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“Clearly, we’re in the grip of a kind of madness, an irrational, fevered obsession with firearms. Sometime in the not-too-distant (I hope) future, historians and anthropologists will study our society’s gun sickness to try to figure out how we became so warped by firearms ownership. They’ll ponder this cultural weirdness just as we look back at the Salem witch trials and the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. To be sure, the vast majority of Americans are not persuaded that more guns are tantamount to more safety. They know better. Polls show that we support additional gun safety laws, including a ban on large-capacity magazines and broadening background checks to make it more difficult for criminals and the deranged to get guns. But we don’t care enough. We haven’t gone about the business of isolating this madness, quarantining the fevered, protecting ourselves from the spread. We’ve allowed this infection to ebed itself in the bloodstream of civil society.” – Cynthia Tucker in Obsession with guns now infects college campuses [at troyrecord.com]

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73 COMMENTS

  1. “Texas, especially, ought to know better. It was the scene of one of the nation’s earliest spree shootings, in 1966, when former Marine Charles Whitman fired from the clock tower on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin.”

    Because the rules banning guns from the University of Texas sure stopped Charles Whitman from going there with a gun and murdering a slew of people, eh Ms. Moonbat?

    • This above tripe is absolute and utter garbage Cynthia wrote.

      Cynthia cant be bothered with facts when arguing from illogical emotion.

      As a matter of historical fact, a number of armed Texas citizens went and retrieved their long guns after Wh____ started sniping and executing innocents. Those brave citizens laid down suppressive fire at Wh_______. This caused him to have to take cover and limited his shooting options.

      This gave innocents time to escape and allowed Officer Martinez and his group (which included an armed citizen Alan Crum using a borrowed rifle) time to get to Wh____ and kill/neutralize him.

      Cynthia lies about the actual facts and promotes keeping schools gun free hunting zones for active killers.

      She want to force everyone to be just like her: a submissive, compliant and obedient victim.

      • Is there a reason why you don’t type Charles Whitman’s full name?

        This is a serious question–I really don’t know, and am curious.

        • I would guess he is denying the murderer the fame that he wanted by not repeating his name

        • But he wasn’t after fame? I thought he went nutso due to a tumor that no one had diagnosed (when he complained of headaches and such)

      • Agreed. A high school friend’s grandfather was one of those civilians who armed himself and returned fire at Whitman on the tower. With AP ammo, no less. He told me every time he saw “that bastard’s head” (as he put it) pop up he’d take a shot and it would pop right back down again.

    • Whitman was well aware of this violent outburst. He sought help and met with a doctor once but did not return. He kept a journal detailing his feelings and requested an autopsy citing something controlling his brain. Although debatable it was the cause of his actions, a pecan size tumor was found. Wiki has a good read.

      How one can connect a former Eagle Scout, honorable discharge Marine, with a brain tumor turned sniper to campus carry is a leap of logic straight of a cliff.

  2. While the polls and sales data disagrees with her, let’s pretend they don’t. For years, the polls also stated that slavery was right, that blacks and women shouldn’t vote, and that we should intern the Japanese in camps.

    Fortunately, we ignored those polls in favor of the Constitution and respect for the rights of the individual. Why does she hate individual freedoms and Constitutional rights? Does she hate America?

    • You’ll notice she also makes reference to two times in American history, where people let fear and ignorance rule, and used that to oppress a segment of the population:
      They’ll ponder this cultural weirdness just as we look back at the Salem witch trials and the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness.

      Then proceeds to refer to isolating this madness [gun ownership], quarantining the fevered, protecting ourselves from the spread. So she wants to classify gun ownership as a mental illness, round us up in camps, and maybe burn us at the stake.

  3. The problem is that academics like her insist, no…. DEMAND that the US would be like Europe if we nearly eliminated private ownership of firearms or made it so expensive and difficult that only the elite could have them.

    Methinks she should visit Mexico or Colombia (not the super well policed tourist areas either) to see the other side of that gun control coin. She might get a shocking real world education.

    • “The problem is that academics like her”

      is that they live in an isolated, insulated bubble that does not represent the real world at all.

      They think that some theoretical or philosophical pondering on a subject is all there is. That “ideas” trump the laws of physics and the “laws of the jungle” as Kipling so eloquently outlined.

      Academics are the last people we should listen to on anything. They lack wisdom born of real experience, and it is far worse now than it ever was in the past due to academia breeding only more academics.

      And yes, I used to work in academia. They tried to poison my mind with their delusions, and I remain thankful to this day I escaped that sick, twisted environment with something of my own ability to think intact.

      • If you define an academic as someone who is effectively a professional student (including university professors, etc.) then I agree with you.

        However there are millions of highly educated professionals whose opinion I hold in very high esteem on a range of subjects from history to engineering and the hard sciences.

        I guess the real problem is with “philosopher kings” who think that their 15 minutes of pondering a subject while writing an op-ed piece trumps 10,000 years of human history on the subject of an individuals need to defend themselves.

        • I have direct experience (over the course of a multi-decade career) with academics in both soft and hard sciences…mostly in the hard sciences of Physics and Chemistry.

          My direct observation is that the vast majority of the modern era academic can’t think his way out of a wet paper bag that has already had a hole torn into it.

          University Chem Lab programs all around have been gutted of teaching real, practical handling of chemicals. This is just one example. Sometimes, this has been done in the name of ‘safety.’ Sometimes in the name of ‘cost.’

          Mostly, it’s nothing more than the diluting of real, practical knowledge born from an attitude that facsimiles CAN stand for the “real world.” That’s the end result, regardless of “why” it was done.

          Yes…I generalize. I realize my comments don’t apply to “everyone” in these fields/jobs. But, if you look at the Professorships occupied by those under the age of about 35, you will more than likely be quite appalled at their level of expertise and proficiency compared to what was the accepted minimum standard of 40 years ago.

          Schools USED to hire teachers with real experience..from industry, for example. Now, the hiring cycle is school->academic job. The real world simply does not matter.

          Again, I admit I’m painting with a broad brush. But, the problem is indeed bad and getting worse with each new generation. Academic thinking is an infection to the scientific process, even in the hard sciences.

    • I find it funny how most these academics keep making the same mistake and ignoring human nature. I understand why they do it. They don’t know any better being so sheltered in the ivy towers of academia. Still, while I wouldn’t wish this to happen, it would be illustrative to have one of these academics go to an ISIS caliphate beach and find out first hand how nasty human nature can be.

  4. Then she goes to ad hominem attacks, referring to us As “minions” and goes right to the absurd.
    ” They target politicians who dare suggest that not every private citizen needs to own a shoulder-fired rocket launcher.”

    I’m trying my darkest not to stoop to that level…

    • It suffices to quote their hero, Chairman Mao: “Political power emanates from the muzzle of a gun.” Truer words were never spoken. The entire debate rests here.

      May the Force be with us!

  5. Ignorant wonks are gonna wonk and lying liars are gong to lie. She looks like both with a touch of crazy.

  6. She’s right. In the future we’ll have way cooler stuff than guns.
    It wasn’t really that long ago that you had to spend the time and energy it takes to bludgeon people who wish to do you harm to death.

  7. I think historians will look back and see the societies that willingly let themselves be disarmed by their governments will have been victims of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement.

    History is also written by the victors, and usually the victors are the ones who remained armed.

  8. After reading this it all makes sense! I don’t really want to own guns, it’s just a disease! I’m so glad that I can be cured of this compulsion to buy firearms! I should probably just surrender all firearms, and heck, while I’m at it I might as well surrender my remaining civil rights too! It’s so clear to me now, I’m glad we have such esteemed academic minds who can tell what’s wrong with me so I can get help.

  9. Well, Cynthia, you are missing the whole point. Guns may not make “us” safer, but they damned sure make “me” safer. You are consumed with the idea of a safer society. That is because you are a coward. We are consumed with the idea of a free society. That is because we understand the importance of personal responsibility. And because we want to be Americans and not Europeans. And because guns are fun. There’s that, too.

  10. Freedom is the virus, Ms Tucker. But dont worry, it only thrives in healthy minds. You have nothing to fear.

  11. I LOVE how she points her finger at gun owners like they’re witches and mentally ill and then immediatly uses examples of witch trials and mental illness finger pointing to defend her stance. Such ignorance.

    • Cynthia Tucker’s body language speaks volumes. Those arched eyebrows and that fist underneath her chin shout “I am an angry black woman!!!”

      Her real message is, “too many white people have too many guns”.

      Or is it simply “too many white people”?

    • Yeah, and when it comes to disqus nowadays there is an army of keyboard commandos who flag every effective progun comment they can find, so comments you thought you made months ago have disappeared and only the grabber comments remain. It’s kind of sad, and I have sent angry emails. The Mirror in the UK is so far the only outlet that has admitted this is even happening, much less taken steps to stop it. Here is the comment I tried to leave, also awaiting moderation.

      • EDIT

        The Clock Tower shooting? Really? You mean the one where armed citizens assisted the police by pinning down Whitman with their deer rifles? The one where the fatal shot was determined to be a shotgun blast from a borrowed gun?

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C

        Who knows how many more lives could have been saved if the students themselves had been armed. Who knows how many more students would be dead if America at that time was the gun free unicorn land you want it to be? And when it comes to Utah, with the “nuttiest campus carry laws,” you purposely fail to admit that there hasn’t been any of the problems you imagine, no sudden shootouts over grades, no mean girls capping each other for wearing the same blouse. It’s like a world where your students are actually mature and capable enough to be trusted with their human rights (the real world, that we live in) is unacceptable to you. If you really think so lowly of them, why wouldn’t you fear what they might do RIGHT NOW, regardless of the law? By your logic any one of them could go crazy at any moment so your sense of security seems totally unjustified.

  12. Someday we will lift the veil, and hold the lantern higher, and see that people like (and opinions like those of) Cynthia Tucker were not just wrong, they were wrong on purpose. Which makes her and those like her an f-ing liar. If archeologists someday visit her grave it will be to urinate, before hunting down her progeny to demand reparations.

    • Nah. It’s the politicians who are wrong on purpose, espousing anything and everything to stay in power and grow their own power. As an academic, she very likely believes this lunacy with all her heart.

  13. Jeez, they’re trampling the memory of the dead in Texas now?! I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds real bad.

  14. No, ma’am. Someday society will look back upon this “weirdness”, this “fevered obsession” of those in academia, with the insane idea that big government will solve all the world’s ills, and that a loony, gun-grabbing government that murders its own citizens, like those of Hitler and Stalin, could never, ever happen again.

  15. And as an African-American female who likely claims to support liberal positions on issues of race and gender (based on being an academic who wrote the typical above tripe, not her color or sex), it’s also of ironic note that her stance is both racist and sexist.

  16. A well written, logical article by a highly intelligent person who can’t see that her way of thinking is on the problem side of her argument/prediction. Gotta love anybody who is so smart, but can’t bring themselves to examine both sides of the subject to consider that they, and not the world, are wrong. Dear Cynthia, how’s it feel to be smart AND wrong?

  17. “Clearly, we’re in the grip of a kind of madness, an irrational, fevered obsession with liberalism. Sometime in the not-too-distant (I hope) future, historians and anthropologists will study our society’s sickness to try to figure out how we became so warped by liberalism. They’ll ponder this cultural weirdness just as we look back at the Salem witch trials. To be sure, the vast majority of Americans are not persuaded that more government control is tantamount to more safety. They know better. Polls show that we do not support more laws including restrictions on our freedom, government spying and broadening government oversight on all aspects of our lives. But we don’t care enough. We haven’t gone far enough to isolate this madness, quarantining the fevered, protecting ourselves from its spread. We’ve allowed this infection called liberalism to embed itself in the bloodstream of our society.”

  18. Oh, maybe, keeping the prohibition in place would have prevented the Whitman killings? Or at least reduced the number?

  19. Every time some state passes campus carry (or concealed carry, or constitutional carry, or eliminates waiting periods, or whatever), the hoplophobes act like it’s never been done before!

    What they never do is site statistical crime data from the places where it’s already been done. Never. Because that would destroy their arguments.

  20. Dateline ~2075. A look back at gun powder and lead firing mechanisms which have long since gone from everyday life. Current legislation introduced to control scary looking deadly particle beam rings, wrist mounts and necklaces. Does this cultural madness of weapons continue? Have we learned from generations of historical obsession with loud explosive dangerous guns?

  21. “Clearly, we’re in the grip of a kind of madness, an irrational, fevered obsession with firearms.”

    I agree 100%. Leftists are indeed in the grip of such madness.

  22. To paraphrase Ms. Cynthia Tucker:

    You are different from me and I don’t like nor trust people who are different from me … therefore you are crazy/mad/insane and government should take away your firearms.

    • Yeah, I don’t know why antis spend so much time writing articles when they could just be honest and type, “I’m an unstable, psychopathic control freak who would gladly enslave and kill anyone who disagrees with me if only to soothe my fascist desires.”

      I also like how it gets them riled up whenever I remind them that people like them are why the 2A exists, and why many people own guns. Their boisterous displays of desire for totalitarian control remind us that evil exists and we need to be prepared.

  23. From the article:

    “That means students sitting in a library or classroom or strolling through a classic tree-lined quadrangle may be armed.”

    So…?

    Oh. I see; the implication being that student carriers must be inherently stupid bad actors ready to ‘go off’ because they are armed citizens. That’s typical anti-gunner blather without merit or basis in fact. As a rule lawful carriers have a high level of S/A and aren’t about to engage in conduct likely to jeopardize their right to legally, constitutionally keep and bear their firearm(s).

    As to Tucker’s assertion about the so called “recent spate of police shootings” and the question equating that dubious allegation to civilian behavior: “What makes the gun lobby think that civilians would handle their firearms with more precision and control?”

    Uh…no.

    Is this so called educated airhead really that dumb as to equate what cops do for a living with a private citizen going about his/her daily business who is assaulted by some perp and needs to defend him/herself at near intimate close range.

    Cops have to be pro-active. They insert themselves into dubious often highly charged situations with unknown, unpredictable players to ‘keep the peace’ and ‘enforce the law’. Their exposure to risk, and the possibility of a shoot incident is exponentially higher *because* of their occupational duties. In comparison private citizens generally have almost zero exposure to the kind of environment most officers encounter regularly, and action by a private citizen is reactive to personal imminent threats rather than proactively seeking out or responding to incidents that may pose deadly threats.

    Each assertion of this so called educated anti can be easily taken apart and the lack of logic to her assumed conclusions exposed by simple examination and evaluation applying everyday worldly facts of existence.

    Tucker should either bone up on reality or just shut up and quietly exist inside her illusory security bubble blindly reliant on her whimsical progressive version of utopia to keep her safe from any predators.

  24. Someday, alongside such relics as the miasma theory of disease and the geocentric universe, students will learn that many people used to cling fervently to the notion that crime was caused by honest people having too much freedom.

  25. The history should also show the epidemic of fatherless children in this country, who turn to drugs and violence, subsidized by our government and communities. A society where it’s better to record a brutal fight between two teens rather than break it up, where people bait the police into conflict and physical combat. Where a 8th grade basketball player is scouted by shoe companies, where my diabetes test strips cost $1.50 a piece when they manufacture 5 million A DAY…..

    Yeah Guns are the issue……

  26. So she cites the Salem witch trials and viewing homosexuality as a disease as sad examples of times when the ignorant persecuted other people…

    …then goes on to say that we should ignorantly persecute other people.

    A true leftist. How does such sheer stupidity and ignorance even manage to exist in a supposedly enlightened age? No, you staggering moron, history will look back and either thank patriots for standing up for freedom, or lament that evil cowards like you helped wipe it from the face of the Earth.

  27. Polls are not data and they certainly aren’t a valid thing to base policy on. Polls are the thing that our system of government was designed specifically to mitigate the power of. The people do not vote directly on every matter because they’re idiots and the framers knew that. The system of proportional representation and non-proportional representation allows the desires of a society to be drawn through a filtering body which might slow the change down in such a way that nearsighted and emotional policies might be avoided and the rights and responsibilities of all parties considered thoughtfully. Mob rule sucks and that’s all that polls do. Drive decisions that might otherwise be considered carefully to be made haphazardly.

  28. “College campuses don’t have enough problems with student misbehavior? Administrators aren’t frazzled enough coping with rapes….”

    I suspect that at least this one source of administrator angst might diminish a tad with campus carry.

  29. I guess in a way it kind of makes sense. Homosexuality and gender identity issues were once considered by many to be mental issues, and nowadays are considered by many to be completely natural. Similarly, gun ownership is considered by many to be completely natural, so in the future they’ll be considered by many to be mental issues, perhaps?

    Sorry, I’m just trying REALLY hard to see some semblance of logic here.

  30. The copious use of “polls” to justify what someone like this “believes” is (in and of itself) DERANGED. One has but to look at the pollsters, the sample size, the cross section and questions to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are simply produced for anti-gun only consumption. About 90% of polls conducted in the world are skewed beyond belief.
    What is so funny is the fact that these people take these skewed polls and FIRMLY believe that they are honest & totally representative of America or the world.
    Just goes to continually prove that liberalism, socialism, etc is a mental disorder based totally in lies, falsehoods and misguided beliefs.

  31. I hope in the not too distant future when Journalistic discussion of Cynthia Tucker is brought up, people will laugh nervously and change the subject.

  32. Sometime in the not-too-distant (I hope) future, historians and anthropologists will study our society’s government sickness to try to figure out how we became so warped by the lure of socialism. Historians will call this time period The Crazy Years.

  33. Perhaps she should consider the possibility that the obsession that will be studied will be their fear of gun ownership.

  34. Heck of a sales pitch, but that’s all it is. She fails to comprehend there is no sickness, e have no sociocultural problem. We have a 2A and a Constitutional Right put down by design of the Founders of the US of A. How is it this is hard to comprehend? If you disagree with our Constitution all it saying is you should move to another Country or simply shut-up.

  35. This is another example of a black socialist swallowing the white man’s socialist anti gun eruptions. Racist gun control laws prevented generations of innocent black people from their natural god given right of self defense.

    This black race traitor would be happy to disarm all innocent black people. Black criminals will never go without arms. While she lives in a gated community with her white socialist friends, guarded by mostly white policemen.

  36. “Clearly, we’re in the grip of a kind of madness, an irrational, fevered obsession with fear. Sometime in the not-too-distant (I hope) future, historians and anthropologists will study our society’s hoplophobia to try to figure out how we became so warped by statist propaganda…”

    Fixed (a little bit of) it for her

  37. I can’t help but get irritated whenever someone says that soon people will “know better” than to believe something I believe. It’s so infantilizing. I don’t agree with nearly anybody, but what kind of elitist asshole says that just because you disagree with someone else that they’ll learn to agree with you when they “know better”? I’m sure I’m just nitpicking, but when someone acts like a jerk in their quest to change people’s minds, I almost want to refuse to even consider their arguments just out of spite.

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