Bob, Let me show you where you're the one doing the lying. In your first proposal, which you self-righteously declared "Lie no. 1. crime can and does happen in any type of neighborhood," you yourself are already lying. No gun control person I've ever read, and certainly not japete or myself, has ever said "No crime ever happens in good neighborhoods," or "All crime happens in bad neighborhoods." We don't say that. You say we say that and then you get all huffy and arrogant and act like you really believe your own bullshit.What's your opinion? Did you know before he started his own blog, Bob S. was one of the most frequent commenters here. One could say he got his start here, I suppose. But do you think he'd treat me with respect and gratitude, no sir. Even still he frequently calls me a liar for no reason. He literally manufactures a reason by first putting words in my mouth and then arguing against them as if I'd really said them.
What I say, and probably japete agrees, she can speak for herself, is that the chances of your needing to use a gun to save the day are smaller than the chances of its being misused. That's if you live in a good neighborhood.
There are exceptions, of course,
I find it an abomination of American values to imagine Elmo and Weer'd and I guess yourself opening the door to trick-or-treaters armed like that. It's sick and paranoid and if it only affected you I wouldn't mind. But you guys are part of the problem, and that problem affects many of us.
Lest you think this is a personal attack against Bob S., let me give you the big picture. This tactic is one of the hallmarks of the pro-gun bloggers. Most of their blogs are circle-jerks of like-minded people blowing smoke up each other's asses. So, it's not personal against Bob S., it's directed at all of them, and they know who they are. If the shoe fits wear it, fellas.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Actually, I'm gonna have to disagree with Mikeb, here. What better night than Halloween for gunloons to play dressup and pretend they have a penis?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though--Mikeb is right, crime happens in good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods and all neighborhoods. It just happens far more frequently in bad neighborhoods.
Bob S. is also playing fast and loose with the truth about Pantego being a good neighborhood. Doing a little research, one finds yhe home listed by Bob S. is in one of the poorer areas of Arlington. Houses in the area run in the range of $100K -$135K. They are nearly 50 years old and literally are located on postage stamp size lots (~0.1 acres).
Doing a little research, one finds yhe home listed by Bob S.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else find it strange that Jadegold knows the home addresses of pro-gun bloggers? Creepy!
Ruffy:
ReplyDeleteYou are aware Bob S. posted the address of the home that experienced the robbery--the one we're talking about?
Sometimes it helps to have read the background before going into full paranoia mode.
What's "creepy" is the way RuffRidr jumps to wrong conclusions so quickly. But we're the biased ones, right?
ReplyDeleteI think he linked me on his blog, I got a hit! W00t!~
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work, Mike, you must be doing something right to make him this mad.
I find it an abomination of American values to imagine Elmo and Weer'd and I guess yourself opening the door to trick-or-treaters armed like that. It's sick and paranoid and if it only affected you I wouldn't mind.
ReplyDeleteLet me see if I understand your thought process.
Given:
- The probability of a push-in assault is low.
- The consequences of said assault are high.
- I already own a gun.
- I already own a holster for said gun.
- It takes zero dollars and two minutes to holster said gun and pull on an overshirt.
You think that taking those two minutes to add a tiny bit of insurance against a low-probability/high-consequence emergency is "abominable", "sick and paranoid", and has such a deleterious effect on other people that I should be ashamed of myself?
What kind of interaction, exactly, are you fantasizing? I spent the evening watching crappy horror movies and handing out Reese's peanut butter cups to smiling kids in Spongebob costumes. All the heavy emotional freight you attach to carrying a gun is yours, not mine.
Dear Elmo, Thanks for coming by. I think you said on another blog that you used to comment here under another name, so I guess we know each other already.
ReplyDeleteYour question: "You think that taking those two minutes to add a tiny bit of insurance against a low-probability/high-consequence emergency is "abominable", "sick and paranoid", and has such a deleterious effect on other people that I should be ashamed of myself?"
My answer is yes. Yes, because it doesn't stop at your cozy little home where thank goodness nothing went wrong this past Halloween. It's you and your justifiable situation multiplied by millions or tens of millions. A percentage of them is not as responsible as you, but you support them, you enable them, you allow them to continue doing damage by doing your little part in keeping the "gun rights" what they are in the States.
So, yes I blame you, Elmo, and Bob, and the rest of you, and I say you would be ashamed if you weren't so biased and self-interested.
So it's the old "partial responsibility" meme again? The worldview in which responsible gun owners who oppose burdensome gun laws are partially culpable for murderers, car owners who don't lock their vehicles are partially responsible for ensuing deadly police chases, and presumably women who dress immodestly at night are partially culpable for rape?
ReplyDeleteIf my situation is justifiable, then you have no business intruding on it. You and your friends want to pass laws that overwhelmingly affect me in hopes that they'll have some small affect on criminals... And you've _succeeded_. That gun I own I was able to buy only after a ridiculous number of fees and legal interventions, fingerprinting, police investigations, employer notification, and... [checks records] a 68 day waiting period. And despite going through the license-to-carry procedure in other states, I'm still forbidden from taking my gun out through the front door of my home (unless I'm going directly to and from the range with no stops) under penalty of a felony conviction that's significantly stricter than the penalty for actually assaulting somebody with a gun.
You and your buddies have won substantially here in New Jersey, and you're still telling me that exercising the tiny sliver of a fundamental civil right that I have left is "abominable", "sick and paranoid".
In 1900, we had essentially no gun laws. If you misused your gun, you were punished for it. And that wasn't good enough for people like you. So over the next century we accumulated a crushing burden of legislation, and it still isn't good enough. You leave no reason to believe anything ever will be.
The next step is a British-style system with complete handgun bans and discretionary permits to own non-repeating shotguns. And even in Britain, people like you are still campaigning for even stricter gun laws, and pontificating about how the few remaining sport shooters are "part of the problem".
The criminals are the problem. Period.
Elmo is wrong on so many counts.
ReplyDeleteFirst, he boldly claims there were no gun laws in the US in 1900. It isn't true but let's suppose it is--so what? Do we really wish to return to 1900 when women couldn't vote, segregation was the law of the land, and working children in unsafe conditions was the norm?
Second, Elmo seems to believe that everything is ok if we just punish a miscreant after the act. The way criminals get guns is because we have no gun control. As a result, tens of thousands of US lives are shattered each year, we all get to pay more for healthcare, taxes, and consumer goods because Elmo feels terriblt oppressed by having to be fingerprinted.
I invite anybody interested to read New Jersey's gun laws, and decide for themselves whether Jadegold's bizarre assertion that "we have no gun control" has any validity, or whether she's just trying to antagonize.
ReplyDeleteI also invite them to decide for themselves whether calling out a hundred-year history of increasing failed gun control policies means I want to deprive women of their right to vote, or whether, again, it's just empty rhetoric.
We have no gun control. Period. End of story. Full stop.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that in NJ, there are very few restrictions on anyone buying whatever firearm--in whatever quantities they wish. And let's also not forget about the gun show loophole which renders what few regs NJ has absolutely moot.
There never has been gun control in this country so to deem it a failure is akin to claiming unicorns create rainbows.
What Elmo and his apologists need do is explain why the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth has gun violence rates equal to those of many third world nations.
Jade: “We have no gun control. Period. End of story. Full stop.”
ReplyDeleteSo what Jade is saying is that we have had gun laws for 100+ years, but not a single bit of it anywhere in the country has done any bit of good at actual “gun control”. You are going to find a lot of people on the gun rights side who agree with you 100%.
Jade: “The fact is that in NJ, there are very few restrictions on anyone buying whatever firearm--in whatever quantities they wish.”
NJ only allows one handgun a month with a background check regardless of whether the transaction happened at a store, a gun show, or a garage... but your are right, it is not “gun control” because it doesn’t work.
TS: It's really not hard to understand. And I suspect you do but are compelled to play to the peanut gallery.
ReplyDeleteYes, we have some gun laws in this country. Does it amount to gun control? No.
You and I both know that anyone in this country can open up a PennySaver or classified ad and purchase most any firearm. We do not have to provide ID and we can be felons, mentally ill and/or illegal immigrants.
Similarly, the laws we do have have been watered down so they're either unenforceable and/or meaningless. For example, if you lie on a 4473--your chances of being charged--let alone convicted--are in the same neighborhood as winning the lottery.
Additionally, if you're upset about the gun laws in your state--very often you can drive about an hour to the next state which probably has no such laws.
JG, we're actually mostly on the same page here. I agree that the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, and the Gun Free School Zone Act of 1995 do nothing to deter criminals from getting guns.
ReplyDeleteSince those laws _do_ undeniably burden lawful gun owners like me with extensive extra costs, decreased selection, and arbitrary waiting periods with--as we agree--no beneficial effect on crime rates, you'll presumably have no objection when we start to dismantle those laws we agree are useless.
Additionally, if you're upset about the gun laws in your state--very often you can drive about an hour to the next state which probably has no such laws.
Assuming good faith, you must simply be misinformed. Federal law prohibits me from buying a handgun outside my home state. The last gun I bought (an antique revolver) was from a gun shop about five miles over the border into Pennsylvania. The 1968 Gun Control Act (which we agree is useless) required me to follow New Jersey laws and to have the gun shipped to an NJ gun dealer for the background check required by the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (which we agree is useless). The whole process added a 55-day wait and about a hundred fifty dollars in permit, check, and transfer fees (more than a quarter of the price of the gun).
I'm glad we agree all those restrictions did nothing to prevent crime.
TS said:
NJ only allows one handgun a month with a background check...
Incidentally, it's actually two background checks. The state takes one to eight months to do its own background check (which includes the employer notification), to get a pistol permit (one required per handgun), which allows me to go to the gun shop and undergo the federally-mandated Brady background check.
Jade: “You and I both know that anyone in this country can open up a PennySaver or classified ad and purchase most any firearm. We do not have to provide ID and we can be felons, mentally ill and/or illegal immigrants.”
ReplyDeleteI can’t. That would be an illegal transaction. You are wrong.
Jade: “Additionally, if you're upset about the gun laws in your state--very often you can drive about an hour to the next state which probably has no such laws.”
That would be illegal for anyone- not just me. Again- you are wrong.
Elmo renders a common fallacy typical of many gunloons. He states that because a given law may be ineffectual, it is therefore worthless.
ReplyDeleteThe laws he cites have prevented criminals from getting guns or at least making it more difficult. Such laws also have as a benefit making criminals more likely to be exposed than not having them.
Then Elmo issues this blanket statement with no proof whatsoever:
"Since those laws _do_ undeniably burden lawful gun owners like me with extensive extra costs, decreased selection, and arbitrary waiting periods..."
This is patently false for reasons I pointed out to TS. Elmo also fails to acknowledge the costs everyone has to pay--not just gunowners--but everyone because he is unwilling to be even slightly inconvenienced. Everybody--rich, poor, black, white, old, young--gets to pay more in healthcare costs, consumer goods, taxes, etc. because folks like Elmo feel terribly burdened.
"I can’t. That would be an illegal transaction. You are wrong."
ReplyDeleteYes, you can. I'm always right, it's a gift.
Jadegold's claim that "We have no gun control. Period. End of story. Full stop" does not stand up to scrutiny. Nor is it true that US firearm regulation burdens lawful gun owners with "extensive extra costs, decreased selection, and arbitrary waiting periods."
ReplyDeleteUS gun laws do in fact regulate firearms, and in several ways. They make purchasing a weapon far more difficult than buying a new television set, for example. The mere fact that regulations place roadblocks between prospective owners and the guns they seek will ensure that many people who should not have firearms never get them, if only because they fear getting caught. I think JG's point really is that applying these regulations to every purchase, including private sales, would expand this effect and make regulation more effective.
Because our public discourse includes descriptions of why we should regulate firearms and discussions of whether or not Americans should arm themselves also helps to establish normative ideas about firearm ownership and use. Most of us wonder about people we see brandishing firearms in public, and apply our understandings about what they mean to the people carrying them--are they hunting? A cop? A criminal? Guns get the attention of people who see them, and this further discourages people who shouldn't have them from obtaining them.
This does not of course mean that no one uses guns illegally--but at the margins firearm regulation certainly qualifies as "gun control" for these and other reasons.
Elmo worries that the road blocks to ownership and stigmatization of people who seem to carry them unnecessarily burdens law-abiding citizens. Indeed, a key goal of gun "rights" supporters is to eliminate this stigma by normalizing gun ownership. But we use public policy to discourage all manner of legal activities which, when exercised irresponsibly, make society more dangerous for those who are not participating in the activity (e.g., drinking alcohol, gambling). Most of the time participants accept these restrictions because they understand that they help keep some of the irresponsible out of the dangerous game.
Since I don't know just what Elmo means by "extensive extra costs," "decreased selection" or "arbitrary waiting periods" I shall refrain from commenting on just how firearm regulations really "burden" the good guys who just want to make sure they have a gun at hand on the off chance someone pushes in their door and invades their home. But it seems to me likely that regulation does not appreciably raise the cost of guns or shrink the range of available firearms. And the length of the waiting period only seems arbitrary if whatever you need it for just can't wait.
Firearm regulation in the US is less than robust, but it is incorrect to say that it does not exist, or even that it doesn't work. No regulatory framework or social policy will ever completely eliminate the problem that created the need for it, whether it's illegal gun use, poverty, or drug addiction. But the fact that regulations work at the margins is no reason to give up and dismantle them.
If lawful gun owners pay a price for this, but they pay it in the interest of public safety, and it should probably be a bit higher.
Good comment, RSS.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since I'm stubborn I'll maintain gun control doesn't exist since such laws that exist can and are easily circumvented. It's a little like putting up 55mph speed limit signs while actively noting that police will not be enforcing the laws.
Except that 55 MPH speed limit laws do in fact limit how fast people drive, albeit not always to the posted speed. Like gun laws, speed limits control the targeted activity in three ways:
ReplyDeleteSome people simply obey the law as written, and this is true of gun laws as well.
The limits create norms about speeding and we shame violators as irresponsible, which is one reason some people simply obey the law.
Finally, officials do in fact enforce the limits, though often only when violation reaches a certain level.
This is so for any regulation or law--officials must exercise discretion since they can never achieve 100% enforcement.
This of course means that driving speed control will never be perfect, and nor will gun control. But this does not mean it doesn't exist.
R. Stanton Scott says it exactly right. The price should be a bit higher.
ReplyDeleteElmo, In that familiar way of his says it completely wrong. "You and your friends want to pass laws that overwhelmingly affect me in hopes that they'll have some small affect on criminals."
What we're really talking about is minor inconvenience to diminsih the gun flow. Why must you exaggerate that with words like, "overwhelmingly affect me" and "small affect on criminals?" It's the exact opposite.
Since I don't know just what Elmo means by "extensive extra costs," "decreased selection" or "arbitrary waiting periods" I shall refrain from commenting on just how firearm regulations really "burden" the good guys...
ReplyDeleteI'll talk just about New Jersey for the moment, because that's where the matter is clearest:
New Jersey attaches a fee to the initial "firearms owner ID card", and a fee to each "permit to purchase a handgun" (one per firearm). The State Police attach an additional fee to cover their background check. New Jersey additionally employs a State Trooper to act as a middleman between the gun owner and the NICS system, and attaches a fee for that. The '68 Gun Control Act prohibits me from buying a handgun outside New Jersey (even with the required background check), meaning that going outside NJ's depressed, overpriced market requires me to pay the out-of-state dealer a shipping charge to send the gun to a local NJ dealer, who charges a fee for the service. Each of these fees individually is pretty small, but they add up to a significant portion of the cost of the gun. This is very clearly a burden; you may _like_ that burden, but there's no denying it is what it is.
Getting that FID card in New Jersey requires fingerprinting at your local PD. In anti-gun jurisdictions, the police often schedule firearms fingerprinting for one hour a week, during most people's work hours. It also involves employer notification, which--in an anti-gun state like this--can sometimes endanger a person's job. I know one person who _wants_ to buy a gun, but is afraid it'll be an unspoken strike against him when his company does the math on the next round of layoffs. The state gives the police thirty days to do their "investigation", but they routinely ignore that deadline, and the state courts refuse to enforce it. The process typically takes anywhere from one to eight months, at the end of which the applicant gets a little yellow card that he needs to put a thumbprint on (another day off from work, if your PD doesn't like guns).
And all that security theater leads up to the actual purchase, where the federally-mandated Brady background check has to happen anyway.
These restrictions _are_ a burden (again, whether or not you like that burden), and they're completely redundant with the Brady check, which is not by itself burdensome. We traditionally do accept burdens on civil rights that are fundamentally necessary to ordered liberty (like paying the costs associated with obtaining a demonstration permit), but not those burdens which serve only to discourage protected behavior. Even if we all agree a given protected behavior is undesirable, like KKK marches, redundant burdens are not acceptable.
And just to be clear, _most_ of that process must be repeated per handgun, but not all of it. The additional superfluous handgun permits _do_ require the months of waiting, all the fees, and the employer notifications, but thankfully do not include additional fingerprinting.
ReplyDeleteThe fingerprinting requirements (which often involve another fee, though I've never had to deal with one) only apply for the original "lifetime" FID card, and when that "lifetime" card must be replaced, which applies any time the holder's address changes. Without an FID whose address matches my driver's license, I can buy neither guns nor ammunition.
I hope that, even if we can't agree that these burdens are excessive, we at least don't need to fight over whether they _exist_.
Why must you exaggerate that with words like, "overwhelmingly affect me" and "small affect on criminals?" It's the exact opposite.
ReplyDeleteIt's an undeniable fact that the combination of federal and state gun laws here add a significant burden in time, money, effort, and intrusive police investigation to the act of lawfully buying a gun. Off the top of my head, I can think of one friend who's afraid to exercise the right due to the employer notification, and three who could stretch to afford inexpensive defensive guns, but not to cover the additional unnecessary fees (I'm not wealthy, but am not hurting for money either; not everybody is so lucky).
JG and I also agree that the laws don't stop criminals from getting guns, which is never more clear than in the cities of New Jersey. I have a family member in law enforcement who backs this up: criminals in New Jersey have no trouble whatsoever getting guns--for significantly lower cost and with no months of waiting.
I know you and I disagree on whether it's a good thing for my friends to have guns, but that's not what's in question here. It's a matter of fact that New Jersey's gun laws have a much, much greater affect on the law-abiding than they have on criminals. They make lawful gun ownership difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and legally risky, while failing to bring criminal access anywhere near levels anybody thinks are acceptable.
There are legitimate, complex disagreements we can have over the desirability and effectiveness of background checks, ending private sales, gun-free zones, "assault weapons" bans, magazine restrictions, gun prohibition for misdemeanors, and a dozen other topics. But the New Jersey system--typical of NJ government--is a bloated, burdensome, expensive abomination that was made completely redundant with the creation of the efficient Brady NICS system, and now exists primarily as make-work for the State Troopers. This is one of the most extreme, poorly administered gun control schemes in the country, and fails to make returns on its burdens. Defending systems like this is why I had to stop taking you seriously: it gives the strong impression that your goal is to support any and all gun control, productive or not. Are there _any_ current gun control laws, anywhere in the country, that you'd agree we can get rid of?
Jade: “Yes, you can. I'm always right, it's a gift.”
ReplyDeleteNever admitting you are wrong is not a gift- it is curse (on the rest of us). Especially when it is so easy to prove that CA residents can not legally buy any gun without passing a background check, nor can they buy guns out of state.
@Elmo: thank you for the explanation. I agree that the process you describe does in fact burden prospective gun owners and the verification process seems a bit onerous and redundant. I only wish we had a similar process here in Virginia--it seems to work, since criminals from states with real gun regulation apparently get many of their guns from my state. Perhaps if every state had a process like that in New Jersey we could make a real dent in gun crime. In any event, the difficult process you describe almost certainly does keep guns out of the hands of some criminals simply by forcing them into a black market or straw purchases.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit less sympathetic about your complaint that other New Jersey citizens shame gun owners. This is not a matter of public policy or government enforcement, but one of shared understandings about right and wrong. You can agitate for changes in gun regulation, but you can't force people to ignore their own values.
What a moron.
ReplyDeletejadegold claims to be a know it all about NJ gun laws;
**The fact is that in NJ, there are very few restrictions on anyone buying whatever firearm--in whatever quantities they wish. And let's also not forget about the gun show loophole which renders what few regs NJ has absolutely moot.**
Let's see were jadegirl is full of crap;
1) You can't own Class III fireams in NJ, without a NJ CCW. Yet you can't get a NJ CCW without *just cause*, and NJ does not recognize *self defense* or *threats to one's life* as justifiable. Just to be clear here, NJ is fully automatic free.
2) NJ has a AWB since the early 90s. Fully listing outlawed firearms in the Garden State. The AWB also lists what can, and what cannot be on certain firearms. Many modern firearms are designed specifically for NJ, and there can be a waiting period of many months for these, since they're practically custom made.
3) Purchasing quantity. NJ has a One Gun a Month Law, and any firearms purchases of 2 or more get reported to the ATF, and NJ State Police. I've seen the shop keep complete these forms for me.
4) Gun Show Loophole. In NJ?? lol....hey moron, NJ doesn't have gun shows, since in NJ you cannot sell firearms anywhere, then where your FFL is registered. So much for you're poophole.
5) Private sales are the gunshow loophole. Again. In NJ?? lol.....while their are private sales in NJ, their far from being a *loophole*, since you need a NJ Firearms Purchase Card, and Purchase Permits all issued by the Police.
6) Just admit it already. You're point of view is, that if anybody can purchase a gun, the laws are not strict enough.
Anyone can say they are always right if they never admit they are wrong.
ReplyDelete“gun show poophole”… I like that.
Yeah, NJ gun laws are a bureaucratic nightmare, just like a lot of other government bureaucratic set-ups in many places, not just about guns.
ReplyDeleteThe thing Elmo is ignoring is that they work. They keep guns out of the hands of criminals and border-line criminals who wouldn't or couldn't jump through all those hoops. And Like R. Stanton said, other states should have the same thing in order to achieve the reduction in gun crime we all want.