Look, I get it. Gun owners have been an oppressed minority in this country for a long time, and we get to listen to all the righteous gungrabbers going on all damn day about reasonable restrictions on gun violence. Meaning us. Right? It can make a person a bit touchy.
I agree. I am on the side of the absolutists, the radicals, the ‘let’s compromise in the other direction for a while’ types. I’m a gun nut.
And when some quisling publicly tries to throw us nuts under the bus to improve his own bottom line, I’m perfectly happy to help boycott that SOB into another line of work. But that’s not what I want to argue against this morning.
Remember back in 2008 with Jim Zumbo and his “terrorist rifles?” Sure you do. And the gunny internet went nuts. I’ll go ahead and admit that I’d never heard of Zumbo – I stopped reading gun rags many many years ago when I finally figured out that there’s absolutely nothing inside except ads and filler, and that includes the purported articles. So I wasn’t really all that outraged that this guy I’d never read said something bad about something I liked. But the gun internet, as previously mentioned, went nuts. And people whom I know and truly admire started calling for Zumbo to ‘recant’ – and he’d damn better use all the words they wanted to hear.
And I was chilled to the bone. We were talking show trials and recantations, on a subject many of us regard as absolutely tied to freedom and liberty. And I asked then, what if this Zumbo character really does adjust his hairshirt just right and uses the precisely correct amount and consistency of ashes on his head? Do you really believe that will change what he thinks a single iota?
You know who else liked show trials and recantations? And we hate those guys. Right? We think badthink is a bad idea. Right?
We do, right?
I wasn’t arguing against throwing Zumbo under the bus. It’s a place he richly deserved to be. I was arguing against acting like a frickin’ People’s Committee, making sure everybody recited the currently mandated incantations with an acceptable quiver of righteous devotion in their voices. Lots of things have changed for me in the past nine years, but not that. I still hate that.
Now here’s this guy named Pat MacNamara – of whom, again, I know nothing – who apparently went on a for-god’s-sake Comedy Central show doing a hit job on guns and said something (or was edited to appear to have said something) doubleplusungood. And the gun internet went nuts.
Again! I’m not here to defend the guy. I guess he makes a living as a gun trainer, and we’ve seen before that gun trainers often love laws that tend to mandate gun training. They may well love any law that tends to drive gun owners into their shop. Not everybody in the gun business is on our side – a fact we keep tripping over. You can’t boycott everybody.
But the frenzied search for purity can get so out of hand, and we need to pay attention so we don’t become the thing we hate. Case in point: Captain Capitalism is taking the purist view on Pat MacNamara – and I agree with him absolutely, in principle. But then he quotes Tam, whom he apparently holds to be condemning MacNamara with insufficient zeal. And then she compounds her crime by saying something with which a purist – myself included! – must surely disagree…
Since the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right, the default setting is that everyone has it. If someone becomes a felon or is otherwise debarred from arms, then make a NO GUNS ALLOWED black mark on their DL/ID/passport/whatever.
Show me an ID without that disclaimer, and you’d be good to go, no background check necessary. And you’d be good to go in all 50 states, at that.
…and I hear the hounds baying and see the villagers giving her meaningful glares while reaching for their pitchforks…
…and it’s moments like that when it’s really best to take a moment. Okay?
Y’know, when I was a kid the adults called them clips. And nobody got upset.
Divide, and conquer. That’s how the saying goes, if I recall correctly.
Can’t say I’m surprised, though.
What I was surprised at, was that final comment by Herschel. I’ve thought that he was a bit more level headed, however it looks like I was wrong, and he engages in the same BS that 99% of the other folk also do. I’ll have to note that for the future.
I am amused that some people think the suggestion I made (which is pure fantasy spitballing and would never fly because the ACLU would have a hissy fit) is somehow *worse or more repressive than what we have now*.
Either people don’t read too good or they don’t think too good. Maybe both.
“Either people don’t read too good or they don’t think too good. Maybe both.”
Now, Tam, don’t tell us you really think that about our fine, brave, heroic (’cause everybody is a “hero”, & each gets his, her, or its own trophy) fellow Americans! Nor have you felt that way for better than 3 decades, I’m sure.
Nor I. Not at all.
“The right to bear arms shall not be infringed” seems to have lost it’s way post 1900 or so.
Personal property, personal responsibility and owning up to your failings based on the 10 commandments are the foundations of this nation (your choice if under God or not, but no avoiding personal responsibility which is what makes a free citizen). Practice these tenets and there would be no need for the overbearing weight of federal and state law and regulation on the citizen. Everyone should have the right to bear arms, or not to do so, their choice, their responsibility on any outcome and no it is not the gun makers fault your precious (insert colloquial label here) got shot. Not happy with one community? Move to another, but you never get to dodge personal responsibility. It is this latter item that is absent from the thinking and actions of the left. since the 1990’s (yes, I know the thinking that has led to modern progressivism started earlier that that, bloody rotten Fabians)
Typo – make that 1890’s
“I know the thinking that has led to modern progressivism started earlier that that, bloody rotten Fabians”
And how did the Fabians get to here?
But if you suggest moving the ball ten yards at a time back in the right direction, the “cheerleaders” start baying “A hundred yards all at once or don’t bother!”
You’ve come to the right place, Tam. Here we (sort of) praise the Fabians. Except for all the socialism. 😀
Well, if you’re going to mark someone’s Drivers License to tell the world that he/she Has Done Wrong, it ought not to be in black.
It ought to be a SCARLET LETTER.
I’ll assume that was “tongue in cheek,” Tam.
The bottom line is that there is simply no way to remove guns (or anything else) from the “bad people.” We’re left with self defense, and mutual defense against any of those who aggress. The whole idea of identifying those “bad people” via passports, driver’s licenses and so forth is ridiculous, and only serves the statists appetite for control. Every person with evil in their hearts is already equipped with two bare hands – more than enough to commit all kinds of assault and murder.
And the statists can only grab guns (etc.) from the responsible people if we let them. I don’t plan to let them.
Zumbo? I remember getting a laugh or two out of that dustup. Don’t know anything about this latest guy… and don’t care.