Wednesday, May 2, 2012

"Gun Control" has Become a Dirty Word


 Gun "Control" is an anachronism. Look at the exact wording of the Pew question: "What do you think is more important -- to protect the right of Americans to own guns, or to control gun ownership?" This question uses the language of the gun lobby (rights), not the language of those working for stronger gun laws (safety). And it pits a right versus simply "control" for its own sake.

I don't assume nefarious motives on Pew's part. When this question was first written, "control" was indeed part of the gun debate vernacular. But it is no longer. Using the word "control" is a poor description of that side's position. (While the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was once called Handgun Control, Inc., the group hasn't had` "control" in its name in over ten years.)

What if there was decades of tracking of something like "what do you think is more important -- to protect the rights of gun owners, or to protect the safety of everyone from gun violence?" Results would, to be sure, be different from the current question.
She makes an interesting point. The wording of surveys and polls needs to be changed to reflect the changed understanding of the word "control." To gun owners and many non-gun owners, the word has become synonymous with gun bans. Thanks to the gun-rights folks, the words "gun control" are associated with anti-rights and other un-American ideas that no one likes. This has been a planned and purposeful effort and it has achieved some success.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

30 comments:

  1. In other words, we're winning. We've told you this before, though you've denied it. The Brady Bunch can deny their past, but we haven't forgotten, and we know the real motive of your side. You may not believe in bans, no matter how little you've thought through the implications of your proposals, but we know that it's all about control for your side.

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    1. I don't deny that you're winning. I don't think it'll last, though.

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    2. I just saw an article about quality gun safes in Better Homes and Gardens.

      Yep, we're winning big time.

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    3. Better Homes and Gardens, is that true?

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  2. This reminds me of those nuts at PETA that want to officially change the name of "fish" to "sea kittens" so people will stop fishing.

    You say you don't want to ban guns but merely control them but you don't want to call it controlling them.

    So what instead would you call gun control if it wasn't to be called gun control because no one wants gun control?

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  3. "Gun safety" does not imply any restrictions on gun ownership, just safe handling of those guns. I don't think "gun safety" accurately represents what the Brady Bunch and others are pushing for.

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  4. Margie Omero's rewording of the question is a red herring,
    "to protect the rights of gun owners, or to protect the safety of everyone from gun violence?"

    Government cannot protect the rights of gun owners -- unless you consider one branch of government or jurisdiction interceding on behalf of an armed citizen to stop an infringement from another branch or jurisdiction. And it is absolutely impossible for government to protect the safety of anyone from gun violence. A government agency can not stop a criminal from using a gun in a crime ... any more than they can stop a crime of any nature.

    Unless you are sitting the middle of a police station, no government agency is going to protect you.

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  5. I propose we stop using the traditional terminology "violent crime". Instead, we are going to refer to "law enforcement failure to prevent injury events".

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  6. Some bimbo wrote: "the language of those working for stronger gun laws (safety). "what do you think is more important -- to protect the rights of gun owners, or to protect the safety of everyone from gun violence?"

    To which Ben Franklin replied: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    orlin sellers

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  7. I thought gun control was using both hands.

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    1. Bumpersticker philosophy. Excuse me if I forget to laugh.

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    2. J.O.B.May 2, 2012 04:21 PM

      Your excused.


      No, your response to BO should have been, "You're an idiot...."

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    3. Tom- Thanks, but I try to be polite. Some people have no sense of humor.

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  8. No, Greg, it doesn't mean you extremists are "winning." It means the NRA has managed to corrupt the meaning of "control" to be read as "ban".

    The vast majority of polled citizens, up around 80%, even among gun owners, agree that guns need stricter regulation. That's a sure sign that our side is winning, and extremist like you, who want no regulation of guns whatsoever, have lost public support, and that the NRA and those legislators who shill for them have gotten WAY out of touch with the public and fellow gun owners.

    "stricter regulation" = "legislative means of keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them." That is "control," and I'm all for it. However, advocates against gun violence don't just advocate for legislation, but for safety education as well (such as people taking responsibility for safe gun storage, gun safety training, anti-bullying, watching for signs of suicidal tendencies, etc). So the term "gun control" doesn't really encompass the full spectrum of what we do, anyhow.

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    1. Believe me, Man from Oregon, we're on to your tricks. How'd that Starbucks boycott work out for you, by the way? But let's pretend for the moment that you're right, even though respected organizations like Pew and Gallup say you aren't. Why can't you get gun control politicians elected anywhere outside of the tiny number of People's Republics of California, New Jersey, and the like?

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    2. Baldr you are missing something critical. Many (perhaps most) people spend the majority of their waking hours outside of their home. Laws that criminalize citizens for possessing their firearms outside of their homes seriously infringe on their rights to be able to defend themselves and take their personal property with them as they travel. Of course that is part-and-parcel of gun control.

      The problem is that there is no rational reason to forbid a law abiding citizen with no violent or criminal history from possessing a firearm outside of their home. Those citizens pose no significant danger to the public. Case in point: not a single one of the 2.5 million citizens who own firearms in my state harmed anyone today, nor yesterday, nor the day before. Even more compelling, the violence policy center's concealed carry killers research has only been able to find about 1 concealed carry licensee per state per year that uses their pistol to harm someone. To the contrary we learn about concealed carry licensees who use their pistols to defend themselves or another citizen in public almost every week.

      The arguments for gun control in its full glory are baseless. As more and more citizens learn that truth, they are pushing government to stop infringing on their rights. That's the problem with the truth. It never changes. It is always right. It never goes away. And time always reveals it. That's why your side is losing and will never recover.

      What floors me is how the public is learning about the truth. Given that the lamestream media hates gun rights, I have to imagine that we have the Internet to thank for all this.

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    3. I hear you Baldr, about the 80%, but I think Greg has a point still. During Obama's first term they've done pretty well for themselves, but I think those days are numbered. In his second term, Obama will change the balance on the Supreme Court and hopefully get tough on gun-rights.

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    4. Small clarification, Capn: you don't have a "right" to take and possess a gun outside your home, according to the current Supreme Court interpretation of the 2A. You only have a right to have a gun in the home for self-protection. Outside of that, they were careful to spell out that states still have the authority to regulate guns however they see fit, including conceal carry laws. You may *wish* you had a right to it, but you don't.

      As to reasons why not to allow willy-nilly conceal carry in public, I see cases all the time of conceal carry permit holders having accidents, allowing kids to get their guns, leaving guns unattended in public (such as in bathrooms), or acting out and shooting someone without justification. These cases often end tragically. The more guns you have in public, the more of these instances there are. You can choose to ignore these cases and pretend that all CCL holders are perfect citizens, but that just isn't the reality.

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    5. Oregonian, what right do you have to express your opinions outside your home? I call that a natural human right, but you apparently believe that our rights have to be defined by the courts. Fine. What if the courts choose to declare speech in public to be something that the First Amendment never intended?

      As to license holders, there are some six to ten million of us. Can you provide evidence that even a full one percent of us have committed crimes with the guns we are licensed to carry? If we're the dangerous and evil people that you seem to believe us to be, that shouldn't be too hard to do. Of course, even the Violence Policy Center can't do that, but you have superpowers, right?

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    6. Baldr Odinson,

      I have the natural right to do anything I want that doesn't infringe on another person's natural right to do anything they want. Our U.S. Constitution codifies this and it is the basis for centuries of common law.

      Beyond that, the most recent U.S. Supreme Court case did not speak about possessing a firearm outside the home because the petitioner didn't ask about it. The resultant ruling thus only speaks about the 2nd Amendment inside the home.

      As for concealed carry license holders being perfect citizens, they come close to it ... closer than even law enforcement officers. (Concealed carry licensees have fewer accidents, shoot fewer bystanders, and commit fewer crimes per capita than law enforcement officers.) Show me 10 documented instances of concealed carry license holders doing something dangerous in your state or a nearby state in one year.

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  9. The comments here are proof positive that the author of the Huffington Post article is on to something. Just mention the word gun control and the gun extremists come out to regale us with their paranoia. Have you noticed that it's the same few who comment on all of the blogs? Most of the rest of America agrees with sensible restrictions on who can buy and carry guns, and where they can be carried, among other things. But the NRA has highjacked our country into the fear that, if given an opportunity, the "Brady bunch" is coming surely coming for everyone's guns. Nothing is further from the truth but the truth doesn't matter for the gun rights extremists. The NRA is not serious about keeping guns away from people who shouldn't have them. They dont' care about public health and safety, If they did, they would be working with folks in the "gun control" community.

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    1. I continue to find it fascinating that Japete and the Man from Oregon, two bloggers who refuse to allow an open conversation on their own blogs, show up here to discuss matters. But that's typical of the control extremists. They can't stand freedom.

      Japete, as I've told Mikeb repeatedly and would tell you on your blog if you'd listen, your side refuses to show any willingness to compromise. You want us to give and give and give, but you have to give up nothing. How can we work with people who won't work with us? The fact is that this is a political fight, and we're not going to surrender.

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    2. Right on, japete.

      Greg, get off that commenting thing, will ya? We're tired of hearing it, you keep repeating it as if it's a great "gotcha" discovery for your side. It's not.

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    3. Mikeb, it's illustrative of the attitude that your side takes. Everything must be controlled and shaped by those who know better. Japete won't post my comments on her blog. She's just as dismissive of the positions of others as Dog Gone, although Japete is able to be more concise.

      This isn't a "gotcha" moment. You're the one gun control advocate who allows open discussion on your blog--at least from what I've seen, and I've looked around for others. That should trouble you.

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    4. I'm sure you are tired of hearing it. Most people do not like being painted in a bad light. It doesn't make Greg's statement any less valid, though. If Japete is less than willing to listen to other people's viewpoints why on Earth would anyone listen to hers?

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  10. "Have you noticed that it's the same few who comment on all of the blogs? Most of the rest of America agrees with sensible restrictions on who can buy and carry guns, and where they can be carried, among other things."

    Awesome. If Japete is correct and a handful of bloggers that comment on anti-gun blogs now keep laws from being passed that the rest of America agrees with, we are definitely WINNING!

    Imagine the power that we have! We can stop all of America in her tracts!

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    1. FWM, my advice is you better stock up while you can.

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  11. "Baldr you are missing something critical. Many (perhaps most) people spend the majority of their waking hours outside of their home."

    Aside from the fact that this is not a valid premise, since it lacks any supporting data or even links to government reports or accepted peer-reviewed studies that backs up your assertion, what's your point? That everybody needs a gun?

    Let me see if I have this right. You're the same Cap'n Crunch who says that no Arizona gunzloonz went on a rampage a day or so ago on a thread about 2ndMendmentPatriot, J.T. Ready?

    Hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens as well as visitors from other countries go about their lives, every day, without getting killed or molested.

    You and the rest of gunzloonznation bleat about your precious gunzrightz while ignoring the valid concerns of people who don't want to have to worry if some idiot with a gun and vigilante mentality will decided to star perpblastin' in the middle of a crowd, because their "superior" perpdar is goin' off. And, when something goes wrong? some innocent person is injured or killed? Well, that's just the price that we must pay for our "freedom"? You people are not just stupid, you're insincere hypocrites who place your personal needs above the needs and wants of society.

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    1. Thank you demmocommie for illustrating almost all the ways in which gun-control proponents are mistaken.

      You reject my assertion that many people spend the majority of their waking hours outside of their home. Really? Many people in the U.S. work full time and: commute 1 hour, work 8 hours, lunch 1 hour. That's 10 hours away from home. If they sleep 8 hours, then they are only home and awake for 6 hours a day. Of course some of those categories take longer for some people and I didn't include other activities such as shopping, leisure, business trips, and vacations. This is an example of how gun grabbers reject rational explanations.

      I predicted that no armed citizens with no previous criminal records went on a rampage in Arizona. I was correct. My prediction excluded J.T. Ready because he had a previous criminal record. This is an example of how gun grabbers conflate the facts and keep lumping in criminals with citizens.

      The majority of citizens and visitors in the U.S. are not killed or molested on any given day. Apparently demmocommie is suggesting that the percentage of U.S. citizens and visitors who are not hurt justifies restricting the rights of citizens who wish to be armed. Here is the perspective. Law enforcement agencies reported 1.2 million violent crimes in the U.S. in 2010. I have friends in law enforcement who assure me that there are plenty more unreported crimes but we'll go with the FBI's number. At least 0.4% of the U.S. population are victims of violent crime annually. Thanks to the violence policy center, we know about how many armed citizens who legally carry in public murdered someone last year: about 60 out of something like 8 million legally armed citizens who carry in public. That's 0.00075%. So in demmocommie's mind, too many concealed carry citizens -- 0.00075% -- are murdering people so we must forbid them from carrying, but it's okay that 0.4% of the U.S. population are victims of violent crime. This is an example of how the gun grabbers have irrational criteria for public policy.

      And demmocommie's last paragraph is priceless. Unarmed people who are concerned that an armed citizen will accidentally shoot them in a crowd while defending themselves have a valid concern. Of course it doesn't happen ... ever as far as I can tell. (I cannot find any documented occurrences.) On the other hand armed citizens who are concerned about violent crime have an invalid concern when we know there are more than 1 million violent crimes every year. This is an example of how the concerns of gun grabbers are more important than the concerns of citizens who wish to be armed.

      I readily admit to placing my right to life above the needs and wants of society when society needs and wants to infringe on my right to life. That doesn't make me stupid or an insincere hypocrite. This is an example of how gun grabbers turn to personal insults when they run out of principles.

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