I’m sorry, but I just can not accept the idea that a gun is the same as a blender or a reclinerCausing me to make the easy and flippant retort:
It’s harder to kill somebody with a blender. Noisier and messier, too.Which she apparently took as agreement:
Agreed! Which is why I don’t agree that a gun is like any other piece of property…So I had to clarify my position:
I think you mistook my point.
You could actually kill somebody just as quickly and more quietly with a blender than you could with a .30-30. Just don’t plug the blender in. (This is, of course, assuming your blender is a good one with a brushed stainless motor housing and not some flimsy plastic piece of junk.)
You want to know the main way a blender is different from a gun? The Constitution doesn’t explicitly protect your right to own a blender.
To quote the great warrior poet, a rifle is only a tool; it is the hard heart that kills.
What irks me often about the anti-2A folks is that they seem to be spending all of their energy on the objects that are guns. They never seem to understand that - were they to get their every wish and somehow magically denude the planet of every firearm, even those of the only ones - the 2A would still be relevant and needed. Although guns are certainly one of the best of the current personal arms, they are not the only arms.
ReplyDelete"Arms" perhaps are indeed devices designed to be efficient weapons, but certainly any device can be an efficient weapon if used in such a manner.
On the lighter side, reading about your blender example I wasn't immediately thinking of the base but of the massive glass pitcher - granted some now have light plastics - that even comes with an easy-grip handle.
OOhrah. I hope to see The Gunny next weekend at the Toys for Tots in Chicago.
ReplyDelete+10 for Full Metal Jacket quote.
ReplyDelete"Although guns are certainly one of the best of the current personal arms, they are not the only arms"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Any time someone tries to attack my RKBA using my Christianity I point out that Peter was obviously wearing a sidearm (sword in this case) in the Gaeden of Gethsemane.
Shhh. Don't give them any more ideas. Last thing I need is some gung-ho types doing a no-knock entry to get at my evil gray blender (EGB). It's a Kitchen Aid with a "gunmetal" (yes really) cast metal base and a big glass pitcher that could really leave a bruise.
ReplyDeleteI thought you were trying to express support for prostitution until I read further.
ReplyDeleteThen again, that would be moreso "renting" than "selling."
Just think what legislative fun the statists/proscists would have if the mutants of X-Men were reality.
"You could actually kill somebody just as quickly and more quietly with a blender than you could with a .30-30. "
ReplyDeleteSorry, that argument I always found weird. Easily made point: If blenders were better at killing people, the military would be equipped with blenders, not rifles.
The point about the constitution protecting the RKBA is a good one, yet those people are usually willing to debate the abolishment of constitutional articles, so it does not convince them.
I think the right way to follow that argument is pointing out that while people in the military are equipped with rifles instead of blenders, they are also equipped with way better tools for killing people efficiently. Budget-wise, rifles don't amount to much compared to tanks, bombs and the like.
Opposed to what the layperson (and every ground-pounder-at-heart) thinks, rifles are not chosen for their offensive capability - the toolbox for that contains grenades as well as air strikes. The rifle in the military performs in a niche that is surprisingly similar to what civilians use it for: Personal protection. And from that purpose, you can go back to the intent of the 2nd amendment and the old point about how it protects rifles, but not poison gas.
Man, the adaptive tool user.
ReplyDelete"O, no!! THAT's NOT THE RIGHT KIND ON ROCK!!"
"Well, OK then, This nice chunk of tree branch will work, eh"
"TWACK!!whack-whack-wacety-crunch"
"Happy now?"
Now that I've read the linked article: I sold a .30-06 once and insisted on seeing the buyer's drivers license.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't look 18 to me. I was embarrassed and felt rather old to find he was 23.
Tierlieb,
ReplyDelete"If blenders were better at killing people..."
Nobody said that.
Also, don't give me the stuff about only personal weapons for protection but not crew-served weapons.
ReplyDeleteCongress has the power to issue letters of marque and reprisal, which would be kind of pointless if nobody owned cannon-armed sailing ships to issue them to. And a cannon-armed sailing ship was the ne plus ultra of 18th Century weapons systems and useless for preventing muggings.
Would love to see Congressional debate on issuing a letter of marque today. The Sunday talking heads would implode trying to figure out what a letter of marque is.
DeleteI like Caleb's site, but I quit reading that woman a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteMatt
St Paul
@1077idaho
Remember that the "arms" that the Redcoats marched to Concord to seize were cannon and shot, and powder in excess of that "needed" for personal firearms.
ReplyDeleteThe modern-day equivalent would be artillery pieces.
It would be easy to think selling guns face to face is different if the person is from the segment that buys cars from dealers, real estate from dealers, furniture, computers, kitchen appliances etc only from stores and with a sales persons help. They might also be from a neighborhood where yard sales and cars with for sale signs are banned, and probably think pawn shops are for fencing stolen goods.
ReplyDeleteI think it might still be legal to fit a sailboat with a black powder cannon. Might get you asked to leave the yacht club though.
The true weapon is the mind - all else are are merely tools.
ReplyDeleteI do wish there were some way for prospective buyers to see if serial numbered property- not just guns- is stolen.
ReplyDeleteEven the coffee pot, easily obtainable at stores and yard sales, is a weapon. The coffee pot is for fighting your way to the sidearm/rifle/shotgun you shouldn't have left by your bedside. And the firearm is also easily obtainable at stores and yard sales.
ReplyDeleteRegarding antis using Christianity, I tend to quote Jesus... "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword" and "he who has no sword, let him sell his coat and buy one." In other words, let's not pursue a violent lifestyle, but let's do be prepared to defend when trouble shows up. Of course, some people can't tell the difference.
There's a separate argument to be made for the free citizen justification of offensive weaponry, but for defensive purposes I often feel like this line of argument leaves out something important.
ReplyDeleteThe logical reply is "so why don't you use a blender for self defense?"
But the real difference is that weapons of *offense* are a very different, and broader, category than weapons of *defense.*
If I am planning to rob, rape, or murder someone, I have all of the advantages. I can pick whom, with what, how, and where for the attack. Given those advantages, nearly anything is an effective weapon.
Defensive weaponry has many more restrictions. Most importantly, it must be effective for all victims and easily carried.
It's easy to murder someone with a gallon of gas and a lighter. It's much harder to defend against a mugging with one.
Which is exactly why a gun isn't like any other piece of property - and exactly why it should be subject to *additional* protections. If I want to murder someone, I can walk into any yard sale and find something effective for that purpose in five minutes.
Given that we want to encourage law-abiding citizens and not murderers, it needs to be even easier to go pick up the only effective tool to counter that.
Do you prefer the Magpul or Viking Tactical rail system on your blender?
ReplyDeleteGerry
It doesn't matter, as long as its a single action autoloading blender with only metal in the frame, (no plastic crap) with grip safeties and with an adequate pitcher diameter.
DeleteIs there an argument to be made here that one should not choose a blender based on its looks?
ReplyDelete(Sorry, Tam.)
IIRC, letters of marque are now illegal under international law, and have been for some time--either Hague or Geneva, and I'm no mood to go look it up.
ReplyDeleteKishnevi
> Do you prefer the Magpul or Viking Tactical rail system on your blender?
ReplyDeleteI found the Viking Blender but can't seem to find the Magpul equivalent. Help?
Paris Declaration of 1856
ReplyDeletethe US is not a signatory.
rms/pa
Anyone who doesn't have a robot coupe is a poseur.
ReplyDelete"It's easy to murder someone with a gallon of gas and a lighter. It's much harder to defend against a mugging with one."
ReplyDeleteI have actually (sort of) done this.
Before I got my permit, I was gassing up the jeep one evening and was accosted by a young tough-guy demanding money; implying much violence if I did not comply (he wasn't the sharpest brick on the wood pile, I could tell). Then he noticed that I had nonchalantly pulled the gas nozzle out of the tank and was patting my pockets looking for a lighter. He politely said "sorry, wrong person" and ran away.
Funny thing is, I don't smoke and didn't have a lighter or matches on me.
s
Beating an intruder silly with a hard, frozen heart would be awesome on a poetic level, but I don't quite know how to explain that choice to the cops where I live.
ReplyDeleteSo, is the Cuisinart the SIG of the home appliance/defence world?
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that along with powder, cannon were the object of the British confiscatory urge causing them to head out to Lexington and Concord that fateful April day.
ReplyDelete"A rifle is only a tool; it is the hard heart that kills."
And Gabby has one. Ask her what should be done to those who disagree with her. About anything.
The gun is what protects the old person, the woman, the ill, the weak, the small and the young from receiving every measure of what the young, the strong and the mob wish to inflict on them. We have a rule of law because the strong have limits imposed on them.
Cf the gun is civilization by Marko Kloos (gotta throw that in for the search engines).
And the blender might not be so quick as a firearm, but the Green River murderer killed more people with a piece of cord than were killed in Newton and Columbine combined.
ReplyDelete'Cept sheep don't get all worked up over cord, Windy. They've been conditioned to fear the tool, not the malevolent "tool" using it for wrong. After all, he's just misunderstood and can be reformed, while the gun is evil incarnate.
ReplyDeleteShe went full Farago.
ReplyDeleteNever go full Farago.
I would think that a blender also fails to protect my family and community from a rabid skunk, a feral dog or hog, an individual bent on mayhem, or a tyrant in a position of authority.
ReplyDeleteWhile the FBI has tracked the *decline* of all forms of violent crimes where states have increased concealed carry permits, I suppose that could have been just a coincidence, if the number of blenders had increased and been the cause of safer communities. But I haven't seen even BlendTech ("but will it blend?") make that claim.
"And a cannon-armed sailing ship was the ne plus ultra of 18th Century weapons systems and useless for preventing muggings."
ReplyDeleteAs demonstrated by the over broad comedy stylings of the Pirates of Penzance.
I think it was in one of Trevanian's "thrillers" that the assassin (same character Eastwood played in Eiger Sanction) kills his target with a rolled up magazine from the waiting room.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Robin, IIRC, in travian's first book, the asassin killed the target with a gun in a paper lunch bag; in the second book, he used a rolled up magazine as a self-defense tool, which I took as one more example of parody.
ReplyDeleteBut.
Now that I know what the great warrior poet said, I wanted to ask his identity. TIA.
Yrro: "But the real difference is that weapons of *offense* are a very different, and broader, category than weapons of *defense.*"
ReplyDeleteThere you go again, using logic and facts instead of feelings. How heartless!!!
Re the anonymous comment about Letters of Marque: I did a little research and discovered that the USA never signed the Paris Declaration of 1856 renouncing privateering, so Congress still _can_ issue Letters of Marque. Yet we haven't since 1815.
ReplyDeleteThere was a good reason for banning privateering: Every war ends sooner or later, leaving privateers with a large investment in an armed ship, and much training and experience in using it. They might give that up when peace came, but too many chose to become pirates. The "golden age of piracy" in the Caribean was fostered and sustained by a long series of little wars, each creating a new bunch of privateers/pirates. Very often, by the time the peacetime navies had a bunch of pirates in jail awaiting trial and hanging, a new war would start, and so each nation would give their own pirates amnesty and fresh letters of marque. (What amplified this effect was that typically the governor of an island colony would have the power to issue those amnesties and letters or marque in wartime, but could not try and hang a pirate without twice getting approval from the home country - by sailboat across the atlantic.) Even the USA got into the game of pardoning pirates; look up how Andy Jackson got him some artillerymen for the Battle of New Orleans.