A great new post by Rick Marole over at Bill Loney's place.
Category: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
If Zimmerman Had Been Unarmed . . .
. . . Trayvon Martin would not have been shot. On the other hand, had he been unarmed, it is highly likely that Zimmerman would be either dead or permanently injured.
Trained fists can be deadly weapons. See The Danger of Fists. And make sure you watch the video clips. (Via Malcolm Pollack.)
So much for the fallacious 'disproportionality argument.'
If you attack me with deadly force and I reply with deadly force of greater magnitude, your relative weakness does not supply one iota of moral justification for your attack, nor does it subtract one iota of moral justification from my defensive response. If I am justified in using deadly force against you as aggressor, then the fact that my deadly force is greater than yours does not (a) diminish my justification in employing deadly force, nor does it (b) confer any justification on your aggression.
Suppose a knife-wielding thug commits a home invasion and attacks a man and his family. The man grabs a semi-automatic pistol and manages to plant several rounds in the assailant, killing him. It would surely be absurd to argue that the disparity in lethality of the weapons involved diminishes the right of
the pater familias to defend himself and his family. Weakness does not justify.
The principle that weakness does not justify can be applied to the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict from the summer of 2006 as well as to the Israeli defensive operations against the terrorist entity, Hamas. The principle ought to be borne in mind when one hears leftists, those knee-jerk supporters of any and every 'underdog,' start spouting off about 'asymmetry of power' and 'disproportionality.' Impotence and incompetence are not virtues, nor do they confer moral justification or high moral status, any more than they confer the opposite.
What Does ‘Stand Your Ground’ Have to Do with Martin and Zimmerman?
Nothing, as Michelle Malkin explains:
So, what exactly do Stand Your Ground laws have to do with Zimmerman and Martin? Absolutely nothing, of course. Outside your own home, common principles of self-defense dictate that unless you have reasonable fear of deadly force or harm, you must flee if possible rather than use deadly force. But a “duty to retreat” rests on the ability to retreat. And “duty to retreat” was irrelevant in Zimmerman’s case because — pinned to the ground with Martin on top of him, bashing his head on the concrete — he was unable to retreat.
Why the Second Amendment?
I Can’t Get No Ammunition
The other day I headed for the sporting goods department at a local Wal-Mart. I was looking to stock up on .38 and .45 rounds. Shelves were nearly bare and the pickin's were slim. They were out of almost everything except 20 gauge and .410 shotgun shells. A sign stated that each customer is limited to three boxes per day. This is not just a local phenomenon due to the proximity of gun-totin' Apache Junction rednecks.
A Wal-Mart employee said that 7:15 A.M. was the time to get there on days when shipments arrived. But he couldn't tell me which days those were and he had no opinion about the allegation of some that the Feds are buying up ammo like crazy in a sort of 'arms race' against civilian gun owners. According to the Associated Press (AP), Homeland Security is aiming to buy 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. That is the same AP that has recently been the target of Obama administration document seizures. Something strange is going on here. Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Now would our wise and benevolent government, a government that Obama insists "is us," do a thing like buy ammo to starve the civilian supply? Well, would our government use the IRS to target and harrass conservative groups and individuals such as Frank Vandersloot? Would it lie about Benghazi?
I'm just asking.
Related post: Why Not Gun Control for the Government?
An On-Target Gun Quotation
Here:
So why do gun owners resist Washington and do-gooders such as Nocera? "You don't understand guns," Baum said, "and you don't know gun guys, yet you want to make rules for things you don't understand for people you don't know."
Pointed, precise, pithy.
As for the New York Times' Joe Nocera, the man is an idiot, as I had occasion to demonstrate a while back in On the Illicit Use of 'By Definition' when I reported
. . . the following surprising statement by Joe Nocera: "But it is equally true that anyone who goes into a school with a semiautomatic and kills 20 children and six adults is, by definition, mentally ill." (Emphasis added.) Well, maybe it isn't so surprising given that Mr. Nocera is a NYT op-ed writer. Surprising or not, Nocera's claim is not only false, but illustrative of complete confusion about the meaning of 'by definition.'
Suppose a Palestinian Arab terrorist enters a yeshiva with a semi-automatic rifle and kills 20 children and six adults. May you validly infer that the terrorist is mentally ill? Of course not. He may or may not be. Were the 9/11 hijackers mentally ill? No. They collectively committed an unspeakably evil act. But only a liberal would confuse an evil act with an insane act. Suppose a young SS soldier is ordered to shoot a group of 26 defenceless Jews, toppling them into a mass grave they were forced to dig. He does so, acting sanely and rationally, knowing that if he does not commit mass murder he himself will be shot to death.
Conceptual confusion and emotive uses of language are trademarks of liberal feel-good 'thinking.' To give one more example from Nocera's piece, he refers to semi-automatics as "killing machines." Question: would a semi-auto pistol or rifle be a "killing machine" if it were used purely defensively or to stop a would-be mass murderer? Suppose it were used to deter an attack without being fired. Is an
'assault weapon' an assault weapon when used for defense? Is a liberal a liberal on the rare occasions when he talks sense?
No weapon is inherently assaultive or defensive. Any weapon can be used for both assault and defense. I can block your attack with my spear, and bash you over the head with my shield. Remember Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative? Reagan claimed that SDI was purely defensive. But even if such a nuclear shield were used for purely defensive purposes, it could be used as part of an offensive strategy — which is what made the Russkis nervous.
The best proof that liberals do not want to have a serious gun 'conversation' is that they refuse to use the proper terminology. 'Assault weapon' has no definite meaning and it is emotive to boot. The whole point of is is to appeal to people's emotions and occlude rational thought. The correct phrase is 'semi-automatic rifle' or 'semi-automatic long gun.' These phrases are purely descriptive: neither emotive, nor normatively loaded.
Suppose I want to have a 'conversation' with you about abortion, but I keep referring to you as a 'baby-killer' or a 'murderer.' Do you think a productive discussion will ensue?
We may also tax our liberal pals with intellectual dishonesty when they elide the distinction — which most of them full-well understand — between semi-auto and full-auto. They ride roughshod over that obvious distinction because it serves their agenda to do so. This shows that they are not interested in truth, but in power.
It is the same with liberals and libertarians who elide the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. They ride roughshod over that obvious distinction because it serves their agenda to do so. This shows that, in this respect at least, they are not interested in truth and clarity of thought, but in power and in winning at all costs.
And then they expect us to be civil. Civility, like toleration, has limits.
Liberals and Straw Men
Here is a particularly egregious example of a liberal straw man argument. In a New Yorker piece, Margaret Talbot writes:
As a nation, we’re a little vague on what the Second Amendment’s protections of a citizen militia mean for gun ownership today. The N.R.A. insists that they mean virtually unlimited access to firearms for every American. . . .
Note the weasel word 'virtually' that pseudo-qualifies Talbot's falsehood, and allows her to pass it off with a show of plausibility. Or is Talbot flat out lying? A lie is not the same as a falsehood, the difference being the intention to deceive which is necessary for an utterance to count as a lie. I am not in a position to peer into Talbot's soul, so I hesitate to impute a lie to her. But if she is not lying, then she is ignorant, indeed culpably ignorant since on a minimal understanding of journalistic ethics one ought to become informed of the positions of an outfit such as the N.R.A. before confidently reporting on them.
How does the Straw Man fallacy come into this? The fallacy is committed when one (mis)represents one's opponent as holding a position he does not in fact hold and then attacking the position he does not hold. So Talbot falsely represents the N. R. A. has advocating the nonexistent right of all Americans, including felons, the mentally unstable, and the underaged, to keep and bear all types of firearms. Having set up the strawman, Talbot then earnestly argues against it.
I exposed another example the other day when I refuted the Wolff-Obama "You didn't build that!" argument.
A third example is the liberal complaint that conservatives are anti-government, as if advocating limited government makes one anti-government. Such a willful misrepresentation speaks volumes about the moral character of the ones who make it.
Larry Correia on Guns
The liberal noise about gun control has begun to abate, and we can be thankful that all the foolish and willfully ignorant hyperventilation has come to nought, except for having driven up sales of guns and ammo. As a fitting coda to all the sound and fury, I recommend this piece by Larry Correia. It is one of the best things I have read on the topic. I ran it past a competitive shooter and firearms instructor I know and he awarded it his imprimatur and nihil obstat.
The Pop-Tart Terrorist
More proof, as if we needed it, of the stupidity of liberals. Should we respond respectfully and rationally to fools? Mockery and ridicule are often more effective. Many of the members of Generation Screwed voted for Obama because they perceived him as 'cool.' Rational persuasion is not likely to work on such people. Their perceptions need to be changed from 'cool' to 'uncool' by the ridicule dished out by the likes of Dennis Miller and Adam Carolla.
If you want to win, make the fools look uncool to those who think coolness the criterion, but have solid arguments at the ready for those who can think.
Gail Collins' NYT op-ed gun outburst is another example of liberal stupidity. I won't sully these pages by quoting any of it. Here is an adequate response.
The Criminology of Firearms
Many liberals feel that civilian gun ownership is unnecessary because adequate protection against the criminal element is afforded by the police. I advise them to think through the following considerations:
Misinformed people oppose self-defense objections to gun ban laws, urging victims to instead rely on police. This misunderstands what policing is and does. Accordingly, when criminals rob or injure them, misinformed victims try to sue the police for not protecting them. Whereupon the police send forth lawyers invoking the universal US rule that the police duty is to discourage crime only indirectly by patrolling the streets and by apprehending criminals after their crimes.
While police should stop crimes they observe, criminals take care to strike when police are not present. In fact, police almost never (less than 3 percent of cases) arrive in time to help victims. For that reason, the statutory or common law of every state exonerates police from suit for non-protection, e.g. California Government Code §§ 821, 845 and 846: “[A police department and its officers are] not liable for an injury caused by … failure to enforce an enactment [nor for] failure to provide police protection service or … provide sufficient police protection service [nor for] the failure to make an arrest or [the] failure to retain an arrested person in custody.”
Misinformed persons also urge victims to depend on restraining orders instead of self-defense. But restraining orders are just pieces of paper. A five-year study [PDF] in Massachusetts found that almost 25 percent of domestic murderers were under a restraining order when they killed.
Making Sure That It Never Happens Again
From The Hill:
President Obama on Sunday said he would make gun control a priority in his new term, pledging to put his “full weight” behind passing new restrictions on firearms in 2013.
“I'm going to be putting forward a package and I'm going to be putting my full weight behind it,” Obama said in an interview aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I'm going to be making an argument to the American people about why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen again.”
Question: Does any clear-thinking person seriously believe that steps can be taken to prevent such events from ever happening again? Of course not. Then why the empty utopian rhetoric? The "everything we can" is equally silly. There is a way to severely reduce the likelihood of another Sandy Hook type shooting. And that is to to secure every school like a prison. That would be much more effective that any tightening of gun laws. So if we must do "everything we can," then we ought to secure every school, every church, every college campus, etc. like a prison or a military installation.
What comes out of Obama's mouth is just feel-good liberal-left blather, thoughtless verbiage, without contact with facts or evidence, and without consequence for the solution of any real problem. The only real consequence is a further erosion of liberty and an expansion of the state.
Dog Shoots Man
What the hell's going on in Florida? The other day an oven shot a woman, and now a dog has shot a man, with an 'unloaded' gun no less.
Tragedies like these show the need for Dog Control. Members of the Dog Lobby such as Duane LaRufus of the National Hound Association will scream in protest, but moral cretins like him and Leroy Pooch of Dog Owners of America are nothing but greedy shills for the Canine Industrial Complex. They routinely oppose all sensible Dog Control measures. Follow the money!
Reason dictates that all dogs must be kept muzzled at all times, and when transported in a vehicle containing a gun, must be kept securely locked in the trunk. Assault dogs, whose only purpose is to kill and maim, such as Doberman Ass Biters and Pit Bulls, must be banned. Such breeds are inherently evil and no one ouside of law enforcement and the military has any business owning them. Food magazines for all breeds must be kept strictly limited lest any dog become too rambunctious. Dog owners should be 'outed' and their names published in the paper. Special taxes must be levied on all things canine to offset the expenses incurred by society at large in the wake of the rising tide of dog violence.
Such reasonable measures will strike extremists as draconian, but if even one life can be saved, then they are justified. We must do something and we must do it now so that tragedies like the one in Florida never happen again.
Argumentative Ammo
Firearms, Violence, and the Second Amendment: Some Articles. Linkage does not entail wholehearted endorsement. But these pieces are on the right track. If you care about your country and your own future, then you ought to inform yourself.
Gun Control: Controlling the Government’s Guns
A reader referred me to this excellent article by George Reisman. Required reading, especially for anyone who is serious about having a real conversation about gun control, as opposed to a liberal-left 'conversation.'
This article is so good I am tempted to quote from it. But it's all good, so read it all.
Why Not Gun Control for the Government?
Liberals have been calling for a 'conversation' about gun control. The call is both silly and disingenuous. Silly, because it is not as if we haven't been talking about this for decades. So suddenly we need to have a 'conversation'? Disingenuous, because what liberals mean by a conversation is more like: you shut up and listen and acquiesce in our point of view or we'll shout you down! Here is Medea Benjamin of CodePink 'conversing' with Wayne LaPierre:
But suppose, contrary to fact, that our leftist pals were serious about a conversation, no scare quotes. Then we would have to discuss not only gun control for citizens, but for government as well. Fair is fair.
There are foolish and irresponsible and criminal individuals among the citzenry and they shouldn't have guns. But it is equally true that there are foolish and irresponsible and criminal people in government and they shouldn't have guns either.
Besides, quis custodiet custodies? Who governs the government? If we can't govern ourselves, but need government to govern us, then the government, which is composed of the same "crooked timber of humanity" (Kant) as we are, needs some entity to keep it in line. That 'entity' is us, the armed citizenry.
Why do we need to be kept in check, but not them? Come on you feel-good liberals, try thinking for a change. Do you really believe that government is inherently benevolent and composed of angels from above? Do you really believe they can be trusted when we can't? Do you think that they are the parents and we the children? Then you are Chris Rock and and your brain is as 'petrified' as his.
Anthony Gregory's Why Not Gun Control for Government? is an extreme piece that I cannot endorse in toto. But it does throw the issue into relief.
Less extreme and more entertaining is Uncle Sam, Give Us Your Guns.
If you know of any more good articles on this topic, shoot me an e-mail.