We’ve already remarked on the post-Umpqua surge of anti-gun agitprop. So far it’s been a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, legislatively and electorally speaking. You might even say it’s a sign of increasing desperation, as the antis realize that bloody shirt waving has joined pissing in the wind as a metaphor for self-defeating rhetoric. msn.com reports that “September is the fifth month in a row to set a record for background checks.” And that was before the post-Umpqua anti-gun offensive. If you look closely, you can see a new fatalism amongst the anti-firearms fraternity . . .
Following the fatal shooting of nine people at a community college in southern Oregon last week, President Obama renewed his call for “sufficient, common-sense gun-safety laws.” Yet there is only limited evidence that piecemeal regulation of the kind that policymakers in Washington and in state houses around the country are considering would substantially reduce gun fatalities.
Take a prohibition on assault weapons, one of the most common proposals. The ban might make mass shootings less deadly, but most homicides are committed with handguns. A rule that owners must store their guns under lock and key — if it were followed — would help keep guns away from suicidal adolescents, but wouldn’t protect adults in a violent domestic dispute. Requiring background checks for private sales and transfers would make it harder for convicted felons to buy guns secondhand, but some would still buy guns as a favor to brothers or boyfriends who wouldn’t qualify themselves.
Don’t get me wrong. The Washington Post – which published the above Wonkblog screed underneath the headline What liberals don’t want to admit about gun control – is still deeply and completely anti-gun. Their tepid coverage of the pro-gun protest that greeted President on his visit to Roseberg indicates that the WaPo’s anti-gun spin machine remains productive. But along with Professor Volokh’s excellent analysis, there seems to be a gradual understanding that gun control sucks.
That said, the antis’ asinine arguments still get plenty of play. Like this:
“The big problem is the guns,” said David Hemenway, a professor of public health at Harvard University.
“Guns are incredibly lethal,” he said. “It’s easy to kill with a gun.” There aren’t other ways to take a life that are equally effective. A knife wound is about eight times less likely, for instance, to take a life than a gunshot wound.
A mandatory buy-back program, along the lines of Australia’s highly successful ban on shotguns and semiautomatic and automatic rifles, could be effective in reducing the number of firearms. In Australia’s case, a mass shooting at a tourist destination on the island of Tasmania led the country’s conservative prime minister to require owners to sell their guns to the government in 1996. The government seized at least 650,000 guns — about one in five guns in civilian hands at the time. The result was a reduction of nearly 80 percent in the rate of suicides by firearm. And the data suggest that Australians didn’t simply use other methods besides guns to commit suicide. The policy likely saved hundreds of lives a year.
As is the way of such things, writer Max Ehrenfreund presents dubious, not-to-say profoundly flawed research as “likely” fact. Not one word is “wasted’ mentioning the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, a document notably missing from Australia’s political system. Or the tens of thousands of lives saved and protected by firearms-wielding Americans each year.
But more and more, articles like this one are butting-up against reality. Not head-on, mind you. Nor factually. While there’s every likelihood that the media’s small and grudging acceptance of gun rights will disappear at the first fresh flowering of successful civilian disarmament, there’s no mistaking a certain resigned admission that gun control isn’t the answer to America’s falling (note: falling) rate of “gun violence.”
It could be that where fewer people own firearms, more people are willing to support gun-control legislation. That legislation itself might not reduce the rate of fatalities, but because there are fewer guns, there are fewer deaths.
In any case, as long as guns remain so prevalent in American life, it appears that violent shooting deaths will continue. Another shooting, this time on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, wounded three people and killed another Friday morning.
“The availability of firearms feeds this problem, but then, what the hell are you going to do about it?” asked Wachtel, who now teaches criminal justice at California State University, Fullerton. Meaningful changes to the nation’s firearms policy aren’t politically feasible, he said: “We’re screwed. This is America.”
So close! Lose the first part of that quote and you’re there.
Ahhhh, liberals: people who think they are “screwed” because they live in America. Kind of says it all, no?
You mean, like this?
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/256571-dems-selling-america-is-already-great-hat
Thin soup, my friend–nothing more than a riposte to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. If the liberals truly believed America was great, rather than that it is “screwing” most everyone, they wouldn’t be so hot to “fundamentally transform” it. You do recognize the import of the word “fundamentally”, don’t you?
every bit as contrived as “Occupy Wall Street” was an effective counterpoint to “Tea Party Greassroots.” OWS was merely an attempt to “outdo-what-your-parents-said-was-a-defining-moment-of-THEIR-generation” flash in the pan, from MY Baby-Boomer perspective. I also claim “historical perspective” for this almost year old reply.
Yep. Best country in the world and yet there are unhappy campers. Malcontents gotta malcontent, I guess.
While I truly do believe that America is the best country in the world, that’s pretty tepid praise. Look at the competition. Winning that honor is like winning a race against a one-legged man with a broken foot and severe vertigo.
I agree that America is the best nation on Earth, and miles ahead of basically everyone else, it is still a ways off from “good enough”. Most liberals would agree that America could be better, but they want to make her into a copy of nations that already exist. If they love England/France/Australia so much, why don’t they go there? I love America and nowhere else is closer to what I would consider perfection.
That’s right! They are like, “Fvck! There is too much freedom here. We need more laws, more restrictions, more paperwork, more safety, much more safety, higher taxes, Much higher taxes, less responsibility, and state created services funded by our taxes to take care of us so we can do whatever is allowed (like watching TV, sleeping around, aborting babies, getting wasted, smoking pot, and remaining unemployed as long as possible) and not care or take responsibility for anything.”
Sanders is actually the most gun friendly Democratic candidate. Obviously that’s not saying much, but if you (no pun intended) put a gun to my head and made me choose a Democrat for President it would be Sanders by a mile.
Put a gun to Bernie’s head, and he’d wish he had a gun.
Nawh, the men he pays to keep him safe will shoot you with their guns.
Oh!! You are on a list now.
You didn’t see the article yesterday where Bernie came out for another “assault weapons” ban, among other things?
He “played Vermont politics”. Vermont is gun country so he shut his mouth in order to get where he wants to be, but the highest seat in the nation is not Vermont gun country.
As posted in another article by Anonymous: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-talks-gun-control-calls-assault-weapon-ban-n442351
“Vermont politics” is when a politician pretends to like guns and Ben & Jerry’s.
Ben and Jerry are screaming liberals themselves, what’s not for a politician to like?
I’ve never met a liberal who doesn’t like Ben&Jerry’s.
Sanders is correct about the relationship between gun control and actual violence reduction:
“If you passed the strongest gun control legislation tomorrow, I don’t think it will have a profound effect on the tragedies we have seen”
He’s right. It won’t.
And yet, he’ll still do it…
It’s almost like he doesn’t care about preventing real violence. What are his motives, then?
I’d vote for Sanders. A Socialist man with realpolitk doesn’t come around often.
If someone put a gun to my head and told me to vote D, I’d either reach for my CCW or tell them that I’ll be voting D AFTER I die, regardless of who I vote for while alive.
The anti-gun wingnuts hoped that every incident would be a clarion call for more gun control. Well, I’m no fan of the intelligence of the average American, but it now seems pretty clear that killings have the exact opposite effect on the hoi polloi.
They hear about a senseless killing and the response seems to be that they want to have a gun for protection. And the more the leftist harpies scream for gun control, the more people want guns for self defense.
It doesn’t hurt that nobody trusts the Federal government, Hillary, Obama or illegal immigrants, and the police are trusted less and less. What I do find remarkable is that Americans are beginning to trust themselves again.
So true! Progressives had their chance to prove how great their idealogy is and it has proven to be nothing but a major disaster not for the country but the entire world. The middle east and europe have paid for the moron in the white house and his policies. Our country is in ruins amd has never been more divided and the future look so bleek. Thats what progressivism will do to a country. Most Americans are too igmorant to link the two but at least they know things are bad and are waking up to stand against it. Now if we can only make them realize who is responsible.
Any halfway sensible person would see what their “Hope” has done to the nation the past 8 years and vow never to vote prog ever again. Unfortunately, they’re so far gone stupid that they’ll try again and again, thinking “we’ll get it right this time.” The definition of insanity.
It would be nice if Americans believed in the power of themselves again, power for more than voting in their next slavemaster. Maybe we need to hit rock bottom. Depending on the next election, we may just get that. We’ll see how it goes.
“What I do find remarkable is that Americans are beginning to trust themselves again.”
Yes, and it’s an encouraging sign. Americans who trust themselves do not vote for candidates who think government is the answer to every question.
Lets hope you are making a poor attempt at sarcasm. Here’s the reality…300 million guns in private hands, maybe more. Do you really think that all law enforcement or the military will join the anti-gun crusade? Some may, but I think most understand freedom. And you’d better hope so or it’s you and your ‘comrades’ that will be getting cozy in a nice cell.
Interesting question – how many LEOs, active and/or retired, own personal firearms, and what percentage of those would willingly just bring all those guns into the station house and turn them in just because Congress or some other legislative body passed an unconstitutional law banning possession of firearms?
How many dead enforcers will it take?
C’mon, Cliff, you’re old enough to know how this works by now. Whenever a gun ban of any kind comes along, the LEOs are always exempt. That’s how the legislators get ’em on board. And, sadly, it works almost every time.
Can’t speak for everyone, but this retired MCPO/Sheriff know a lot of LEOs and military who understand the Constitution and the proper relationship between government and governed. If my own observations are correct, the bulk of the military and sheriffs’ departments would not be reliable allies of the current administration and those who think like it. In other words,make the 80m gun owners and do some force multiplication. The anti-2A worms love to talk about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the armed populace vs. the military, ignoring the fact that much, if not most, of the miltary understands their Oath of Office.
They’ll support the confiscation, one they get a carve out for former and retired LEO.
How many bullshit laws do cops still enforce just doing their jobs?
Need I mention Katrina?
Where are the good cops putting their foot down over asset forfeiture?
We wish they were on our side… Many /most probably aren’t…
Haha you honestly believe that old socialiist hss a chance? The guy who said woman day dream about being r@ped! The guy who is a career politician and has never been succesffully at anything that matters in life. I guess it is nice you have something to hang your hope on to but too bad it will never happen.
BYW in the 2% chance he does get elected do you honestly believe he can do such a thing? Who will march us off? You? Haha! This is probably the worst time in the history of the country to be anti gun. Failure and dissapoimtmemt are the only things you have saw and plenty more to come in your future. It sure is good to be on this side.
If beltway RINOs succeed in again nominating a RINO Bernie could win. See also Ronmey, Dole, McCain, Bush2, Ford.
Bush2 won both times.
Here’s a weird factoid. The last time a Republican presidential candidate won the election without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket was 1928. As Yogi used to say, “you could look it up!”
Who would have believed at this point in 2007 that Barack Obama had a chance?
If you love Australian gun laws so much…
MOVE THERE!
Otherwise let us have Constitutional Carry and shut up.
Good advice, except the Aussies also have one thing that America does not – tough immigration policy. There is no guarantee that you would be accepted.
Touche’
But ours is no cake walk either – IF you care about immigrating legally that is.
It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be that much interest (or enforcement) to do so…
I’m hoping you forgot your sarc tag.
What’s a gun Nazi anyway? Considering real Nazis wanted to exterminate Jews, gun Nazi would be more appropriate to hoplophobes.
Poe’s law. Calling it.
Governments responsibility is to protect the minority. To suggest we should outlaw armaments because we may save a hundred people who want to end their life, is a broad reach of stupidity.
Australia is facing a rising suicide rate and per the latest data from 2012 is at a 10 year high.
The Japanese have very strict firearm laws and still have a relatively higher suicide rate.
The US needs a #SeppukuFundMe (or whatever that BS is). Free Tanto for despondent demtard progressives.
Make it a wakizashi and I’m in.
Liberals have no honor, why would you give them the “sword of honor”?
Because then they may finally do something honorable and rid us of their presence.
How about a gofundme to deport them to a socialist utopia of their choosing? They get to chain themselves to corrupt government and live amongst fellow slaves, and we get to maintain a free nation.
How are they going to collect the guns? Look at the response to the SAFE act in NY. We aren’t Australians or other “Commonwealthers” – the Australians submitted to British rule. We shot them.
Except for Newtown it seems most so-called mass shooting are localized. lots of sound & fury but unless you live in an unfortunate burb little effect. The world’s going to hell and millions are deciding that being armed is a “good thing” Martha Stewart…
Aussie here, can we get some kind of progressive for republican hostage exchange? You send all your socialist, freedom hating losers to Australia in exchange for the hard working, gun loving aussies? Win win, right?
Sounds like a fair deal. Should we start some sort of crowd-funding thing to cover airfare?
For us, sure, for Australia, not so much. With no guns and no hunters, before long the rabbits and the ‘roos would denude every farm and grassland, after which they would die off by the millions from starvation, leaving Australia a giant charnel house. And then the people wold die off as sandstorms destroyed the few crops that remained.
Sure, but if the program worked, nobody of value would be lost.
Please, do not import Aussies into America. First, they wear silly hats. Second, they eat Vegemite. Have you ever tasted Vegemite? No? Well, you don’t want to. Finally, Aussies are beer swilling swine. Okay, I don’t know that last thing for a fact, but I was told so by a New Zealander. 🙂
Vegemite isn’t that bad… y’know, once you get past the taste and all.
Is the writer here at TTAG that wears a pith helmet to the grocery store Australian?
Dean? Oh crikey not likely.
I did look it up…Reagan?
Correction, Mr. Wachtel: You’re screwed. And despite what you think, most of America doesn’t want to go there with you.
“A new fatalism amongst the anti-firearms fraternity”? They say they’re undergoing a resurgence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/opinion/democrats-regain-their-voice-on-gun-safety.html
They’re really aggressively trotting out the new ‘gun safety’ catchphrase aren’t they?
They realized that “control” was too aggressive, even for slave minded leftists, because the latter like to at least pretend that they’re free. “Control” was too easy to attack and struck too close to the truth, that gun control is about citizen control. “Safety” is something every leftist loves because it keeps them away from that pesky “freedom” thing.
After all, what good progressive could argue against attaining “safety,” even if it means trampling rights, stealing private property, and killing and imprisoning innocent people?
I watched the Demturds on the Senate floor on CSPAN the other day and when it comes to firearm legislation the keyword right now is “common-sense” (as if they had any). That term is quite popular with the usual suspects in the Liberal Media (print/radio/TV) ie. Ashley Banfield (a Canadian)/Brooke Baldwin/Carol Costello MSNBC’s Eddie Munster, I mean Chris Hayes and her little brother Rachael Maddow. Most are reading from a script (that includes politicians), prepared by Media Matters, Brady Campaign to Ban ALL Firearms, and of course the diminutive despot, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Mikey Bloom-BOIG, The fact is during the senate speeches the ones that couldn’t remember.their lines often referred to the prepared statement reading it word-for-word, it was like they were all auditioning for the same part in a movie, it was mind-numbing.
I wonder how many layers of armed security the Washington Post HQ building has?
First post said it, but I have to reiterate. The laugh out loud bitter sadness of a whole sect of the American populace thinking they’re “screwed” because they live in a free nation. So pathetic, I want to vomit.
I’ll never understand people who yearn to be slaves. I hope I never do understand them. America was created as a haven for exceptional people who wanted to transcend slavery to monarchs and emperors, and here we are, giving them equal say in OUR nation.
What a nightmare America must be for leftists. The would-be kings can’t be tyrants and the would-be slaves keep desperately trying to hand someone their own leash. Rather selfish too. Every other nation in the world is happy to accommodate tyrants and slaves, but this is the only free nation. Why can’t we just keep it? All we can do is do our best to ensure it remains their nightmare and not ours.
Dear Mr Farago,
I’m a member of the actual Liberal Gun Club that you took the logo from, and I consider it an affront to compare us to the Washington Post. It’s difficult to suggest that the Washington Post is in any way actually “liberal”. It would be more accurate to say they while it leans left on some social issues, it’s a skeleton of a news agency that offers only dull conventional “Washington insider” wisdom. We’re talking about about the rag that is responsible in getting us into the Iraq mess, as well as the rag that kept David Broder and Charles Krauthammer on as long as it did.
Yep. Classical liberals believe in liberty. No one in the gun community should be simplifying this and especially smearing any pro gun group. That’s not how we win. The only people who believe exactly as we do is ourselves.
“classical liberals believe in liberty”.
Absolutely. The founding fathers were liberals. Conservatives remained loyal to King George.
Unfortunately there are zero actual liberals left in the political realm, just as there are no true conservatives any more. Some are close, none are absolute.
I live in a state full of gun-toting union members. Gun owners do not necessarily fall along certain political lines.
Exactly! United we stand divided we fall.
Why I tell people to stop calling leftists liberals. Call them what they truly are. Fascists, statists, communists, any of those are fitting and far closer to the truth.
EXACTLY! COMMUNISTS are not leftists. They are simply Tyranny wrapped in nicer clothing.
The anti-firearm groups and president have lost perspective from over-thinking and focus. It happens everyday on an individual basis with simple problems where the obvious is overlooked and we make mountains of molehills.
If the left backed off, looked at citizen safety, death and causes, and hows and whys, they’d quickly see they are wasting a boatload of time and effort. But it is recognized, it’s about well more. It’s about how a love and peace promoting left promote hate and violence against mechanical devices and law-abiding citizens.
Very true. There’s no going back. The left has let the mask slip and revealed themselves for who they truly are.
Mandatory gun buyback (ie confiscation) will result in outright civil war
That’s what the progs want, their ultimate excuse to unleash the government to kill any who go against their agenda.
The other possibility is they truly believe it’ll go off without a hitch because they think everyone is content to be slaves, just like them and their pathetic brethren from down under.
I don’t think the progs want war. They are sheep and want only to graze, crap, and procreate. They care not the wolf is firing cruise missles onto our allies in Syria. They ignore the wolves draped in black flags across Iraq. They think everyone wants to be sheep drinking lattes and cannot comprehend anyone who wishes them harm. These are good people, have no doubt. They are good and stupid to the reality of the way humans have lived since they evolved.
Allies in Syria. Good one. Hell, our allies are firing on our allies in Syria.
Small (?) correction: They don’t want to “procreate”, they just want to do stuff that normally leads to procreation (along with other stuff that doesn’t); and if it does lead to procreation, they want to kill off the results before they have to take responsibility for them.
I certainly hope not. I barely survived the last one.
I hope not either, brother. My father still has our musket from the first one in 1776. No, I am not kidding.
“If you look closely, you can see a new fatalism amongst the anti-firearms fraternity . . ”
Ya, show me the body, and I don’t mean “poke it with a stick and it gets up and runs off ‘you’re a wizard Harry’ crap. Show me the pelt on the side of the barn.
Jamaica has much stricter gun control than America, and much higher homicide rate.
oh wait, the demographics in Jamaica match the demographics in America that have the highest homicide rates. Kinda like Baltimore, with strict gun control yet a murder rate of 35/100.000.
OK then, rural Minnesota has a homicide rate of 0.4/100,000. What!? Guns are widely available in rural Minnesota, but their homicide rate is like the lowest in Europe! What gives?!
I have the right to protect myself and if you don’t like it tough $hit. I was USAF military police honorably discharged with full pension. I am eligible for HR 218.
No double standards put DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com