Son of a Gun, 2
People are dumb, panicky
dangerous animals and you know it.
--Men in Black (1997)
Is that what this is about?
You're angry because you got lied to?
--Falling Down (1993)
Most folks can't afford to build an underground shelter but,
with a little know-how, you can use and prepare your home
to be a shelter against fallout or a biological or chemical attack.
It's much simpler than you might have imagined
--Sheltering in Place: A Family Guide
(water filter insert)
____________________
dangerous animals and you know it.
--Men in Black (1997)
Is that what this is about?
You're angry because you got lied to?
--Falling Down (1993)
Most folks can't afford to build an underground shelter but,
with a little know-how, you can use and prepare your home
to be a shelter against fallout or a biological or chemical attack.
It's much simpler than you might have imagined
--Sheltering in Place: A Family Guide
(water filter insert)
____________________
Curios and relics are not a gun control issues, and should be separated form the current political discussion. Any efforts to regulate that collector market is a waste of effort any money.
But there is a real, palpable craziness afoot in the U.S., and the issue remains the "kill your neighbor" (K.U.N.) type guns. High-capacity military clones are the item du jour. Weekend gun shows have become military arms bazaars.
When Ranger began his marksmanship career, bullseye targets were shot with service rifles. While NRA matches are still of the professional old-fashioned concentric circle type, the majority of the gun world now uses picture-type targets of people, or silhouettes.
The focus of many gunman has shifted to shooting people.
For fun, go to a bookstore and peruse gun and survival magazines. The stock-in-trade for many is to prepare people for an impending conflagration.
Major gun parts supplier Brownell's has an online catalog filled with trick-out items for the aforementioned kill-type guns. (In a not-unworthy side note: many of the items in their catalog are listed as "Made in America".)
The madness can be seen in many arenas. Ranger recently bought a simple water filter and noted that the accompanying literature addressed survival -- "preparedness products" -- which might arise in vague future dire situations, as well. The "prepper" mentality has seeped into our culture through many avenues.
Before proceding, the fantasy tricked-out rifles do have sporting and hunting functions. A M-16 clone is legal for hunting in most states. The only requirement is that the user employs only five-round magazines and not the 60-round mags found in the catalogs.
To my mind, the problem is the plethora of K.U.N. guns on the open market. It is an open discussion as to how this issue might be addressed. Since the demand and easy availability of these guns is a fairly new issue, understanding that phenomenon might be a good starting place.
The media talking heads usually have no grasp of the subject matter. The "experts" were discussing "clip size" recently, but no modern K.U.N. gun uses a clip; all modern firearms use magazines. From these basic misunderstandings issues ever-wider misconceptions.
Further, the media coverage of the topic never mentions that one of the only industries which remains succcessful and employs U.S. workers is the gun industry. If all of the tricked out guns are outlawed, then unemployment rates will increase.
So herein is a contradiction: help the economy by limiting gun regulations, or potentially help the occasional nutters and career criminals who wish to commit wrongdoing with a gun.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Labels: gun control in the United States, Las Vegas shooting, son of a gun 2
posted by rangeragainstwar at 4:11 PM
26 Comments:
My K.U.N gun is a Ruger mini-14. Still legal in anti-gun manic NY state (M16 clones are strictly verboten and can no longer be purchased). Having looked at another man through the sights of a weapon w/ my finger on the trigger, that's a position I never want to be in again (even though the bastard had shot at a quite innocent me - almost blowing my head off). Yet, there is so much hate, angst, divisiveness and just plain violent criminality in the country, I'd feel remiss and stupid if I didn't have the ability to have a fighting chance should that sort of trouble come to my doorstep. I guess there's a lot of fellow citizen that feel the same way. What are ya gonna do? Become a Gandhi type? I refuse to allow myself or a loved one to be slaughtered by some vulgar jerk w/o a fight. So what's the answer other than to go out and get a K.U.N , learn how to use it and then keep it ready; hopefully never to come off the rack in anger?
avedis
Our society regulates dangerous things.
Cars, drugs, chemical, explosives, elevators, bathtubs, stairwells and thermonuclear weapons have varying degrees of regulation. As guns are dangerous things it makes sense to regulate them appropriately. In general, I figure that less guns are better, but recognize that guns do have legitimate uses.
I was pleased to note that my home town had a recent terrorist event which was brought to a conclusion without either the terrorist or the police firing a shot. Rumour has it that the terrorist was too impatient to get all the paperwork done (it can take months) before he could purchase a weapon and that he did not have the contacts to get one illegally.
Ael,
The problems are
1. Defining what is dangerous (guns? automobiles? opioids? cannabis? knives? Rocks? Baseball bats? Model glue? Sex (given venereal diseases)? Speech that might cause friction or unease? My wife's tuna casserole? - who decides?
2. Dangerous to whom? Innocent people minding their own business? Criminals? Oneself? Tyrants? - who decides?
3. Will the regulations work? Will the regulations have unintended undesired consequences? Prohibition comes to mind. Lots of people still drank liquor and, because it was sold on the black market, organized crime gain a powerful foothold on the country.
Before we can try to answer any of those questions we have to define the problem we wish to solve and then put it in perspective for prioritization purposes. Are guns really a terrible scourge? Approximately 9,000 non-suicide/non-justifiable homicides per year committed w/ guns. A fraction of the deaths caused by each opioid abuse and car crashes. An even smaller fraction of the deaths caused by obesity. Outside of crime ridden sections of inner cities the odds of being killed by a person with a gun are utterly miniscule. Should guns really be a priority? What we sacrifice to create stronger legislation against them? There are some 300 million guns in the USA. How could they be taken from citizens? Is making felons out of gun owners w/ the wrong kind of gun and accessories a good thing? Many people criticize the US for having a high incarceration rate. Many of these same people are against guns. Would bad guys turn theirs in? Do we suspend the 4th Amendment and go about warrantless searches of private property in an effort to locate and capture proscribed guns? Do we leave decent citizens at the mercy of violent criminals? Gun control starts to get complicated real fast and the simple memes lose their luster faster than a $5 whore with the 5th fleet on shore liberty.
avedis
Ael,
fine summary.
if i may add.
voting is a very dangerous thing.it is more dangerous than any of my firearms.
i have never used a weapon frivolously , but millions bump stock votes and elect garbage which we call politicians.
i am required to do a background check on any/every gun i purchase, but any ignorant person filled with hate, ignorance or simply paralyzed with the dumb ass can cast a vote without even having a knowledge of the issues.
dumbness can lead to nuclear war.SO MY RIFLE IS MEANINGLESS. it has a range of 360 yards.
so why aren't we concerned with the real threat which is nuclear in nature?. maybe global warming will kill off more than 58 folks.
every time i buy a weapon i laugh at gun regs. example-i must wait 5 days when buying a pistol. this is a cooling off period. people needing cooling off shouldn't have access to weapons.
a scene in no country for old men addressed this point.
the guy needing a pistol just bought a model 1897 shotgun and cut it down to illegal length. the law didn't stop him.
now did it?
jim
AEL.
i MUST add a point about regs and paper work.
they are meaningless.
example kushner has a high security clearance and advises the potus on serious life and death stuff.
wonderful, except it's based on lies,inaccuracies etc...
this single fact makes a joke of the idea of us being a nation of rules and regulations.
handing out security clearances is worse than buying a gun with fudged paper work.
the security clearance is the basis of everything.
We, as a society, decide on what is dangerous and how to regulate that danger in all manner of things. You can't build a building without it meeting various codes and getting things inspected. You can't buy or drive a car without surmounting lots of regulation. Try marketing a new drug, or even selling hot cherry pies and you will hit regulations, inspectors and rules.
Guns are no different. They should be regulated by faceless bureaucrats and statisticians, much like any other dangerous good.
Its only when you get politics, emotions and lobbyists involved that things get deeply messed up.
Sure, whatever rules that are developed won't be perfect. We are constantly improving building codes and other regulated activities. Over time, less people die in firetrap buildings or are deformed by untested medication. With fits and starts things get better.
Again, why should guns be different?
Ael - America, as a society, did decide that. It gave constitutional protections to carrying arms and not to driving a vehicle or marketing a medicine. I don't mean to be flippant here, but that history does make it different.
On Jim's point about paperwork, in my experience the usual purpose of filling out forms is so that whoever receives them can check a box confirming they've done their due diligence. If you are exceedingly unlucky, someone may even read the form once you've filled it out.
Sorry David, regulation is inherent to the second amendment.
As in "A well regulated militia".
It does not give people the right to keep (loaded) weapons where their three year old child can shoot their two year old sister.
Sure. And I assume you're aware that guns are, in fact, regulated in various ways in the United States, both federally and by the states.
But then it also says, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," which is a pretty significant limit on the ability to regulate.
As I say, I don't bring this up to be flippant. This is the constitutional backdrop for any reform you want to make. There's no constitutional clause saying the government has to let me own a car, in contrast.
AEL, I think you will find that "regulated" did not mean to the founders what it means today to big govt types (or generally).
We don't need to apply imagination or psychic powers to understand what the 2A meant to the framers. They spelled it out quite clearly in volumes of letters that we can still read today. The militia meant all abled bodied men. Furthermore, all able bodied men were to have training on and access to the same weapons as the govt. It was meant to be a check against a tyrannical govt. How could they intend the federal or state govt to regulate a militia (as you want the word to mean) if the militia was to protect the people from the govt? They didn't.
The use of the word "regulate" is in keeping with English usage of the time, which included within the meaning of the verb "regulate" the concept of self- regulation or self-control (as it does still to this day). The concept that the people retained the right to self-regulate their local militia groups (or regulate themselves as individual militia members) is entirely consistent with the Framers' use of the indefinite article "a" in the phrase "A well regulated Militia."
I know, I know....the classic response from big govt types is something like, "So, you think that people should have the right to own fully functional tanks and RPGs and F35s"?......well, yes, I do. If they can afford it. In fact private citizens DO own all of those things and more, legally.
But the people need to be 'well regulated" - meaning they need to take firearms safety and marksmanship classes beginning in 1st grade and all the way through high school.
avedis
Avedis
On the other hand, the government no longer believes in the Second Amendment anyways and I'm not sure how many of the people do, either.
Instead people seem to believe that the "security of a free state" is better protected by having a very large professional army. It's certainly more useful when you define state security as the ability to invade foreign countries at a moment's notice. Militias wouldn't be very good at that.
David,
I don't think the govt or a lot of people believe in any of the amendments or the Constitution at all; except once in a while, for show, when it can be twisted to support gaining some temporary tactical victory over political opponents.
The Constitution demands that the people be relatively tough, independent, educated, self-sufficient and somewhat wise and, especially, freedom loving. Modern society has eliminated these traits from far to many citizens. Far easier to just be coddled by bureaucrats that promise the impossible.
As far as the big standing professional Army goes, I think a lot of people - especially the anti-gun crowd - would be in for a big surprise should it ever come down to the military becoming involved in ensuring domestic tranquility. Combat arms tends to be populated by people with very conservative outlooks. If it comes down to taking sides, well, let's just saythey aint gonna get cozy with nancy Pelosi, schumer or Maxine waters.
avedis
Avedis
I am no legal scholar but I think "well regulated" means regulated in order to be effective, not government regulations on guns.
I have studied my history on both sides of the border. Washington was a British war vet. He wasn't the only one. They were well aware that once you give a government a standing army, sooner or later it will be tempted to use it, whether at home or abroad.
You've shared this theory about the military before. I would hope that the military would refuse to participate in domestic law and order, period. I'm pretty sure it's illegal, and even if it isn't, it's clearly against the philosophy behind the constitution. That said, your veiled threats that the military would choose sides politically is precisely why standing militaries are a problem. I don't trust them.
Not that it's an entirely new thing. It didn't take them long before they realized you can't do anything fun, like invade Canada, without a military that will reliably follow orders. Now America has an empire it doesn't call an empire and every year moves a little bit closer to having an emperor that it won't call an emperor.
David,
IMO, you are exactly correct about the intent of the C and it's language in the 2A.
Not a veiled threat, really. Just a response to the often heard argument that the original intent of the 2A is antiquated b/c a bunch of citizens with small arms couldn't take on the military. I believe that a sizeable and key portion of the military would be right there along side the citizens, w/ their weapons and training.
avedis
Avedis,
i interpret the word regulated in 2a as meaning the militia should have weapons that are fit for community defense and of a common variety.
we shld also remember that guns are not the only thing regulated. doesn't the 2a say arms which includes swords/sabers/switchblades etc.
remember concord and lexington was about the brits trying to seize the local militias arms and munitions.
the colonists didn't like that.
hence i served in the us army.
my sticking point is that i carried and used AW's for the govt/army , and now i'm supposed to forget my training and be a mouse.
jim
AEL,
why would i need a weapon/firearm if i couldn't keep it loaded and ready to fire?
have u heard of home invasions?
when they hit they do so in seconds and from alternate entryways.
it's a classic raid, the same as LE would execute.
if you can't get to a weapon then u r toast.
my county has drug gangs and south georgia druggies come to Tally fl to conduct business.
i see drug deals every frigging day of the week when i drive thru town. i'm not hallucinating.
i'm a firm believer that my white life does matter.
jim
David,
i stopped playing army in 1989/90 timeframe.
at that time 52% of the army combat power was in the reserve force structure.
that's why bwe had so many large scale mob exercises.
that's also why the gulf war and pwot were so screwed.example=corps level mp units of epw variety were not available to do pow stuff. hence idiots like janice karpinsky commanded prisons.
btw prisons are not supposed to be used for pow's. since they are not criminals, but rather combatants.
even sof was in the reserve force structure.
in gw 1 marine reservists from Tally(the usmc 800th tank bn) using old line m60 tanks actually killed as many iraqi tanks as did us army and Usmc abrams units did.
i mention this to your comment.
jim
David,
wasn't the 1st use of the army after the revolution against us citizens?
the whisky rebellion. if memory serves a few people were hung.this was shays rebellion and it was over whiskey and what else? taxes on whiskey.
the joke of it is that geo. w was a big time whisky maker.
i think mad anthony wayne carried out this event. this was before he started decimating the indians.
just an aside.theres a place called fort necessity outside of uniontown pa. look at the topography and look where they(british) put the fort.
yep u guessed right. they put it in the valley. like a little dien bien phu.so much for Geo W's skills as a defensive fighter.
jim
David,
posee comitatus is not in the constitution, but was passed after the CW to keep carpet bagging yankees from using the army to screw the southern whites.
its a rather useless laws b/c u can drive trucks thru the exceptions.for example US army delta troops were pulling triggers ate waco.
jim
Jim,
George W. was also a hemp grower and there is evidence that it wasn't just for rope.
In Switzerland they have something like a blend of the founder's vision of militia + official reserve forces. Citizens are required to maintain a full auto assault weapon at home. They don't seem to have any problems with mass murder. Ditto Israel who's only mass murders come from a declared enemy. Obviously mil type weapons in private hands do not necessary = mass shooting or even basic homicide.
The desire to gun down large numbers of fellow citizens is uniquely American in the western world. It happens frequently in third world places, though. In the US such events are typically occurring in democrat urban centers and by democrats. What does that say about US urban centers and democrats? ;-) I jest (somewhat)...but, seriously, we need to take the focus off the gun and put it on the people carrying out these crimes. Are our cities the equivalent of third world Mad Max pissholes? Jim sees gangs making drug deals. I see them when I go to the city. I mentioned that they are now coming down here out in the country. 40 years ago Detroit was a war zone and it still is. Why do we tolerate these situations within our country (the greatest country on earth/shining beacon, etc)?
avedis
Jim
Yes, I know about Shays rebellion and I know about the Jumonville affair. Either they were not being very honest about their intentions in the constitution, or more likely, like most revolutionaries, once they got down to the actual business of running the country they found that principles can be very, shall we say, flexible things.
I realize the posse comitatus act is later, but I still believe they would have agreed with me that if you give the central government a professional standing army, it's going to be tempted to use it, either against the people or to get entangled abroad. The militia is supposed to make this harder.
Maybe it doesn't do as good a job of that as it used to, but in the War of 1812, for instance, the inability to get New England militias to do what was asked of them crippled the war effort. Apparently they weren't interested in risking their lives to rescue a bunch of French peasants in Canada from British oppression.
Bad for American national security policy, I suppose. It could have been a harsh lesson that militias can't be used for foreign adventures, but instead it seems to have just confirmed that the original ideas weren't going to work out. Nowadays it would be unthinkable for the National Guard to refuse to deploy, I would think.
Thank you for educating me on their roles in the two Iraq wars.
Avedis
Everything you are describing about the sources of gun violence in America sounds like symptoms of a failing state.
I see the rise in gun culture as part of the same gradual, grinding, ongoing collapse of the nation that gave you the recent surge in identity politics. As people sense the nation falling apart they turn to other groups that make them feel safer and more stable. In Afghanistan, obviously, that's tribes etc. In America it's identity politics. And of course the other way to feel safe is to have guns.
Given that there is high levels of gun ownership, there should be a model of responsible use of weapons. You don't have to go to Switzerland for this, although you could. Switzerland has just managed to maintain the militia model that used to be everywhere in Western society, including America. The "well-regulated militia" in the Second Amendment wasn't a standalone force. It was every able-bodied adult male who wanted to serve.
I don't think any nation in Western civilization that doesn't have national service today has enough of a sense of national unity left to be able to get that kind of thing going again, though, and even if they did, the professional military would probably be given charge of it and would corrupt the purpose of it.
And passing some more regulations on private gun ownership, apart from being possibly unconstitutional, is a bandaid that misses the root causes too, if I'm right in my thinking there.
David,
I agree. It's weird in America these days. I did more traveling for work and for personal reasons than usual this year. Normally I just go to the East coast (CT), but this year I went to some other states Colorado being just one; AZ another. I drove across PA to get to NJ also. I also went back to Detroit for the first time in many years; taking my time driving through Ohio to get there. What I see is that there are some parts of the US that are doing really well. Yet others that are not.
The parts that are doing well are as unpatriotic as the ones that are doing poorly. The wealthy sections seem to be very liberal. They are very much globalists and think that national borders and identity are antiquated concepts for the ignorant rubes. They think military service is also for ignorant rubes. In failed sections, where you have minorities, there is a hatred of the dominant culture and the idea that America is an unjust corrupt racist system that should be dismantled. The Hispanics in my old stomping grounds in AZ want to conquer the SW for themselves. They want the gringos to be gone. The blacks in Detroit are living a tribal third world existence. I drove through sections that could be Mogadishu. You only find traditional America and a sense of cohesion as "Americans" in rural and industrial areas populated by whites of middle and working class.
This is why I think civil war is inevitable and why I sometimes make the statement as to what side the military would join. IMO, they will be with the middle and working class whites b/c that is where they come from. Also why I think gun ownership is critical beyond the 2A, hunting, etc.
You could say that the disaffected poor and minorities are anti-American b/c they have been excluded by systemic this or that, but I don't accept that. There is no good reason to trash your own neighborhood and shoot up your neighbors. There is no good reason to not embrace the ample opportunities for education and self-improvement. IMO, the reason is reverse racism. They hate whites and, unfortunately for them, white culture = successful modern culture. So if you reject white culture you reject success. As for the well-off, they are doing so well that they are soft and spoiled and are living in a fantasy bubble. They take too much for granted. That and social sciencey liberal arts education.
avedis
If the military decides to disobey the government and then begins shooting American citizens on its own initiative, then America as a nation is already over, regardless of which side they pick. Jim reminded me of this when we had our last conversation about this in the fall and he was right then and right now.
The United States is ten times as large as it was when the Civil War started. I'm not sure what you're imagining happening, but if the central government really does fall apart, it won't be the west versus the north or flyover country versus the coastal elites. It will be complete anarchy, tens of millions of people will die, and God alone knows what will happen to the nuclear weapons stockpiles. The coastal regions would try to all partition off as independent city-states.
I really hope you're wrong because there would be no going back from what you're describing, especially after the military begins shooting your own people. However, I can't argue with the fact that unchecked social decay will lead to something incredibly ugly eventually. This is what worries me about the signals of a failing state.
Sorry, I mean south versus the north. Anyhow, you take my point, I think.
I have become disisusoned with Hollywood they appear on phonie programs like DEMAND A PLAN with all their mindless pleading and whining while making mvies with gun violence in them Matt Damon Jim Carrey Etc HYPOTCRITES maybe they need to look up that word
Post a Comment
<< Home