Posted on 02/02/2005 10:45:23 AM PST by freepatriot32
At first glance, the term "gun nut" would appear to be nothing more than an ad hominem against the more enthusiastic weapon owners of this country. However, as one reads the literature espoused by gun nut organizations, the reasoning behind this term becomes startlingly clear. Gun nuts are called as such because they are incontrovertibly insane.
The gun lobby has adopted the same attitude toward politics as Rush Limbaugh: "Don't confuse me with facts, I've got my mind made up!" Gun nuts are so obsessed with opposing gun control laws that no amount of factual evidence against their position will sway them. Some call this "sticking to your guns." I call it "deliberate stupidity."
The National Rifle Association (NRA) claims that a society that owns guns is a safe society. Throughout the pages of gun magazines are various ads which depict Joe Average wielding a hand cannon, defending his helpless family from a masked intruder who has invaded his home in the dead of night. Ignore for a minute that the probability of encountering a burglar dumb enough to enter your house while you are there is incredibly slim and look at the FBI's study on gun violence. In 1993, of 39,595 firearm-related deaths, only 251 were determined to be justifiable homicide. That is less than 1 percent of all firearm deaths for that year. Furthermore, studies in 1994 found that you are much more likely to be murdered by someone you know, not some masked boogey-man with an eye for your wife's jewelry. Suicides, homicides and accidental deaths far outnumber instances where someone has successfully used a firearm to defend themselves or their loved ones. Either these findings have not reached the NRA, or they are deliberately turning a blind eye to them.
Unrestricted ownership of weapons essentially follows the tenets of the classical theory of criminology. This theory is hardly modern, developing in the late 1700s through the works of Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. The core ideas of classical theory are: the decision to commit crime is a rational cost-benefit evaluation and that crime can be prevented through administering certain, severe punishment. Gun nuts believe that if every citizen owned a weapon, potential criminals would be too afraid to commit crimes.
The right wing, not just the gun nuts, has become so enthralled by classical theory that they have completely ignored the mountains of evidence that contradict it. While America fairs better than its developed counterparts around the world in most areas of crime, it tops them all in the category of murder. While you stand a better chance of being robbed in Sydney, Australia than in Los Angeles you are 20 times as likely to be killed in L.A. A rational mugger would prefer to give up and flee should his activity lead to conflict (as murder comes with a much higher cost than mere robbery, while the benefit is relatively minute), but statistics point out that in the U.S., victims that put up a fight are typically killed. This is not rational behavior and all the guns in America haven't changed it.
When the chips are down in the debate on crime, a gun nut will always fall back on the Constitution. Gun nuts love to quote the Second Amendment, or at least they love to quote the second half. In its entirety, the Second Amendment reads, "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." This does not, in any way, clarify the issue of personal gun ownership. It is vague, leaving one to wonder whether or not gun ownership rights should be extended to the individual without mandatory enrollment in a "well organized militia." Historically, the Supreme Court has ruled that states have the right to enact gun control laws, as was determined by United States v. Cruikshank in 1876. The NRA has conveniently ignored the first half of the Second Amendment, typically printing only the second half. Former Chief Justice Warren Burger denounced the NRA's editing of the Second Amendment as a "fraud."
Owning an arsenal is not a "way of life," it is a mental disorder. It is an unjustifiable paranoia that leads to thousands of unjustified deaths every year. Let's put this in perspective. Annually, about 17,000 people die of illicit drug use (illegal), 0 people die of marijuana use (also illegal), 20,000 people die of sexual behaviors (not illegal, but frowned upon), while some 29,000 die in a firearm related incident, 1 percent of which result in a "bad guy" eating a lead sandwich.
I'm not suggesting that people stop owning weapons or that the NRA disband and start crusading for rights that don't kill anyone, like smoking pot for example. What I want is an end to the lies that the gun nuts want so badly to believe in. I want them to face the fact that they are much more likely to kill their wife and children than defend them. I want them to realize that the only crime wave in this country is in homicide, a crime inextricably linked with firearms. Perhaps when gun nuts stop living in Charlton Heston's movies they will pursue a safer, more reasonable route to gun ownership and use.
And I thought more smart people went to my school...ugh. Should I track him down and confront him?
This nut is so wrong, I agree that not enough time to explain what the Constitution says. Home grown terrorist called gangs will grow to the extent that we all will be in danger. What we need is a well informed and armed peoples to protect what the police cannot do. Police generally respond to a crime, we need a threat before the crime is committed. We live in a dangerous world, don't leave us at the mercy of the insane. You will never take my ability to protect myself and no gun control prohibit the insane from getting weapons. Knives, ball bats, chain saws, etc. Looking down the barrel on my 9MM, 38, 22, and that wonderful 357 has a way of controlling things.
What you need to do i s go ot post 37 and click on the link then print it out and hand it to the guy and demand a retraction to this fish wrap that he wrote yesterday.
But original - I like it. Welcome to FR.
Big deal. Some snot-nosed college kid writes a leftie editorial he knows will please his leftie journalism teacher.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that owning slaves is fine & dandy.
Glasgow - 127 murders, population 577869 - total gun ban
Washington DC - 248 murders, 563,384 (Total gun ban)
Tuscon AZ - 47 murders, 514,618 people
Denver CO - 63 murders, 565,909 people
Jacksonville FL - 92 murders, 776,417 people
Indianapolis - 107 murders, 800167 people
Baltimore MD - 270 murders, 644544 people
Charlotte NC - 66 murders, 668003 people
Columbus OH - 109 murders, 726151 people
Oklahoma City - 49 murders, 521,681 people
Portland OR - 27 murders, 545271 people
Memphis TN - 126 murders, 653,858 people
Nashville TN - 74 murders, 554,888 people
Austin TX - 27 murders, 682,319 people
El Paso TX - 21 murders, 586,392 people
Fort Worth TX - 57 murders, 576339 people
San Antonio TX - 85 murders, 1,212,789
Seattle WA - 34 murders, 576,296
Milwaukee WI - 109 murders, 594,269>
...because odds are you are armed. In Britain this is not a problem - there have been a rash of "hot" robberies, where the perps attack while you are at home, knowing they have nothing to fear, and aware that, as an added bonus, there may be a few fems they can "play" with.
Thank you for the Welcome.
No response is necessary. Just send this jackass a copy of John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime...
Wow! I guess he set me straight - finally. I thought that I had an intrinsic, constitutional right to own firearms; as many as I want (I have only seven), of any type that I want (I own no so-called "assault weapons", but I carried them for most of my adult life.
"Incontrovertibly insane" - no ego problem here: I said it, it's true. In fact, it's "incontrovertible", ergo, it's so self evident that it's beyond controversy. That being the case, why write the article?
"criminals...unlikely to invade your home while you're there" - that couldn't be because choosing a home without a gun is like rolling three sevens in a row, could it? Nah, it's incontrovertible.
Statistics from 1993 and 1994? If they're even accurate, it smacks of cherry-picking stats that support your argument - even if they're anomalous.
Oh, what the hell, I'm obviously incontrovertibly insane.
I am a multiple weapon owner and a former Public Safety Commissioner here in Florida. I have a question for everyone. Does anyone have a problem with registering their firearms and if so, why?
I'm asking because one of the problems in police work is that when a firearm that has been used in a crime is recovered, the ownership trail is often non-existant. Yes, criminals buy stolen guns, but if a crime is committed in Florida with a firearm that was owned by a person in Vermont, knowing that connection will at least provide investigators another avenue of inquiry -even if the firearm was legally purchased and stolen from the customer.
This guy jammed all the liberal fallicies into one article.
We don't an excuse-we have the second Amendment.
Yeah me too!
Heh, and you did 74 months in prison for some ridiculous amount of pot too? You're pretty crazy, you know that?
I'm not. What this lefty refuses to admit is that in L.A. the majority of murders are one thug killing another.
Ditto on that. Starting out by insulting people is not the way to write persuasively.
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