” from “pro self-defense” advocates — or some such nonsense.
Okay, that may have been a little harsh. The point is that there is no “marketing” that is effective when your potential “customer” is quite literally hysterical and/or all too happy to infringe on your rights for their own perceived gain.
I really meant it as a rhetorical question, but upon reflection I have two answers.
First … Start with the guy’s kids because he seems a lost cause.
Second … Start working on his grammar, language, and logic skills – all are related. If he can’t understand how incoherent he is, it doesn’t matter whether or not he has his facts right. Then work on the facts. And finally work on the actual logic.
The problem as I see it: he probably won’t acknowledge or even understand why he needs remedial education, and would see any such efforts as condescending at best. Thus he is likely to at best ignore all efforts. Thus, my first suggested approach.
Probably because you have zero patience. I’ve witnessed many an anti converted with honey, not vinegar.
Care to write up a strategy guide for that process? I won’t presume to make promises on his behalf, but that sounds like something that Robert would be interested in posting.
I’ve seen joke pages (Moms Against Everything) satirizing this nonsense that were more coherent than this guys statement.
I have to invent a new word here, did he not contradict himself and then REcontradict himself, all the time asserting that the 1st amendment protects RKBA? How long do you have to go to school to learn to be so stupid?
You don’t. You just consider where he lives and the fact that he obviously likes living there under those rules. And Chris Christie wants us red-necks to think he’d make a good president . . .
I usually start with drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.
Toasty wrote:
“I usually start with drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.”
Well, that is a good way to get Toasted…
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[1]”
Huh? What am I missing here? Where does that give my neighbor the ability to know about my assets?
“Huh? What am I missing here? ”
The absence of reading comprehension…
Oh, nice play of the double negative. Nice.
It’s a single negative though…
“Huh? What am I missing here? ”
The absence of reading comprehension…
“
Absence of missing a thing …
Ah yes, The Right to Safety, our most valued and important Constitutional Amendment.
The Right to Feel Safe. Fixed it for you
Letters to the editor, home of the original brain-dead trolls.
Every day our local rag here hosts the unintelligible ramblings of geriatric shut-ins and facilitates the empty exchanges between self-proclaimed geniuses as they parrot slogans heard the night before on MSNBC and Fox News.
The author of the linked article is absolutely lost. He needs to return to 8th grade Civics class and start over. I suspect he has paid for a degree of some kind but somehow remained uneducated.
Sadly, I just realized today’s 8th grade Civics class in NJ may not teach the U.S. Constitution in it’s ratified form.
civics, history, reading comprehension he really needs to go back to school
My head hurts…
“We’ve done it! We’ve weaponized stupidity!”
Hey, I want make up context for non existent rights too…
I here by invoke my 11th Amendment right to free BBQ on Wednesday.
Tomorrow, I will invoke my 7th Amendment right to see any woman of my choosing’s boobies.
Doesn’t that come under “the pursuit of happiness”? Although whether SHE feels that way would be moot.
If you want a double face palm, read his letter to the editor.
There is so much fail, so many things wrong, misspelled words, etc…
Wow.
It’s kind of entertaining in a really sad way.
Nazi Jersey. Hate that place.
i tell everyone im leaving america
“oh your going to mexico?”
“nope nj”
“anyone can purchase a firearm on the Internet or at most gun shows just about anywhere in the south these days without any real background check.”
More false information propagated by the 4th branch of the government.
“it’s still a First Amendment right for all Americans. Knowing that our neighbor cannot legally own multiple high-powered weapons or explosives makes my family’s odds for safety far more favorable than having any weapons of protection in my own home.”
I cannot even begin to fathom this imaginary right to know everything about your neighbor’s property or basing rights on made up statistics.
“So then, should our gun laws be based solely on what the criminals will or will not do?”
No they should be based on the rights to life, liberty, and property. They should also be based on their enforceability and not the “good” intentions behind them.
“No law is changed in the U.S. by dictatorial mandate, nor I believe will be as long as we remain a godly nation.”
Someone is not paying attention to the happenings in DC and the mutation of laws via bureaucratic agencies and not congress. The same is evident at the state level.
The level of denial in this article is astounding. Anyone capable of the most basic level of critical thought will see through the layers of BS presented.
Unfortunately “the sheeple” – who put the NJ politicians in power – are not capable of critical thought. It’s an uphill battle.
New Jersey Nazis… I hate New Jersey Nazis.
+1 for the Indiana Jones conflation.
I was going for a Blues Brothers reference… But Indiana Jones works lol.
I’ll settle for “Illinois Jones”.
That was a Blues Brothers reference. Jake Blues,”Illinois nazis? I hate Illinois nazis!”
A right to feel “secure” does not exist because such a right would actually be used to infringe constantly on people’s right to free speech (those words scare me or those ideas scare me) and obviously the second (those guns scare me) and others (search him anyway, he scares me).
Can an anti step forward and offer us a comprehendive definition of a “high-powered” weapon in terms of muzzle velocity and energy? Bullet grain? Ballistic coefficient? I’m waiting…
I love to show a picture of an AR next to a Mosin Nagant and then hand them a 5.56×45 and 7.62×54 and ask, “Now, which one of these bullets goes with your ‘Super Deadly High Powered Assault Rifle’?”
Hell, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Any rifle with a pistol grip and a shoulder thing that goes up is “high powered”. /sarc
Ooooh, I know! This is like, what’s the definition of an alcoholic? Anyone who drinks more than me.
High powered rifle? Any calibre more powerful than my rifle. Easy.
Thats a fine group of upstanding young NAZIs pictured above. Must be Bill Thompson’s heroes. Wonder if he has callouses on his knees yet?
What in the world is Bill Thompson saying in his LETTER: Nothing Nazified about NJ gun laws?
I don’t see any coherent thinking at all. It comes across to me like his mind is defective and he just spews out a bunch of words — like a hyper teenager tapping their foot incessantly on the floor.
This^^ . About the only thing I can comprehend is that he doesn’t know squat about the BOR–and I don’t mean only in the conceptual sense (owning weapons is a First Amendment right?)
I agree with uncommon_sense about Bill Thompsons editorial. After reading it I was left with the feeling that it was just a really weak op-ed. It is sad that the “best” argument was the “you said Nazi so you don’t have a argument” approach which is fallacious. Better reading was a reply to Thompson’s piece:
OPINION: Nazi gun laws a model for New Jersey
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/opinion/letters/2015/01/29/nazi-gun-laws-model-new-jersey/22542537/
Robert – LOVE the (storm) Trooper accompanying photo. NICE choice. Perhaps you should consider adding a debate forum to the site. We could invite (morons) uneducated folk like Bill to have a lively debate about reality.
Good grief…who clothed the NJ coppers??? Speer?
They look like WW2 British officer uniforms to me. Why is every uniform that isn’t slovenly affiliated with the Third Reich?
@nynemillameetuh, perhaps. And not really that much different from American Officers uniforms circa 30s and 40s….good catch.
I think it’s the riding breeches and “jackboots” that do it.
Perhaps you can link us to pics of British troops dressed like NAZIs?
“Knowing that our neighbor cannot legally own multiple high-powered weapons or explosives makes my family’s odds for safety far more favorable than having any weapons of protection in my own home.”
I’d think it’d be the other way around. If everyone in the neighborhood is disarmed and things go south, everyone’s screwed. But if everyone in the neighborhood is disarmed except for Bob, who owns multiple high-powered weapons (I think the term for that here is “a good start”), then I think we all know who everyone in the neighborhood is going to visit if things go south.
HAH! If everyone in the neighborhood is disarmed, it’s “yard sale” time for the mutts from the ‘hood.
Even my considerably armed friends have been known to opine that if the SHTF, we all assemble at my house for the load out.
The belief that almost every action of any significance must be pre-approved by a government agent makes it seem like some weird brain-alerting virus has spread across parts of the country (stronger in parts of the northeast and west coast).
Why are you guys running a picture of Nazi soldiers marching? Oh wait, I forgot, that’s the NJ State Police.
Most people in NJ bought into the propaganda that guns are bad and banning guns = good. NJ is ranked the worst state to live in, to start a business…it’s just a horrible place. And what’s funny (or sad, really) is that there was an article on NJ.com a few days ago titled something like “Lawmakers can’t figure out why people and businesses are leaving the state.” Really? Because it’s painfully obvious to me.
And there’s this too:
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/02/book_teaching_how_to_build_homemade_weapons_causes_1.html#incart_m-rpt-1
Those look like the “jack-booted thugs” that Wayne LaPierre so famously mentioned.
WTF did I just read?
1st Amendment? Nazis? What?!?
Statistics much? No? No. Not at all. Lovely.
somebody please show me back to my pen….
So when you say you’re safer if your neighbour can’t legally own multiple high-powered weapons, you mean you’re safer knowing that the only way he would have such weapons is if he were a criminal?
I thought that too.
There literally is not a thought captured in that quote. And I mean literally literally. It does not parse.
Did Hugo Boss design the NJ State Trooper uniforms too?
I ah. hrm… Well that’s um…if you ah…what?
Nice uniforms…. storm troop much?.. all they need now are the banners and drums…
Luckily, Bill Thompson wrote the letter from his underground bunker while wearing a gas mask and a metal hat. To keep the space aliens from reading his mind, doncha know.
They DO resemble Adolf’s a##holes. How did Hitler tie his shoelaces? Little Nazis…
If you live in New Jersey, you should be less concerned about what’s in your neighbor’s gun safe and more concerned with what’s in your aquifer.
Jack boot thugs.
The not-so garden state edition.
I wonder if the folks in the picture like coming to work every day dressed like they’re going to invade Poland?
Now now people, these are obviously motorcycle cops, hence the boots. Should have ridden the bikes in the parade, though.
Is this article proof that people who are too dumb to work and live in NYC end up in NJ? I can see an attempt at rhetoric, using the same start line about respecting the Constitution, but he fails in logic from there on. Your neighbour may very well have multiple machine guns and a grenade launcher, but this affects your safety not one whit, unless civil law breaks down and you need to retreat to his cellar. In this case your safety is increased. Having a firearm in your own house is only a safety deficit if you are careless with small children, or are a klutz prone to ND every now and then. This is an attempt to establish that guns are scary and if robbed your robber will not only shoot you with your own gun, but embark on a crime spree with your weapon afterwards. To people who know nothing, guns are scary. The writer should have admitted his terror and sheer ignorance, thereby boosting his standing with the fear crippled hordes who vote and live in such a God forsaken moral wilderness. Loser.
anything wrong with his statement that: “Owning a gun does not keep us safe, but our laws are essential for our safety.” so help me out, didn’t hitler have “laws”? and didn’t “our laws” once give us slavery and segregation? to his credit, i should have stopped reading after he appealed to “common sense.”
This is what happens five years after they succeed.
“Although having a book may provide only a sense of knowledge, it’s still a First Amendment right for all Americans. Knowing that our neighbor cannot legally own multiple higher-education books or encyclopedias makes my family’s odds for depending on the government far more favorable than having any books of critical thinking in my own home. Inalienable rights and laws together provides for a safer environment for us all than having 100 books in every household.” – Bill Thompson, LETTER: Nothing Nazified about NJ gun laws [via mycentraljersey.com]
You can bet your bippy that Bill Thompson is all for banning books that do not agree with his political views. Democrats are funny that way, all for “rights” and “freedom” as long as THEY are the ones in charge of what “rights” and “freedom” are allowed.
I believe I lost multiple IQ points reading that, I am not sure what to call it…..
I read that three times and each time I felt myself becoming more stupid so I had to stop immediately before forgetting how to breathe.