Perhaps you’ve heard the rustling and growling noises? The gun owners of America are stirred up again, this time by an impassioned article by Laura Washington from the Chicago Sun-times. Many of the gun blogs are discussing this article today, and I wanted to mention it here for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. The title alone is provocative enough, Lets Pry Open Those Cold, Dead Hands (she doesn’t need the link). Since we aren’t dead yet, whatever is she thinking?
..Whenever I write about the plague of gun violence, I get a huge blowback from the gun lovers of America.
The rabid response of the gun lobby is damning, but impressive. They out-gun, out-email, gun-control advocates by more than 20 to one. Their ability to organize a rapid response is exactly the opposite of FEMA. The gun army, made up almost exclusively of white men from suburban and rural areas, is loaded for bear.
The People of the Gun are beating their drums on websites from Keepandbeararms.com in Washington State, to alphecca.com in Vermont. Every time a plea for gun restrictions surfaces on the Internet, the gun stalwarts furiously post hundreds of missives in homage to the Second Amendment.
Well, yeah. Same thing happens whether it is a free speech issue, or a freedom of religion issue. The Second Amendment is there, just like the First. It is part of America, Ms Washington. And another part of America is standing up and getting vocal about what is right, and what we believe in.
This writer mentions a network news poll taken after the V-Tech shooting, that purports to show that a majority of Americans want stricter gun control.
..After last spring’s massacre at Virginia Tech, ABC News polled adults nationwide and asked: “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” Sixty-one percent favored them, 36 percent were opposed and 3 percent were “unsure.”
Let’s see here, is that the same poll that sampled only 788 of 301 MILLION Americans? Are you kidding me? But she jumps on that one line of one poll and claims that a majority of Americans want stricter gun control, but the all powerful gun lobby yada yada yada. Sounds like the same argument we get from Pelosi when she says the Democrats have a mandate from the majority to end the war in Iraq, but the eeevvilll George Bush has illegally taken over the country, run roughshod over the majority, and is now the dictator-in-chief and ignoring the “will of the people”. If the true majority of the American people were against the war, they could get it ended. And if the true majority of the American people thought guns were an evil thing, they would have been banned a long time ago.
Did Ms Washington point out that the same poll shows those same Americans were 50/50 on whether stricter laws would even be effective? No. How about a poll that would allow a headline like this “30% Larger Poll Sample Proves Americans Are Evenly Divided On Gun Control”? There is a CNN poll that reflects that. Or how about a Pew Research poll of 1508 Americans, showing only 37% in favor of banning the sale of handguns? Reporting about polls is nearly meaningless, when you can pick and choose what you want to report.
The other thing that comes into play in this article is the play on emotions…
..Marches may generate publicity, but they don’t influence decision makers. If we are going to keep pistols and assault rifles away from the playlots, family shopping malls and our colleges and universities, progressives must “bare” our arms.
Maybe we’re different here in Idaho, but we don’t have a big problem with pistols and assault rifles on our playgrounds. We do have a problem with criminals, adult or juvenile, it doesn’t matter, and we have some gangs. It’s already illegal to shoot human beings in Idaho, as it is in most of the rest of the country. It’s also illegal to shoot houses. Come to think of it, it’s illegal to throw rocks through the front doors of businesses, but that didn’t stop those who burgled a bunch of shops in the valley earlier this week. But the gun banners don’t talk about human beings. They don’t talk about criminals, or illegals, or mental defectives, or terrorists. They don’t talk about gangs, or the adults who prey on the kids with drugs, and sex, and money. They want to treat all of the problems by taking guns away from law abiding citizens.
She does make an interesting comment about the black murder rate..
..African Americans have plenty of motivation. According to a recent report by the U.S. Justice Department, nearly half the people murdered in the United States in 2005 were black. Most lived in cities and were felled by guns. While blacks make up about 13 percent of the nation’s population, they comprised 49 percent of all murder victims.
Now, at the risk of being called a “blackophobe”, or worse, can I point out that the writer didn’t go far enough with more of her statistics? Surprise. If you go to the Bureau of Justice website and read some of the stats, you see the following facts. Number one, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites. And Number 2, offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites. There is a lot more of interest from that website, but that makes my point well enough. After all, the writer of this article brought the race issue up, and tied it to gun control.
If Ms Washington and her followers were truly interested in “the children” and the awful problems of violent crime, they would get off the Brady bandwagon and start “baring their arms” in the causes of stricter law enforcement, drug control, and immigration control. They would mobilize their churches, not against the corner gun shop, but against the corner pusher. They would support real efforts to strengthen families, especially black families, by building a culture that makes heroes out of real fathers, and a virtue out of honest work. They would become unsleeping crusaders fighting against the culture that makes role models out of pimps, gangstas, and thugs. Real men protect their communities, not their “turf”. Real men value women and children as human beings, not things. Real men think of their families and their country, more than themselves. Ms Washington, we have a man problem, not a gun problem.
And by the way Ms Washington, REAL writers don’t blame all the problems on “white men from suburban and rural areas”… what kind of racist crap is that?
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