To preempt the tide of angry comments and emails, let me clarify that, despite the ambiguity of the leading clause, I support Second Amendment rights. But one of the favorite arguments used by staunch advocates of the Second Amendment is some variant of the "we don't need more guns laws, we just need to enforce the current laws." Ya think? The recent undercover operation conducted by New York City blows a giant hole in the idea that we're enforcing the current laws.
Do you think his opinion is more valuable because he's not the typical gun control advocate? I do. But I couldn't help but notice, in our previous discussions not one of the pro-gun commenters took this position.
Mr. Schaller runs down the tactics utilized by Mayor Bloomberg's investigators, as well as the reaction by Tennessee, all of which we've read before. As a closing remark, though, he provides something interesting.
Of course, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Well, sure, but they're killing a lot more people in red states than blue states. Holding DC aside, the ten states with the lowest per-capital gun death rates all voted for Barack Obama, and seven of the ten high highest voted for John McCain.
I don't know if I've heard that way of looking at the stats before, by red states and blue states. It makes you think, doesn't it?
What's your opinion? Although we occasionally hear claims that all pro-gun folks are not Republican, it does seem that way. Why do you think that is? How rare are liberal gun owners? Do they perhaps make up a large segment of the gun-owning population, but are less vocal about it?
What do you think? Please leave a comment.
"the ten states with the lowest per-capital gun death rates all voted for Barack Obama"
ReplyDeleteBut every gun death isn't a crime, which is what Bloomberg's scheme is supposedly aimed at stopping.
If you go to Gun violence > % Gun the top 10 states with the highest percentage of gun homicides are evenly split between red and blue states.
"Although we occasionally hear claims that all pro-gun folks are not Republican, it does seem that way. Why do you think that is?"
Bill Clinton. He was single-handedly responsible for pushing a lot of gun owning, moderate democrats over to the republican side.
"How rare are liberal gun owners?"
Liberal gun owners are like gay conservatives. An anomaly that's usually more than willing to sacrifice their rights for political ideology.
"Do they perhaps make up a large segment of the gun-owning population, but are less vocal about it?"
They might. But they're smart to keep quiet. If they were too vocal, they'd find themselves disliked by both gun owners and liberals.
I disagree! I would suspect all the gang members that voted all owned guns, and all voted for President Obama.
ReplyDeleteThey may criminally own guns...but doesn't that count?
Yes, Obama just being on the ballot caused the firearm death rate to plummet. That is why he won the Peace Prize.
ReplyDeleteLots of liberals own guns, they just don't view gun ownership as "the most important thing in the world" like conservatives do. They have other priorities.
ReplyDelete