GUN SHY

[beevul]

GUN SHY

Has it become elitist to support firearms restrictions?
by Lyndsey Teter / May 29, 2008

From that foundation, Strickland has supported gun rights in a way a lot of other Democrats haven’t—before it was trendy.

Part of that reluctance, at least recently, may stem from a Democratic governor. For the first time in recent history, Ohio is run by a guy who gets really good grades from the NRA.

Strickland may have had his finger on the pulse of the common man back in 1994. During his first term in Congress, Strickland voted against President Clinton’s Brady Bill and assault weapons ban while most of his Democratic colleagues in the Congress supported it. That November, Republicans swept out the congressional Democrats—including Strickland himself, who won his seat back two years later.

As a result, Strickland said, “Nationally there is a greater tolerance for rights of gun owners within the party.”

“There has been a recognition nationally that the party’s stance on gun control was polarizing and it was damaging the ability of the Democratic party to exercise leadership on things like health care, education and the environment,” the governor said.


http://www.theotherpaper.com/top5-29/coverstory.htm

Another Democrat who holds office that understands the issue.

Well done, and keep it up Governor Strickland!! :thumbsup:

[TPaine7]

1. Has it become elitist to support firearms restrictions?

This is one of the sillier rhetorical questions I've read.

It makes me want to inquire about Lyndsey Teter's health after exiting the time capsule.

[SlipperySlope]

2. It hasn't "become", it always WAS.

Gun control started with trying to keep firearms out of the hands of blacks.

It was rascist and elitist from the moment of conception, and only went downhill from there.

How could anybody look at a policy that says "no, citizens, we don't trust you with guns" and not see the ugliness.

[sharesunited]

3. The ugliness is being able to end people so conveniently on a whim.

[rdenney]

4. Yeap! One pull on the trigger and a person falls dead or maimed. Makes killing too easy.

[bossy22]

5. i think in certain situations

it would be easier with a car......better chance of contact with a car than a bullet

[TPaine7]

7. If someone was trying to harm you or your loved ones

and you had to stop them (with a distinct possibility of killing them), how hard would you want your task to be?

Would you want want your odds of success to be the same odds you would have shooting a basketball from half court? A free throw? A layup?

Personally, I'd go with dropping the ball in from less than an inch above the rim, while standing on a ladder, but that's just me.

Scratch that. I'd go with guiding the ball by hand all the way through the hoop.

Nothing sporting about it.

[sharesunited]

9. Is that how easy you want it to be for someone who wants to end YOU?

Or who doesn't really care who he ends as long as it's as many as possible?

[TPaine7]

17. Let's see. . .

Is that how easy you want it to be for someone who wants to end YOU?

Absolutely. As long as they are sane, and have no violent criminal record. It already is almost this easy for some people who have violent criminal records. When I am about to cross the street and someone waves me across (or I cross at a cross walk) I am at their mercy. Sometimes this happens at a deserted crossing, with no witnesses. Flooring the accelerator at the right second takes little skill.

I do, however, believe that violent felons being stripped of their right to arms is both just and constitutional, just like stripping them of their right to liberty--one of the inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. (The duration of the terms of punishment--imprisonment and loss of the right to arms--need not coincide.)

Or who doesn't really care who he ends as long as it's as many as possible?

I walk on busy sidewalks while people drive by, sometimes at high speed. I am aware that they could jump the curb and kill indiscriminately. I am aware that it is very easy. I am not disturbed by that knowledge. Are you?

[beevul]

21. What a silly thing to ask...

What a silly and Naive thing to ask, or say:

"Is that how easy you want it to be for someone who wants to end YOU?"


What makes you think that anyone other than someone who is protected by the secret service has any real and true and large degree of control what-so-ever of how easy it will be when someone decides to end another human being, where laws that are aimed at controlling that sort of thing are concerned?


Theres only so much that laws and rules can do.

[krispos42]

27. No, that's why we have laws against criminals buying and possessing guns

And why we throw so many in jail for doing so.

And why we add on penalties for crimes committed with guns.

I want unarmed criminals staring down the barrel of MY gun, thank you very much.

[iverglas]

31. and they work SO well

There are those hereabouts who are fond of quoting that definition of insanity ...

When something obviously doesn't work, do more of it. Don't ever bother thinking about different things to do that might work better.

[krispos42]

36. I think both sides can play with your last sentence

So I don't think I need to go there.



I will note that the advent of "three-strikes-and-your're-out" laws in several states including California seemed to help during the 90's.



We know that sticking to our liberal guns (so to speak) and tackling things like poverty and globalization and corporatism and education and health care does work towards improving the country and achieving the goal of reducing violence and crime. The 25-year nightmare of Reaganomics we know does NOT work, and it's time to dump it.

[maxidivine]

34. If you find yourself in a fair fight...

your tactics suck

[krispos42]

26. "Makes killing too easy."

Depending on circumstances, it can be a good thing or a bad thing.

I do know this: between 1990 and 2000 the US homicide rate plummetted 40% with virtually no change in the numbers, types, capacities, or calibers of firearms in this country.

[maxidivine]

35. Chalk it up to .40 S&W!

Those years coincide quite handily with the introduction and rise of the .40 S&W, maybe it was the .40 which lowered our homicide rate?

[krispos42]

37. And "Seinfeld"

Can't forget "Seinfeld"

:rofl:

[maxidivine]

38. Why not?

Could even have had something to do with the Simpsons!

No but really it is all because of the Brady bill and the Clinton AWB, those two bills saved probably three hundred thousand american lives between 1990 and 2000.

[krispos42]

39. And the Internetz

All that free online porn distracted everybody. Kept'em too busy fondling their privates to handle their shiny metal penises!

[maxidivine]

40. Clearly! God bless the internet!

[bossy22]

6. almost every adult has something which can do that

its called an automobile....which people need to start realizing can be a deadly weapon and requires responsibility to operate- one of the reasons why our automobile death rate is so high- especially among teens

though then again ive always been for a minimum driving age of 25...i think we could save thousands of lives if adults under the age of 25 couldnt even get behind a wheel of an automobile-

[TPaine7]

8. Their rebuttal would be strong . . . (n/t)

I am old enough to die for you, America--you even have a mechanism to force me to--but I'm not responsible enough to drive?

[iverglas]

20. if anyone were talking about "responsibility"

its called an automobile....which people need to start realizing can be a deadly weapon and requires responsibility to operate


you might have some kind of point.

It isn't "irresponsible" to aim a firearm at someone and shoot him/her dead. It's intentional homicide.

Too bad so few people actually aim a motor vehicle at someone and step on the gas, or you folks might have some kind of point.

[TPaine7]

41. What kind of person thinks it's "too bad"

that more people don't attempt homicide?!

[enfield collector]

10. yup, the gun grabbers never want to admit to the racist roots

of gun control. the KKK sure didn't want anyone in the congregation shooting back at them as they torched a black church.

[rdenney]

11. Which has nothing to do with modern gun control laws.

sorry but if it was a perfect world the first Americans would have freed the African American slaves and offered the native Americans assets for thier lands too. But they didnt, did they?

[SteveM]

12. Respectfully, let me correct this notion...

Please see: www.georgiacarry.org

and scroll down 2-3 pages until you get to the brief the organization submitted in the Heller case, pending before the SCOTUS. In this rather nice read you will see the history of gun-control laws from ante-bellum times, through the Jim Crow era, and into the "industrial" era (well into the 20th Century). You will note the comments of one gun-controller upon the passage of the 1968 gun-control act in which he says that the measure was designed to control access of gun by blacks, but that supporters of the act were "ashamed" to admit it. You may also note that much of the "modern" argument for gun-control rests upon the "precedents" of Southern state law. Further, there is ample record showing how Southern state militias were called out to enforce not only a particular state's laws, but to punish on-the-spot those "breaking" Jim-Crow gun laws. This was particularly evident during the Atlanta riots in the early part of the 20th Century. Of note: Florida's Jim Crow gun laws were upheld as late as the 1940s.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TPaine7]

18. Laws agains rape were not written. . .

in order to persecute blacks. Legitimate laws were perverted to that end.

Laws against carrying weapons were written to persecute blacks. The laws were illegitimate when written, being unconstitutional. They were not ordinarily applied to white men. None of this can be said about laws against rape, which date to long before guns were invented.

Nice sophistry.

:rofl:

[iverglas]

19. learn your history, little fella

Laws against rape were written to protect men's property interest in their wives and daughters: to ensure that they passed their property to their own male heirs and not some cuckoo's, and to ensure that their daughters were marketable to men who wished to pass their property to their own male heirs.

Laws against rape had nothing to do with protecting women from anything at their inception and well forward in history, and they very certainly were not used to protect women.

Seriously. Learn some real history, eh?

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

23. reasoning by analogy ...

the sign of mature intellect ...


I'm not talking about "blacks", my dear little fella.

What we have here is an analogy. It's about how laws that originated in a desire to oppress and subjugate may have their counterpart in similar-looking laws designed to protect.

Laws against rape were initially part of a system designed to oppress and subjugate women. Those laws did not protect women. Women in whom no man had an interest were raped at will. Men who raped women who had a property value to men were punished solely because of their interference in another man's property interests.

Laws that protected men's property interests in women oppressed women. Women were unable to engage in sexual activities of their own choice because of the possibility that their male partners would be prosecuted for rape, even where the women had consented. Either the woman's consent would be ignored in order that the husband's/father's property interest could be asserted and protected, or she would have to claim non-consent to save her own life, since as property of her husband/father she was not entitled to choose her own sexual partners and could be harmed or killed with impunity.

Heard of "honour killings", have you then?


This is WHY it was possible to use laws that looked like they were written to protect women as a weapon for racists to use against black men in the US. The laws were in fact written to provide for punishment of ANY man who interfered in another man's interests in a woman, and used for that purpose, so they just happened to come in quite handy for persecuting black men who interfered in the property interests of white men in their women.

The laws were, at their inception, MISOGYNIST. They were written in order to control WOMEN. And yet you don't actually hear large numbers of women calling for laws against sexual assault to be repealed today.


Funny thing. You don't actually hear large numbers of African-Americans calling for firearms control measures to be repealed today, either.

And I just have to wonder how someone like you would explain the firearms control measures adopted in, oh, Canada, where your Jim Crow stuff just doesn't come into it.

One would think the USofA was the centre of the universe, to hear some people.

[TPaine7]

24. Ancient isn't the same thing as mature.

And please don't call me dear. It gives me the creeps.

I know you weren't talking about blacks, you were feebly attempting to change the subject. Now you are trying to justify your prior misdirection. None of it worked.

Your sophistry was exposed. The rest is bovine scatology.

[iverglas]

25. do acquire a dictionary

You have the right to keep and bear informational works, you know.

"Scatology" is the study of shit, not shit. As anyone with a minimal knowledge of the Greek etymology of English words would be able to tell.

Here. You don't even need a book. Google will suffice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatology


Now ... mind you ... you are actually quite correct. Examining your posts is scatology, precisely.

[TPaine7]

28. More misdirection?

I know what the word means, it's obvious. I knew long before you looked it up to tell me. The suffix "ology" means science or study of, as in biology or theology. I picked up the use of the term bovine scatology long ago.

I'll try to explain it so even you understand. Your posts are exercises in the science of bullshit. You are a "scholar" in the field. Clear enough?

Probably not, but it will have to do.

(Oh, and your sophistries, evasions, and other silly tactics are still bovine scatology--exercises in the science of bullshit.)

[SteveM]

29. Were gun laws in the old South aimed at racial discrimination? (nt)

[iverglas]

30. in case the answer really isn't clear to you yet

Were gun laws in the old South aimed at racial discrimination?

-- and I shall assume you mean something along the lines of "were gun laws in the old South designed to maintain racial inequality" --

the answer is:

WHO THE FUCK CARES?

[SteveM]

32. You don't care if gun laws in the South were designed to maintain racial inequality.

Got it.

[iverglas]

33. You got it.

Oops. You beat me to it.

Do you care that under the Poor Law in 18th century England families could be separated and sent back to their parishes of origin if they were burdens on the public?

I didn't think so. And yet thousands of people suffered because of the way the poor were treated under those laws, which provided for how relief was to be doled out to the hungry. Possibly even ancestors of yours; definitely ancestors of mine.

Hasn't yet suggested to me that I should oppose welfare legislation today.

Any more than centuries of efforts to control and oppress and subjugate women by making laws governing their sexual choices have suggested to me that I should oppose legislation against sexual assault today.

And no more than the alleged use of firearms control legislation to perpetuate racial inequality decades ago in the USofA has ever suggested to me that I should oppose legislation to regulate access to firearms today.

If you want to say that I advocate racist public policy, you really need to spit out the mealies and say it.

If you don't, then you need to pull your head out of the muck of previous centuries and address matters in this one instead of attempting to smear muck on people who disagree with you without having the integrity to state your claim.

[enfield collector]

13. WTF?

[benEzra]

14. The conservative roots of U.S. gun control...

The Conservative Roots of U.S. Gun Control

Until very recently, most U.S. gun-control laws originated as attempts to keep guns out of the hands of immigrants (in the Northeast) and people of color (in the South and West). That is why the Southern states tended to have stricter gun control than the rest of the nation until the last couple of decades.

Here in NC, your (usually white) sheriff can STILL deny you the right to purchase a handgun if he personally deems you "not of good moral character." Guess what that meant in 1955 in the Jim Crow South--which was, of course, the intent. Only white people had "good moral character".

[WWFZD]

15. He is an excellent governor

Because of his strong support of 2A rights, and the GOP turning increasingly corrupt and authoritarian, I proudly voted for and support him. And I used to vote predominantly for Republicans, along libertarian lines.

He will keep up the good work. I wish he'd straighten Mayor Coleman out. An otherwise fine mayor who truly doesn't get it. "The mayor has said many times that there are no deer at Broad and High.” Thanks a lot mayor for that AWB you championed, did nothing about crime but did cause the city to lose a huge NRA convention.