Saturday, July 5, 2014

Liberating "Common Sense" from the custody of the Gun Control Cabal

It is no surprise to anyone engaging in critical thinking on the debate over firearms and the 2nd Amendment, that the gun control lobby consistently fails anytime they attempt to promulgate their anti-liberty agenda. This is why their predominate strategy consists of appeals to emotion. While we're winning the factual and logical aspect of the debate hands down.....we now need to decrease their ability to appeal to the undereducated.....their proffering of meme's that Americans not only have some mythical "right to feel safe"....but that this imaginary right would somehow trump our Constitutional rights. This fantasy doesn't exist regarding actual criminal threats to their person or property, much less law abiding citizens. We need to remind our fellow citizens what gun safety really means...instead of allowing the gun control cable to use the term as a threadbare camouflage for the less palatable gun control.

Finally, we need to reclaim the phrase "common sense". Many are working towards this end, but not many as well as Nicki at The Liberty Zone. Reposted in its entirety with her permission.
I know you’ll be shocked to know this…But apparently the leftist gun-grabbing assgobblers in the media twist facts. The latest evidence of this comes in the form of a sniveling Washington Post editorial from a Philip Bump. Now, I don’t expect much from the Post as a general rule as far as objectivity goes, and no their token pet “conservative” Jennifer Rubin hardly counts. But this guy Lump Bump is amusingly biased. Hell, you could tell that just by his impressive resume of progtarded publications. 
"Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He previously wrote for The Wire, the news blog of The Atlantic magazine. He has contributed to The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, The Daily, and the Huffington Post. Philip is based in New York City. "
Well, gosh! We can certainly expect a balanced opinion from this drooling Lump Bump.
But I figured I’d take a minute and quickly show you just how Lump Bump uses mental acrobatics to achieve his goal, which is to somehow shame Congress into implementing more gun control. 
His first few sentences alone should be instructive, and for the ignorant and those who have a clear political agenda, the gymnastics are par for the course. 
A new poll from Quinnipiac University sheds more light on one of the more remarkable aspects of U.S. politics: Americans overwhelmingly support expanding background checks for gun purchases. Yet when the issue came up for a vote in the Senate last year, enough senators opposed a compromise proposal to expand background checks that supporters couldn’t overcome a filibuster. But why not? In the latest survey, 92 percent of respondents favored “background checks for all buyers.” 
Here’s the problem with the way the poll question is phrased and the way Lump Bump portrays it: we already have background checks for all gun buyers. Anytime you go into any store that sells firearms, the store is required by federal law to run a background check. Any licensed firearms dealer must run the check, which also can deny an individual a gun purchase on the recommendation of psychiatrists, mental health institutions and family members. 
That is the current law. Any person wishing to purchase a gun will undergo a background check. 
What we DON’T have is background checks for private transactions, which the hysterical gun grabbers will tell you comprise 40 percent of all gun purchases. That particular statistic, even though it is continuously trotted out by hoplophobes in an effort to push their agenda of basically outlawing private firearms transfers, has been discredited many times over
First – it is already a felony for private sellers to sell a firearm to a person who they reasonably believe could not pass a background check. In other words, I’m not going to sell one of my pistols to a dude sporting gang colors and tattoos, who smells like weed, and has several bags of what appears to be coke strewn about the trunk of his car, OK?
And second – the “survey” on which this “40 percent” figure is based was conducted about a year after mandatory background checks became law. In other words, the vast majority of respondents likely purchased firearms before the Brady background checks became law. Additionally, this survey asked only 2500 people where they purchased guns. Talk about your tiny little samples! 
Fact is we just don’t know how many firearms are purchased without a background check.  But we do know how criminals purchase their firearms – by their own admissions. 
In 2001, the Bureau of Justice Statistics conducted a survey of state and federal prisoners in an effort to find out how criminals get firearms that they use in their crimes. Do you know what it found? 
Only 18.4 percent of criminals purchased firearms from a retail store or pawn shop.
1.7 percent got guns from a flea market or gun show, blowing that “gun show loophole” theory right out of the water. 
The vast majority – 40.5 percent – got their guns from family and friends – whether paid for, borrowed, stolen or traded. 
And another 30.9 percent got guns through the black market or other illegal means – theft, off the street, their drug dealer, etc. 
For gun grabbers who are too stupid to understand what that means, let me put it simply: no existing background check, and no expanded background check will stop criminals from obtaining guns. Last year, Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed an ineffective and stunningly stupid law requiring expanded background checks be conducted for all gun purchases. I’m sure you’ve seen how well that law has worked in the warzone of Chicago, right? 
And this brings me to the real point of this post. 
EXPANDED BACKGROUND CHECKS. 
EXPANDED. 
BACKGROUND. 
CHECKS. 
Lump Bump claims in his steaming heap of bovine leavings that 92 percent of Americans support EXPANDING background checks, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, but that’s just not true. 
The poll asked a very general question: Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers? 
And the total reply was 92 percent in the affirmative. It asked nothing about EXPANDED background checks. The interesting part is the phraseology of the question, because it leaves the interpretation up to the respondent. Does the question ask about expanding background checks, or does it mean the already-existing background check system in which anyone who purchases a firearm must undergo a background check? It’s pretty convenient for Lump Bump to interpret the responses to suit his agenda when the question asked was vague enough to allow it. 
Additionally, according to the poll, the nation is evenly split on the question of increased gun control. Expanding background checks does mean increased gun control, and exactly 50 percent of respondents want to see increased gun control. So it’s hard for me to believe that expanded background checks do not equal increased gun control in most people’s minds. And it’s hard for me to believe that at least 50 percent of the respondents weren’t voicing support for already existing background checks
But Lump Bump wouldn’t let little things like facts stand in his way. The majority of Americans support expanded background checks, he whines, when thee research indicates no such thing. Why doesn’t Congress? 
Perhaps because as power-hungry and disgustingly morally corrupt as most politicians are, they understand that alienating gun owners, who actually… you know… vote, might not be the best idea to further their careers.

23 comments:

  1. LOL! You can always tell when someone is making a specious argument by the way they preface by droning on and on about how they are the thinking on a superior level to those who disagree.

    Here's some plain common sense for you:

    All rights are regulated to some extent, including the 2nd Amendment right, and have always been so.

    The 2nd Amendment more regulated in the past than it is now.

    There is no strong movement in this country capable of disarming the public.

    You guys want no responsibility whatsoever for the disposition of your weapons. Like spoiled stupid children from bad families.

    It's a scumbags argument, CI, and I wish you'd grow up about it.

    JMJ

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    1. And yet sadly for you, we see the speciousness in your own diatribe. You exhibit the very same tactics you would accuse others of....all the while dismissing the subject at hand, because like others in the gun control cabal, you seem to know that your position is bereft of reason and logic. My opening paragraph is dead accurate, regarding the absolute ignorance of the very item that people such as you want to restrict and regulate.

      "You guys want no responsibility whatsoever for the disposition of your weapons."

      How do you figure that? I support background checks for retail firearm purchases; I support NICs; I don't have an mandatory firearm safety training when applying for a concealed carry permit.

      Where the gun control lobby wails and moans, accusing the gun rights folks of not "compromising"...I have compromised....now where is the same from gun control?

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    2. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-questioning-the-gospel-of-guns.html?_r=0

      Above is what happens when you guys don't march lock-step like armed lemmings.

      Let's be clear - I want the guns off the streets, and I want them handled responsibly. Accountability for the disposition of your weapon is not an infringement on your right, at all. You are responsible for what you say, what you write, what you consume, and what you own. You should be responsible for what you shoot. Personally, I like the Australian model. That comes nowhere near confiscation, and it's STILL too much for you guys. As long as guns can be legally passed around like baseball cards, anywhere in the country, the entire country remains awash is dangerous weapons all over the streets.

      And we can't get you guys to do it, because you say you don't trust our constitutional government with your gun ownership records. In fact, you so much don;t trust it, you make sure it's as violent a police state as humanly possible. It's frustrating and stupid, and you guys are nothing but armed lemmings bringing us all along to the cliff. Idiocy. I'm ashamed of America's stupidity on the issue. We'd be a laughingstock, but there's nothing funny about the damage our arms industry does here and around the world.

      JMJ

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    3. "Personally, I like the Australian model. That comes nowhere near confiscation, and it's STILL too much for you guys."

      Clearly, you're going to have to give us YOUR definition of confiscation...because it doesn't seem to jive with dictionary and logical meanings of the word.

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    4. Interjecting Dick Metcalf is a predictable distraction. I would have thought you might be above this. The controversy over Metcalf's 'change of heart' is no different than Mark Glaze's defection from the Bloomberg's - Mommies from Everytown Demanding Attention.

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    5. "You guys want no responsibility whatsoever for the disposition of your weapons. Like spoiled stupid children from bad families."

      O say, can we see a specious argument in the empty ad hominem directed at a straw man? Who are the you guys you impute this irresponsibility to?

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  2. "not only have some mythical "right to feel safe"..."

    Spot on all the way, CI. This silly "right to feel safe" is based on superstition and irrationality. The people who get bent out of shape seeing someone with a concealed or open-carry weapon are of a mind as those who throw a hissy fit over seeing someone they assume to be homosexual (a little fa**ot, to use Jersey's words) walking in public.

    Both concerned should just "get over it". it is really none of their business.
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    And speaking of Jersey:

    Jersey said: "There is no strong movement in this country capable of disarming the public."

    You know this is NOT true. One of the top Democrats, Cuomo, said he is open to confiscation. And then there is the government official bellowing "Confiscate! Confiscate! Confiscate!".... look it up.

    If we do not defend our freedoms, we will lose them. It is folly to ignore serious threats. Germans ignore such threats in the 1920s and look what happened...

    "You guys want no responsibility whatsoever for the disposition of your weapons"

    ------
    Thanks, CI, for a grown-up argument. The "scumbag" description, if it belongs anywhere, belongs with the gun-control lobby, which is taking a page out of the actual fascist playbook, and is seeking to take away a basic right.

    Jersey, you should grow up. If you don't like these scary guns that you don't understand at all but theymake you quake in your boots, don't own one. Problem solved.

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  3. dmarks, no serious observer of American politics believes there is any threat to mass confiscation of weapons, nor do we need to do it. The weapons on the street will eventually cycle out. All we need to do is end the cycle - hold gun owners accountable for their weapons, like they do in Australia. It works wonders. You want the right to give your gun to a killer, and I say only an @$$hole would require that right. Don't be an @$$hole.

    JMJ

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    1. In Australia, firearms banned by decree were confiscated.

      And no "serious" observer of politics or gun rights, is advocating for the right [as it's against the law], to sell a firearm to a criminal. But thanks for telling your opposition what they want...Im sure that you give the same consideration that we are, when your opposition on an issue does that to you.

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    2. CI said: "In Australia, firearms banned by decree were confiscated."

      I think this is one of many times we come to this contradiction with JMJ. He trumps up Australia as an example to follow. He says confiscation is no danger, and we don't need it. But it turns out that his gun policy paradise has the destructive confiscation policy.

      And correct on the rest. No where have I advocated this crime. Jersey accused me of doing so.

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    3. We couldn't get that part of the law here. It was already too late the last time we tried in the 90's. We simply need to know who owns what and hold them accountable. If we could just do that, gun crime - and gun accidents, and gun suicides - should begin drop pretty soon and steadily over time. We could be a much safer place in a generation. We just have to hold people accountable for their weapons. I just don't see this as asking so much. But then, I'm a grown man with no phallic security issues.

      JMJ

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    4. "But then, I'm a grown man with no phallic security issues."

      That's good to hear, neither are we. But you do seem to be prone to use immature, sexual tautology in lieu of reason.

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    5. CI: The "phallic security" claim says more about a possible predilection toward homoeroticism on Jersey's part than it does about anything else. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

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    6. I always assumed the phallic comparison was an attempt to deflect from the lack of education on the item they're attempting to ban.....but I suppose it could for some be a slippage in one's internal struggle with their sexuality.

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    7. "We simply need to know who owns what and hold them accountable"

      As with many and perhaps most such proposals, the assumption that registration will reduce gun crime not only has no factual support, but there is no evidence that it has made a difference in the many places and different times it's been tried. I'm not opposed to new ideas, but I'm rather fed up with theories supported only with theories and proposals that have failed continually.

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    8. hi is this the same Capt from Swash, really?

      I wasn't aware that you had such views, so different from most on the Left.

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    9. Maybe you should look at the facts about the Australian gun confiscations. Guns were removed from the honest people and remaining guns are in the hands of criminals. Also, while you are at it look at the sharp increase in violent crime. The Australian approach is a big failure by any measure.

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    10. Texas TopCat - This goes to my pointed question to Jersey, regarding his definition of confiscation, and how he believes that this didn't occur in Australia. I'm still waiting for his reply.....

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  4. dmarks, that is what you are advocating. Or, are you saying their should be a record of every transfer or sale of a gun so that it can be tracked to the owner at any given time?

    JMJ

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  5. I know what Jersey is getting at with his sleazy "phallic" claim. Epic fail there: I don't own a single gun.

    As for Jersey's record question, I oppose this. Partially thanks to info Jersey described. Why? Because the Australian regime has used these records to steal guns from non-criminals. Such records are a roadmap to confiscation.... a real threat Jersey denies but keeps supporting.

    If there were zero chance of such confiscation, I might consider allowing such records.

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  6. CI: Question for you. If, and only if, there were strong protections for our basic human rights as outlined in the Second Amendment.... meaning no taking of guns of law-abiding citizens at all, without reason.... i.e. no chance of confiscation.. would you support background checks or a registry?

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  7. I'm not a guns rights advocate OR a gun control advocate. I'm an empiricist and I have yet to see any compelling evidence that gun control brings down the crime rate and makes us safer. In fact the evidence seems to consistently go in the opposite direction (in Chicago, Washington D.C., nation-wide with there existing a strong inverse correlation between the murder rate and right to carry laws, etc.). And if Jersey doesn't think that guns are a deterrent, how then does he explain the fact that most multiple victim shooting events take place in gun-free zones or the fact that that lunatic in Colorado could have gone to any number of theaters (some of them closer and some of them with more potential victims) but decided instead to go the the ONE in which it is illegal to carry.......Maybe he could answer that, CI (after of course he answers your excellent ? first).

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  8. Will: Jersey phoned this one in, in terms of his comments, from start to finish. It starts with his implying Australia has no confiscation problem and gets worse from there. I think he decided to cut his losses and gave this one up.

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