then lots of hot, liberated womyn will want to
have non-committed sex with me! No...really!
The feminists at NOW assured me it was true!"
Posted on 10/19/2005 11:37:35 AM PDT by freepatriot32
Last week, two state legislators finally introduced the controversial Personal Protection Act, a proposal that would allow citizens to bear a gun, knife or — as ridiculous as it sounds — a billy club in public. The bill’s drafters include every gun-lover’s hero, Sen. Dave Zien, R-Eau Claire, a man with more rifles and shotguns on his office walls than the Madison police, and Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, the Assembly’s alleged hunting expert.
Undercutting progressive gun-control initiatives, state politicians around the country have bowed to the NRA-rabid right and their backward “more guns, less crime” rhetoric in their absurd belief that hidden handguns deter crime, that everyone would be afraid to harm anyone else out of fear that a weapon is shoved down every pocket. This has spawned the passage of laws in almost every state to allow citizens to carry concealed firearms in public. Wisconsin, as one of four remaining states that has thus far rejected political conformity, is now threatening to succumb to the pressures of the gun lobby.
While alarmists like to predict a chaotic scene reminiscent of the Wild West, there are many risks associated with allowing citizens to sport hidden handguns whose logic is more concrete than fantastic predictions of “Matrix”-style shootouts on Bascom Hill.
In support of their legislation, Messrs. Zien and Gunderson have continually quoted a flawed study by gun-loving economist John Lott, whose linking of concealed-carry laws to lower crime rates has been frequently debunked by a multitude of esteemed scholars and pro-gun criminologists. Just as there is minimal proof that conceal and carry brings out the Clint Eastwood in every citizen, there is little evidence that the laws effectively deter would-be assailants and thieves. Rapid decreases in crime rates across the nation can be more directly associated with strict gun access laws and post-Sept. 11 security initiatives than weak provisions that allow individuals to bring their pistol to the supermarket.
You don’t need to be a staunch anti-gun advocate to see why letting people carry guns in banks, churches, university dormitories, and the state Capitol is a fundamentally bad idea. While granting citizens the means to protect themselves, it also gives criminals the means to commit crimes. Concealed-carry extends more rights to crooks and felons, guaranteeing that some weapons will fall into the wrong hands, making law-enforcement a virtual nightmare. Perhaps this is why the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association strongly opposes the Zien-Gunderson bill.
Police, more than anybody, would know how the presence of a handgun endangers all parties, including the gun’s owner — for 12 percent of law enforcement officers killed by firearms are shot to death with their own service weapon. Guns quickly escalate a situation, and bringing one into the fold — imagine a drunken brawl or back alley mugging — only stands to make things much, much worse. You go from losing your wallet to losing your life; you go from enduring a black eye or a bloody nose to suffering from a gunshot wound.
Proponents of the legislation especially love to claim that conceal and carry is necessary for self-defense. Yet the odds that one would use a gun on an assailant or thief are quite minimal — of the over 30,000 gun deaths in 2002, only 163 were deemed “justifiable homicide,” and it’s well known that a gun is 43 times more likely to be used in killing its owner or a relative than an intruder. The legislation, which is opposed by a majority of Wisconsin citizens and state gun owners, is supposedly intended to protect the disabled and the elderly. Yet these are the very people who would have the most difficult time obtaining the necessary gun permit, and the citizens who would be most incapable of effectively operating a firearm at all.
In America, guns are presented as the solution to everything. Too many school shootings? Give teachers firearms. Airplane hijackings becoming a problem? Arm the pilots. Too many criminals running loose? Let citizens wield their semi-automatics and use the law at their own discretion. In a nation where gun violence remains a virtual epidemic, the very poison itself is also assumed to be the anecdote. If more guns lead to less crime, then why does the United States, with the developing world’s most lax gun laws, suffer from 93 gun deaths every day, four to five times more than any other industrialized nation? If owning a weapon makes people safer, then why does a gun in the home triple the risk of homicide? If gun accessibility is not a problem, then why do firearm fatalities remain as the second leading killer of this nation’s youth?
Other states have bowed to our fear-driven culture and the junk science it produces, undermining rapid advancements in curtailing crime and dealing a blow to effective gun control. I would hate to see Wisconsin do the same.
Adam Lichtenheld (lichtenheld@wisc.edu) is a sophomore majoring in political science and African studies.
Let me get this straight, Mr. Lichtenheld; Your reasoning is based upon the premise that laws against carrying firearms actually deter criminals from doing so. What proof do you have of that?
Yes,
"this $#!+ again!"
It's almost like looking at the exact same BS time and time again...
The template is amazingly similar (to other articles like this over the last few years) with the same "$#!+" again and again...
They'll never learn...
His idol, (since he is an African History buff) like someone else posted here a while ago...
Idi Amin Dada (thats two A's two D's and one gun! Hahahahaha! old Eddie Murphy quote from SNL)...
And, it was the principle in Pearle,MS that stopped a school shooting where the kids had pulled the frie alarms first. At least I think it was Pearle.
Although this guy has not proven that concealed carry by the public is 'bad', he has made a fairly strong case that police should not be permitted to carry firearms.
He looks like a 40 year old sophomore.
It's sad that college students' (I am one) opinions count for anything and are aired in public.
Translation: The author is upset that not everyone is a limp-wristed pantywaist like himself.
Gun control ain't about guns, moron. It's about control. And there ain't nothin' "progressive" about having government cretins and other criminals control our lives.
In his bizarro world, you treat poisoning with an anecdote!
http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/4.0/GunFacts4-0-Screen.pdf
Poor baby. Although, he must be at least 35. That artfully arranged curl on his forehead is pretty fetching, however.
I'm embarrased to say this, but I have had a gun pulled on me twice, both times for losing my temper with someone. It happened one time on the highway in my car and another time in a parking lot while on foot. I was only yelling at them both times, so there was no physical violence involved, but I look back on it now and realize it was my own fault for being so immature.
Anyway, I can definitely attest to the ability of a gun to rapidly change one's attitude. It changed mine! LOL! It's also ironic how guns can actually reduce violence by diffusing a situation beofre it ever reaches that level. The author said:
"you go from enduring a black eye or a bloody nose to suffering from a gunshot wound"
That might be true sometimes, but most of the time it would seem that brandishing a gun will take the situation from bloody nose to nothing happened at all.
Forget Zimbabwe, most college sophmores don't know the history of our country or where it is located on a map of the world.
I stopped reading at the words "Undercutting progressive"
Lost me right there. This guy's truly a bed-wetting alarmist.
Okay, I've read Lichtenheld's column, but I'm not reading any of the posts from Freepers ... I'm already laughing so hard my sides hurt.
This "guy's" head is so far up his a$$ he can still see daylight!!
Lichtenfeld is not so much a sophomore as he is just plain sophomoric.
Your comments on General Field Marshall President-for-Life Idi Amin Dada are dead on.
Sweet young Adam seems to have gone to the Brady Center's website, followed it up with a trip to the Violence Policy Center's, and done a completely uncritical cut and paste job of all the falsehoods those two entities regularly publish.
That was a well written letter. If he replies back, may I see the response?
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