Jack Kingston and the NRA hate not only facts, but any research about gun violence

Facts are the life blood of the debate about gun rights and gun control.  In online sparring at several sites, I found myself presented by a lot of interesting information about guns.  What was uniform was the conviction that guns as forms of protection are important and that (mostly) no forms of regulation have ever had any effects on gun violence.  Most importantly (RP and others), gun violence primarily targets young black men.

While these individuals are convinced, the NRA is not, nor our different Congressional representatives who are blocking, and have blocked in 1996, appropriations to the CDC to study gun violence.  Pehaps some of my erstwhile online sparring partners will ask Jack Kingston of Georgia, among others, to stop and allow the research to be done.

As is a familiar refrain, Kingston justifies himself by claiming that this is research for the sake of gun confiscation.  Everything is about confiscation.

No words: more domestic violence against women from a coward with a gun

When will this end?

Imminent Public Threat: Open Carry Versus Public Safety, Part 1

Apparently as many as 45 states have now passed open carry legislation, which is remarkable.  That means that more states approve of individuals openly carrying weapons made for killing than there are that approve of same sex persons getting married (only 19 states).  Alas, the ridiculousness of open carry does not need comparison to be made apparent.

Why should Open Carry (or OC, as its apologists like to put it) be promoted? What are the reasons for it?

1) The Second Amendment protects the rights to keep and bear arms. This is the elephant in the room.  Not only does the 2ndA allow for this, but there is considerable state legislation protecting these rights.

So just to be clear, this is a pretty considerable argument for the gun promoters. 

But that does not mean it is a clear and unquestionable amendment. In fact, it is apparently so questionable that numerous states have had to pass legislation to clarify and specify this amendment. And more to the point, 45 states have deemed it necessary to specifically protect OC rights, as I said above.  

Just to be clear then, there is nothing in the 2ndA as legislation that specifically protects OC, such that further legislation was not necessary.

So that is considerable legislative basis, but how does it fare in the court of reason?  By this what I mean is that we need to separate different kinds of reasons.  The former is a reason based on conventional law.  But those things change continually and really only reflect the powers of legislative forces.  They do not reflect simple rational reflection.

2) Carrying a weapon openly allows one to protect oneself in public places.  

But why must she carry openly to protect herself.  In fact, her advantage in carrying openly is frightening potential criminals away, right?

Perhaps, imagining that all criminals carefully select the most vulnerable unarmed individuals.  But that right comes at the cost of the right to security of others who also occupy public spaces.  It is not merely that someone is carrying at home, but OC specifically protects someone's right to carry in a public place.  

So what we have here then is a case in which the right of one individual needs to be weighed against the rights of other individuals. 

If I met this asshole on the street in Florida, I'd have
to run, because he can get away with murder (if I
was black and wearing a hoodie). 

Both the OCer and the NCer (non-carrier) are protected by the police from criminals, some fictional third party that is somehow excluded from these categories.  But the NCer also needs to be protected from the OCer as well.  The reason for this is that the OCer is carrying a weapon that has no purpose but to kill, and the NCer has no way to know that the OCer has been trained and licensed (no one has to show their carry license to anyone other than a police officer).

Thus, just as an NCer doesn't walk in a highway, for the sake of safety, no NCer should remain in a space where there is an OCer (which might well be called the George Zimmerman rule).  

Conclusion: the OCer has perhaps made herself safer (or merely given herself the false sense of security, since there are numerous examples of "good guys with guns" not able to protect themselves from "bad guys with guns"), but she has forced any reasonable NCer to leave and insodoing, restricted the First Amendment rights of NCers and even other OCers. 

In fact, one could see the OCer as an example of the violation of prior restraint (this connection brought to you by responsible gun celebrist Walter Sobjchek).

This is only part 1.  I'll consider more in another post.

REPRINT: Have a Gun, But no Piece of Mind

REPUBLISHED From:

http://www.abqjournal.com/256717/news/buying-a-handgun-didnt-make-writer-feel-any-safer-after-all.html

Last Labor Day, I told you readers about my decision to buy a gun, a radical choice for someone who has spent much of her career writing about the evil and tragedy that occur at the end of one.

That column elicited more comments than any other I’ve written in the five years I’ve been contributing to UpFront.

An overwhelming number of you voiced your approval. I felt welcomed into a huge armed fraternity, a society of shooters only too happy to have converted another so-called liberal into the fold.

I felt so loved.

Many of you offered advice on what kind of firearm I should purchase. Many of you admonished me to take classes, get a concealed-carry permit (or at least take the training) and to practice, practice, practice.

I explained that my change of heart had come about because someone in my inner circle had finally broken away from a horrific relationship, throwing the rest of my family into a dangerous, potentially deadly drama. As the sole protector of my family, I felt compelled to find a better way to do that protecting than keeping a butter knife under my pillow or hoping a 911 call would bring help to my remote abode in time.

You readers told me to consider whether I was ready to shoot to kill, not just to maim or frighten. Take no prisoners, some of you said. Have fun with the gun when not picking off marauders, some of you said.

You’ll recall, though, that purchasing my first gun hit a snag when the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System was not so instant and spit back, for reasons I still don’t know, a “DELAY” notification requiring an additional check.

Finally, after going through the entire process again (which is surprisingly easy) in October, I purchased a shiny new Ruger .22-caliber pistol, chosen because it fits best in my hand, has plenty of safety features, a good price and cheap-enough ammo to allow me to practice, practice, practice without breaking the pocketbook.

But now, I expect some of you will hate me again.

I still haven’t fired a single cartridge.

I haven’t taken a class, haven’t set foot in a shooting range. The gun sits locked and unloaded in a secure safe, as shiny as the day I bought it.

Maybe I’m chicken. Maybe I just haven’t had time. But maybe something visceral happened when I held that gun and those brassy bullets.

Maybe Sandy Hook.

Maybe George Zimmerman.

Maybe Tera Chavez.

Maybe Hadiya Pendleton.

Maybe Sunni Reza, the 8-year-old Albuquerque girl shot and killed in the crossfire of a gang-related shooting in May.

Maybe Nehemiah Griego, the 15-year-old boy accused of gunning down his parents and his three younger siblings in their South Valley home.

Maybe Antoinette Tuff, the Georgia bookkeeper who saved the lives of potentially hundreds of elementary school children and police officers when she neutralized a mentally disturbed gunman, not with a weapon but with compassionate words, calmness and love.

Maybe because I just don’t understand a society that flocks to gun stores to stock up on weapons and bullets every time weapons and bullets are used in yet another American tragedy.

Maybe because I don’t understand a country where, as former President Clinton noted last week, it can be harder to vote than to obtain an assault weapon.

Maybe because National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierre and his paranoid fear-mongering scare me, but not for the reasons he might expect.

Maybe because I have seen so few situations where a gun made things safer.

Maybe because I just don’t have the stomach to be in this kind of fraternity.

Mostly, there is this: My youngest, who is special needs, got angry at an older brother recently and threatened to get my gun and shoot him.

Not that he could. The gun safe requires my fingerprint to open. The magazine is out, the cartridges are removed.

Which also means that had that previous family drama that convinced me to purchase a gun in the first place escalated, my Ruger would have been of no use to me, unless I could have talked the intruder into waiting while I retrieved it from the safe, loaded it and figured out how to shoot it.

I bought the gun to feel safer. I don’t.

And what am I teaching my son? That a gun can resolve conflicts?

So there my shiny Ruger sits. I haven’t decided whether to sell it – that’s not an easy proposition, though I suppose it’s done quietly all the time.

Perhaps if I take it out to a shooting range, I’ll change my mind. Perhaps you all will change my mind. So go ahead, make my day.

For now, though, I’m leaning toward thinking it’s best to take my chances with the butter knife under the pillow. That, somehow, seems safer.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603,jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.

There are No Good Guys with Guns, Or, Why You Should Avoid People Who Concealed Carry

The main question is, what kind of people carry concealed weapons?

!) People who are scared.
Of those scared, the question is why?  They live in dangerous places.  In this case, you do not want to be where these people are going and especially not with them because they are bringing something which will only escalate the situation.  

Or, they have had experiences with others that scared them. In this case, you also do not want to be with these people because they have not overcome their trauma and their view of the world is one of a victim, and victims will become victims in the future, again and again. These are people who will be the first to escalate any situation that seems even slightly threatening.

2) People who "work late hours" and live next to drug dealers.  I've lived in bad neighborhoods and I've never had a concealed weapon.  Carrying a concealed weapon around drug dealers is not going to protect you from them. If they don't think you're carrying a weapon, then they don't care about you.  If they do, then any confrontation with them will lead to violence.  

3) People who want to celebrate gun ownership. This category is completely bewildering. These people want to feel macho and powerful by carrying a weapon.  

If they are responsible, they would never carry, because there is practically no situation in which his gun can de-escalate a situation.  If they do carry, then they are not really responsible, because they have underestimated the dangers to which they are exposing everyone who spends time with them.

The truth is, these people are not macho, but the most emasculated, because they need to wear a gun to feel like a man, or to feel powerful.  Those are the scariest people (and they too are scared people).

And let's just be clear what this person is celebrating: the right to brandish a tool that has only one purpose, which is to kill others. 

This list is exhaustive. 

Conclusion: there are no good guys with guns (except police, although they do not concealed carry).  

Adam Weinstein, if you have a brain in your head, for the sake of your son and your wife, get rid of your guns and stop carrying concealed.  

Good Guys with Guns Unable to Stop the Bad Guys with Guns. Another example from same incident.

Joseph Wilcox was shopping at the Walmart outside of Las Vegas where the shooting occurred yesterday.  He was concealed-carrying a weapon legally, and tried to intervene when he say Jerad and Amanda Miller.  Unfortunately, he was killed.  

If he hadn't pulled out his weapon, it's likely he would still be alive.  Of course, what he did was brave in that he was trying to protect others.  

So this is a very clear case where gun rights did not protect anyone.  This is also a case where it is not the case that the solution to a bad person with a gun is another "good" person with a gun.

Now one might say, to expand on what I said above, Joseph Wilcox, the man who legally conceal-carried a weapon that he used to try to defend others as well as himself, was doing something brave and courageous that many others would do in the same situation. Moreover, Wilcox had no idea that the couple had only killed police officers and no one else, such that if we didn't pull his weapon he probably would have been safe.

I support the abolition of second amendment rights because even though Wilcox was doing something brave, he lacked the training to know how to act in this situation and that must have been one of the factors in his murder. Secondly, even if the preponderance of second amendment right citizens are acting responsibly, as I expect Wilcox probably did, that right is not worth the imminent public danger that the abuse of this right by individuals like Jerad and Amanda Miller pose. 

To be clear: the threat of abuses of the second amendment nullifies the benefits of that amendment. We agree not to kill others when we enter society, and so we should be able to agree not to brandish instruments with no purpose but killing when we enter society.

Good Guys with Guns Unable to Stop the Bad Guys with Guns. Case #???.

One of the arguments that the NRA has used to deny gun-control legislations is that the best solution to "bad guys" with guns is "good guys" with guns. Here's an example where that did not work, surprisingly.

My condolences to the families of those killed.

The NRA and gun manufacturing industry, who have lobbied successfully to end any reasonable gun control, are responsible for these deaths.

They are terrorist organizations, clearly a threat to public weal.