Another idiotic college paper gun control article, disguised as objectivity

[DRZinn]

I don't have time to critique all the logical and philosophical failings of every gun control article I see. I'd be doing nothing but.

But now it's my own college paper that did it, and it's got a twist: They published a full-page pro/con type article on gun control, in which both sides were for MORE control.
Here's the "Pro" side:

http://www.thedailyaztec.com/media/storage/paper741/news/2006/05/10/Opinion/Gun-Control.Compromise.Will.Help.Solve.The.Current.Weapon.Problem-1923894.shtml?norewrite200605101548&sourcedomain=www.thedailyaztec.com

And here's the "Con":

http://media.www.thedailyaztec.com/media/storage/paper741/news/2006/05/10/Opinion/Gun-Control.Arms.Owner.Calls.For.More.Government.Regulation-1923890.shtml?sourcedomain=www.thedailyaztec.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com

Not much dfference. Same lament abiyut how easy it is to get a gun, same calls for "compromise" (Meaning you give up even more of your rights and we'll take a little less than we want to take, this time.) really disgusting stuff.

 

[Autolycus]

I really didnt see any difference in opinion. Just one came out and said she openly felt a need for more laws. The other just said we should find a reasonable compromise and that the NRA was bad. I know how it is to be surrounded by Jackasses. I am at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois and everywhere I go I see drunken jackasses. These same jackasses start fights on my street, I watched one choke his girlfriend (Me and My HK intervened!), and I watch them throw a keg at telephone poles. They are also responsible for a bowling game where you use empty beer bottles as pins. They play this on public sidewalks and do not clean up the broken glass. I am tired of living here and not being able to legally carry. I dont like to leave my house because of the frat kids living next door. 3 nights aweek they have parties and cause trouble. I am hopefully tansfering to a more gun friendly place real soon. Perhaps you might do the same.

 

[boofus]

The daily aztec is a good name for that paper.

They're extinct, which is the way the liberalstream media is heading. Not even the old gray whore of media is doing well because the American public finally is onto those propagandists and their agendas.

In a recent poll Congress has a 22% approval rating and people trust congress more than they do the media.

 

[Creeping Incrementalism]

Pro vs. Con?

This isn't pro versus con--I don't even see it presented that way. It's just two opinions on gun control, and both for more of it while pretending to be pro-RKBA.

DocZinn, it looks like this paper will only publish the letters of attending students--do you think you could write a rebuttal? Or maybe we could put forth a letter here for you to send in.

 

[Chrontius]

"Compromise"

Haven't some nebulous 'we' been compromising since the thirties? What have we gotten in return?

 

[DRZinn]

I've sent in several well-written rebuttals of this type of idiocy, and none ever got published.

Still, if someone else wants to put one together, I'll send it in.

Keep in mind that letters that do get printed only rate about 2-3 column inches, so you have to be concise (I know, there's too much to rebut, but stick to one point). Also, they edit for space, and probably for content, 'though they'd never admit it. IOW, if there's one "from my cold dead hands," that's what'll get printed, if anything, and to the exclusion of the greater context.

 

[mordechaianiliewicz]

This was silly. It was basically a moderate more controls speech on both levels. Neither side was all that demonstrably pro or anti and these people need work if they plan to do pro/anti articles and do this with other topics.

 

[DRZinn]

The real danger is that the average ignorant student will look at it as a pro/con piece, and think that the "gun owner" side must represent mainstream gun owners.

 

[jerkyman45]

I happen to like the saying "you can take my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers" and i think most gun owners believe in it, I've yet to meet a gun owner that says "sure the government can take my guns and i dont really care". i think both articles are crap of the same color.

 

[DRZinn]

I like the saying too; it encapsulates the idea that rights are not to be compromised. But in debate it gets us nowhere.

 

[crazed_ss]

Hmmm.. when I finish up some more easy classes at Community College down in Chula Vista, I plan on transferring to SDSU. I'm thinking about doing political science or criminal justice.

I wonder if they'll let me write columns.

 

[Autolycus]

Its harder than you think to get published in a school newspaper. I have wrote my own many times and nothing comes of it. I am tired of reading crap all the time. Especially when they try to pass it off as fact. Unfortunately the only way you really get printed is if you come off as an extremist on their side that looks like an ACTIVIST or you come off as an extremist and look like a NUTCASE. Often they will print the arguments of people who support them about what ever thing is bothering there little liberal minds at that moment.

But when it comes to guns.... Forget About It

 

[vito]

You need to understand that most college students are YOUNG, have limited life experience, and therefore naively believe that the government is the answer to all problems. They are ignorant of the stupidity, ineffectiveness and abuse of government power, they only see the idealized goals of government programs and agencies. As such, they think that to solve the "problem" of gun violence, the government should take charge, i.e., gun control. And this type of thinking doesn't end when they leave their academic ivory tower. It often takes years of maturity and observation to realize that the government is often part of the problem and rarely is the solution. Winston Churchill stated (this is not an exact quote) "If you are not a liberal at 20 you have no heart, and if you are not a conservative by age 40 you have no brain". One of the few arguements with young liberal idealists that I have used, that actually sometimes gets through to them, is asking how, if all of the current gun laws failed to stop criminal misuse of guns, would more laws that only disarm the law abiding citizen, possibly help reduce the problem?