Friday, November 4, 2011

The Latest from the Brady Campaign

29 comments:

  1. I found a new iPhone GunLaw app that's pretty cool. http://itunes.com/apps/GunLaws102511

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  2. Maybe this guy could give us his list of other inanimate objects he's afraid of.

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  3. Dennis Henigan,

    You are absolutely right about one point: We want to take our guns with us wherever we go.

    You are free to be free of guns--don't carry one. Don't own one, if you want to be disarmed. Your demand, though, that I have to leave my gun at home because you don't like it is the same as saying that I have to leave my opinions at home for the same reason. Fortunately, contrary to your assertion, the laws and opinions of this country have been moving in my direction for some time.

    Mr. Henigan, you are Belgium. You are defenseless, surrounded by great powers. The good news is that we gun owners prefer to be Switzerland. We attack no one, but we will defend ourselves.

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  4. Greg Camp, the Heller decision only gives you gun rights within your HOME. And based on what I have seen in Europe, they are as free as we are, and more secure and safe than we are.

    I doubt you know much Greg, about life in Belgium, compared to someone who lives or lived there - as Laci has, for example.

    You don't come across as a knowledgeable traveler.

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  5. Dog Gone,

    I'm not talking about the life of an individual in any particular European country. I'm making an analogy between defenseless persons and defenseless nations.

    As for Heller, you keep saying that the current ruling of the Supreme Court is the last word on my rights. I keep telling you that my rights exist independent of whatever opinion is currently extant.

    But as usual, you focus on a rhetorical flourish, rather than addressing the actual point.

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  6. No, Greg, your rights exist within the boundaries allowed by society--to say anything else is pure bullshit.

    Although, you can act on that belief to your detriment when society's institutions prove you wrong.

    I put this challenge to you, Greg, act on your belief that legal pronouncements are not valid since they do not coincide with your beliefs. I will even offer to defend you in court should you choose.

    But, you must be willing to accept the consequences should you be wrong and have overstepped the boundaries set for you by society.

    That may be the loss of your freedom.

    Can you accept that?

    As for Belgium, you are incorrect, Greg, Belgium has been the battlefield of Europe for Centuries. Some of the very best arms manufacturers have been found there (e.g., Fabrique National). They are about as well armed as the US. Every Belgian male has MANDATORY national service.

    You may want to look into a programme called Secret Army and remember the words of Harry Lime:

    In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

    Ever been to Europe, Greg?

    Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

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  7. No, Mr. Camp, I am pointing out to you that you have exactly the rights and only the rights that 'we the people' recognize by our laws, by the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

    You have yet to convincingly demonstrate that you have any innate rights whatsoever. When the philosophers back in the Enlightenment era posited innate or universal rights, they identified them as being widely recognized regardless of location, politics or religion (or lack of it) across history. Even by the standards of the philosophers who came up with the notion, you cannot demonstrate an innate human right to carry a personal weapon.

    I would further point out to you that the Age of Enlightenment / Age of Reason occurred approximately between 1650 and 1700; we are no longer in the 18th century. This is the 21st century, and are not obligated by any criteria to conform to the 17th or 18th century, much less are we obliged to humor your preferences over those of others.

    Whereas I have clearly demonstrated a very practical definition and understanding of rights which does hold up to that standard of being able to show a practical and logical basis for rights that is correct as a moral right, as a political right, as a right within philosophy, and as a legal/judicial definition of a right.

    Further it meets the criteria for the intent of the Founding Fathers in writing the Constitution AND the Declaration of Independence.

    What you have is a WANT, a DESIRE, to carry a personal firearm. Not a NEED, not a RIGHT. You are simply attempting to try to frame that wish, that preference as a right to justify that desire - and you are doing a bad job in the argument. You have descended to the reasoning of a two year old that you have a right to something because you want it and you say you are entitled.

    You are not born with any right, there IS NO SUCH RIGHT, and other than repeating your ignorant statement, you have offered neither proof nor logic to support that this is anything other than your want,desire, preference.

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  8. Simplified - might makes right.

    In reality, your rights simply extend to the ability you have to force others to accept them.

    It just so happens that almost all of the states currently agree that there is a right to carry weapons in some form or another. The anti's ability to change that will depend on how well they can force others to agree to their point of view.

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  9. Laci The Dog,

    Yes, I'm aware of Fabrique National. John Moses Browning (blessings upon his name) developed the P-35 with them, his last gun design. Still, the Germans rolled through Belgium without any problem. The Swiss, by contrast, built a sniper's nest out of their mountain retreat, and the Germans stayed out.

    Dog Gone,

    You're correct to say that my right to have firearms comes from desire. I want to live. Please show me how I have a right to live that goes beyond my desire to do so. The principle of the Enlighenment here is that individuals have the right to govern their own lives without the meddling of their neighbors. As long as I'm not harming you, I am free to act. My ownership of firearms and my carrying of the same does you no harm. Why are you so committed to having a collective make the decision?

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  10. Greg, you demonstrate historical ignorance: in particular the Battle of Belgium.

    The Battle of Belgium included the first tank battle of the war, the Battle of Hannut. That was the largest tank battle in history up to that date but was later surpassed by the battles of the North African campaign and the Eastern Front. The battle also included the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael, the first strategic airborne operation using paratroopers.

    The Belgians hardly lied down and let the Germans invade.

    No one attacked Switzerland, but I doubt Swiss firearms would have done too much to stop the Luftwaffe had the Germans tried.

    If anything, there is a more vital lesson for you--a well armed foe will trounce your pathetic arse.

    Gun or no gun.

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  11. I should also add, Greg, that I have lived in or near Coventry,London, and Exeter. I have seen the damage caused by the German Luftwaffe.

    I can say for certain, the the Swiss would have been "bombed into the Stoneage" had the Germans chosen.

    In fact, what saved England was not its land defences, but the fact it was an Island.

    Switzerland's only true defence is that it has been neutral. And it's Europe's banker.

    Otherwise, there is the possibility that the Germans could have invaded. There is also the possibility that the Swiss could have sided with Germany as well.

    As I said, guns would not have stopped the Luftwaffe and German tanks.

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  12. Laci the Dog,

    Well, at least you agree that a well-armed foe has an advantage. That's the point the we gun owners have been making for a long time.

    By the way, you are also correct that Belgium hardly lied down. They told no lies. I believe that the verb you wanted there, however, was lay.

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  13. Greg, other than correcting my spelling--are you an idiot?

    A gun WON'T help you.

    Get that through your head.

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  14. BTW, Greg, I doubt that you could afford the type of weaponry and equipment to protect you against the modern military.

    So, give me a break--you can claim that right to your heart's content, but that is sheer folly.

    I should add that spelling up until the late 18th century was rather haphazard--William Shakespeare hardly spelled his name the same way twice. That's one of those yank inventions.

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  15. Greg Camp wrote:

    "Please show me how I have a right to live that goes beyond my desire to do so."

    Wha? He then goes on to write:

    "The principle of the Enlightenment here is that individuals have the right to govern their own lives without the meddling of their neighbors."

    No, it isn't. I've read the Enlightenment philosophers, in translation and in the original languages in which they wrote. They say no such thing. Please provide your sources, preferably if they are not in English with both the original and the translation you used.

    This is an approximation; it is not a perfect expression of the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment:

    "The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in Church and state."

    It says nothing about your 'neighbors', they addressed the issues of abuse of larger entities, and the relationship of the individuals to create or re-create them, by consensus.

    As long as I'm not harming you, I am free to act. My ownership of firearms and my carrying of the same does you no harm. Why are you so committed to having a collective make the decision?

    Because personal firearms DO a great deal of harm; note the role of firearms in murders/homicides, suicides, accidents, mass shootings, domestic violence, and other crimes with firearms. I'm sure you'd like us to believe that ONLY hardened criminals who have illegally obtained their weapons are responsible, but that is simply not true. Because ALL of us are affected by that - see some of the posts here on the costs of firearm violence for examples - not just YOU. That is why it appropriate for the social contract to identify, define, and regulate any rights relating to weapons.

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  16. No one attacked Switzerland, but I doubt Swiss firearms would have done too much to stop the Luftwaffe had the Germans tried.

    If anything, there is a more vital lesson for you--a well armed foe will trounce your pathetic arse.

    Gun or no gun.




    Cool this is kinda like playing fantasy league football, coulda, woulda, shoulda, revisionist history.....

    So the one thing that I can take from history and not Laci's fantasizing is that you should be safe if you have mountains of guns and money....and mountains.

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  17. Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Latest from the Brady Campaign":

    "Let your gun be the constant companion to your walks."
    Thomas Jefferson

    "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
    -- Mohandas Gandhi

    Once again you have demonstrated that you don't know the context of what you quote.

    Jefferson was addressing hunting while walking woods and fields, for recreation. That was a recreation which tended to be the purview of the wealthy elite, the people who owned most of the firearms. What it was NOT about was an individual right to bear arms in public as the right of every individual.

    Gandhi was addressing the disarming of the armies in India, not individual firearms or personal weapons for self-defense.

    Sheesh Anonymous, you keep proving we are better educated, definitely better read, and you make our point, not yours.

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  18. In the U.S. during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when the U.S. became independent of Great Britain and was assembling a republic out of the colonies, there were no supermarkets--and damned few butcher shops in many towns and villages at which to purchase meat. In those days, the man of the house, his sons (and sometimes daughters and wives) filled the larder with game unless there was an affordable and accessible retailer of meat products. Guns WERE necessary back then for doing the shopping, so to speak. That is no longer the case.

    As dog gone says of the Englightenment, that was a long, long time ago. Things change, but sometimes people's minds don't and they, along with old law, become anachronistic.

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  19. Dog Gone,

    You said that I don't have the right to own guns merely because I want them. I asked you to explain to me why I have the right to live beyond my desire to do so.

    My point is that I have the right to do whatever does not cause harm to another. My guns, whether they're locked up in my home or riding about my person, are harming no one.

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  20. " I asked you to explain to me why I have the right to live beyond my desire to do so."

    What? "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are not things you believe in?

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  21. Dog Gone and Democommie,

    Of course I believe in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." My point is that you cannot give me a reason that human beings have a right to live beyond their desire to do so. We serve no essential function for the planet or the cosmos. We have the right to exist because we want it, and so long as we are not harming others, we have no need to justify our existence beyond that.

    I do also believe that we have a duty to do good and achieve greatness, but that's another matter.

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  22. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," to me means I can bring my kids to the playground without worrying about which of the other parents is carrying, about which one of them might be in a domestic squabble with her husband who's about to storm into the playground shootin'.

    But I don't have that. The reason is someone else's idea of freedom has trumped mine. This was done as a planned ans systematic assault on the legislative interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

    Now, what we've got is something which would be totally unrecognizable by the sacred and revered Founding Fathers, not something they would approve of, but something they would be baffled and confounded by.

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  23. Mikeb302000,

    What are you worried about? Unless someone poses an immediate threat to my life or the life of another, you'll never know that I have my gun with me. Concealed means concealed.

    You have the right to life. You don't have the right to live without being offended. Nor do you have the right to enforce your fears onto the rest of us.

    Unless I injure you or kill you, I am not harming you.

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  24. GC wrote:
    "You have the right to life."

    And yet the prevalence of firearms correlates directly to the levels of violence, and deaths and injuries and crimes with firearms. THAT means the number of guns, particularly unregulated or minimally regulated, violates the right to life you claim, and justifies the stricter regulation.

    Except you don't want that, regardless of the many logical justifications for it. You don't really seem to care about genuine logic at all.

    "You don't have the right to live without being offended. Nor do you have the right to enforce your fears onto the rest of us."

    You make the specious premise that all fears are equally invalid - except yours.

    In fact, your fears on which you predicate the need for lethal force on your person is not valid, based on fact.

    Other people have EVERY right to take reasonable precautions, enact and enforce reasonable regulation, in response to FACTS like the number of homicides with firearms, or the relative number of violent crimes, accidents, and suicides with firearms, in contrast to a wide variety of other countries where stricter regulation has, consistently, resulted in safer societies. We have every right to limit the firearms ownership of individuals for the safety of the rest of us as a fact of law, and as a moral fact, and as public policy - that is the kind of thing public policy is FOR.

    Unless I injure you or kill you, I am not harming you.

    Baloney, when you create greater risk, you harm me; when you create a more costly society, you harm me. If you don't recognize that there is risk OTHER than injury or death, you are a fool, or you are making a dishonest argument. I leave it to you which it is.

    I wasn't allowed to get away with positing reasoning that superficial, that shallow, that dishonest when I was a child myself. I'm not going to indulge in without challenge, much less agree with it, from another adult.

    That is just crap that you are arguing here.

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  25. "What are you worried about? Unless someone poses an immediate threat to my life or the life of another, you'll never know that I have my gun with me. Concealed means concealed."

    And we can rely on you to never make a mistake in this regard? How? We have only your word on it.

    I suspect that you don't trust the government to give you fair value for the taxes you pay. I also suspect that you don't trust your employer to pay you the agreed upon salary, without some sort of contract--between you and the employer or the employer and your union. And those two areas of "trust" only involve fungible money. Human life is a whole different kettle of horses of a different color.

    When you can absolutely, positively guarantee me that you won't shoot the wrong person or cause other problems with your vigilantism--well, when you can, get back to me.

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  26. Greg, I say the same thing to you,

    "You have the right to life. You don't have the right to live without being offended. Nor do you have the right to enforce your fears onto the rest of us."

    That's when you fall back on the 2A.

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  27. I will feel sorry for the people who will blindly follow this group. To think they will remove guns from all law abiding citizens and say this will make a safe community for us is delusional at best. He fails to point out that once the guns are removed from the good citizens .... we will as he will be extremely exposed to a rather large criminal element that they the Brady's are afraid to take on. All I see the Brady Group doing is targeting soft targets, Goos people and shying away from the bloodshed cause by the hundreds of thousand criminals who's kill every day one of the good citizens for a fix or a dollar. This is what they are excited about. God help us. Or have they gone after God as well.

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  28. Welcome Bud Martin, who wrote:

    "To think they will remove guns from all law abiding citizens and say this will make a safe community for us is delusional at best. He fails to point out that once the guns are removed from the good citizens .... we will as he will be extremely exposed to a rather large criminal element that they the Brady's are afraid to take on. "

    1. That has been proven to be false by the success in reducing gun violence in those countries where stricter gun regulation have occurred. The reality is that fewer guns also result in fewer guns in the hands of criminals. It is unfounded fear mongering.

    2. It is PRECISELY because of taking on the guns in the hands of criminals that this is important. There is no 'fear" of taking on criminals involved here at all - that is demonstrably NONSENSE. Further you are failing to address how all those guns, which start out LEGAL get into the hands of criminals in the first place. It is precisely to oppose criminals having guns that this is important.

    3. Where in heck did you get the crazy idea that only criminals behave badly with firearms? There are a helluva a lot of people who have no criminal history that subsequently commit crimes like domestic homicide / suicide, or the mass shooting in Santee school shooting in California, or the Seal Beach California shooting, or the multiple shooting posted here this week in North Carolina.... the list of these shootings is quite long.

    Beyond that we have the issue of domestic violence. Want to talk about the law abiding? How about the statistic that 40% of the families and romantic partners of law enforcement officers are victims of domestic violence, including firearm domestic violence?

    We're not stupid, and we are very well researched on this topic -- sadly apparently better researched than those of you on the pro-gun side.

    We want to keep firearms out of the hands of the deranged, the criminals, the bullies and stalkers, That means being more restrictive in who gets guns - like making the NCIS more functional by requiring the names be submitted for the prohibited categories by the states.

    Currently 30 states provide few if any names to the NCIS. Those states which do provide the names make it clear that the NCIS does work - when names are supplied. We need to close the loophole on private transactions so that they conform to the same requirements as FFL sales. We need to know where and how guns change hands into the hands of criminals.

    And we need to require that owners of firearms keep them more secure than they do now 'if they feel like it'.

    What we DON'T need are more cowboy wannabe's out on the street thinking they should be deciding who to shoot instead of relying on law enforcement.

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  29. I would take issue with Bud's characterization of the Brady Campaign as wanting to remove guns totally.

    "once the guns are removed from the good citizens .."

    Only the paranoid and delusional gun-rights fanatics believe that. They must feel better arguing against something as unreasonable as that because to argue against what we actually propose just wouldn't work.

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