Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Battle Over Gun Rights

The New York Times published an interesting piece outlining the major successes and failures in the gun control vs. gun rights movements.

“We expected a very different picture at this stage,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that last month issued a report card failing the administration in all seven of the group’s major indicators.

Gun control advocates have had some successes recently, Mr. Helmke said. Proposed bills to allow students to carry guns on college campuses have been blocked in the 20 or so states where they have been proposed since the Virginia Tech shootings. Last year, New Jersey limited gun purchases to one a month, a law similar to the one Virginia may revoke.

But recent setbacks to gun control have been many.


What's your opinion? I say the gun rights star is ascending. But, for how long? That's my question.

Please leave a comment.

14 comments:

  1. Once McDonald v Chicago is ruled, I see lots more ascension in the future.

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  2. AzRed is smoking dope.

    Look at the Heller case--what changes has it really brought? To date, fewer than 100 DC residents have rushed out to get guns.

    Cases like Heller and McDonald are sops to white male gunloons.

    --JadeGold

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  3. AztecRed, I'm afraid you're right. I expect thqt too.

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  4. How long. As long as it takes to root out the bigots and push them into the same realm as the KKK.

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  5. In spite of what some of the anti-freedom loons will tell you, the gun control freaks are a very small minority.

    That is why they usually do not allow comments on their blogs and forums: they are always severely outnumbered by the common sense people. And behind every gun rights supporter that takes the time to let their views be heard, there are a dozen or more that are not as vocal but vote common sense right along with them.

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  6. The main reason, I posit, for the pro-liberty progress that has been made (and is being made) by the gun rights movement is the Internet (thanks, Al Gore!). At the height of the forcible citizen disarmament lobby's power (1994--pre-election 1994, that is) the mass media--dominated by the kind of "thinking" that calls for a government monopoly on force--controlled the message.

    That's no longer even remotely true. If I had the time and inclination to devote every waking minute to informative, well written gun blogs, written by people who don't make a dime for the work they put into the writing, but who do it purely ouf of a passion for freedom, I still wouldn't have time to more than scratch the surface.

    Finding writing (outside the paid cheerleaders of the Brady Campaign and VPC) for the other side is much more difficult. As for blogs largely devoted to citizen disarmament, that also allow (even moderated) comments, this one stands practically alone.

    The reason for that, of course, is that real passion for denying people fundamental human rights is (thankfully) rare.

    That's why we shall overcome.

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  7. Look at the Heller case--what changes has it really brought? To date, fewer than 100 DC residents have rushed out to get guns.

    Authoritarian bigots don't suddenly change because the law says they have to. It's a process.

    Just look at the Civil Rights movement. Desegregation was strongly resisted even after Brown The court rulings simply put the law on the side of freedom and provide a mechanism for relegating bigots to the 3rd rail of society.

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  8. One of the biggest claims we heard from gun banners during Heller was that the ban was necessary for "public safety", that violent crime would rise sharply if it were overturned.

    It was more "blood in the streets" dire predictions.

    What actually happened?

    homicides in DC dropped like a rock.

    http://www.theeagleonline.com/news/story/d.c.-crime-rate-dips-27.2-percent/

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123103039.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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  9. "Look at the Heller case--what changes has it really brought? To date, fewer than 100 DC residents have rushed out to get guns."

    That might have something to do with DC making it nearly impossible to buy a gun.

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  10. That might have something to do with DC making it nearly impossible to buy a gun.

    Quite right, Aztec.

    Besides, does anyone seriously believe that D.C. was the point of Heller? Heller was merely the vehicle used to ferry the silly "collective right" myth to the trash heap of embarrassing history where it belongs.

    The fact that it's a point of settled Constitutional law that private gun ownership is a protected right of the individual is significant, no matter how deeply the rights deniers stick their fingers in their ears, and no matter how loudly they yell "La, la, la!"

    The fact that the rights denial lobby can no longer say that "no gun control law has ever been struck down on Second Amendment grounds" is also significant (else the citizen disarmament lobby wouldn't have brought that point up so tirelessly in pre-Heller times).

    McDonald has a chance to be even much more significant than Heller, and there's even a chance (an outside chance, granted) that the decision will address the level of scrutiny to be applied to gun laws. It would seem to take some rather strenuous judicial gymnastics to come up with a ruling that both finds the right to keep and bear arms fundamental enough to be incorporated, but not fundamental enough to deserve strict scrutiny protection.

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  11. Sooo..let's examine Mike W's logic, shall we?

    He is claiming that fewer than 100 new gunowners in DC has caused DC crime to plummet.

    As with most gunloon claims, Mike W's assertions aren't entirely accurate. For example, homicides in DC have been going down steadily since 2002. In terms of overall crime, DC's crime rate has dropped dramatically since the early 1990's. In fact, DC is rated 130th (2009) in terms of crime rate.

    Of course, NOLA--with little gun control--has seen crime skyrocket.

    --JadeGold

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  12. Jadegold: “He is claiming that fewer than 100 new gunowners in DC has caused DC crime to plummet.”

    He didn’t claim that. All he said was that guncontrollers said there would be more blood in the streets. …and there isn’t.

    Jadegold: “Of course, NOLA--with little gun control--has seen crime skyrocket.”

    I am not sure I can find a citation for this... but I think... there may have been a hurricane there recently.

    -TS

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  13. "I am not sure I can find a citation for this... but I think... there may have been a hurricane there recently."

    There was also a gun confiscation there.

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  14. There was also a gun confiscation there.

    And a multiple murder, committed by the same people confiscating guns.

    No connection, of course.

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