Our second Post of the Day is from Yupbilly about guns
Note from Dan: This afternoon we began some discussions about that gun class in Bedford Saturday where a Roanoke man accidentally shot himself and his wife while their instructor had ducked out for a smoke or to pee or something. And it transpired that a couple posters here teach NRA gun safety classes, which have an ironclad rule of no loaded weapons.
To which Yupbilly interjected the perfect response, below:
“It’s ironic. Loaded guns are not allowed in a ‘gun class,’ but there are folks that think college students should be allowed to carry a loaded one in academic classes.
Go figure.”
I would like someone from the gun crowd to explain this logic to me, seriously.
April 23, 2012 - 7:55 PM
Comparing apples to oranges. Carry a holstered, loaded handgun by someone who already has a CHP to someone who is learning to carry, likely has not selected their holster yet, and should not have live ammunition in the classroom anyway. In the gun class, there is loading and unloading drills with dummy ammo and disassembly/reassembly of the gun. Hardly on the syllabus for a college literature or calculus class. Ridiculous POTD.
Exceptions do not make the rule – that is why they are called……….are you ready…………..exceptions.
I have yet to see a gun class wherein 32 members were shot – wonder why not?
“I would like someone from the gun **crowed** to explain this logic to me, seriously.”
Ironic. Maybe if you had a spell checker, these mistakes would never happen.
Thank you for the correction, Henry. Fixed. Now will you answer the question?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_lepore
A more temperate view of Heller, the history of the 2nd as intereted, and the FF on guns.
Yata hey Grapeshot
#3 Wrong as usual, Henry.
A spellchecker would not have flagged “crowed.” It’s an actual word.
And you obviously don’t understand the meaning of the word “ironic” because there’s nothing at all ironic in this.
And then you didn’t even address the question.
Care to try again?
I did. Mistakes happen, regardless of efforts to stop them.
Gdad & Dan,
Asked and answered on the earlier thread and on this thread.
C’mon people… people make typos.. all of us have.
Anyway, you are comparing apples to oranges here, like someone John said. These people should never have been handling a gun with live ammunition in a classroom.
But you can’t compare that to someone who already has had training, and is sitting in a classroom at a college NOT TOUCHING A GUN.. A GUN THAT IS SAFELY STORED IN A HOLSTER… NOT BEING TOUCHED UNNECESSARILY.
This is one of the big reasons that we pushed for the repeal of the restaurant ban around here… every time you have to remove your gun from its holster to put it somewhere (i.e. in your car so you can go eat a hamburger without killing someone) you increase the risk of a negligent discharge.
It happens… bad things happen… sometimes to good people. I’m sure somewhere, at some point, someone has died during a driver’s ed class. That doesn’t mean that we start crucifying every driver’s ed teacher because of one teacher’s (or student’s) negligence.
I wouldn’t blame the instructor just yet… some moron student might have had a couple of rounds in their pocket or something and was just messing around stupidly.
I’m not going to defend anyone’s actions here… there is no excuse for something like this to have happened.
However.. don’t start comparing it to those of us who carry responsibly every day.
Dan, gdad, etc,
As long as we are asking questions, please explain why there have not been more than 32 killed in all reckless shootouts you are predicting where carry is legal?
In answering, please consider the following:
http://tinyurl.com/6lwg6bu
**
At the start of the 2010 fall semester, 14 Colorado community colleges (38 campuses) began allowing licensed concealed carry on campus. Since the fall semester of 2006, Utah state law has allowed licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on the campuses of Utah’s nine degree-offering public colleges (20 campuses) and one public technical college (10 campuses). Concealed carry has been allowed on the two campuses of Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO, and Pueblo, CO) since 2003 and at Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA) since 1995. After allowing concealed carry on campus for an average of more than three years (as of June 2011), none of these 26 colleges (71 campuses) has seen a single resulting incident of gun violence (including threats and suicides) or a single resulting gun accident.
SNIP
**
FWIIW, Blue Ridge Community College was recently forced by a State agency to change their policy. Seems as if the more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd champions individual colleges adopting policy, as long as it goes their way.
Dave Hicks,
How many instances of gun violence have been deterred on those campuses since CC was allowed on them? Feel free to extrapolate based on the number on incidents of campus gun violence on those campuses in the three years before the ban was enacted.
(And if the answer is “zero” please explain how these policies are NOT merely a sop for the super-dooper ultra-cautious and perhaps paranoid set).
You guys have all missed the point. Your defense of guns in a classroom assumes that everybody has nerves of steel. That all of the would-be victims are somehow transformed into combat ready vigilantes by a one day class and the pistol on their belt. And that they make rational choices when they are terrified out of their mind.
All I am saying is that the training is insufficient for handling a gun in such a serious situation. For most people, hysteria would be the rule of the day.
Dan on campus carry:
“(And if the answer is “zero” please explain how these policies are NOT merely a sop for the super-dooper ultra-cautious and perhaps paranoid set).”
If lawful carried guns can’t be proven to have saved lives and should be legislated off of college campuses, let’s also legislate condoms off college campuses since they haven’t proven to have prevented STDs on those same campuses. Why take a measure of protection away from anybody, especially things that are no one else’s business?
Two hits with one bullet seems like pretty darn good shooting to me. Give the guy an A for the class. (If I didn’t despise “smiley faces” I would insert one now).
“All I am saying is that the training is insufficient for handling a gun in such a serious situation. For most people, hysteria would be the rule of the day.”
Could April 16th have experienced anything more hysteria-inducing? NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING added to that mix could have made the outcome any worse. It concerns me that the anti-campus carry crowd worries endlessly about the worst scenarios of friendly fire imaginable, yet refuse to plug those scenarios into real-life things that have happened.
Even the worst mass hysteria, shootout, and friendly fire elements imaginable could have been added to most any muderous shooting we’ve seen in the news and the result could only have been better than what happened. April 16th could not have ended worse with campus carry. The antis’ way has failed repeatedly, now it’s time to try our suggestion.
Yupbilly, you have heads spinning with your sound logic. However, don’t expect to change any minds. The NRA has been indoctrinating generations of well intentioned patriotic Americans into the cult of fear and paranoid expectations our government is coming for our guns. Just not going to happen.
Heck, even Reagan was accused of coming after our guns.
http://www.csgv.org/storage/documents/reagans%20gun%20legacy.pdf
Crazy stuff.
Dan Casey-
“Thank you for the correction, Henry. Fixed. Now will you answer the question?”
Chutzpah, thy name is Dan Casey.
“How many instances of gun violence have been deterred on those campuses since CC was allowed on them?”
You were provided with pretty good (if limited) evidence that allowing carry on college campuses might not result in drunken frat boys playing Russian roulette as a hazing ritual or students popping their professors over poor grades. What do you do? Ignore the evidence, don’t answer it! Answer with another question!
“(And if the answer is “zero” please explain how these policies are NOT merely a sop for the super-dooper ultra-cautious and perhaps paranoid set).”
I could just as easily ask you how the bans on carry are NOT merely a sop for the super-dooper ultra-cautious, irrationally afraid of inanimate objects and facts set.
Yupbilly-
“You guys have all missed the point. Your defense of guns in a classroom assumes that everybody has nerves of steel.”
No it doesn’t.
“That all of the would-be victims are somehow transformed into combat ready vigilantes by a one day class and the pistol on their belt.”
No it doesn’t.
“And that they make rational choices when they are terrified out of their mind.”
Give me the evidence that most or even a significant number of CCWs who use their guns legally show the terror and lack of ability that you describe. I can easily provide you with dozens of links to actual stories of people who successfully defended themselves. Would you like to try to provide links to stories of panicky permit holders hitting innocents in the cross fire? Mine will outnumber yours by a wide margin.
“All I am saying is that the training is insufficient for handling a gun in such a serious situation. For most people, hysteria would be the rule of the day.”
Yet you provide no evidence for this. And I can provide abundant evidence that you are wrong. Not that it matters, since almost no one who regularly posts on Dan’s gun stories gives two craps about evidence or logic, hence Dan’s hilarious, fever dream proposition that students who can already carry anywhere but on campus will suddenly go bonkers if allowed to carry there.
I shoot well over 5,000 rounds per year and have for many years. I also carry a gun every day and have for years. I’ve also been shooting and handling guns since I was 10 years old. Ironically, I’ve never accidentally shot myself or anyone else. I’ve also never had a negligent discharge. I’m closing in on 35 years of having, carrying, and using firearms so my track record is pretty good. Not bad for a country boy who learned gun safety from his Dad in a field and not in a classroom from an instructor.
At the age of 15, I had to fire shots at two drunk men who put a baseball bat through my bedroom window and proceeded to enter at 2:00 am. There was no chaos, hesitation, or indecisiveness. I did what I had to do and was very calm about it. The adrenaline didn’t hit until after the situation was over.
Since according to the CDC there are more accidental bike deaths per year than accidental gun deaths, should that tell us all we need to know about those dangerous bicycles? Should a few careless riders causing accidents on bikes legislate bike riding for everyone else?
For those who are worried about people like me carrying a properly holstered weapon in public, you face a far more certain danger every day in your car when you pass other people on the road. Between unlicensed drivers, distracted drivers, texting, drunks, drugs, stolen cars, police chases, deer running out in front of you, etc. it is a wonder that any of us make it home at the end of the day.
Bug, if you’re comparing deaths by bicycle to deaths by gun your numbers are WAY off. Guns kill (and maim) thousands of more people per year, at least, and the actual number is in the tens of thousands.
Why were 2 drunk men breaking in your bedroom window at 2 a.m.? Did you hit those guys? Kill them?
Dan sure has made me a popular guy tonight. I have even been accused of being in his corner. If so, it’s a been a privilege.
John Wilburn
Maybeyou can tell us of the last instance or any instance where somebody was shot and killed by a condom. Really stretching for that one weren’t you?
Henry@9:16
This from the guy who was “renting” his garments yesterday on another thread?
#1 John Wilburn shut the OP down in one sentence.
Comparing a gun training grad with a greenhorn is indeed apples and oranges. As happens so many times, the responses to the posts of the day are so much better than the OP.
@Dan Casey: “Why were 2 drunk men breaking in your bedroom window at 2 a.m.?”
It doesn’t matter why… nor should it.
@Dan Casey: “Did you hit those guys? Kill them?”
I’d be interested to know, too.
17.Yupbilly, you have heads spinning with your sound logic. However, don’t expect to change any minds.
Comment by Cold n P — April 24, 2012 @ 12:29 am
Reminds me of the “LandGrebe Effect.” “Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is already made up.”
You (collectively) are concerned that you might be killed by someone carrying a gun if they either have a negligent discharge or are a bad shot if they use their weapon. Either would qualify as an accidental gun death. According to the CDC website, in 2010 there were more accidental bicycle deaths than accidental gun deaths. So, statistically you stand a much higher chance of accidentally being killed while riding your bike than by a person with a gun…and waaaay more while driving your car.
As for what happened when I was 15, who knows why. Two drunks vandalized a car in our driveway and then decided to break into the house. They saw me on the otheside of the window screaming no as they put the bat through and covered me with glass. I had a 22 rifle and 22 pistol that my dad had given me and taught me to use (I also did competitive shooting as a teenager). As the first guy put his head and shoulders through my window I put 2 rounds in the wall just below the window. He scrambled back and they took off, falling off the porch and stumbling through the yard. I put several more rounds in the yard through the window. I intentionally did not hit them, but if they had continued in I would have. The police were called and they were caught. One of them lived a block away. It was suspected they had the wrong house and thought someone else lived there.
My perspective on guns if very different because I grew up around them. My family members and I would go shooting and hunting together. I shot competitively as a teenager. To me, growing up around guns was not much different than growing up around cars. Both can be dangerous if used irresponsibly.
Wrong, JohnW. A classroom full of hysterical kids shooting aimlessly at Cho and eachkther would have made it much worse. Don’t be daft.
The entire concept that the situation could have been avoided or ameliorated had there been MORE weapons on the scene ha always been a nonstarter to sensible people. Maybe alk putative gun owners arent as fail (or, as BlueJoh pointed out,as efficient) as Mr. Deel, we have no reason to think a lot of the wouldn’t be. Because, as we’ve been assured, no amount of blithering incompetence and disregard for others should disqualify one from owning their own personal arsenal.
#11 Dave H, I wasn’t actually asking the question and honestly don’t really care about the answer — I was merely giving Henry a hard time for his idiotic post suggesting that a spellchecker somehow would have flagged “crowed” as misspelled and for his misuse of “ironic” in a post where he was giving Dan a hard time over a typo.
“A spellchecker would not have flagged “crowed.” It’s an actual word.”
So what you are saying is this: Despite using rules to limit problems, problems will eventually occur because people can get around the rules. In this case, rules to keep bullets out of guns did not stop the bullets from getting into the guns.
So out of all of Dan’s many sentences, I managed to find one instance where his rules did not stop an error. Should we send him back to college?
#17 Nancy Reagan’s a gun grabber, as well.
Re: Comment by Dan Casey — April 23, 2012 @ 11:41
.
.
How many instances of gun violence have been deterred on those campuses since CC was allowed on them? Feel free to extrapolate based on the number on incidents of campus gun violence on those campuses in the three years before the ban was enacted.
———-
False logic trap, Dan.
How many such deaths were on the VT campus in the three years prior to the tragic day of April 16, 2007? What predictive value did that assumed base line have for the events of April 16, 2007?
Would if you would care to, feel free to extrapolate what bearing the number on incidents of campus gun violence on the VT campus in the three years before April 16, 2007 had on that day when students were left defenseless at the hands and will of a depraved madman. (IMHO if there is a story to be told it has to do with mental health treatment and management.)
What is known is what DID happen — unarmed victims at the mercy of a madman. What we don’t know is what would have happen had a couple of CHP holders been armed. Speculation as to may have happened is speculation driven by assumption, by projection, and by stereotyping.
Assumptions such as those by Yupbilly — April 23, 2012 @ 11:56 pm assume a highly questionable stereotype. Yupbilly seems to assume that non of the students were combat Vets. That none of the students shoot IDPA [ see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv_bmalcX6w ]. He assumes that none of the Faculty or staff were combat Vets or IDPA shooters. Prove that there were no Vets and IDPA shooters in the building or attend VT and Yupbilly stereotype might have some relevance. In the mean time it should be relegated to to smoke and mirrors, IMHO.
What is also known is the prediction of mayhem and blood running in the ivy halls of learning has <b<not happened in those colleges where more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd assured us it would run / still rant that it will run were/are their demands total disbarment not followed.
And all the while, those colleges following the logic of the less-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd have not have the dire calamity predicted by the more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd.
(o\ ! /o) you are not the person I’m worried about walking around with a gun. As described, you’re the kind of person who exemplifies gun safety and would probably behave rationally in a crisis situation.
The person who worries me is the gun “safety” instructor who doesn’t ensure that everyone’s gun is unloaded until after the training, and who walks out of the classroom leaving untrained yahoos and loaded guns to their own impulses. Not to mention the yahoo who shoots off a loaded gun in a gun safety class as soon as the instructor walks out of the room.
Why would you even put yourself in the same category as those boneheads? You learned to respect guns early on, they were part of your home life & culture, and you’re not impulsive or irrational in your relationship with them. But thousands of people are carrying just because they can, have no real comprehension of the responsibility they have when carrying, and just can’t wait for a chance to show off their weapon. And if an afternoon in a guy’s house with no precautions is what constitutes gun “safety” training these days, then there are going to be a lot more of those maroons than there are of people like you walking around with loaded weapons in their pockets.
Well lookee what was in my news feed this morning:
http://www.wfmj.com/story/17665167/ga-granny-thwarts-2-would-be-robbers-in-shootout
A grandmother in Georgia was attacked while in her car. They opened fire on her and she returned fire. No innocents struck. No panic on grandma’s part. Bad guys repelled and caught.
Let me say upfront now that I failed to comprehend Henry’s point in post #3 but I now get it. Took me a while. I don’t necessarily agree with his point, but I was wrong when I said he didn’t use “ironic” correctly in pushing that point. I was also wrong to call his post “idiotic,” although I reserve the right to call future posts idiotic.
suzie, OTOH, still hasn’t ever used the word correctly that I’m aware of.
dave:
“Maybeyou can tell us of the last instance or any instance where somebody was shot and killed by a condom. Really stretching for that one weren’t you?”
That brings back a funny memory…. When I was at Bluefield College, several of the guys, me included, were firing water balloons from a huge slingshot at the girls leaving their dorm. When we ran out of balloons before running out of targets, we sent a few water-filled condoms down range and knocked one poor fellow square on his butt! Yes, that slingshot was really being stretched!
And, no we weren’t doing this to poor unsuspecting people on their way to class. They were on the way to the annual massive waterslide they have done for the last 30 years.
Kristen:
28.”Wrong, JohnW. A classroom full of hysterical kids shooting aimlessly at Cho and eachkther would have made it much worse. Don’t be daft.
The entire concept that the situation could have been avoided or ameliorated had there been MORE weapons on the scene ha always been a nonstarter to sensible people.”
Clearly your mind is made up without thinking this through, but even in the outlandish totally unworkable scenario of ten students drawing and frantically firing killing 3 different people EACH, there would be 3 fewer casualties than there were. You are wrong on this without question.
tass:
“The person who worries me is the gun “safety” instructor who doesn’t ensure that everyone’s gun is unloaded until after the training, and who walks out of the classroom leaving untrained yahoos and loaded guns to their own impulses.”
The instructor very well may be the problem, but there was NOT enough information in the article to know. We as instructors are not babysitters. We can take every precaution, but some idiot student with a few real rounds in their pocket substituting them in the classroom in, say, and action cycling exercise could cause this very scenario and could possibly be done under the instructor’s nose. I got to say, this example is rare and out there. The only shooting injury I’ve even heard of in a class was a negligent cop who got his own foot. His pride was hurt worse than his foot at that.
Irony:
gdad complains of “the troll”, but is kind of a troll himself.
John W., even if a single armed hero kills “only” a classmate or two by friendly fire in stopping a shooter like Cho, what happens after the smoke clears? Do you expect that no charges will be brought against that student or teacher for the accidental death(s)? What happens when the police enter the classroom and find multiple gunmen/women and all the chaos that results from the firefight, such as classmates pointing at the hero and indicating that he/she also shot innocent classmates?
I own guns, but I’m not afraid to go out in public without them. We’ve had several policemen (including one who was family) shot and killed over the past several years in the NRV, and all their training and gun skills didn’t prevent their deaths. I find it hard to believe that untrained individuals would fare better, especially in the heat of the moment.
#37 That would not be an example of irony, John W.
Say What-
I know of only one case where a CCW hit an innocent person in the course of a legal self defense action. He was not charged for the innocent person’s death.
“Clearly your mind is made up without thinking this through, but even in the outlandish totally unworkable scenario of ten students drawing and frantically firing killing 3 different people EACH, there would be 3 fewer casualties than there were.”
Your position assumes the completely unassumable assumption that one of the 30 killed would have been Cho. And that Cho would have instantly stopped shooting. You’re basing your hypothesis on wishful thinking and nonsense.
I am not wrong on this. I am, at best, 100% right and at worst right on a percentage currently uncalculable. The problem was and remains 1 too many guns present, not 100 too few.
I for one would like to hear the statistical evidence that demonstrates a likelihood that ANYONE in the classroom where Cho slaughtered all those people would have been carrying if CC was allowed on Tech’s campus back in April 2007.
Dan, it’s just a matter of time before they go from lobbying for guns on campus to be allowed to lobbying to make them mandatory. Because then it would have been on each and every kid in the room to stop Cho.
@41. Cho chose a place where he knew he could commit his crime without meeting armed resistance and continued his slaughter until armed resistance arrived in the form of police, then he killed himself without police even being within sight or having to fire a shot. The reality is once he knew armed resistance was present, he offed himself like the coward he was. It isn’t by chance that these things seem to always happen in crowded places where they know people are not armed. It was not coincidence that he did not go to the shooting range over on duck pond or to the police station. What may have gone differently if someone had been armed or would anyone have been armed if it were allowed is a question the world wil never know. One thing that is certain is that armed insane criminals shoot unarmed innocent victims with monotonous regularity. The only thing that can influence the odds is your ability to defend yourself with equal power.
“Cho chose a place where he knew he could commit his crime without meeting armed resistance and continued his slaughter until armed resistance arrived in the form of police, then he killed himself without police even being within sight or having to fire a shot. The reality is once he knew armed resistance was present, he offed himself like the coward he was.”
Bug, the mistake you’re making is ascribing cold, hard rationality to someone whose actions were 100 percent irrational. Cho was mentally ill. He obviously had a death wish. He obviously wanted to die — why would it matter to him that much whether that was caused by him or someone else pulling the trigger?
Finally, it pains me a bit to point this out but since many have on this blog already I’ll do it again: gunners have made the point over and over again on this blog that people were concealed carrying in restaurants before the ban was lifted. If that is true, why is it so much of a stretch toi believe that people at Virginia Tech are not carrying, too? And if that’s the case, in what way would Cho (if he had been rational) have been justified in believing the classroom was a gun-free zone?
#44 Hmm, the fellow who killed Officer Deriek Crouse chose to assault one of the few people on campus he KNEW would be armed. He didn’t exactly go to a gun-free zone, did he, bug?
#45 Dan, excellent point. In fact, Cho had absolutely no way of knowing if he was heading into a gun-free zone since it’s apparent that some people do carry no matter what the rules. And he obviously was not in the least bit scared about dying. He knew he would die at some point, whether by his own hand or someone else’s.
“Your position assumes the completely unassumable assumption that one of the 30 killed would have been Cho.”
Nope, Kristen you are wrong all over the place. I AM very logically assuming one of the 30 killed would be Cho because he was the sole reason that 10 unrelated people drew and fired AT HIM in the first place. Believe me, there is no doubt that of the 10 returning fire, Cho would go down. There is no logic in this scenario that can save Cho to fit your bias here.
Dan:
“…gunners have made the point over and over again on this blog that people were concealed carrying in restaurants before the ban was lifted. If that is true, why is it so much of a stretch toi believe that people at Virginia Tech are not carrying, too?”
Since laws only deter the lawful, the penalty for carrying in a restaurant was a misdemeanor. The penalty for carrying at Tech, even though legal, was expulsion from school or firing. Losing your college education or career that you’ve worked so hard for is far more substantial than a misdemeanor to me.
“why would it matter to him that much whether that was caused by him or someone else pulling the trigger?”
It wouldn’t, but better for it to happen just seconds into his rampage than 10 minutes later when armed resistance finally arrived.
43.”Dan, it’s just a matter of time before they go from lobbying for guns on campus to be allowed to lobbying to make them mandatory.”
No, I’ve said before I only advocate for the freedom to choose for yourself. You should have every right to be unarmed and unable to defend yourself or your family if you wish or think you are not competent to do so.
gdad, you know better than that. Crouse was sneaked up on and murdered. Ashley could not have walked into the police station and killed 32 people. I readily concede Cho could have chosen one person, even possibly an armed person to kill, but could not slowly murder 32 people one by one without resistance if there had been an unknown carrier or two in there.
“I AM very logically assuming one of the 30 killed would be Cho because he was the sole reason that 10 unrelated people drew and fired AT HIM in the first place. Believe me, there is no doubt that of the 10 returning fire, Cho would go down.”
Like I said…wishful thinking. There’s plenty of doubt. But what there IS no doubt of is that in the efforts of these 10 shooters, no one else would go down. You’re stuck with your unsupportable deus ex machina model on which some superhero happens to save the day.
Dan-
I went ahead and did some napkin calculations for a goof, and you can find that below. But let’s be clear: you are lying. You would not “like to hear” any statistics. You’ve made it clear that you don’t care about data that disagrees with you. You admitted that your opposition to bar/restaurant carry was based on your gut and that you had no evidence to support your fear. The data was clear from many other states and you rejected it. And to my knowledge, you have yet to admit that you were wrong. Also, I have, too many times to count, presented numbers to you that are then ignored.
Anyway…
We can’t know the exact number. The number of variables and the inexactitude of the data prevents it, so this is all very very rough.
The number of carry permits in Virginia is roughly two percent of the population (I’m going by the total population in 2007 and the CCW population of 2009, the closest year I can find; the percentage is likely higher now).
That’s two percent of the *entire* population, not just those of legal age. Removing those who aren’t age-eligible to get a permit puts the percentage of carriers at 3.7%, or just under two out of every fifty eligible adults.
Furthermore, “permit-holding” doesn’t mean “always carrying”. Data from a Florida survey shows that the majority of permit holders do not carry every day. If I recall correctly, the number was somewhere between 25-35%. We have no idea if that is true of Virginia.
So how big were the classes? What was the total number of people in the building that Cho attacked? If the total was less than 200, I think it unlikely that anyone would be carrying (though likely that several would have a permit). As the number gets higher, the possibility of a carrier being present obviously increases. Even with a carrier present, we can’t know what he/she would have done. Even when carrying a gun, the best option is still cover or escape (data on police shootouts indicates that the best predictor of who lives and who dies isn’t who is the most accurate shooter, but who is able to find cover).
These numbers are why I always hasten to tell pro gun people to quit being so absolute about carry laws. They guarantee nothing.
So I would sum things up like so:
*Pro-gunners need to speak in terms of what was *possible* based on the data and history, not what *would* have happened. Even if campus carry had been allowed, the number of carriers present would have been low or even zero. We can’t know if any carrier present would be cool enough to be accurate, crap his pants and faint, or hit everyone except Cho (thought history says that is unlikely).
*Anti-gunners need to speak in terms of what was *possible* based on the data and history, not what would have happened. Could a carrier have hit innocent people? Sure. But the history of legal self defense actions seems to put this in doubt. Carriers generally don’t shoot wildly or hit innocent people. We can’t know if any carrier present would be cool enough to be accurate or close his eyes and blast away. But the likelihood that matters would have been worse in a shooting with over 30 dead seems very very low to me.
Ultimately, campus carry (or carry anywhere) isn’t about guaranteeing outcomes, it’s about allowing for *the chance* of a positive outcome when none is possible currently. We have little to no evidence that carry engenders heroic action on a wide scale. We also have little to no evidence that when concealed carry is implemented, citizens are largely careless or ineffective.
Well Dan, Cho must have had enough mental acuity to know that his chances of successfully killing a large number of people before his own death were much higher at a crowded place where there was statistically a much greater chance of them not being armed than some other public place. Don’t confuse insane with stupid.
46. Sneaking up behind someone and popping them isn’t exactly challenging their authority or ability to defend themselves. That is an ambush, and there is no way to defend yourself in such a scenario.
#52 He still went to one of the few places he knew there’s be a gun, bug. I thought bad guys didn’t do that.
“That is an ambush, and there is no way to defend yourself in such a scenario.”
Interesting. Surely the shoot had a lot of unarmed targets to choose from in his ambush. Why specifically target the one with the gun? Maybe the gun actually made him more of a target?
“Interesting. Surely the shoot[er] had a lot of unarmed targets to choose from in his ambush. Why specifically target the one with the gun? Maybe the gun actually made him more of a target?”
Kristen, you’re asking people whose minds don’t work like a crazy killer to understand why anyone would want to murder a random police officer. I haven’t a clue.
Kristen, I don’t know why the guy chose an officer. The gun could have made him a target…that’s en excellent argument for concealed carry versus open.
Re: Comment by Kristen — April 24, 2012 @ 1:06 pm
Dan, it’s just a matter of time before they go from lobbying for guns on campus to be allowed to lobbying to make them mandatory. Because then it would have been on each and every kid in the room to stop Cho.
———
Is that a projection from an authoritarian? IOW, as you want to mandate folk dance to your tune you in turn project the authoritarian mindset onto others?
Guess what. Many of the less-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd are very libertarian (note the small “l”) — i.e., anti-authoritarian.
Many of us are less-restrictions-on most things. I can assure you that many of us would fight against mandatory carry. As we are about less mandates on individuals.
———
BTW2 — why do the Pro-more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd keep bringing up “kids”? Who has proposed kids concealed carrying?
Disclaimer: IMHO anyone who would be automatically tried in criminal court as a adult is an adult — not a “kid.” Hence, I do support CHPs for 18 yo.
I think our nation’s schizophrenia over when someone is an adult is ludicrous.
Re: Comment by Dan Casey — April 24, 2012 @ 2:08 pm
Just because someone is crazy doesn’t mean that they are dumb. They can be very crafty, devious, etc
.
.
“Just because someone is crazy doesn’t mean that they are dumb. They can be very crafty, devious, etc”
Comment by Dave Hicks
OK then, it sounds like we have a smart (though crazy) gunner who slaughtered those students and faculty at Tech, knowing it was a gun-free zone, and . . . what? A dumb but sane gunner who attacked the armed Tech police officer?
Dave Hicks:
“Many of us are less-restrictions-on most things. I can assure you that many of us would fight against mandatory carry. As we are about less mandates on individuals”
Exactly. I’m opposed to Kennesaw, Georgia’s mandate that every home have a firearm. It’s mostly symbolic and not enforced to my knowledge, but still not appropriate. Of course the downside to tinkering with it to remedy the ordinance is that it might very well inspire the authoritarians to go the other way and try to take personal choice away.
Speaking of the law, here is a quote from Kennesaw’s Wikipedia page
***************
In 1982 the city passed an ordinance [Sec 34-21][15]
(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.
(b)Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
Gun rights activist David Kopel has claimed that there is evidence that this gun law has reduced the incident rate of home burglaries citing that in the first year, home burglaries dropped from 65 before the ordinance, down to 26 in 1983, and to 11 in 1984.[16] Another report observed a noticeable reduction in burglary from 1981, the year before the ordinance was passed, to 1999.[17]
Statistical analysis of [the] data over a longer period of time did not show any evidence that [the law] reduced the rate of home burglaries [in Kennesaw.][18][19] In 2005, the overall crime rate had decreased by more than 50% since the law was put into affect.[20]
The city’s website[21] claims the city has the lowest crime rate in the county.
“Kristen, you’re asking people whose minds don’t work like a crazy killer to understand why anyone would want to murder a random police officer. I haven’t a clue.”
Where was it ever said that the shooter was a “crazy killer”? This seems like more made-up factiness.
“The gun could have made him a target…that’s en excellent argument for concealed carry versus open.”
But also consider that even from a quarter mile away, walking up on a police officer, one expects them to be armed. Whereas, even when I open carry, until you are right upon me and where you can see my holster, you don’t necessarily expect me to be armed. Open carry might add a last-minute wrinkle to a criminal’s plans, but true, concealed-carry adds a last-second wrinkle.
I’d say you had two crazy people both smart enough to figure out how to successfully commit their crimes. It doesn’t take a Philadelphia Lawyer to come to that conclusion.
A vast majority of violent criminals are Psychopaths or Sociopaths. Their mind works differently. They process emotion with the language center of the brain. Some were born that way, with their mind wired differently. Others were conditioned to that point through their life circustances and experiences. In either event, they operate under a different set of personal and social rules and think that the general public of mostly law abiding folks are naive fools. These people are VERY INTELLIGENT. They “know the words, but not the music.” They often impart pain on others to observe them emoting because they know they should feel it, but don’t. They often observe and mimic these emotions. You can’t fix people like this, nor can you reason with them. These are the people that walk among us every day and you may never know. Not all psychopaths are violent criminals, but almost all violent criminals are psychopaths. Those who are not afraid of them should be. I had to deal with one for 9 years…it changes how you look at people.
“A vast majority of violent criminals are Psychopaths or Sociopaths. Their mind works differently. They process emotion with the language center of the brain. Some were born that way, with their mind wired differently. Others were conditioned to that point through their life circustances and experiences. In either event, they operate under a different set of personal and social rules and think that the general public of mostly law abiding folks are naive fools. These people are VERY INTELLIGENT. They “know the words, but not the music.”. . .
Any way to screen our sociopaths and psychopaths from getting concealed carry permits?
“Where was it ever said that the shooter was a “crazy killer”? This seems like more made-up factiness.”
My bad. To you gun owners are all just ticking time bombs, right?
@John Wilburn: “I’m opposed to Kennesaw, Georgia’s mandate that every home have a firearm. It’s mostly symbolic and not enforced to my knowledge, but still not appropriate.”
Not enforced. I have a coworker who lives there. Does not own a gun.
Well JohnW at least the guy who shot the cop has the stones to pick on someone who was also armed. Stones Zimmerfat lacked.
64. No more than how you can screen alcoholics and drug addicts from getting drivers license. Record of past behavior (driving record, criminal record, etc.).
62.“The gun could have made him a target…that’s en excellent argument for concealed carry versus open.”
But also consider that even from a quarter mile away, walking up on a police officer, one expects them to be armed. Whereas, even when I open carry, until you are right upon me and where you can see my holster, you don’t necessarily expect me to be armed. Open carry might add a last-minute wrinkle to a criminal’s plans, but true, concealed-carry adds a last-second wrinkle.
Comment by John Wilburn — April 24, 2012 @ 6:46 pm
=============
True. I used to open carry and most people never noticed. They were too caught up in their own little world of blackberry, iphone, ipod, etc. to notice much of what was going on around them.
Speaking of which, DAN, I was almost involved in one of those accidental bicycle deaths this evening. While driving slowly on my street coming home from work (about 50 yards from my driveway), there was a kid on a bike peddling very slowly and kind of turning the handle bars with one hand back and forth a little while she texted with her other hand. I moved to the other side of the road and as I was almost to her she suddenly turned hard left (looked like she almost fell over while texting) and bolted right in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and she never even noticed me. I layed on the horn and scared the crap out of her. No helmet, nothing. There’s one of those accidental bike deaths just waiting to happen.
“They know the words, but not the music.. . .”
Remind you of anyone?
Re: Comment by Kristen — April 24, 2012 @ 3:37 pm
Why specifically target the one with the gun?
———-
Kristen
Last I hear, the most creditable theory was that it was a random shooting of an LEO — first opportunity was the unlucky target.
No, earlier contact between the two of them was established.
Why an LEO? No real consensus. Some theories — mostly re: authority figures, in general.
I doubt if we will ever know.
Re: Comment by Dan Casey — April 24, 2012 @ 8:02 pm
Any way to screen our sociopaths and psychopaths from getting concealed carry permits?
———-
Dan,
Move away from your more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA focus and broaden that question.
If there were a way to screen out sociopaths and psychopaths who are likely to commit violent crimes of any sort, would we as a society allow incarceration of forced hospitalization prior to the individual committing a crime or demonstrating actual behavior dangerous to him/herself or others?
In part, you have identified one of the ethical / moral / legal questions just over the horizon as medicine in the DNA field advances.
Assuming, arguendo, that there was a DNA breakthrough which identified with 100% certainty a subset of those who would commit violent crimes at some point in their lives, would we agree to them being incarceration of forcefully hospitalization, before committing any crime? How far before? At birth? At what age?
FWIIW, I would not agree — at any age!
Now, assuming, arguendo, that there was a DNA breakthrough which identified a subset of those who would commit violent crimes at some point in their lives with only 5% of false positives, would we agree for them being incarceration of forcefully hospitalization, before committing any crime, etc? What percent of false positives would you accept?
As I would not agree to any such scheme, that makes your question purely academic, IMHO.
However, back to the question asked:
No, I do not believe that there is anyway screen our [read as all] sociopaths and psychopaths from getting concealed carry permits? However, I do believe that there is a way to screen out a significant number — a way that would have screened out Cho had it been fully in force and funded.
IMHO, it would be a major step in the right direction were Virginia to fully fund and monitor the various steps leading up to and needed to to ensure that the change in Virginia law that the less-restrictions-on-the-RKBA organizations championed (see § 37.2-819. Order of involuntary admission or involuntary outpatient treatment forwarded to CCRE; certain voluntary admissions forwarded to CCRE; firearm background check) actual work.
“True. I used to open carry and most people never noticed. They were too caught up in their own little world of blackberry, iphone, ipod, etc. to notice much of what was going on around them.”
This is so true. I open carry in Moe’s in Blacksburg sometimes and despite being a huge dining room, packed with students during the lunch rush, I’m hardly noticed. The antis seem to think a holstered gun would stand out like a beacon, but the truth is, it just doesn’t.
One hilarious example happened to me a couple of months ago. My mom was taking a friend of hers to lunch at Due South in Christiansburg. Knowing it was a favorite place of mine to eat, she invited me to join them. I walked in right after they did, the place was jam-packed and, together we were lucky to be offered to share a table with three guys who took one end and offered us the other. Two of the three of them were open carrying. Towards the end of the meal, I mentioned the type of holster one of them had to my mom. Her friend didn’t notice them carrying the entire meal. Only when we mentioned the serpa holster, did she notice. What’s funnier is that she never did notice me open carrying!
Big shout out to Due South, NRV’s best barbecue.
Comment by John Wilburn — April 24, 2012 @ 11:06 pm
Big shout out to Due South, NRV’s best barbecue.
———
Plus 1, here.
Assuming you exclude homemade.
OTOH, better than some homemade that I have had fostered on me.
Think this guy’s girlfriend will be his girlfriend much longer? Wonder if he passed his gun safety class?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/florida-man-mistakes-girlfriend-hog-shoots-her-211904311.html
Why RON!
That link may very well upset some folks here — especially those gunners who are able to tell the difference between their girlfriend and a wild pig.
I think that idiot should be punished. In this case, he shot at what he admittedly did not see. It is very important to me, that he admitted the key thing to his negligence. This is marginally worse than the guy that shot at the mohawk. At least he was confused about the target he saw.
Ron’s guy clearly went to the Dick Cheney school of hunting.
I would have to say “Yupbilly” is without a doubt the hickiest, most backwoods, most redneck gomerish screen name I’ve ever heard.
#79 “Yupbilly” is without a doubt the hickiest, most backwoods, most redneck gomerish screen name I’ve ever heard.”
Never heard of Dublin Dawg?
I have to agree on the Due South BBQ.
Dan, Could you please post your honest thoughts on the sport of Hunting? I know you are anti-gun, but I want to know where you stand on hunting.
PP,
I don’t hunt, but I don’t have a problem with it. It’s nice that Virginia allows it only 6 days a week, so that nonhunters know they can safely enjoy the woods (during hunting season) at least 1 out of 7 days. I wouldn’t have a great objection to Sunday hunting on private land, provided it doesn’t result in bullets whizzing onto private property where landowners object. But I would object to Sunday hunting on public land.
79.”I would have to say “Yupbilly” is without a doubt the hickiest, most backwoods, most redneck gomerish screen name I’ve ever heard.”
I don’t know what it means, but I get a picture of yuppie + hillbilly = Yupbilly. Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps a chained wallet, silk tie, mullet, patent leather shoes, a foam/mesh #1 Papaw ball cap, and sport coat do go together.
Cool. Most anti-gun are anti-hunting..so just curious.
PP,
Certain people call me “anti-gun.” I’m on the record as supporting the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller. I believe in reasonable regulations regarding concealed carry — but not online gun safety “certification.” Especially not when that little nugget got written into Virginia law after the guy who owned the online course contributed $1,000 to the state senator who sponsored the measure. That one reeks.
No, not really #85 not all anti-gun are anti-hunting.I just don’t like if you are for gun safety then you are anti-gun. But that sane train has left a long time ago.
If someone hunts for their food, that is one thing. If someone goes out with some heavy duty firearms that’s another thing.
My son hunts sometimes but never on pubic land, it’s always on someone’s land he knows and just a few guys. The first day of hunting season on public land can be deadly.
Dan and others,
If the training requirement to get a CHP were expanded to a real pistol course with lots of live fire, firing behind cover, timed presentation fire, etc, and the areas past the metal detectors at airports and courtROOMS were to remain off-limits, would you then concede that CHP holders should be able to carry EVERYWHERE else?
“If someone goes out with some heavy duty firearms that’s another thing.”
Why? The SKS was on the “assault weapon ban” list, yet it makes a good deer rifle. So do the AR-15 and AK-47. So long as the shooting and load rules are followed, what earthly difference does it make what you shoot with? A Corvette and a Chevette will both get you to the grocery store; why tell the Corvette owner he doesn’t get to make that choice? Laws should be about behavior, not possession of things or capabilities of things relative to what you’re using them for. Solutions in search of problems.
Dan, you take issue with the online class. When I got my chp, only the live class was an option. Two nights off 4 hours each. Honestly, given the content of the class (I was personally disappointed) there was no reason that a person could not take it online. To me, the issue should not be whether it was online or in person, but the content of the class. It was nothing more than repeating over and over again the anatomy of revolvers and semi-autos and don’t point the muzzle at anything and keep your finger off the trigger until you want to shoot. How many times and ways can you say it over and over again in person or online.
What I felt should have been part of the class were the laws regarding self defense and the justified use of lethal force. Examples, studying case law history to show specifics of what was and was not justified. These are things that I personally contacted our commonwealths attorney and he e-mailed me links to resources to study myself. When I asked why this wasn’t part of the class I was told that it changes constantly and they could be held liable if they instructed as to what the laws said and then it happened to have changed.
As to proving proficiency with a handgun, many states have such a requirement. What should be the test? A vast majority of self defense shooting situations are from 7 feet or less and involve less than 3 shots. Should that be the test? Hit a 2 foot by 3 foot rectangle (torso size) from 7 feet. Proving proficiency from 10 yards (30 feet) is pointless if you you would be hard pressed to claim self defense from that distance…especially with a duty to retreat as far as possible. I am seriously asking this question as to what would constitute self defense proficiency.
@Bug: “I am seriously asking this question as to what would constitute self defense proficiency.”
I’d say anything that would disqualify 98% of the people who take the test. That should be sufficient.
John Wilburn, if people really have demonstrated competency with their gun, or any other weapon and have been scrutinized for mental, domestic or other issues that should preclude them having a gun, I am not concerned with where they carry unless the property owner says otherwise, I believe any owner should maintain that right of refusal.
I bust on you guys for carrying at the Kroger and the Cracker Barrel but hell, if it makes you feel more secure and “prepared”, fine. Shootouts happen there too. Just help us get people competent and scrutinized so it is only the mass murderers, bugged out domestic partners, garden variety criminals and the mentally ill we have to fear. As if.
#89: “A Corvette and a Chevette will both get you to the grocery store; why tell the Corvette owner he doesn’t get to make that choice?”
False equivalence is apparently so endemic in the more distant edges of gun culture which John Wilburn immerses himself in that he cannot (or will not) recognize when he’s using false equivalence himself.
If, as in the rhetoric that John uses with no qualifying caveats in #89, “Laws should be about behavior, not possession of things or capabilities of things relative to what you’re using them for”, then there is no basis for denying ANYTHING to anyone. But here is the crux of the matter:
Any item’s designed capabilities are a function of intent from their very inception, and the designed capability of many high capacity automatic (and easily converted semi-automatic) guns is not a function of a benign intent.
Deliberate misuse, whether of guns, cars or pharmaceuticals, is the worse part of human nature that honest enforcement of rational regulation alone can inhibit, and only inhibit but not completely prevent. Therefore, the degree of regulation must be a measured ratio of the designed (the intended) use, relative to the harm capable from misuse (uses unintended in the design). Weaponry created with a designed capability that is not first a function of benign intent has a disproportionately negative use/misuse ratio.
Why not allow the use of any weapons “relative to what you’re using them for”, as John’s unstructured philosophy seems to endorse? Because in today’s real world, capability often far exceeds any individual’s need to use. Agent Orange will clear a forest, Cyanide gas will rid a sewer of rats, one or more shrapnel grenades could stop a deranged school shooter, bunker buster missiles could speed up the I-81 rock blasting, and there are a small number of violence fixated people who would think it’s a great idea to allow their unlimited private possession for any such uses…”LIBERTY”!!!
But it’s not a good idea. These are actually much closer in their equivalence to guns than are cars, because once one goes beyond the existing, well established, and securely protected uses of guns scaled for personal safety, hunting, collecting and target sports, guns are much closer to these examples than to the falsely equivalent example of automobiles, whose inherent designed function is not to harm or destroy.
It is not a false equivalence to categorically compare implements designed for harm-weapons-to each other. The idea that any person be allowed as much weaponry, of any size, as that person alone defines as necessary to protect themselves, has been untenable since even before nuclear weapons, which made the absurdity of such a view obvious. Those who fail (or refuse) to see that the concept applies at lesser scale for all manmade things, according to the use/misuse ratio inherent in their designed capability, fail to understand what Einstein meant when he said of a world with nuclear weapons, “Everything has changed except our way of thinking”. Alfred Nobel understood this too; but not everyone does, unfortunately.
(o\ ! /o),
You must have taken a bare-bones NRA class. They beat the parts of the gun into the ground! Geez, how many times do we need to ID a barrel, cylinder, and grip panels? I use their course, but streamline the repetition and add the stuff people really need to know. As far as I’m concerned, the NRA course is a bare chassis that you build a custom class from. They aren’t state-specific either, so that always needs to be addressed. Not every instructor is so inclined to build a good class.
Sandi,
Thanks for everything you said in your last message. It was very well said and right off hand I have no disagreement with any of it. If the person is competent with their gun, and they are not disqualified, let them have it.
Thank you. Very rational and I appreciate it… John hasn’t replied yet, but I’m sure he’ll say the same.
I will settle for competency with the gun, proficiency is a bridge too far even in fantasy discussions.
Warren:
“Any item’s designed capabilities are a function of intent from their very inception, and the designed capability of many high capacity automatic (and easily converted semi-automatic) guns is not a function of a benign intent.”
Not so. You obviously don’t know enough about the working end of guns to even answer you.
“Agent Orange will clear a forest, Cyanide gas will rid a sewer of rats, one or more shrapnel grenades could stop a deranged school shooter, bunker buster missiles could speed up the I-81 rock blasting”
And you accues me of “false equivalence”?!?!?!?
There was a time when Warren liked to make original contributions, but lately, he’s only about coming after me. Waste of a good poster.
There have been times in my life when I thought my brother was a jive turkey and I’m sure he thought the same about me. However, it never led me to think about shooting him.
Speaking of competence, do you think this guy should have been allowed to have a gun and go hunting? I wonder what his brother thinks?
http://www.indystar.com/article/20120425/NEWS/120425029/Cicero-man-shoots-Noblesville-brother-during-turkey-hunt?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com
Ron, absent any further details exactly what, prior to this incident, would you have denied his right to have a gun and go hunting? Last I checked no one has actually developed a crystal ball that tells the future. If I had one, I would know the exact date, time, and place that I would need to carry my gun and I wouldn’t have to carry it the rest of the time.
Now, if the guy had some type of history or record, then that would be another story…but the article doesn’t address that.
Ron said, ‘jive turkey’. Groovy.
Not a waste at all. Allowing your drivel to go unchallenged is the waste.
Actually Warren’s #93 was very well said, and very true. You just don’t like being challenged when you are clearly wrong John Wilburn.
What I would love to hear, is even one of you have the courage and honesty to admit the truth. I do not for one second believe that any of you carry a gun everywhere you can because you are living in fear (although it is an easy joke). You KNOW the crime statistics, especially in your daily routine, and you KNOW that being armed is not necessary. You do it because you have chosen this “sacred right” for whatever reason, as your hill to die on, and because you can. It is like a lot of other self gratifying activities people have. It is not about protection, being prepared or being ready to face a danger you do not even have reason to believe will come in your lifetime. You carry because you want to. You carry because you like guns. You carry because you can. You carry because it feels good to stand out and in your mind “stand up”. Fine, let your ego reign and in the rare event you are accosted you can “handle it”. I can respect that. Until you are honest with yourself, and us, don’t expect any slack from me.
Thanks Jack #95, that cannot have been easy to type. You come closer than anyone one here to admitting the truth of why you carry, I’ll give you that.
Sandi, I’m going to let your drivel go unchallenged, but it is not a waste. The concrete between your ears is set too hard and I have work to do.
Contra,
You have to be of a certain age to really understand the meaning of “jive turkey.”
Re: Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 26, 2012 @ 9:06 am
Sandi
That skirts around a very fair question but, unfortunately, ends up being stated as a Bifurcation Fallacy; a.k.a. , Black-and-White Fallacy, Either/Or Fallacy, False Dilemma, etc — as both your contention can be true at the same time and/or there might well be other reasons/grounds.
I eat because I perceive a need for nourishment AND, I eat because I like food.
I read because I perceive a need for knowledge AND, I read because I like books.
I carry a self-defense firearm because I perceive a need for self-defense and I accept responsibility for myself and love ones AND, I carry because I like guns.
No dilemma in any of those situations. No internal conflict. No delusion.
As to someone admitting that some level of “want” or “like” and not defending the RKBA totally on need I have posted that a number of time. So, there is no secret, either.
I’ll repeat it here for those who may have missed it.
What does “need” have to do with the American way?
Do we “need”:
Cars that can exceed the speed limit, sometimes more than twice the max speed limit?
SUV & trucks that can haul or tow far more than some owners will ever haul or tow, again often well above the speed limit?
More vehicles registered to private owners than there are licensed drivers?
The square footage of the average new single-family detached home?
Theater sized TVs in those homes?
Cell phones for instant gratification – especially while driving?
All the rest of the high tech devices to provide instant gratification – excuse me, connectivity / communication?
Devices w/ 4G connections, which many consumers would not recognize 4G even if 4G hit him or her in face?
To be answering those devices in restaurants, churches, and all sort of public places?
A plethora of fast food chains and local joints serving far more salt, fat and calories in a meal than a body needs in a day?
Store shelf after store shelf and freezers full of high-salt, high-fat, high-caloric, caffeine added, adulterated foods?
Store shelves stacked with beer after beer brand, including many from around the world?
Bin after bin of fresh out-of-season and non-local produce flown in from around the world?
A fishing pole unless to catch fish for food in order to survive or as a professional?
Fire extinguishers, they are difficult to use in an emergency? (Why not just call the fire department. They can get there as quick as an LEO. When seconds count what are a few minutes, anyway?)
A first aid kit? (Shouldn’t injuries be tended to by a professional and the ambulance can get there as quick as an LEO. If that’s quick enough to stop a crime, why not for injuries?)
Once we as a society actually function on the bases of “need”, I’ll consider only “need” relative to the availability of a gun or guns. In the meantime, I’ll work on the same level of “want”/”like” not “need” that we-as-a-society operate on — across the board.
OTOH, quit demanding someone prove “need” for something you dislike while ignoring such a requirement for those things you like/want.
.
.
[edited slight from earlier versions to add Sandi's term "like" and a driver of "want"]
———
So, Sandi, I have been very honest with myself, and you for quite sometime — your pejorative Bifurcation Fallacy notwithstanding.
IMHO, like, want, and need can coexist and are in no way mutually exclusive of each other.
In #97, John, with his filters fixed to protect his self-image, not only couldn’t muster a counter brief, but missed the answer that I gave in very direct terms when I anticipated him claiming I was making a false equivalence:
“It is not a false equivalence to categorically compare implements designed for harm-weapons-to each other.”
And:
“These (examples) are actually much closer in their equivalence to guns than are cars…whose inherent designed function is not to harm or destroy.”
We’ve seen how reluctant gun obsessives are to define the parameters of “arms” in the 2A, for fear that acknowledging guns as a mere subcategory of arms would make clear that ballistic handheld weapons aren’t given a special status by the 2A’s language. Thus the categorical equivalence of guns within “arms”, which can indeed seem false when given with no distinction between subcategories, actually gains greater validity by the most radical gun obsessives refusal to offer reasons to differentiate any guns from other arms.
And, although hard to tell from his non-reply, it seems that John’s evident pride in his gun knowledge allows him to disregard the fundamental truth of human invention:
“Any item’s designed capabilities are a function of intent from their very inception”
This is true of virtually everything, even the most banal items, yet John might prefer to believe that guns are magically exempt from their designs being a reflection of their envisioned uses.
So while John doesn’t let his lack of familiarity of me prevent him making assumptions about me, and refuses to admit that he had used a false cross-category equivalence, he instead just insists that even the most lethal guns and ammunition types were conceived to include benign uses(!). Not surprisingly, rather than explain why he makes such an assertion, he just says that those with lesser knowledge than his own omniscience can’t understand. We’ve all repeatedly cited target sports, personal protection and hunting (not all of which are benign uses, e.g. rhino slaughter) as valid design rationales for some guns, but John is insistent that even the most powerful automatic guns were actually designed for some harmless uses. We know they’re not designed for efficient hole punching in machine shops, but with his refusal to share, we’re left to ponder what intended uses drove the design capabilities of the most powerful guns and ammunition types, other than lethal projection.
The other notable thing about John’s reply in #97 is that he says I was “coming after” him. Notable because it is language-and thus thought-consistent with the hyperphobic feeling that one is a target, which may be common among the most heavily armed. But we should understand and accept this, for it would be unfair to expect him to change quickly, given the influences of gun culture’s less mainstream fringes to which he might have been exposed
@Sandi 102. I’ve been around guns my entire life. Shooting, hunting, competitions, etc. I’ve had guns in my home since my Dad gave me my first target 22s when I was 12. Had to fend off a home invasion at 15 with them. I’ve had guns in my home since day 1. Do I like guns? Yes. It has been a part of my culture and I take the responsibility very seriously.
I personally did not start carrying everywhere I go until I was being stalked by a former employee that I had to fire. When you are out with your family, young kids, and an irate person that lives 2 towns away that you had to fire starts magically showing up in places that you and your family frequent (without his family) and riding by your house on a long dead end street when you mow grass, and you talk to the police and they tell you there is nothing they can do until the person actually commits a crime, it really drives home the point of the fact that the police are not responsible to protect you. You are responsible for your own protection. All they can do is collect evidence after a crime has been committed. After dealing with that particular situation for six months (which ironically did not end until the person saw me open carrying a .357 Magnum in a Mexican restaurant with my family back when you could not conceal in a place that serves alcohol, hence the Virginia Tuck of the shirt back behind the holster), I came to the realization that without a crystal ball to predict the time and place you may need one, you pretty much have to carry one all the time to ensure you are prepared if a situation arises. Kind of like wearing your seat belt for 40 years and only being in an accident once. You pretty much have to wear it all the time since you can’t predict when you will be in an accident. Just my personal experience.
Re: Comment by Warren — April 26, 2012 @ 5:15 pm
We’ve seen how reluctant gun obsessives are to define the parameters of “arms” in the 2A, for fear that acknowledging guns as a mere subcategory of arms would make clear that ballistic handheld weapons aren’t given a special status by the 2A’s language.
———-
Give me a break.
That old straw-man on a slippery slope clutching at a red herring has been debunked long ago.
Yes, firearms are a “subcategory of arms” just as are dirks, bowie knives, switchblade knifes, ballistic knifes, machetes, razors, slingshots, spring sticks, metal knucks, or blackjacks. any flailing instruments consisting of two or more rigid parts connected in such a manner as to allow them to swing freely, which may be known as a nun chahkas, nun chucks, nunchakus, shurikens, or fighting chains, discs, of whatever configuration, having at least two points or pointed blades which is designed to be thrown or propelled and which may be known as a throwing stars or oriental darts, [see: http://tinyurl.com/5uwnq ] and as are even your and Dan favorites.
Guess what. Various “subcategory of arms” can and are regularly managed by laws and regulations that identify differences between “a” and “z” at a number of non-arbitrary places at which a sharp line between various “subcategory of arms” can be drawn.
If you fear that SCOTUS will allow ownership of nuclear weapons or SAMs in the near future you might want to get your tinfoil hat strapped on tight.
———–
BTW, as a total aside how are you using the term “ballistic” in your straw-man.
I don’t think you do get it Dave Hicks and no amount of your intellectual invective will change that either. If you had “come clean” long ago, you would not still be throwing up links that you think prove some need to be armed, some heralded outcome from an armed person, or the outrageous gun stories you find and share.
If it is about the love of guns, the fact that it is a right and “because you can” that would be the message you repeat, over and over, instead you offer false comparatives and other things no one “needs” that just happen not to be Constitutionally guaranteed either.
Sorry to tell you, but the fail here is you. Like I said, Jack and his swagger and Jason bragging on the thrill of carry on occasion are the ones who come closest to telling the truth of the matter. You, John Wilburn, Symbols, and others just continue to insist you need to be “prepared” for a shootout just like I am prepared for a flat tire. You even compare the seatbelt law I must obey to the special preparedness you have in carrying a gun, which makes no sense at all. You compare your “need” to be prepared to my having a smoke alarm to get the insurance discount, or locking my doors is the same precaution as sleeping with a gun…on and on you go, so consider my “Bifurcation Fallacy” not so false after all.
Re: Comment by Warren — April 26, 2012 @ 5:15 pm
Warren,
Let me take another tack’
I also acknowledge that The Lorax, The Bible, The Koran, the Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the Complete Collection of Shakespeare’s Plays, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction, Mein Kampf, the Kama Sutra, the Mammoth Book of International Erotica, etc are all books. I also believe all have standing under 1A.
However, that does not mean that I think that all are the same, nor that all a appropriate for my coffee table, nor that all are appropriate for a primary school library, nor that they can not be regularly managed by laws and regulations that identify differences between “a” and “z” at a number of non-arbitrary places at which a sharp line between various “subcategory of books” can be drawn for the purpose of reasonable regulations.
IMHO, the devil is in the details of “reasonable regulations” and not gross pontifications of denouncing private ownership of and commerce in of all book or all weapons.
Re: Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 26, 2012 @ 5:59 pm
What part of “IMHO, like, want, and need can coexist and are in no way mutually exclusive of each other” do you fail to understand?
I happen to like milk and strawberry-rhubarb pie.
Milk and strawberry-rhubarb pie provide nutrients.
We all need nutrients to provide nourishment and for the maintenance of life.
Liking and needing are not mutually exclusive drivers of most of our actions in life. They can can coexist.
True. I might be able the seek out nutrients to provide nourishment and for the maintenance of life in bugs, and any number of things I have eaten in my travels — but I still like milk with strawberry-rhubarb pie.
Now, I don’t mandate that you eat milk and strawberry-rhubarb pie. Why should you mandate that I cannot eat milk and strawberry-rhubarb pie, figuratively speaking.
Wow. Warren spent all afternoon on that hit piece. It is really sad that you have dedicated even this much of your retirement to being an a-hole to me. You used to contribute original stuff, but now you’ve devolved into another mud-slinging Sandi (and soliciting her high praise in the process, no less). I really don’t always have the time, energy, or desire to fence with everyone over everything or articulate each little wrinkle… doesn’t mean I don’t understand.
I know you’ve made a little mission of jabbing at me because I rub you and your groupie the wrong way, but I really don’t care. If my leaving or taking time off is a big victory to you guys, I’m glad to let you enjoy it. When a number of posters are spending more time dismantling the character and intelligence of the other posters, than articulating their own positions, this blog has turned to crap. Sadly, both you and I were much better and more civil, gentlemen dare I say, before we started playing in Sandi’s sandbox. I just need the discipline to walk away; there are things much more important to me than this blog.
Re: Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 26, 2012 @ 5:59 pm
“…on and on you go…”
———-
As to your claims of “…on and on you go…”, that is clearly a pot v. kettle delusion.
I bet you a meal at a Roanoke establishment of your choosing that the less-restrictions-on-the-RKBA comments would virtually disappear, were Dan and the rest of the more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd to quit going on and on and on about more restrictions on the RKBA and posting outrageous gun stories you find.
I do believe that we have another round of WYSDOWYS2 — i.e., What-You-See-Depends-On-Where-You-Stand-Too.
“Sorry to tell you, but the fail here is you. Like I said, Jack and his swagger and Jason bragging on the thrill of carry on occasion are the ones who come closest to telling the truth of the matter.”
No, they’re just closer to telling you what you want to hear. They don’t speak for me and don’t need to have exactly the same motives to carry that I do. You’ve never carried a gun, you are not qualified to know what it’s like or just how wall-paper and background noise it actually becomes to those who routinely carry just in case.
Symbols, I believe we have had this conversation before… As someone who has dealt with irate employees who were fired, denied worker’s comp, or medication they believed they were due, I have had more than my share of bizarre and angry people.
A Vietnam Veteran who was clearly disturbed paced my office for 45 minutes mumbling. Once making sure to tell me he had been living in his truck and that he had “killed people”.
An angry young man threatened to “go home and get his gun” once.
One promised God would soon deal with me.
A telemarketer once promised to meet me in the parking lot and beat my ___.
The night my father drowned, I was 23, in shock and in the ER waiting room alone with a family from SE Roanoke who had a gunshot victim refusing to stay in the hospital and his mother wanted to show me her weapon and talk about what she was “going to do” to the person who hurt her son.
One night on the Parkway a car in front of me stopped suddenly and the driver got out and came towards my car.
Back before cell phones I had a flat tire at night alone, with my baby in the car.
One brother was in a car when a shooter shot into it and killed the kid sitting next to him.
My other brother was shot by a pot head who was “hunting”.
My husband worked the graveyard shift for years and years leaving me alone with young children.
In Bedford County, the average police response time is 45 minutes to my neck of the woods.
Through all of that, over all these years, it never, not once, dawned on me that a gun was the solution to my fear, anxiety or certainty that too many people are insane.
@Sandi: “Sorry to tell you, but the fail here is you. Like I said, Jack and his swagger and Jason bragging on the thrill of carry on occasion are the ones who come closest to telling the truth of the matter. You, John Wilburn, Symbols, and others just continue to insist you need to be “prepared” for a shootout just like I am prepared for a flat tire.”
Thank you for the compliment (if that’s what it is).
I love guns, and I love carrying a gun. I have never in the past needed to carry a gun, but maybe one day I will. Thankfully, I’ll have it with me because I love guns. And I also love God and our Constitution which allow me to carry such guns.
The fact that I am prepared should violence find me is just a pleasurable side-effect of carrying the guns that I love.
Amen and God Bless America.
#109: how are you using the term “ballistic
bal·lis·tic (b-lstk)
adj.
1.
a. Of or relating to the study of the dynamics of projectiles.
b. Of or relating to the study of the internal action of firearms
I’m using it as “B” although “A’ has applicability too.
Dave Hicks:
“the less-restrictions-on-the-RKBA comments would virtually disappear, were Dan and the rest of the more-restrictions-on-the-RKBA crowd to quit going on and on and on about more restrictions on the RKBA and posting outrageous gun stories you find.”
Amen. I came here for the campus carry gun thread where Dan was outrageously comparing guns in the classroom to mutually-assured destuction from nuclear weapons. If the assault on the Second Amendment is to stop here, I’m sure I’d just find another hive somewhere else.
#111: Dave Hicks said:
“IMHO, the devil is in the details of “reasonable regulations” and not gross pontifications of denouncing private ownership of and commerce in of all book or all weapons”
Where did I make “gross pontifications of denouncing private ownership of and commerce in all book(s) or all weapons”?
And where do the gun obsessives offer the “details of “reasonable regulations” that you and I seem to agree are possible within 2A interpretations?
Again Dave, you are missing the point. John Wilburn and his bombast are not a good influence on you IMO. You cannot throw up all that you do on a regular basis and then whine that there are all sorts of reasons to carry and that one does not trump another. Your logic does not compute. You admit crime is going down, the statistics do not show a need for any citizen to armed at every turn, certainly this area is not a “high crime” urban jungle, and yet you still tout need as paramount at every opportunity because fear sells, fear everyone can understand and fear keeps too many questions of braggadocio, machismo and just plain aggression off your backs.
Same with your constant “antis” to anyone not in your camp. It is the language you use to conceal the true appeal for such zealots.
I have spent 54 years going through every day, every night and every situation unarmed, so do not tell me about your “need”. It is hooey. Just admit it, you like guns, your like many guns, the bigger, stronger, more lethal, more stylish, more chic, the better. You like shooting things, you like feeling you are in control, that you will never be a statistic. Wonder how many other statistics thought the same?
@ Suzie #79
“I would have to say “Yupbilly” is without a doubt the hickiest, most backwoods, most redneck gomerish screen name I’ve ever heard.”
Thank you.
On a side note: While I do not resemble your remarks, I would wager you don’t resemble your avatar.
#113: John, I didn’t spend more than twenty minutes typing out the thoughts in #107, but you keep piling up the assumptions nonetheless. I’m not retired, I’m from the boomer peak, which places me as twenty ears or less older than yourself. The reason I led with the filter bit is that you had indeed ignored my direct anticipation that you’d say a cross-category guns-to-cars equivalence is the same as an arms-to-arms equivalency. Both are false if in the latter the arms are not defined, as 2A obsessives seem reluctant to do, but the cars-to-guns equivalency has very little rationale that can make it valid.
And while you obviously feel attacked, the only things I said about you personally, besides your ignoring the explanation of your use of false equivalency, were:
John’s evident pride in his gun knowledge allows him to disregard the fundamental truth of human invention: “Any item’s designed capabilities are a function of intent from their very inception” and “”John might prefer to believe that guns are magically exempt from their designs being a reflection of their envisioned uses.”
We await your explanation of how guns are exempt from their designs being a reflection of their envisioned uses.
And: “while John doesn’t let his lack of familiarity of me prevent him making assumptions about me, and refuses to admit that he had used a false cross-category equivalence” To which see the first part of this post.
And: “John’s reply…is language-and thus thought-consistent with the hyperphobic feeling that one is a target, which may be common among the most heavily armed”.
Not a direct attribution that you’re this way, just a reflection of what one reads in the outlook of your posts.
This post has taken about nine minutes, by using the Dave Hicks method of lots of cut and paste.
“twenty years or less”…haste makes waste!!
John, hopefully in the next several days as time allows I’ll have time to make a post specifically addressing why I referred to yuor self-image (as a gun advocate).
your
@ John Wilburn. 84…..”I don’t know what it means, but I get a picture of yuppie + hillbilly = Yupbilly. Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps a chained wallet, silk tie, mullet, patent leather shoes, a foam/mesh #1 Papaw ball cap, and sport coat do go together.”
Thanks!
You got the yuppy+hillbilly part right. But, like your new found pal, Suzie, wrong on the rest.
Even if you weren’t wrong in your description of me, what would be wrong with being the person you described? I thought you guys are all about people’s rights?
I merely disagree with you on the issue of guns on campus, not your right to debate it. It might surprise you that I may agree with you on some of the issues.
Thanks again.
@110. OK Sandi, here’s your chance. Give me ONE good reason why I should NOT carry at all times it is legal to do so. Just one.
Jack…just hope
they arent carrying a grenade launcher,,
because if they are,,that warm feeling in your
pants will quickly ..oh so quickly fade.
God Bless Reason
Sandi-
“Sorry to tell you, but the fail here is you. Like I said, Jack and his swagger and Jason bragging on the thrill of carry on occasion are the ones who come closest to telling the truth of the matter.”
Whoa whoa whoa. When did I “brag on the thrill of carry”? Please post one example of this.
Actually, I am just messing with you. You folks should study some Pavlov!
I have realized the uphill battle on gun control in this nation and it is futile. You accept the carnage as long as you keep the status quo and you have made us all out to be loonies for even caring.
So fine, I no longer care. Happy now?
PS John Wilburn, son you could not buy a clue to what I want to hear.
PPS Jason, just the other day when you were gushing over carrying in some restaurant and did not get your ribs…
@116. Sandi, good for you. I’m glad it all worked out for you. Like I said, it is up to each individual to evaluate and decide for themselves how they prepare for and handle situations they may encounter. Not every person will come to the same conclusion on how to do so. Thankfully we have the freedom to choose. Like I said, regardless of my lifelong history with firearms I went a vast majority of my adult life without carrying on my person…now I do. See, we even have the freedom to change our minds. And the reason why really doesn’t matter. You think I carry “just because I can.” Well, I “could have” for the last 22 years, and only have on any regular basis at all for the last 4. If you think it is for attention, well, no one knows I’m carrying but me. So what attention? Do you think you deserve some kind of award for making it X years without carrying a gun? One of my best buddies used to brag about being healthy saying “I haven’t been to a doctor since I was 12.” He died a few years ago of cancer at the age of 52. He didn’t need a doctor until he needed a doctor, and then it was too late. I watched him die a slow, painful death that could have been prevented if he had not been so self-righteous about his not needing doctors. He didn’t know what he didn’t know, until he did know.
As for me, I have the equipment, training, and experience to carry. So I see no advantage to choosing not to. If I carry and don’t need it, no harm done. If I don’t and do, well, no do-overs. The “reward” (of which I don’t see one) for not carrying isn’t worth the risk (even if the risk is low).
Re: Comment by Warren — April 26, 2012 @ 8:19 pm
Hum?
That’s about what I read your “ballistic handheld weapons” to mean.
Why didn’t you just say “handgun”?
Trying to suck someone in? Thought “ballistic handheld weapons” sounded fearsome?
Re: Comment by Warren — April 26, 2012 @ 8:26 pm
And where do the gun obsessives offer the “details of “reasonable regulations”
———-
Here in Virginia, VCDL publishes details of its agenda for more reasonable laws and regulations every year, at the beginning of the legislative session. I tend to agree that they are possible within 2A interpretations.
What you agree to is up to you.
“Even if you weren’t wrong in your description of me, what would be wrong with being the person you described? I thought you guys are all about people’s rights?”
Yupbilly, for one, I didn’t guess that was what you looked like, I just said that is the image that comes to mind from the word “Yupbilly”. Two, I’m all for however you want to dress so long as you’re all for people being able to think what they want about it. I never said you didn’t have the right to dress any way… not sure where you got that either.
@Jason: “Whoa whoa whoa. When did I “brag on the thrill of carry”? Please post one example of this.”
Yeah, I can’t say that I’d call it a “thrill,” either. In fact, when I carry using my IWB holster, it just serves to remind me that I need to lose about fifteen pounds.
I enjoy carrying my gun, but i wouldn’t call it a “thrill.” Also, like I said, I’ve never needed it. But I can’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t carry it.
Sandi-
Only a lunatic could take from that post that I was “bragging about the thrill” of carrying. I was obviously poking fun at Dan’s terror of guns in restaurants.
I don’t know how many times it needs to be said: there is no thrill in carrying. It’s about as much a thrill as having car keys in my pocket.
Symbols, I did not ask for any “award” and I do not think I am remotely different than the millions of other people who go through what life brings without a gun on them. I could use any, or all of my experiences to justify carrying a gun if that was what I wanted. It is not.
This is not about what “justifies” carrying a gun everywhere. Nothing really does for the average person. My point is that this is simply a choice. Not a choice of situational, occupational, or locational (yes, I made up words) danger and need for the average citizen and it increases my respect for people, honest enough to admit it. Why that is so hard is just beyond my ken.
I love words, I love to debate, I would argue with a tree stump if they could talk (I engage Suzie after all), I freely admit it. I say things to start an argument, I challenge people for the pure enjoyment of it. I have admitted this over and over. It is called honesty and more gun advocates should try it.
FWIW, I sincerely do not believe for one moment, one second, that any gun advocates give a rat’s patooty about the carnage and problems with guns in the wrong hands and I believe there is a clear and demonstrable legislative lobby to prove me right. Not to mention a lack of proposed legislation. They (as a group) do not care what happens to anyone dumb enough not to carry a gun, they do not care who has a gun, how they got it or what they do with it, as long as their carry and access is assured that is all that matters. Prove me wrong.
Jason, I disagree completely, you were bragging and enjoying it IMO Jack has done so as well, remember the Starbucks photo? Since you do consider me a “lunatic” among other things, I fail to see why that matters, but if you feel better for calling me names, so be it. I might even agree it is lunacy to expect better from gun lunatics.
“PS John Wilburn, son you could not buy a clue to what I want to hear.”
PS, Sandi, you obviously haven’t a clue as to why we carry.
Yes John Wilburn, I do. I spilled it here and I am sorry to see so few willing to admit it.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 27, 2012 @ 10:11 am
Prove me wrong.
———-
No need to.
You already admitted, “Actually, I am just messing with you” and “I say things to start an argument…”
Sandi, you reek with prejudice.
Not sure how you can say that John Wilburn, I have studied the issue on several levels so have some knowledge, Obviously I have given it a lot of thought, and I have perfectly legitimate non discriminating reasons. How is that prejudiced?
Wow, nice dodge Dave Hicks. But you can’t and we all know it.
138. You say that the average person does not need to carry a gun. Well, you don’t need one until you do need one, and then you don’t have one. I’m sure the carry guy that stopped the knife carnage in the grocery store in Utah (see other anti-gun thread for link) left home that morning believing he would likely not need his gun that day like every other day he has left home with it.
I choose to carry. It is my choice free of any reasons or justifications. That’s why it is called a “right.”
#133: “ballistic handheld weapons”…Why didn’t you just say “handgun”?
Because the great majority of rifles are also handheld, and the topic was delineating the parameters of what is a gun for 2A purposes.
(And this would be the point where one might, were one a certain type of gun advocate, say how you don’t know enough about guns to discuss; but you do, Dave, so luckily we needn’t resort to their hubris).
RE: #134: I’ve looked for and never seen a detailed VCDL delineation of clear parameters for what does and does not constitute A GUN, one that they intend to be their ongoing definition regardless of any given year’s legislative agenda. Please steer us to it, if there is one.
Re: Comment by Warren — April 28, 2012 @ 3:32 pm
Can’t help you, if you don’t know want a firearm is. For that matter, when one supports the RKBA what does it matter?
VCDL may or may not have “delineation” it for you. I don’t know nor do I care, as I would love for Virginia to issue a Concealed Weapons Permit — or better yet go to Constitutional Carry of any weapon the possession of which is not limited by “reasonable restrictions.”
As to the this last Virginia legislative session, check the public information VCDL provide:
Pre-session: http://tinyurl.com/c8668vv
On-going during session (now post-session, obviously): http://tinyurl.com/6owotsr
VCDL is very open about their agenda and how it applies step-by-step.
Why aren’t you?
You pick away at the edges and play word games (“ballistic handheld weapons”, gee whiz!), but you never say what you think would work. I really don’t remember you saying what your goal is or what you would do were you in charge.
IMHO, PU has more creditability than you have displayed. We know where he/she stands and his/her reason.
“IMHO, PU has more creditability than you have displayed. We know where he/she stands and his/her reason.”
Ouch!
“I would wager you don’t resemble your avatar.”
Unless Pflugrad has a johnson, you’d be right.
“For that matter, when one supports the RKBA what does it matter (what a firearm is)?”
It matters because the 2A is about the RKBA, not the RKBG. So unless one explicitly claims a personal right to keep and bear ALL arms, we must make the dictinctions among arms that clarify which ones are a personal RKB and which ones aren’t.
Dave Hicks, like the VCDL, you are avoiding distinctions among arms types with all your might, acting as though “any weapon the possession of which is not limited by “reasonable restrictions” is somehow a standard that is currently established and widely known. On other topics, you often make a point about how “reasonableness” is subject to YMMV. Yet, here you blithely rely on assuming that reasonableness is understood and widely agreed upon. But if that’s so, what’s the problem in detailing the schedule of all arms types and those you believe have a “reasonable” RKB and those that don’t? A description of what does and does not constitute A GUN, one that for RKBG purposes can be an ongoing definition regardless of any given year’s legislative agenda?
The moment one says that there are any limits to the RKBA under the 2A, one must address the specifics of those limits. The choice is that clear: one can be an RKBA absolutist, which by definition means that any and all arms have a personal RKB, and it is then not false to view guns, explosives, and chemical agents together, or one acknowledges that the RKB has limits that absolutism doesn’t admit. With gun obsessives refusing to offer any parameters of which 2A “arms” are not subject to a RKB, the parameters of “gun” for the purpose of specificity in 2A interpretation will be set by those 2A defenders without a gun fixation. Given that the majority of 2A defenders are not gun obsessives, that’s probably fortunate for sane public health policy.
Since I believe the 2A’s effectiveness for protecting RKB for personal safety, hunting, target sports and collecting has been borne out, I can see some parameters that exclude some arms categories from RKB. And that’s where the phrase “ballistic handheld weapons” is useful, although since you needed to have this meaning of “ballistic” explained, and didn’t immediately grasp that most rifles are also handheld, I might have to revise my estimation about your gun advocacy preparedness
Warren, if they honestly answer that question, they are either drummed out of the group or they shock people into finally realizing what we are up against. In every gun thread I have even read or participated in, it becomes more clear that while they express dismay at the carnage, the reality is that they accept it as the cost for their “guns”. Nothing can change my mind on that at this point, but they are fine with simply punishing for the crime after the fact rather than any kind of proactive approach. So when people are that willing for people to die for their right, there is no direction to go. Until the rest of the nation realizes that truth. And someday they will and it is not going to be pretty.
Comment by Warren — April 29, 2012 @ 3:38 pm
“So unless one explicitly claims a personal right to keep and bear ALL arms,”
———-
Ah! As expected the the old slippery slope fallacy (as I predicted).
Which form do you believe applies:
That “A” differs from “Z” by a continuum of insignificant changes, and there is no non-arbitrary place at which a sharp line between the two can be drawn. — Therefore, there is really no difference between “A” and “Z.”
or
That “A” differs from “Z” by a continuum of insignificant changes with no non-arbitrary line between the two. — Therefore, “A” doesn’t exist.
———-
Can you honestly claim that the legislators, regulators and the courts can’t differentiate a penknife for a nuclear weapon? Between a handgun and a rifle? A shotgun and a handgun? A semi-auto and a threeburst and/or fully-auto?
If so, check out: ATF E-Publication 5320.8 http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5320-8/atf-p-5320-8.pdf
**
CHAPTER 2. WHAT ARE “FIREARMS” UNDER THE NFA?
Section 2.1 Types of NFA firearms
The NFA defines the specific types of firearms subject to the provisions of the Act. These definitions describe the function, design, configuration and/or dimensions that weapons must have to be NFA firearms.
SNIP
[Emphasis added]
**
What part of “2.1.6 Machinegun. Firearms within the definition of machinegun include weapons that shoot, are designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger” do you not understand?
Do you believe a penknife is distinguishable from “2.1.8.1 Explosive devices. The first portion of the definition deals with explosive, incendiary and poison gas munitions. The definition specifies that any explosive, incendiary or poison gas bomb, grenade, mine or similar device is a destructive device”?
Or a penknofe from “2.1.8.2 Large caliber weapons. The second section of the definition states that any type of weapon by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, the barrel or barrels of which have a bore diameter of more than one-half inch in diameter is a destructive device. This portion of the definition specifically excludes a shotgun or shotgun shell which the Attorney General finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes”?
So, even with in the “sub-category” of weapons distinctions and non-arbitrary line are drawn and your slippery slope is pure fiction
You might also check out:
http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5400-7.pdf
http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/national-firearms-act-firearms.html
Dave Hicks,
You are dealing with the definition of firearms. That word is nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Just FYI.
And BTW, there were no nuclear weapons, or revolvers, or semi-automatic rifles, or machine guns when the 2nd Amendment was written. Also Just FYI
Re: Comment by Dan Casey — April 29, 2012 @ 9:41 pm
“You are dealing with the definition of firearms”
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So Dan thinks “incendiary or poison gas bomb, grenade, mine or similar device is a destructive device” is a firearm!!!
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Dan seems to be suggesting that the Second Amendment should only apply to the guns in use at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted – e.g., muzzle loaded flint locks.
Let’s look at the state of the weapons and conditions to which the framers were referring.
They were as good as, and in many cases better than, those used by many of the standing armies of the world.
In fact, even state-of-the-art artillery pieces were privately own and/or owned by private organizations, such a gun club. Nearly all privately owned sea-going ships of any size carried some heavy armament.
Moreover, these weapons required no registration, nor a license to own, nor permission to carry, etc. There were no background check. There were no government limits.
Whatever anyone afford to buy, at home or abroad, they could keep and bear.
Maybe we do need to go back to the right to keep and bear state-of-the art weapons as approved by our FF.
Also by logical extension of Dan’s logic that only the “technology of the time” was approved by the Bill of Rights — under the First Amendment’s “freedom of the press” the Roanoke Times can not use high-speed presses, but rather must hand printing one-page-at-a-time, and under “freedom of speech” the politicians’’ can’t use amplification systems and radio/TV broadcast but must travel from town to town by horse and stand on a stump talking loudly, etc.
If you hold one Constitutional Right to the only “the technology at the time of the Constitution” why would not all be so restricted?
Re: Comment by Dan Casey — April 29, 2012 @ 9:41 pm
Even if I was talking primarily about firearms, the cited documents (did you look at all them) prove that there is no slippery slope of vagueness in the distinction between items that lie on vast the continuum of weapons — as I have proved that distinction are well made between items within one sub-set on that greater continuum of weapons.
“So when people are that willing for people to die for their right, there is no direction to go…”
Good thing the colonists weren’t so short sighted.
“…Until the rest of the nation realizes that truth. And someday they will and it is not going to be pretty.”
So you think those folks in the grocery store in Utah should have been stabbed until whenever the police got there and however many died just died becuase there “is no need” to carry in the grocery store? watching stabbing after brutal stabbing because no one with a gun was there to stop it is pretty?
Utah is one of the most pro-gun states in the country. I’m am surprised that its policies did not deter the grocery store stabber.
How could this be that it did not?
How could it be, he could not get a gun, is the obvious question.
John Wilburn, news flash: It is 2012 not 1789. The founders had no concept of the “arms” of today, their prevalence in crime, domestic violence or the national debate. To pretend so is ludicrous.
@Dan Casey: “And BTW, there were no nuclear weapons, or revolvers, or semi-automatic rifles, or machine guns when the 2nd Amendment was written. Also Just FYI”
There were no blogs, Internet or TV when the First Amendment was written. Just FYI.
Dan,
Still waiting for your explanation as to why you think the FF’s term “press” in 1A covers radio and TV and the FF’s term “speech” in 1A covers radio, TV, Facebook, 3dmovies, etc — if you claim that all the FF intended in 2A was muzzle loaded flint locks, touch-hole cannon, etc.
How about in the Constitution body? Do you also believe that Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 cannot apply to goods moved by internal combustion engine or turbo engine? Do you also believe that United States Congress does not the authority to regulate deals made on the phone or otherwise to regulate electronic commerce?
Your assertion that the Constitution is somehow limited to only the technology know to the FFs open a world of questions.
“John Wilburn, news flash: It is 2012 not 1789. The founders had no concept of the “arms” of today, their prevalence in crime, domestic violence or the national debate. To pretend so is ludicrous.”
Sandi Saunders, news flash: It is 2012 not 1789. The founders had no concept of the “free speech” of today, it’s proliferation over the internet, or use in offensive speech, display, or gestures. To pretend so is ludicrous. That “arms” thing never gets stale to you guys, does it?
(crickets)
I for one have never said that the 2A or any other part of the Constitution is limited to the state of the world as the FF knew it. So I’m not one of those “guys” that John referred to, just to be clear. Most of my fellow 2A supporters are the same. Dan or others who had that claim made about them might have been employing it to vivify the absurdity of 2A absolutism. And as we’ve seen, unless one commits to 2A absolutism, there is a need for fairly specific arms taxonomy in order to clarify which arms are given a RKB.
BTW, per his earlier post, Dave Hicks would use the ATF definitions of “guns” in guiding the limits to RKB. One wonders how the VCDL and the political lobbyists of the NRA feel about that. Perhaps John Wilburn would enjoy saying that because the ATF lacks his gun expertise it can’t be given the role of arms taxonomists.
@158. As soon as knife guy saw the gun, he stopped and got on the ground. Pretty effective, huh? Perhaps knife guy was unaware of the gun laws and didn’t know that average citizens could carry guns concealed. Who knows. What we do know is as soon as he faced a gun, his actions (which appeared to intend a mass stabbing) came to an immediate halt. Unfortunately no one keeps a statistic on lives saved by legal use of a firearm. The last published estimation I saw was a University study of the number of times annually that firearms were legally utilized for defense and it was approximately 2.5 million per year. I’ll see if I can find the article.
Re: Comment by Warren — April 30, 2012 @ 2:43 pm
“Dave Hicks would use the ATF definitions of “guns” in guiding the limits”
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Wrong! I never suggested that ATF definitions of “guns” were “limits” to the RMBA.
What I said was:
“I would love for Virginia to issue a Concealed Weapons Permit — or better yet go to Constitutional Carry of any weapon the possession of which is not limited by ‘reasonable restrictions’”, and;
“Various “subcategory of arms” can and are regularly managed by laws and regulations that identify differences between “a” and “z” at a number of non-arbitrary places at which a sharp line between various “subcategory of arms” can be drawn”, and;
“So, even within the “sub-category” of weapons distinctions and non-arbitrary line are drawn and your slippery slope is pure fiction”, and;
“Even if I was talking primarily about firearms, the cited documents (did you look at all them) prove that there is no slippery slope of vagueness in the distinction between items that lie on vast the continuum of weapons — as I have proved that distinction are well made between items within one sub-set on that greater continuum of weapons.”
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It is you, Dan, et al that are hung up about “guns.”
IMHO, the devil is in the details of reasonable restrictions as applied to all weapons.
The taxonomy you bemoan already exist, in great part, as I proved.
Heaven help you, if you can’t tell the difference between a penknife and a nuclear weapon and you can’t understand the need for reasonable restrictions (or the lack thereof) being tailored the each differently for penknife v. a nuclear weapon and the various subsets of the taxonomy of weapons.
“Perhaps John Wilburn would enjoy saying that because the ATF lacks his gun expertise it can’t be given the role of arms taxonomists.”
Warren, you’re just being a jerk.
#166: “the devil is in the details of reasonable restrictions as applied to all weapons…The taxonomy you bemoan already exist, in great part”
Dave Hicks, when I used the more accurately inclusive phrase “ballistic handheld weapons” you both wondered if I meant handguns (when rifles also meet that description) and had to ask what ballistic meant in that context. So apparently there are indeed some who still aren’t sure about the taxonomy of guns. And it was you who cited the ATF definitions, no one else, and you didn’t cite any others, leaving the reader to suppose it was the definition that you followed.
As we’ve seen one either commits to 2A absolutism, or there is a need for very specific arms taxonomy in order to clarify which arms are given a RKB. More to the point, the taxonomy of “guns” that is necessary to define what weapons have a RKB continues to be in flux, as technology changes and social norms evolve. Fully automatic weapons have been defined and regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934 and subsequent Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, and even those reasonable definitions and regulations are still subject to attack by gun radicals. There was no legal definition of “assault weapons” in the U.S. prior to enactment of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, even though that law (which gun obsessives cried was too restrictive) only set magazine capacity limits and was easily circumvented. Contrary to the alarmist rhetoric of gun radicals, during the ten years of the ban, there was no appreciable rise in vulnerability of citizens to either violent crime or state-on-individual crime; in fact, both the violent crime rate and homicides dropped.
I would favor a definition that includes this:
“”… semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General. In making the determination, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any Federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.”
Once again, we have already determined you are a prostitute madam, we are merely haggling over the price.
Re: Comment by Warren — April 30, 2012 @ 8:44 pm
So, Warren, how much has violent crime increased since the Law Enforcement Act of 1994 ban on assault weapon look-a-likes *1, mags, etc expired on September 13, 2004?
Last figures I saw showed around a 4% a year drop of violent crime for a few years now. Clearly, the the sun-setting did not result in blood in the streets as the mantra and the alarmist rhetoric of the more-restriction-on-guns radicals predicted. Yup, both the violent crime rate and homicides dropped during and after your beloved ban.
Were the ban such a factor positive factor, why did crime continue to drop when it expired?
As I have said repeatedly I do not assign causation to simple statistics. I suggest you consider that policy — particularly when the factor you champion does not collateral with change in the tend when it was discontinued.
[ *1 Note: as you noted the National Firearms Act of 1934 severally restricted firearms that function as, or can be readily converted to function as, true military “assault weapons” function. I have never understood the alarmist rhetoric of the more-restriction-on-guns radicals' obsession with appearance.]
Dave Hicks, although it’s right there in the black and white letters of my post, you somehow missed that rather than speaking to the effects of the ban on crime, I was only noting that during “the ten years of the ban, “THERE WAS NO APPRECIABLE RISE IN VULNERABILITY OF CITIZENS”…”CONTRARY TO THE ALARMIST RHETORIC” of the “we need more firepower to be safe from crime and the government” types.
Re: Comment by Warren — May 1, 2012 @ 8:31 pm
I did notice that you skipped the data that might suggest that the ban was a feel-good restriction that may well have been useless in doing what it was alleged to be going to do.
Also, fail to see your support of “NO APPRECIABLE RISE IN VULNERABILITY OF CITIZENS.”
If the ban didn’t change anything as you suggest, why deprive citizens of what they want, deny business business, and create additional administrative work / LEO work / Court work at an expense to the goverment.
It seems you have conceded that the ban was a wash or could not be shown to accomplish anything.
If it changed nothing why do it?
If banning chocolate ice-cream had no effect on the obesity problem, why would one want to maintain a ban on it?
OK, you don’t like chocolate ice-cream? Don’t buy it. But don’t pass a law that I can buy it.
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BTW, if you can’t show me were I ever said “we need more firepower to be safe from crime and the government [Emphasis added]” please don’t suggest that any of my arguments in the debate are related to that.
Straw-men dodges only highlight that you are failing to address the actual arguments of your opponent in the debate.
See my reaction to the demand to show “need” at Comment by Dave Hicks — April 26, 2012 @ 1:23 pm
I have stated my position, repeatedly, along the lines of, once we as a society actually function on the bases of “need” across most things in life, I’ll consider “need” relative to the availability of guns. In the meantime, I’ll work on the same level of “want” / ”like” (not “need”) that we-as-a-society operate on — across the board.
Don’t demand someone prove “need” for something you dislike while ignoring such a requirement as a required justification those things you like/want.