Of all the reactions to the horrible shooting at Stony Ridge Sandy Hook, this one from the Libertarian Party is the most sensible thus far. It focuses on the federal Gun Free School Zone Act which prohibits firearms in schools. It goes on to cite incidents where armed citizens have been able to stop or cut short these sorts of shootings. Hat tip: Jeff Hummel.
gun control
From the Comments: Guns and Truth
I often think that reading through the ‘comments’ section of a post or an article online can tell me much more about an idea or an event than can the original article. Oftentimes the nitty-gritty details of an article or post can be illuminated in the ‘comments’ section if the author is kind enough to wade into the pool of hoi polloi and defend his argument. Dr. Delacroix is an expert in this regard, and I thought I’d reproduce his defense of the Second Amendment here (since he is being uncharacteristically humble out it!). A European drive-by commentator left the following comment bragging about the superiority of Europe’s gun control laws, which sparked the following brilliant response from Dr. J:
Thank you and a fairly disjuncted response because I would need several days to provide a response that would both be fairly complete and well organized.
History matters. The US was born in revolution, Unlike the case of France, for example, the American revolution was never confiscated. Many Americans, including me, believe that insurrection against a government gone rogue is a remote but possible scenario. Those who scoff at this possibility should remember that totalitarian regimes are eager to control even one-shot, small caliber shotguns. Maybe fascists know something liberal gun-control advocates don’t understand. Even, if the scenario is utterly unrealistic, it could give the American people backbone, as sacred myths often do. Continue reading
Guns and Truth
I have stayed away from this blog too long. I wasn’t cruising the South Pacific on my McGregor 26, as you might expect. I was just editing my memoirs; I was trying to be thorough. (It’s called: “I Used to Be French: An Immature Autobiography.” There are excerpts of it on this blog.)
On my last radio show, I made the subject of gun control come up. I did it because I had heard one of my colleagues, a liberal talk-show host on the same station make a statement that sounded bogus to me. (The station is KSCO A.M. In Santa Cruz; it’s available on-line. My show is called “Facts Matter.” It’s every Sunday 11a.m. – 1p.m.)
The statement that caught my attention was this:
For every time a gun is used in legitimate self-defense, a gun is used nineteen times for illegitimate or illegal purposes.
The figure was just too pat. It was calculated to be remembered by regular folks who are assumed by the Left to have no head for numbers. It sounded like pure propaganda. I thought it might also be trivially true, correct but without any meaning.
I called the liberal host during his show and challenged him to produce a source. He could not. We had eleven email exchanges. The other guy says he gave me the references. I say he did not.
If you insist on you shoring up your argument with figures – a good thing- you had better be prepared to explain where they come from. I think the Left is forever quoting imaginary numbers and numbers they misinterpret. Some just cheat and make up facts. Others are just conveniently loose with numbers, making mistakes always in the same direction. Continue reading
My Thoughts on the Aurora Shooting
I don’t have much to say, only that we need much stricter gun control laws now. This was the last straw. Also, more people die on our highways than anywhere else. So we should get rid of all of our roads too. Or at least restrict access to people who know how to use them properly: the police and the military, of course. And, you’ll notice that the police and the military are increasingly hard to differentiate these days. Bin Laden may be dead, but he was always thinking about the Long Game.
So, now would be a good time to politicize a shooting. I am not complaining. I’d rather hear all sides of a story than get my information from a single source. The Huffington Post politicizes events better than anybody else. They just came out with a story on a $2 million tab for one of the moviegoers who is still hospitalized. Thanks to this story, the young man won’t have trouble paying his bills (Americans are the most generous people on the planet, despite our excessive tax burdens).
Europe has had its fair share of shootings, too. I am not speaking just of the recent shooting in Norway. Germany, France, Britain, and Switzerland have all had to deal with such events. Some of these states have stricter gun control laws than we do. Some of them don’t. Oftentimes there is mixing and matching. Some states have restrictions on pistols. Others on high-powered rifles. Some have bans on assault weapons. Crazy people still find ways to get guns and shoot people, though. Always have, always will.
So the Left (and the neoconservatives still pretending to be on the Right) demands stricter gun control laws. They don’t really care if such laws are effective or not. They only care about telling others what to do.
Links From Around the Consortium
Jacques Delacroix continues his vendetta against Ron Paul.
Dr. Ninos Malek points out the obvious in regards to guns and public schools
Fred Foldvary has a wonderful piece in the Progress Report on Turkey joining NAFTA
Brian Gothberg (with Gregory Christainsen) writes on property rights and whaling technology
Professor Jeffrey Rogers Hummel on Ben Bernanke versus Milton Friedman (pdf) in the Independent Review
Have a great weekend!
Notes On Liberty 