December 5, 2015

Is Hillary Clinton sorry she reacted to the San Bernardino massacre with a call for more gun control?

Maybe, but she's sure not going to say that. She's going to take everything she's said and claim coherence:
"I don't see any conflict at all between going after the terrorists with everything we have got... and doing more on gun safety measures. I know that we can save lives and we shouldn't be conflating the two."
Hillary is disciplined about delivering short, stock answers that don't stoke or even acknowledge controversy and that never admit mistakes. That's either aggravating, boring, or hyper-competent, depending on what you already think about her.

I see she's adopted the rebranding "gun safety." "Gun safety" has traditionally meant handling your guns safely, but now it's supposed to mean what has more commonly been called "gun control."

"Safety" sounds nicer than "control." "Control" is what a repressive state does to a cowed citizenry and what sexist men want to do to women. It's what puts the freak in control freaks. But "safety" feels like a caring mother, a loving partner, a beneficent government.

Unlike safety, "safety" is dangerous.

79 comments:

Vet66 said...

The same problem afflicting ObamaCare will afflict attempts at Gun Control no matter how they are packaged. Non-compliance/enforcement by the citizenry and Law Enforcement will render that problem moot and high costs and lack of Physicians will cause ACA to be rewritten under a different name.

who-knew said...

I noticed the same thing while listening to the radio yesterday. I predict that changing the name won't fool enough people to make gun control popular.

Tank said...

"safety" Yes, I pointed this out yesterday.

"aggravating, boring, or hyper-competent" You left out liar/con man.

Meade said...

Want more gun safety? Join the NRA.

Bob said...

Unlike safety, "safety" is dangerous.

Well said.

Curious George said...

"Control" is what a repressive state does to a cowed citizenry and what sexist men want to do to women.

It's also requires the woman to need "to put ice on it."

Roger Sweeny said...

Which, of course, ties in with universities being "safe places," where you don't have to be assaulted by unapproved ideas.

Michael K said...

My wife has taken a gun safety class and will take couple more. I doubt they are what Hillary has in mind.

The Bergall said...

Amazing how the narrative changes.............anything but the obvious.

traditionalguy said...

Hillery is an old, tired political hack who was a willing accomplice to Obama's crafty sabotage of the safety of all Americans. She is corrupt to the core. Every word she says and gesture she makes is done in exchange for Clinton Cash. The only skill she has is gossiping about fighting Right wingers before bedding Huma and falling asleep drunk.

Laslo Spatula said...

Then I'm for Immigration Safety.

In this context.

I am Laslo.

David Begley said...

Yes, short answers using euphemisms is her trick. And no follow-up questions to the great liar.

A one question trial of a known perjurer.

Curious George said...

When the left's ideas are rejected they don't change the ideas. They change the name! "Liberal" becomes "progressive." "Global warming" becomes "climate change." And now "gun control laws" becomes "gun safety laws.

Curious George said...

She isn't sorry she got Chris Stevens and three others killed, so I would go with "no".

Tank said...

Define "Gun Safety": (1) The first of many incremental steps toward taking your gun away for your own good. (2) Security theatre in which your actual safety will be, either not effected at all, or negatively effected (affected or effected? where are the grammar police? (3) See squirrel.

rhhardin said...

Gun salubriousness beats gun safety.

MayBee said...

Climate Change.
Gun Safety.
Undocumented Americans.

Euphemisms are not Newspeak!

exhelodrvr1 said...

So she supports the NRA.

Someone needs to make a commercial juxtaposing her "gun safety" comments with the NRA Gun Safety classes.

ddh said...

So many progressives, including Hillary, want to do to guns what the 18th amendment did to alcohol, but they expect better results next time.

Anonymous said...

Gun control means putting the weapon on safe before climbing over the fence.

As the article points out, no gun control measures that could conceivably pass would change the SB outcome. BTW: The guns used in SB were illegal in California.

What would possibly have changed the outcome would be tighter screening of visa applicants, refugees etc, but Clinton is against that (though she may give some platitudes). She wants to bring in more Syrians than Obama has committed to.

MayBee said...

Related: The lawyers for the family have said the guy was teased (bullied/) by coworkers about his facial hair, which he needed to have for religious purposes but which he kept short for work. I have seen pictures of the victims, and at least 4 of the men had beards.
So there's no way they were teasing this guy for having a beard.

Also, the pattern around these investigations is troubling. Hassan at Ft Worth was labeled workplace violence. The shooting in Chattanooga still have not been designated as terrorism and we are told we may never know the reason. The Merced wanna-be beheader was all but ignored in the press, although new details are emerging about the way he was dressed and the websites he visited prior to stabbing 4 college students.

This all started early in the Obama administration, when 2 were shot in Arkansas by a radicalized individual, and the Obama administration pretty much ignored it (while making a public statement about the Tiller murder which happened just a few days later).

How much are they willing to hide things? Enough for the FBI to just let reporters rummage through documents left in two murderers' home?

Sebastian said...

"But "safety" feels like a caring mother, a loving partner, a beneficent government."

Let's try to guess what demographic she's trying to appeal to.

We appreciate the mini-fisking, professor, we do. But the big fisking risk is to assume that words have meaning, that people try to use them meaningfully, and that they ought to. Your language morality and reasoning rationality are misplaced. They just spout bullshit, all the time. Hillary! and her crew are bullshitters, in the precise technical sense of the term. See Frankfurter, Harry.

Meade said...

Did you remember to take your birth safety pill?

Meade said...

"Gun salubriousness beats gun safety."

Gun health. Gun care. Affordable gun care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Gun Care Act. ObamaGunCare. Pass it to see what's in it but be careful — that thing could be loaded!

Rae said...

Constitutional Rights Safety? 2nd Amendment Prevention? I'm searching for a newspeak phrase for illegal gun confiscation.

Original Mike said...

"Is Hillary Clinton sorry she reacted to the San Bernardino massacre with a call for more gun control?"

I doubt it, because she's got a tin ear.

"I don't see any conflict at all between going after the terrorists with everything we have got...". But she's proposed nothing of the sort. I believe if these attacks become a thing Hillary is toast.

James Pawlak said...

"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms"; "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"; “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. LET THEM TAKE ARMS.” "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." (President Thomas Jefferson)

Anonymous said...

Laslo Spatula said...
Then I'm for Immigration Safety.


Well said.

First Build a Big F'ing Wall

ddh said...

Miss Hillary will be sure to keep the boys from yelling "bang, bang, you're dead" during recess.

ddh said...

It probably will turn out that Hillary has no stronger rebuke to gun violence than a conference on climate change.

chillblaine said...

It's all meaningless platitudes at this point. The Democrats' long game is total control of the judiciary via the executive branch. DC vs. Heller goes away within ten years.

MadisonMan said...

She wants abortion to be safe legal and rare, too. Safe -- just one letter away from sage! How wise! -- is high in Hillary's vocabulary.

Safety is everyone's responsibility. It's not the Govt's responsibility to keep me safe.

Bruce Hayden said...

I have no doubt that this switch from gun control to gun safety was poll tested by her people. Of course, everyone here, right and left, probably knows that "gun safety" is code for "gun control". But, that isn't the demographic that this is aimed at (the somewhat politically involved), but rather, it is aimed for the LIV (low information voter) who wakes up one day, hearing Hillary talk about gun safety, and says, sure, that makes sense.

Which means that in order for this misdirection to misfire, we need to point this switch out every time it is brought up by the Dems, and then point out that if they really wanted to push gun safety, the best thing that they could do would be to support NRA gun safety classes. (I do this with Anthropogenic Global Climate Change, which used to be AGW, until the climate stopped warming). So, maybe we ask her and her ilk whether or not they support federal money going to the NRA for their gun safety classes, and if not, then they aren't really interested in gun safety, but rather, merely mislabeled gun confiscation.

Hagar said...

What the Democrats say never means what you would think it means by the dictionary definitions of the words used.

PB said...

Safety? Clinton is dangerous.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

She's a power-obsessed sociopath with her oh so clever tight-rope non-answers that sound like a rambling Rahm Emanuel.

MaxedOutMama said...


This seems to me to be very skewed, and not likely to help the Dems at the polls.

The reality is that CA has pretty strict gun control laws already, which do not prevent illegal immigrants or Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Called-Muslims from picking them up off benches and randomly shooting someone.

What about the bombs? It seems to me the problem is that we don't have criminal control.

Given an increasing number of would-be murderers wandering around, I'm unable to see how we will make the general public safer by taking away guns from all the law-abiding people out there. Even if it did make it more difficult for those among us with the most violent tendencies to get them, I think it would increase the body count rather than decreasing it.

I am also having a massive cognitive implosion over the idea that the way to respond to what is effectively a sub-group that has declared war on us would be to:
1) Import more of the group which contains them,
2) Disarm the peaceful ones among the public,
3) Malign, harass and intimidate law enforcement in their dealings with any identifiable minority group.

Note that the really high casualties in the ME from Islamic terrorism have always been from bombings, not shootings. Sooner or later these people are going to turn to the gas mains, and then it will get ugly.

The administration is treating this as a propaganda war, but it is not - it is a war war.

MaxedOutMama said...

An addendum - regarding Hillary, I was shocked and appalled by the Benghazi misdirection of blame onto the Coptic Christian at the time. Recent revelations (emails) have borne out that it was a knowing lie on her part.

I believe I was seeing the same attempt here with the theory of "workplace violence" emanating from the administration.

I am not enthused. I will very definitely vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Very definitely. She is not competent and she would do tremendous damage as president.

Hillary was a very incompetent Secretary of State and is still incompetent now. How anyone could consider her competent is beyond me. She looks like an ass and a fool in all other pursuits but fundraising. There, she is competent in much the same way that Bernard Madoff was.

The problem with Trump is that he IS quite competent, and since I have more than one concern with him, it worries me. But I guess we will have to rely on the judiciary and Congress to control him, and I expect they will. Trump is not a radical.

Note: this current messaging isn't even working on Democratic Underground. When you've lost them you've lost everyone except journalists.

Michael K said...

"it is aimed for the LIV (low information voter) who wakes up one day, hearing Hillary talk about gun safety, and says, sure, that makes sense. "

I think it is aimed at the Democrat primary voter. Of course, you could say they fit the LIV definition.

I suspect if Hillary is the nominee, the gun "safety" theme will disappear during the general election season. Even she is smart enough to know that is a dead loser in the general.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Did you actually use the words "Hillary Clinton" and "sorry" in the same sentence?

Here's one that works: Hillary Clinton is sorry that she didn't get take greater advantage of and greater credit for something she wasn't responsible for.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh yes. The NRA and safety. Representing dwindling numbers of gun owners each year, lobbying against background checks, straw purchases, in favor of giving guns to terrorists on the no-fly watch list, and all sorts of other really important issues that keep America free for those who would commit acts of mass murder. Poll the NRA's positions against public opinion and it will consistently come up as a fringe organization. But thankfully in America, money is allowed to change all that. (While more and more innocents get killed and apparently, sometimes due to home-grown terrorists).

The NRA is pro-death and pro-mayhem.

Big Mike said...

And I ask again, ladies, of all the women in the United States who meet the Constitutional requirements for the office, is Hillary Clinton really the best you can put up for the first female President of the United States?

Jason said...

I just renewed my NRA membership, Ritmo. Why? It pisses off all the right people.

Rusty said...

Blogger Rhythm and Balls said...
Oh yes. The NRA and safety. Representing dwindling numbers of gun owners each year, lobbying against background checks, straw purchases, in favor of giving guns to terrorists on the no-fly watch list, and all sorts of other really important issues that keep America free for those who would commit acts of mass murder. Poll the NRA's positions against public opinion and it will consistently come up as a fringe organization. But thankfully in America, money is allowed to change all that. (While more and more innocents get killed and apparently, sometimes due to home-grown terrorists).

The NRA is pro-death and pro-mayhem.


OK, Althouse.
How does this advance the dialog?

cubanbob said...

I'm in favor of gun control for government officials: no armed security for you.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I just renewed my NRA membership, Ritmo. Why? It pisses off all the right people.

You mean, like the mentally ill, heavily armed assailants and other would-be background-check avoiders?

Your rationale is the rationale of people who can't think for themselves but simply feel a need to make enemies.

The NRA's loopy stances are opposed by most gun owners. Fact.

Jupiter said...

"Control" is what a repressive state does to a cowed citizenry and what sexist men want to do to women.

So, if sexist men want to control women, what do you call women who are determined to control men?

n.n said...

Ban illegal guns... or something.

Chuck said...

Mrs. Clinton said we need to consider an Australian-style gun ban. (Google it.) I expect that someone told her about Australia, and she parroted it. And that she personally has little to no personal understanding of guns. Or how things really worked in Australia.

Her endorsing Australian gun laws is going to be poison for her campaign. She has no idea yet, how hard that statement will make things for her, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Florida and several other key swing states.

Chuck said...

Rhythm and Balls: Saying that the NRA wants to "give guns to terrorists on the no-fly list" is inarguably more mendacious than my saying that Hillary Clinton wants to abort more babies.

It's the one thing that I have learned over the past seven years about the Obama/Clinton axis; that they really, truly spend more time hating Republicans and figuring out how to defeat conservative Americans than brown-skinned Islamic fanatics who would terrorize the nation, or black-skinned criminals who would harm their fellow Americans.

averagejoe said...

Sexist women want to control men. Feminists are control freaks. They even want the power to police free speech and ban men from using selected words.

Rusty said...


Blogger Rhythm and Balls said...
I just renewed my NRA membership, Ritmo. Why? It pisses off all the right people.

You mean, like the mentally ill, heavily armed assailants and other would-be background-check avoiders?


Long on hyperbole. Short on facts. Everyone buying a firearm in this country must fill out a federal form. The form asks you if you've had any mental problems or have been convicted of a felony.Any private transaction in my state must record the DL#FOID# and the name and address of both parties. Every retain firearm transaction gets a call to the FBI. Every firearm transaction has a waiting period. In my state its 24 hourrs for a long gun and 72 hours for a pistol. I must show a state issued ID to buy ammunition and powder.
That's quite a few hoops to jump through to exercise an inherent right. It'd be the shits if you had to go through all that to get an internet hookup, right?
So. What exactly do you propose? What more do you want gun owners to do? ARM seems to have lockjaw on these questions. Lets see what you got.

Jason said...

Ritmo: keep showing off your ignorance, dope. Your hysterical flailing about is entertaining.

Jason said...

Watching Ritmo throw a tantrum makes me feel like my annual membership renewal is totally worth the investment. Thanks!

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Is Hillary Clinton sorry she reacted to....

Methinks Hillary has not been sorry for anything since about age 4. Sin verguenza.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So it's good to know you have no facts or counter-arguments but simply see gun issues as a matter of entertainment. You're right, Jason: Your vision of hysteria makes you just the kind of low info guy that the NRA needs in its ranks. Making important political decisions on the basis of your misinterpretation of internet comments. Talk about hysterical!

And here's another one of the FACTS that Chuck missed: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/senate-gop-votes-terrorist-gun-bill-article-1.2454448

The NRA should just call itself the "Guns for Jihadis Organization". Clearly those are the people whose "constitutional rights" they're most interested in protecting. Guns for Jihadis. Guns for the Mentally Ill. Guns for Felons. These are the pro-terrorist sympathies of the militant organization known as the NRA and their lackeys in the GOP - the party bought and paid for by anyone with the cash (as evidenced by every candidate except the one who hasn't been bought out). What a joke! Ha haha. Your only viable candidate is a pro-choice NYC moderate-liberal real estate developer. Yep, that "consistency" of the GOP is really going places. Consistently against where anyone who has a chance of winning a national election can go.

Keep up the good work, guys. At this rate, you'll have a pro-choice, pro-carbon tax, pro-every DNC position candidate in your lead in no time. Maybe by 2020. We welcome your evolution.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I already provided the link to the bill that the Jihadi GOP just shot down Rusty so you'll have to tell me what was in it either that your own state's regulations already satisfied or shouldn't need to satisfy. And keep in mind that your state is just one state out of fifty. That's about 49 other states with potentially laxer regulations from which other arms can be imported. Also, you talk about filling out a form as if that's the end-all-be-all of the deal. Everyone knows forms are antiquated in 2015. Paperwork. How instantaneously can that solve the problem? You never say if the waiting period allows for those checks to be completed or not - just that they exist.

So I do hope that doesn't sound like it's coming from a locked jaw to you, but I take issues more seriously than hair-trigger shooters like jason or ideologues on the left. I think self-defense rights, including gun rights, are important and balances to other rights should be effective rather than merely burdensome on the gun owner - but I do agree that speech rights are more important and can be stifled less than 2nd amendment rights. There's no need to stifle a felon's speech. And keeping a jihadi's speech free is very important also - so he doesn't feel hindered in letting us know what he thinks. But to say that the same freeness of the more important 1st amendment should apply to the 2nd is ludicrous. Let's at least agree that the time-place-manner restrictions of the 1st are not sufficient for the 2nd. 2nd amendment restrictions should also address institutionalization status - including incarceration status, and other mens rea issues that would never apply to the 1st.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Also, here's my other suggestion.

Enact legislation that makes every crime committed by a stolen or borrowed (willingly or not, i.e. "self-eloped" ha) gun prosecutable against the owner who did not report it as lost or stolen. For the Lanza case, the mother should have been prosecuted for crimes capable of the same punishment as Lanza himself could have been charged with. These should be prosecutable under some sort of "conspiratorial negligence" charge.

Likewise, such legislation should apply to anyone selling or gifting firearms to a person that it could later be proved showcased their malign intent or psychotic state of mind at any point before, during or after (if not reported) the purchase.

Now, you can't say that anyone who sells firearms to a guy making sympathetic comments about ISIS or domestic Islamic terrorism would be treated sympathetically by the vast majority of the thinking American public. If anything, a right-thinking, patriotic American would find such behavior as contemptible as selling or gifting arms directly to ISIS or al Qaeda in America. (Except Reagan when he sold them to the Ayatollah, but I digress). And yet, you can bet your behind that the Jihadi GOP and the National Rifles for Terrorists Association will shoot it down (pun intended) before it can pass.

Hyphenated American said...

Rhythm and balls, I will test your dedication to gun control.

How about we make it illegal for Moslems and blacks to own guns in USA? This would drastically cut the number of terror attacks and murders, if liberals are correct. Agreed?

Hyphenated American said...

Conservatives need to start using the term "abortion control'".

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

You are not being serious. First, most murders are not committed by Muslims. Second, not all Muslims are personally committed to violent jihad. Third, whether you like it or not, vague personal beliefs have more first amendment protection than the second amendment can restrict. We allow Muslims to enlist. Islam has to be reformed to allow better challenge to the doctrine of jihad and other dominating concepts, but that's a separate issue - and one that relates to a problematic theology, not to what all people described as "Muslims" find personally important. You are confusing things.

Fourth, the 2nd amendment was never intended as an individual right, but as a group right for the states' militias in a time before they were largely replaced by a federal military. The judicial activism of The Gang of Scalia rewrote that as an individual right, and we are living with that modern, activist interpretation. But that doesn't mean the people (the majority of whom oppose you) have to endorse it. The NRA itself never fought originally for individual ownership "rights" anyway, but for training and marksmanship (AND safe regulation) in the aftermath of the Civil War. It was only after the 1970s that it became intent on using its massive funding and lobbying power to re-write the law. Even Reagan's cabinet was not focused on making the 2nd amendment a personal right. Republican politicians only started moving toward mobilizing on the newly invented personal right to gun ownership during the 1990s, when they became so frustrated with Clinton that the only way to direct anger at him was to paint him as a government "subverter" who should be opposed by any means necessary. They mobilized on this novel claim to personal gun rights as a way to claim that he was going to take this non-existent right (and others) away.

Until the Scalia court got the Heller docket and invented that right for them. Only fourteen years after they first started rallying their troops around the issue.

That's why gun issues are a mess in America. With what other right in the bill of rights does America have this much discord? None. Just the second. Because it was written around a certain context (regulated state militias), that context changed, and then conservatives re-wrote the bill of rights so as to re-interpret the meaning of the word "bear" (which had a strictly military meaning) and view the replacement of state militias not with the federal armed forces that they became but with an every-man-for-himself ideology - ultimately to replace nearly all law enforcement efforts to date. Conservatives seem to really like a wild-west/frontier version of justice.

That's why it's a disaster on every level: Politically, socially, morally and legally. What a mess conservatives have made.

Wonder what they'll legislate from the bench on next.

Unknown said...

---Fourth, the 2nd amendment was never intended as an individual right, but as a group right for the states' militias in a time before they were largely replaced by a federal military.

Ignorance, Lies, or rewriting history? I think its a subtle combination.

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government”.

http://www.fightthebias.com/quotes/thomas_jefferson.htm

According to author Stephen Hallbrook in his new book “Founders on Firearms,” not only is it an individual right to bear arms it is a right that can not even be restricted constitutionally. In Kurt Williamsen’s book review he wrote, “His research is so thoroughly done that one can say with certainty that anyone who can say the the federal government may restrict this right, may justifiably be called either ignorant or a liar”(2008). The concept behind Holbrook’s book was to research all of the drafting documents and the debates of the time in order to find the exact intent of the Second Amendment –and he has spoken. Gun ownership is an individual right and the intent is for it not to be even restricted. So the fact that our Government may want to ban a firearm, granted the backbone weapon to our militia, is preposterous and unconstitutional. As a matter of fact for a 150 year period it was a law that every able-bodied male have a rifle in his home at all times for the protection of the State (Williamsen, 2008).

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/history/the-founding-fathers-and-the-right-to-bear-arms

Never failing to reduce the intellectual content of the Althouse conversation, Rythm and no balls.

Unknown said...

---- With what other right in the bill of rights does America have this much discord?

The Amendment that makes abortion on demand is a tremendous source of discord.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Not really. Most Americans are comfortable with allowing first-trimester abortions, and abortions thereafter that result from rape or incest or threaten the life of the mother (as is the case with most third-trimester abortions). It's only Republicans who feel that the Evangelical/Papist dictate to keep the uterus as a state-mandated incubation center from fertilization onward, represents the viewpoint of anywhere near a majority of Americans. As usual, you mistake your loudest and least informed constituents' views with those of America at large.

And I can quote authors, too. Here's one: http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Amendment-A-Biography/dp/147674744X

I can also quote the NRA mission statements prior to 1972 and nearly every founding father on the topic. As for TJ (assuming the quote is even accurate; one never knows with your crowd), he was talking about tyranny of the "federal government" or foreign occupying power, hence the right of the militia as the armed force of the STATE to bear (as in a military procession) those arms, dilrod. Why do you think a civil war was possible in the first place? Well-armed STATES and states (and towns) being the ones to regulate the arming of those citizen militias. Not the case anymore. Are you capable of reading? (I realize the answer is "no", but for rhetorical purposes, the question must be asked anyway).

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

According to author Stephen Hallbrook in his new book “Founders on Firearms,” not only is it an individual right to bear arms it is a right that can not even be restricted constitutionally.

What utter bullshit and how illustrative of the mental vacuity of the rabid right-wing. If this right cannot be restricted constitutionally then the constitution, ipso facto, demands that you allow every incarcerated felon as many arms as he can purchase and request delivered with him into his prison cell. This is the dumbest pile of crap I've ever heard anyone write, and right-wingers write a lot of crap. Even the first amendment (and every other) has restrictions. Thanks for showing how nonsensical your thought process happens to be.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Tennessee Supreme Court, 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856#ixzz3tVRd21RT

Ken Mitchell said...

As a Libertarian, I take a Libertarian attitude toward gun control. I think we should all control our own guns.

Ken Mitchell said...

Rhythm and Balls said: "It's only Republicans who feel that the Evangelical/Papist dictate to keep the uterus as a state-mandated incubation center from fertilization onward..."

And it is the looney-left that thinks that abortion should be permitted up until about 15 minutes AFTER the child is born. The Gosnell case proved repeatedly that they were performing infanticide as much as they were doing late-term abortions.

But as a Life Member of the NRA, I take the same attitude toward guns as Gosnell took toward abortions; they should ALL be legal.

Ken Mitchell said...

Rhythm and Balls said.: "Fourth, the 2nd amendment was never intended as an individual right, but as a group right for the states' militias in a time before they were largely replaced by a federal military."

Balderdash. The authors of the Constitution knew perfectly well that "the people" was not identical with the States or the Federal government. The Second Amendment reserves rights to THE PEOPLE, not to the government.

Further, it mocks reason to say that the Second Amendment prevents the Federal Government from banning THEIR OWN guns.

And finally, the Constitution itself bans the States from maintaining their own standing armies.

Big Mike said...

@Hyphenated American, the term should be "abortion safety," except that the lack of safety regulation for abortion clinics -- and the lack of enforcement where there are regulations -- is not a laughing matter. Women who die from complications of the procedure at abortion clinics where the hallways and/or elevators cannot accommodate gurneys are an issue. According to a study published in PubMed.gov, the overall mortality rate from abortion procedures is 0.6 per 100,000 procedures. However the Guttmacher institute has published statistics stating that the mortality rate rises to 8.9 per 100,000 when the abortion is performed after 21 weeks. How many of those deaths could have been prevented by the requirement -- which Democrats are fighting fang and claw -- could have been prevented by requiring clinics to meet adequate safety standards?

And one Kermit Gosnell is three too many.

Hyphenated American said...

"First, most murders are not committed by Muslims. "

Most terrorism is. Agreed?

Almost 1/2 of murders are committed by blacks. Agreed?

So, let's take away guns from these people. It would help us, right?

"Second, not all Muslims are personally committed to violent jihad. Third, whether you like it or not, vague personal beliefs have more first amendment protection than the second amendment can restrict. "



I am not saying taking away their freedom of religion - I am simply using your own argument - moslems or anyone has a personal right buy guns. According to you, a right to buy guns is a privilege, and people can lose it willy-nilly. Well, in this case, logic would require to do this efficiently, and this makes taking guns from moslems and blacks. Your logic, not mine.


"he 2nd amendment was never intended as an individual right, but as a group right for the states' militias in a time before they were largely replaced by a federal military."

Can you point to a single quote from the people who wrote the Bill of Rights to prove this? If not, I assume that you made it up. Agreed?

"The judicial activism of The Gang of Scalia rewrote that as an individual right, and we are living with that modern, activist interpretation."

Except it was always considered an individual right. There was no judicial decision by the supreme court that disputed that. Moreover, no state ever forbade individual ownership of guns - unlike abortion.

"That's why gun issues are a mess in America."

When were our gun rights much different? In fact, US had more gun rights for most of the history of the republic....

"Because it was written around a certain context (regulated state militias), that context changed, and then conservatives re-wrote the bill of rights so as to re-interpret the meaning of the word "bear" (which had a strictly military meaning)"

Keep and bear arms? That's the part that was rewritten? When it says my right to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed - what do you think it means? That it can be infringed?


"That's why it's a disaster on every level: Politically, socially, morally and legally. What a mess conservatives have made. "

Well, in fairness, US citizens had the right to keep and bear arms for centuries. You can direct your complaints to the people who wrote the bill of rights.

Hyphenated American said...

"Most Americans are comfortable with allowing first-trimester abortions"

If this is true, then why do liberals wan the Supreme Court to decide the abortion rights, not democracy?

"It's only Republicans who feel that the Evangelical/Papist dictate to keep the uterus as a state-mandated incubation center from fertilization onward, represents the viewpoint of anywhere near a majority of Americans. "

In this case, why did the libs needed the Supreme Court to bail them out?

"I can also quote the NRA mission statements prior to 1972 and nearly every founding father on the topic. "

Sure, quote the founding fathers who said that second amendment was not defending individual right to "keep and bear arms". Go ahead. No need to threaten us, come on...

"he was talking about tyranny of the "federal government" or foreign occupying power, hence the right of the militia as the armed force of the STATE to bear (as in a military procession) those arms, dilrod. "

Wait, are you saying that the first amendment allows states to have their own armed forces, completely independent from the federal government, not answerable to the US president in any way?

Rusty said...

And here's another one of the FACTS that Chuck missed: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/senate-gop-votes-terrorist-gun-bill-article-1.2454448

Seriously? A reliably left wing tabloid reusibg stats that are over two decades old and conveniently provided by "The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence". Nope No bias there.
Firearms frieghten you. We get it. If you happen to see one, unaccompanied by an owner, I suggest you summon the police. I should have said; do you have any solutions other than the current left wing boiler plate? By now we all know the narrative so you can skip that.

I referr you to the Militia Act of 1903.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Half of what you say is fine, the rest (esp. on founders) is explained in the Politico article, and the proof is that the NRA always considered gun regulation part and parcel with their "gun safety" mission, which along with marksmanship, was their core purpose. Saturday Night Specials were banned in the 1930s without a fuss. Whether anyone "needed" SCOTUS to decide Roe v. Wade, they did. And they decided the way that they did because in 1790 surgery wasn't even safe, let alone common, let alone on women's uteruses. This changed after the advent of anesthesia in the 19th century and antibiotics in the early 20th. History changed the feasibility of a practice, and the SCOTUS determined that the only issue left was that of privacy. Same thing with Heller. Militias were "the people" (but NEVER ALL OF THEM - the states made it plain WHICH people were eligible and the states and towns I presume made it plain under what conditions those weapons were to be kept), militias went out of vogue after the Confederacy rallied a bunch of them together to break away from the Union and defend their peculiar institution, and now we rely mainly on federal armed forces of which widespread able-bodied membership is not presumed and the proportional numbers in the population are lower. So naturally lobbyists and ideologues want to expand the right to "bear" (18th century meaning) to everyone regardless of armed forces membership and to blur the 18th century meaning of that word with "ownership".

End of story. You're jumping through mental gymnastics to avoid the points. And once Rusty tries out the whole "mah gun scayares you!" shit we can see where the rest of the thread is headed. Never try a discussion with someone who prefers to physically intimidate. Well, you can - because the internet makes them feel more frustrated and impotent, obviously. In the past he could just threaten instead; how sad it must be for him to see the civilized world moving on to resolving things increasingly through words (and money). But I'll leave those issues to him.

Hyphenated American said...

""I can also quote the NRA mission statements prior to 1972 and nearly every founding father on the topic. "

I asked you to quote the founding fathers to support your claim that 2nd amendment is not protecting the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. Am I to assume that these quotes are NOT forthcoming, that you lied?

"he rest (esp. on founders) is explained in the Politico article,"

We've got plenty of quotes from the Founding Fathers on the rights of American people to keep and bear arms. What have you got? An article by some left-wingers who are trying to ignore it, but cannot prove anything based on the quotes from the people who wrote the constitution. Correct?

" And they decided the way that they did because in 1790 surgery wasn't even safe, let alone common, let alone on women's uteruses."

Abortions were known for a very, very long time. Even the Hypocrites Oath contains prohibition on abortion. There is no "right to abortion" in the Constitution. There is no sentence in the Constitution that says that the state can regulate the activities of the doctors in everything, but the abortion. That's a fact.

"So naturally lobbyists and ideologues want to expand the right to "bear" (18th century meaning) to everyone regardless of armed forces membership and to blur the 18th century meaning of that word with "ownership".

The Constitution talks about "keep and bear". What was the 18th century meaning of the word "keep"? Are you saying it was something different from today? If yes, please quote the people who wrote the constitution. Right now you are speculating wildly.

"End of story. You're jumping through mental gymnastics to avoid the points. "

It's the END of STORY until you fulfill your promise and quote the people who wrote the Constitution, as you promised, to prove that they did not believe in the individual right to keep and bear arms. Until then, yes, you've got nothing, you lost the argument completely. Quoting NRA is irrelevant, since it was not NRA that wrote the Constitution. NRA can come out against gun ownership today, and it would not prove that the Second Amendment is not for individual right to "keep and bear arms".

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's all in the Politico article. Four short pages. If you can't read that much, then I'm not interested in picking out the quotes in order to persuade someone so illiterate. When you find someone starting from your position who's able to READ, let me know.

Until then, happy picture viewing!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Quoting the NRA is indeed relevant because it's evidence of the history of individual gun ownership fetishism as a political movement opposed to all local and state and federal regulatory controls, and how it didn't exist prior to 1972.

But what do you care about a cogent assertion like that? All you care about is your gun. Go shoot a squirrel and pretend that he was the one introducing your ignorant ass to the argument. That way, you can pretend you won, and actually be right!

Don't exhaust yourself with words and thoughts and ideas. Firelocks and ammo is the language you speak. Brute force is how you roll.

Hyphenated American said...

"It's all in the Politico article. Four short pages. If you can't read that much, then I'm not interested in picking out the quotes in order to persuade someone so illiterate. When you find someone starting from your position who's able to READ, let me know. "

Oh, it's not a problem, I can read these 4 pages. In fact, I can read hundreds of pages a day - but they must be relevant. You promised, and I quote: " ""I can also quote the NRA mission statements prior to 1972 and nearly every founding father on the topic. " Well, are you saying that the Politico article contains direct quotes from the Founding Fathers, quotes that confirm that Founding Fathers did NOT believe that 2nd amendment was for individual right to "keep and bear arms"?

Okay, how about this.... I will carefully read the 4 page article in politico, but with one condition. If there is not a single quote there from the Founding Fathers, stating openly and specifically that the 2nd Amendment does not protect individual's right to "keep and bear arms", then you would concede that you are wrong on the subject. Do you agree to this deal?

If you don't take the deal, then it means the article is meaningless, and does not prove what you claim it proves. After all, you were the one who promised to quote Founding Fathers to prove that they did not believe that second amendment protected individual right. Agreed?

Rusty said...

the SCOTUS determined that the only issue left was that of privacy. Same thing with Heller. Militias were "the people" (but NEVER ALL OF THEM - the states made it plain WHICH people were eligible and the states and towns I presume made it plain under what conditions those weapons were to be kept), militias went out of vogue after the Confederacy rallied a bunch of them together to break away from the Union and defend their peculiar institution, and now we rely mainly on federal armed forces of which widespread able-bodied membership is not presumed and the proportional numbers in the population are lower. So naturally lobbyists and ideologues want to expand the right to "bear" (18th century meaning) to everyone regardless of armed forces membership and to blur the 18th century meaning of that word with "ownership".

"Milia" meant the same then as it does today. All citizens between the ages of 17 and 55 in position of their own arms. Realistically it would require the militia to own firearms as least the equivalent of what a regular soldier was issued. That ought to really frighten you. Never go to Switzerland.
Again I refer you to the Militia act of 1903.