RANT: Potential "Wolf in sheeps clothing..."

[Berek]

I recently visited a site called "Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Inc." and was amused by what I saw... http://www.floridaguncontrol.org/

On the opening page, it says:
"Our Policy on Gun Ownership: We support the right of gun ownership, as long as that right does not violate current law. We are not opposed to the legal use of firearms for sport or self defense."

And:

"Mission Statement: To lobby for sensible restrictions on firearms with the goal of preventing firearms from falling into the wrong hands. To provide our schools and communities with gun violence prevention programs."

Top this with a list of "factoids" citing statistics about how many murders were commited with guns, what kinds and how much more likely someone is to get murdered in a house with guns than one without and it seems to become a poor attempt to cleverly disguise an anti-gun organization.

Where are the other statistics? The ones citing illegal purchases of a firearm. The ones showing the alternate facts of the rise in violent attacks and murders in countries that have banned or significantly restricted gun ownership (i.e. UK and Australia).

What about the breakdown of the data with the factoid? (i.e. "Each year an estimated 500,000 people die world-wide from small arms. Source: The World Health Organization (2002). World Report on Violence and Health. October 2, 2002.") How many of those occur in this country compared to others?

I admit having statistics to prove one's point is great, but show the flip side. Show the break down comparison. It is almost like the anti-hunter quoting the safety statics where, in 1998, there were 880 hunting injuries without stating the number represents the entire country and it was 880 out of 14,750,000 or 0.0597% of the participants. Unlike Bicycling which had 544,561 injuries out of 45,100,000 or 1.21% of the participants.

As with anything, show the whole picture or show nothing. I don't know who said it, but it still holds true that "A lie of omission is still a lie."

Rant, rant, rant, I'm done...

Berek

PS: The safety statistics were taken from the 10th edition of the "Hunter Education: Northeast Region Manual", page 9.

 

[GunnySkox]

You mean, an antigun group is.. gasp ANTIGUN?

Astonishing.

Just ripping on you, I can understand the seething, I hate disingenuous people, too.

~GnSx

 

[Ryder]

Sensible gun restrictions?

Freedom sounds sensible to me.

What I want to see restricted are these would-be usurpers of our rights.

 

[mnrivrat]

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence,

Whenever you see the " Gun violence " thingy you know that it is an anti gun agenda .

 

[Spot77]

Absolutely, otherwise they'd be named, "The Florida Coalition to Stop Violence."

 

[secamp32]

Those darn guns!

No matter how many locks I put on them they go off and commit violence without me. Just the other day I found the glock (a terrorist gun) in the garage mixing diesel and peat moss (I guess we didn't have any fertilizer). We really need to do something about all this GUN VIOLENCE

 

[Standing Wolf]

I recently visited a site called "Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Inc."

If you don't want to have to clean muck off your shoes, stay out of the gutters.

 

[mitchshrader]

have any of you decided yet

that *possibly* anti-gun rabblerousers are hypocrites and in it for the popularity and power of pushing around folks?

that just MAYBE there are a few 'leaders' who aren't concerned in any way with gun violence, but concerned in a most emphatic way with manipulating their audience?

i don't find enough intelligent discussion from anti-gun folks to arrive at any other conclusion. they can't ALL be brain dead.

malice is easier to believe than 100% self induced gullibility. kinda remind me of televangelists in fact..

always a bit toward the end of the sermon about 'send money to'..

 

[Smokey Joe]

Leaders and would-be leaders

Mitchshrader--Sure! There are some people who just need to lead; they don't much care who they lead nor to where, as long as they are at the head of the parade.

I'm certain that some of these types are in the anti-firearms movement, as it is currently PC and popular--at least to some people. All the would-be leaders have to do is to make the right noises, and bingo, they have a following.

Next year or the year after, it'll be animal cruelty, or genocide in Rwanda, or compulsory use of bicycle helmets, doesn't much matter what the parade wants nor where it is going, as long as there IS a parade, and I am at the head.

 

[Berek]

Maybe we should start a Coalition Against Anti-Gun Coalitions Coalition. (I love repetative redundancy)

Berek

 

[kirkcdl]

Mitch,all the ones that aren't brain dead become shooters,leaving...well,it's kind of a Darwin thing in reverse...

 

[beaucoup ammo]

"When Guns Are Otlawed..", "Pry From My Cold, Dead.."

While it's a few years old, read this and wait for the next anti-gun to start babbling..you will be well armed!

"The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy" communicates a message similar to the above bumper-sticker slogans, but does so by way of a painstakingly researched, thoroughly indexed and evenly argued piece of scholarship. This is must read stuff for all of us PRO GUN PEOPLE! This reviewer (see below) ordered The Samurai... from a catalog, not having seen it on bookstore shelves. The book is an important work in light of the recently passed crime bill and the seeming change in American public attitudes regarding gun control legislation. It is a shame that the calibre of careful explanation and advocacy shown in The Samurai... is not more broadly available to the reading public.

As it stands, argumentation in the American gun debate tends to fall into sloganeering and the misleading presentation of aggregate crime statistics. Some persons who favor the adoption of stricter gun control measures will consider this book a danger. Others might have their opinions changed by it. None will take it as a sloppy or deceptive effort. The introduction alone--two pages of text supported by four pages of references--provides the student of the gun control debate, whatever his or her leanings on the subject, with an invaluable set of citations. If you have a friend who likes to read and likes to debate gun control, this book is the right gift.

Author David Kopel begins by stating a piece of reasoning adopted by virtually every advocate for strong American gun control laws:

1. The United States is the only modern democracy that does not impose strict gun controls.
2. The United States suffers a much higher crime rate than those democracies that impose strict gun controls.
3. Therefore, adopting strict gun controls like other democracies would lower the American crime rate.

Kopel describes selected foreign gun cultures (Japan, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Switzerland) and analyzes aspects of America's gun history to describe how the American experience compares to that of other nations. Throughout his comparisons, Kopel argues against the suitability and practicability of gun control legislation in the United States. A few representative passages from the international comparisons--


"America experienced falling crime and homicide rates in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1980s, all periods during which per capita gun ownership, especially handgun ownership, rose."

..."Japan's gun control does play an important role in low Japanese crime rate, but not because of some simple relation between numbers of guns and levels of crime. Japan's gun control is one inseparable part of a vast mosaic of social control. Gun control underscores the pervasive cultural theme that the individual is subordinate to society and to the government. The same theme is reflected in the absence of protection against searches and prosecutions. The Japanese police are the most powerful on earth, partly because of the lack of legal restraints and particularly because of their social authority."

..."America's non-gun crime rate is over seventy times Japan's, an indication that something more significant than gun policy is involved in the differing crime rates between our two nations."

"British gun controls are strict, and British violent crime rates are low. Many Americans assume that these two facts are causally linked; however, there is little evidence that they are. British gun control has historically been concerned with political subversion, not with ordinary crime. Britain's years of lowest gun crime came during an era when gun controls were nonexistent. Increasingly stringent gun controls have been followed by increasing gun crime (although again there is no strong proof of a causal effect)."

"Regarding handguns, the contrast between America and Canada is profound. The RCMP estimated the pre-1978 pool of illegal handguns in Canada to be about 50,000; even if this figure is too low by a factor of ten, it is minuscule compared with America's illegal gun stock. In New York City alone, conservative estimates put the number of illegal handguns at over 700,000."

Beyond the comparisons between the histories of gun control legislation and their effectiveness in other countries, the author considers the American gun culture in depth. Subjects touched on include, among many others--the militia, race and ethnic relations, migration, urbanization, and the differences between gun-control and broader social controls. Kopel's style is not emotionless. The reader leaves the book with no doubt about how the author feels about the issue.

"America places more faith in its citizens than do other countries. The first words of America's national existence, the Declaration of Independence, assert a natural right to overthrow a tyrant by force. In the rest of the world the armed masses symbolize lawlessness; in America the armed masses are the law."

Kopel concludes, after arguing exhaustively that the gun control strategies of other countries are culturally unsuitable in America (and that they anyway could not be implemented given the vast numbers of guns and deep feeling about ownership) that America's only reasonable gun strategy is the promotion of responsible gun ownership.

To the readers of Low Intensity and Law Enforcement, David Kopel's "The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy" poses a broader question. The topic of gun control is rarely considered in the international military context. The issue is not debated in professional military literature as a military or foreign policy concern. It should be. Success in pacification, in restoring order to places where a military intervention and occupation has been deemed necessary, may at times depend not on securing weapons from the citizens, but on empowering citizens to achieve security by managing the use of weapons themselves.(Sound Familier?) The Samurai provides a discussion of foreign experiences with gun control that suggests important answers about the relationship of gun control measures to overall social control and to internal violence. The most impressive possibility is that responsible gun ownership may be a more important ingredient than the restriction of private gun ownership in achieving social peace or the promotion of liberty.

Reviewed by LTC Geoffrey Demarest
US Army

As Joe Foss told me once:"gun control just goes against the American Grain." Period and Amen.

Take Care