New Jovian Thunderbolt has an excellent dissection of so-called "reasonable" gun laws up at his place.
"Lost & Stolen" laws draw a particularly intense loathing from me; they imply a level of "blame the victim" for which their proponents would never stand were it any other crime. Rape, for instance.
Reasonable and necessary are different things. 41 years and I have yet to see a reasonable gun control law.
ReplyDeleteAnd after all that, the only gun control laws I consider reasonable would be mandatory firearms training, starting at age 9, for everyone.
The only gun control laws I consider necessary ban violent felons, certain repeat offenders, and a few categories of the unsane.
Without exception, every other type of gun control has made matters worse. And opened the door for tyranny.
Stranger
Just wanted to say this Tam. By coincidence, last night I was having a conversation with a rape victim.
ReplyDeleteShe doesn't like talking about it to anyone, because they inevitably say things like "Why didn't you do X Y and Z?" or "You should never have opened the door (this from her own mother)"
Everyone says "You should have..."
Blaming the victim is a big part of our nations culture.
The purpose of lost and stolen laws is to remove the "it was lost" defense to failure to comply with firearms registration and confiscation laws.
ReplyDeleteThis ain't about blaming the victim ( although it does that as well ). It's about cementing up the cracks in the wall before the assholes have enough votes to try to close the prison gate.
San Mateo County proposed a lost-and-missing law that originated with an astroturf supervisor who is president of a gun-control front and who pushed the demands through a quasi-government puppet entity that wasn't elected by anybody but was set up by elected officials: "ABAG" (Association of Bay Area Governments).
ReplyDeleteBoom, it's over, but it's clear we don't have control of our Government with entities such as this in existance.
The NRA and the California Rifle and Pistol Association shot them down hard.
'they imply a level of "blame the victim" for which their proponents would never stand were it any other crime. Rape, for instance.'
ReplyDeleteUnless you live in a Muslim country.
The only gun control laws I consider necessary ban violent felons, certain repeat offenders, and a few categories of the unsane.
ReplyDeleteIf a person is a violent felon, and can't be trusted with a gun, why are they free to live among us in the first place? They don't need a gun to be dangerous.
Maybe I'm just too idealistic--I'm for cooling them all to room temperature.
Well, I see that I should have finished a thought. I approve of disarming certain violent felons, those felons on track to become violent felons (ask a parole officer, the good ones know) and those with certain types of mental illness - along with teaching everyone else safe and effective gun handling and encourageing private citizens to carry. Everywhere but in the shower.
ReplyDeleteTam, the worlds most violent industrialized society has proposed a £500 on the spot fine for rape - and a mandatory five years for gun possession. In the gun banners diseased minds, mere possession of the means of self defense is much worse than rape.
Stranger