Wait, that's not entirely correct. The usual suspects are always blathering on about magazine capacity limitations, it being one of the six stock phrases you get when you yank their strings. It's just that in the wake of Tucson, the media is sticking microphones in their faces again, and will continue to do so until they get distracted by Lindsay Lohan's next rehab check-in.
What's interesting is that Robert Levy, of Heller fame, is all okay with the idea.
The thing about "magazine capacity restrictions" is that they're fundamentally and philosophically flawed. Anyone saying that "magazine capacity restrictions" would have "prevented" the outrage at Safeway is either barely brighter than a turnip or being fundamentally dishonest:
- If magazines were limited to ten rounds, then you're okay with ten corpses.
- If it was just a six-shooter, you've got six cooling bodies to clean up on aisle three.
- Even single-shot flintlocks (you know, like the kind you always say the "founding fathers could envision") leave Congresswoman Giffords on the same ventilator as Gaston Glock's latest offering.
Or are you chicken?
55 comments:
Nice post. Spot on.
I relate the magazine restriction to governing all cars to 30mph because drunk drivers kill people. If they could only reach 30mph, fewer deaths would result.
I like your argument far better.
Spot on, but the problem is much bigger than this. The left only cares about some deaths - the ones caused by their own policy choices are curiously absent from their calculus.
And it's not just Stalin and company and their piles of skulls. Environmental policy is a renewable (so to speak) source of dead people:
I am sitting here in my home in South East Queensland, watching the news come in about the flooding everywhere. Entire suburbs around Brisbane and several smaller towns are either isolated by flood-waters or have been evacuated. Highways are cut everywhere.
People have been dying. So far about 20 people have died in the past week – nine just this morning when a deluge went through the Lockyer Valley. Most of them children. Another 70 are missing. One could put it all down to “just” weather.
Except EXACTLY the same floods occurred in EXACTLY the same places back in 1974, with much the same tragic loss of life and destruction of property.
Back then we weren’t nearly as clever and learned as you think yourselves to be today. Back then we had this silly notion that climate was cyclical, and if we didn’t prepare for it, we would have a repeat of the same tragedies to deal with in “about thirty years”. That was the thinking of the scientists back then – that climate went in roughly thirty year cycles.
Flood mitigation programs were planned. A series of levee banks and diversionary dams would be built. Brisbane and SE QLD would NEVER suffer such devastation again. After all, we had thirty years to plan and build and improve.
And that’s what we did – or at least started. Wivenhoe Dam got built as the first step, but by the time it was finished clever people like you lot who “knew” that such things were never going to happen again had taken over. CO2 AGW madness had already taken hold.
Sorry for the length of this comment, but it highlights the hypocrisy of the do it for teh childrens, except if it slows our march towards Green Nirvana crowd.
It's all so tiresomely predictable. Boring, really.
Other than the blood libel directed towards us from someone standing on a mound of dead children ...
Borepatch,
George Bush hates Australian people. Duh!
Tam,
I suspect you feel the same way, but I'll speak only for myself: The important part of the phrase "magazine restrictions" isn't the word "magazine"...
Oh, if you've got people crowded together, a Brown Bess can take out more than one person. Those are some big balls your talking about.
Silly rabbit. based on the average drug dealer, the first shots are misses! it's only those evil gunnies who practice all the time that are the problem!!
Hmmmm. This could go pretty deep.
How about buckshot restrictions? Why does anyone neeeeeed to fire ten pellets of 000 ball in a 3" shell when eight balls in a 2 3/4" shell should be fine?
After all, only a crazy person would resist giving up two of their balls, right?
This is why I've gone to belt-fed. Each link holds just one round, so what I really have is a gun with 100 or so 1-round "clips" that just happen to be attached to each other. And that's just what the liberals want us all to have, right?
Interestingly, in this case, it's possible that a magazine restriction may have resulted in MORE deaths. If his firearm were limited to a certain number of rounds, he may have decided to bring more guns, already loaded. He was jumped when trying to reload, and dropped a magazine. Had he used a New York reload, he could have possibly had a much longer, uninterrupted string of shots available.
And since nobody ever carried more than one gun... A quantity restriction inevitably leads to guns as a quantity, and their restriction.
"If his firearm were limited to a certain number of rounds, he may have decided to bring more guns, already loaded."
Or he may have been in a different position when he had to reload, and no one would have been close enough to jump him. Or (and this could be very likely), with a more normal sized magazine he may not have flubbed the reload like he did with the oversized one, and would have reloaded in time to just shoot the people who were trying to stop him.
If I understand correctly, the only reason he was stopped was because he had problems with his reload, which allowed bystanders enough time to grab first the magazine and then him.Any change in his reload time or the position of those brave bystanders would have changed the outcome completely.
Calling for a ban on "high capacity" magazines is the knee-jerk reaction of people who don't know what they're talking about and haven't bothered to think it through.
Jake,
"...people who don't know what they're talking about and haven't bothered to think it through."
I think you just described the gun control movement.
But if there were no mass shootings, how could the president turn a memorial service into a pep rally, with t-shirts and game show laughter and applause?
libertyman,
That was a gruesome little spectacle, wasn't it? It was like something straight out of The Running Man (the dystopian King novella, not the retarded Schwarzenegger film...)
A congresscritter from NY has proposed some legislation. Writing to her (ahem) comrades in the Congress:
At the same time that we can all acknowledge this basic right, I believe that we should also be able to come together to develop reasonable laws designed to ensure that the right to bear arms is exercised safely and responsibly.
Well! What other rights does the government need to see to it that we exercize safely and responsibly? Given the frothing we've seen in the past few days from the likes of Paul Krugman, Chris Matthews, et al, speech is a close second.
And what other "devices" do Americans own that CAN be used for nefarious purposes that we really have no "need" to own?
Bah.
Speaking of idiot Congresscritters and guns:
http://jeffreyquick.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/modest-proposal-of-amendment-to-peter-kings-bill/
A madman should not be allowed to set public policy by his actions. We were doing the right thing before. Keep doing it.
"Gabby got shot and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" is the message I got at the memorial service.
If Rep. Giffords' brain had been transected by a .50 lead ball instead of a 9mm FMJ icepick I doubt she would have survived the event.
Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...
11:54 AM, January 14, 2011
Or (and this could be very likely), with a more normal sized magazine he may not have flubbed the reload like he did with the oversized one,
When I heard he blew the reload, the gun jammed after he reloaded, and honestly, the first thought that went through my head was, "Huh. I didn't know Pro-Mag made a 33 rounder for the Glock. . ."
Something went wrong, probably while I was doing some cut & paste editing. That should start:
"When I heard he blew the reload, it was reported as if the gun jammed after he reloaded,. . ."
TBeck,
"Gabby got shot and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"
ZING! :D
Wish I'd written that...
Cho used a NY reload.
The rabbit people won't ever be satisfied. After they have banned toenail clipper cary, they will want to ban harsh words.
And mean stares.
You can't use reason to budge someone who got to where they were on unreason.
I think the only permanent solution to the rabbit people may be the one a town in Switzerland has used since medieval times:
If you want to vote, you have to bring a weapon to the polling place.
You can't use reason to budge someone who got to where they were on unreason.
I was going to say something like that, hopefully as articulately.
Jim
Since we've already descended to ball loss, here's something to bring a giggle to the echo chamber...
Nuts stuck in door
(Keep reading, the comments get pretty hilarious.)
So when the pulse guns and new-gen lasers are ready, what are they gonna restrict, batteries?
"Or are you chicken? "
Duhhh, they're all cowards!
They just want us to lie down and take our blood-letting, and let the science be damned!
I agree, talking about magazines is a distraction. What we need to do is close the GUN SHOW LOOPHOOOOOOOOLE!!!!!!!!!
@Nancy R: Well, we already knew the lefties were scared of big balls...
@ME: The New McCartheyism includes a ban on belt-fed as well as 10+x and any and all transfers and...
WV: surimo. The singular form of surimi?
May I interrupt this gun-lovers support group for a moment? I don't think those high capacity magazines are the problem and I find it amazing that anyone is wasting time trying to restrict them
What's needed here is mental health screening of some kind. I realize it would be problematic to implement, but it would get to the heart of this issue. Most of these high profile shooters would be picked up. Of course, your commentariat would be decimated as well, but I know you'd willingly agree to their being disarmed for the Health of the Nation.
Careful Mike, they might include a test on basic reasoning ability as part of the test.
"What's needed here is mental health screening of some kind. I realize it would be problematic to implement, but it would get to the heart of this issue. Most of these high profile shooters would be picked up."
He was picked up, he had prior offenses along with a history of drug use.
I'm curious how mental health screenings would help. Logic would dictate that someone who is okay with murdering people is okay with stealing a gun to do so when one cannot be legally obtained.
All of this circles back to the beginning and begs the question: "how could more laws have done anything to change the outcome?" Ban high-capacity magazines? Buy pre-ban magazines, steal pre-ban magazines, bring more guns, etc. Ban guns? Steal them, use a knife, use an explosive, etc. It's already illegal to commit murder, regardless of weapon preference.
What irritates me is where were thes self same idiots with let's ban gasoline and blow torches after that nut bag set his family on fire in Puerto Rico?
:-(
"What's needed here is mental health screening of some kind..."
Overseen and implemented by whom, Mikey? Big Sis Janet, bringer of the testicle squeezing, breast fondling perverts with blue gloves and a mail-order pacifier?
Are you fucking serious?
so is Joanie japete over on her blog wading in the blood?
mikeb30200,
So you're okay with mass murders as long as they're not done by crazy people? It's okay with you if a dozen people get gunned down as a political statement by somebody who could pass any kook check you'd care to administer?
Got it.
Mikey's a big fan of the Gavrilo Principle. And of the guys who shot the Romanov family.
Almost (but not quite) as stomach-turningly self-serving as the O when it comes to using OPT (other people's tragedy) to promote their pet pony, is the ignominious ignatius...
Once again using someone else's well-turned phraseology and ideology to turn a buck, this morning's missive led off with this:
"The following quote was forwarded to me without a reference, but it is so good, I want to pass it on so everyone can see the REAL problem of Guns in America...
Here is the very profound quote:
You read the papers, listen to the pundits, surf the net... you'd think that you couldn't throw a dead cat without hitting somebody who's packin' heat in the USA.
The media will tell you that we've got SO MANY guns that we're supplying Mexico's drug cartel's with our excess... yet last Saturday 19 people were shot at what I must assume was a well- attended event and NOBODY there had the means to protect THEMSELVES or their fellows. This in Constitutional Carry, pro-gun Arizona.
... but the fact remains that on Saturday morning, in the United States of America... the land of the free... the home of the right to Keep and Bear Arms... a wolf was able to walk into a crowd of sheeple and kill indiscriminately... without challenge... once again."
Pretty standard verbiage, but well said enough that iggy couldn't resist stealing someone else's words...again...to push his product.
Oh, and as to "without reference"?
Cut and paste the first sentence of that blurb to google and it comes right back to "Ferrari" at the Warriortalk.com forum.
Marko finally got a half-hearted attribution when the doctor stole his words; maybe Ferrari will too.
But I still think it's cheesy almost to the level of The One to use such events for one's own nefarious purposes...no matter which "side" of the debate one is on.
Sorry for the diatribe, Tam...this guy and his greasy tactics just make me ill.
AT
Not a huge fan of Iggy Piazza, DCM, FWCM, ETC, myself.
mikeb30200: Hey, felon, when are you going to return to the US and pay for your crimes?
As for your whining about honest people being able to own the means to defend themselves from your ilk, that warms my heart.
First, let me stipulate that magazine restrictions are stupid, but so is the analogy to setting cars to run only at 30 mph. There are restrictions out there called speed limits. The vast citizenry has not risen up to repeal all speeding laws so everyone can drive to work at 150 mph.
Now, it is interesting that you question the motives of those who make arguments about magazine capacity. It seems similar to the argument that one drink can make someone drunk enough to cause a tragedy, so why set some arbitrary limit at .08 BAC? Isn't a single drink enough risk? So what rational person would really set a limit at .08? They are clearly focused on banning all drinking. Where do you stand on the legality of drinking and driving?
Anon 3:54,
"So what rational person would really set a limit at .08?"
Personally? No rational person would.
Anon 3:54-A drunked up populace is not a potential hazard to government authority. A gunned up populace is.
Anon: 3:54 :
You sure you want to use the automobile analogy?
OK then. You have an absolute right in this country, to buy any automobile you want and can afford, no matter how fast, have it shipped to your home, and drive it as fast and as drunk as you with, on your own property.
All without a shred of government paper.
Sounds like a damned good idea to me. Let us implement it. Regulate guns like cars. I should then be able to buy a Vulcan minigun on ebay, have it shipped to me, and fire it at stuff on my own land, all without ever having passed a background check or have gotten a permit.
Just like automobiles.
Tam asked me, "So you're okay with mass murders as long as they're not done by crazy people?"
That's a helluva leap from what I said.
What I'm saying is this was about the mental health of the guy not the capacity of the magazines.
I'm not OK with mass murders and we'd have far fewer of them if there were proper gun control laws in America.
With simple regulations like licensing and registration, we could eliminate straw purchasing as a business. Right now it's thriving because there are no controls after the person walks out of the gun shop.
With some other rules we could even encourage you legitimate gun owners to hang on to your weapons and stop letting them slip into the criminal world. Remember all those evil guns in the hands of evil bad guns started out as simple tools in the hands of honest citizens. Why can't you hang on to them?
But what you want is none of that. That's why you're responsible.
Mikeb, a large percentage of firearms in this country are owned legitimately, right?
A major source of illicit guns would be theft. So, what happens when the owner comes up short on the ledger after a burglary? Does the law ("strongly discouraging" sale of personal property) then punish the owner for being robbed?
"So, what happens when the owner comes up short on the ledger after a burglary? Does the law ("strongly discouraging" sale of personal property) then punish the owner for being robbed?"
Massachusetts already does that.
"Police said Tuesday that officers responded to a Dublin Street home Monday afternoon after the owner reported that someone had broken into the cellar in which he stored a vault containing the guns.
Police immediately revoked the gun owner’s Massachusetts license to carry a firearm, saying the potential of the missing firearms being used on Lowell streets is disconcerting."
As we all know, in MA a license to "carry" is actually a license to own. As Jay pointed out, HE COMMITTED NO CRIME, YET THE COPS TOOK HIS GUNS AWAY. They punished the victim for being a gun owner.
This is why licensing is unacceptable - it ALWAYS leads to confiscation.
"I'm not OK with mass murders and we'd have far fewer of them if there were proper gun control laws in America..."
Conflated Horseshit.
Well put Tam.
Hey Nancy-boy, I'm talking to you!
"I'm not OK with mass murders and we'd have far fewer of them if there were proper gun control laws in America."
Because proper gun control worked so well for preventing mass murders in Germany circa 1943, right? Russia in 1936-1938? China in 1950? Cambodia in 1975-1979?
"With simple regulations like licensing and registration, we could eliminate straw purchasing as a business. Right now it's thriving because there are no controls after the person walks out of the gun shop."
[citation needed]
"With simple regulations...*we* could..."
"With some other rules *we* could..."
That is some bone fucking chilling verbiage right there, and gun "control" ain't the half of it.
AT
Dan, In my view there should be some requirements as to how you keep your weapons safe from thieves. When something is stolen, reporting it is a must and that would be followed up with a little investigation to see if you failed to keep the gun reasonably secure.
Reporting would be necessary since the gun would be registered to you and failure to have it in your possession would be another violation.
In other words, I would like to see extremely strict gun laws and you can bet straw purchasing and gun flow into the criminal world would be diminished. Meanwhile all you gun owners would continue to enjoy your guns. Everybody wins.
"... would like to see extremely strict gun laws and you can bet straw purchasing and gun flow into the criminal world would be diminished..."
You are either ignorant or willingly glib.
Been tried before and it didn't work. Many times elsewhere, and I'm NOT going to give you your fucking history lesson on this issue, bitch.
Go read a fucking book.
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