And when did I say that you said that? You referred to Joe_Cool’s comments as “bait”. He, in turn, was questioning what “special interests” that it was believed the current administration to be beholden to… and, as this is a thread about Gun control, and the lack of mention in the past campaign, it seems he took that to mean that one of the “special interests” being referred to were people who enjoy their Right to Bear Arms.
Ergo, I call it a baseless (also, vague) allusion to “special interests”, and question why that sort of bait is acceptable, yet another type that questions that bait is not.
Baloney. I said nothing about the Constitution, nor did I say anything about political parties. Keep your silly notions out of my mouth.
But three lefts do.
In which it is hardly differential from the political left. Yeesh.
Joe_Cool, when did Gore ever come out against the Constitution itself? The Second Amendment itself, even though it’s only one sentence long, specifically calls for the right to bear arms to be “well-regulated”. OK, let’s regulated it then, and well, just as the Founding Fathers required. Fair enough?
Or was that post born of the NRA view that only one half of that single sentence represents a sacred right under the Constitution, and that the other half can and should be ignored?
It would also be interesting to find a cite that the portion of Americans who believe that gun rights are absolute is not so small as to be categorizable as a “special interest”. Another rhetorical device is to claim the words “most people”, “mainstream”, “majority” etc. without basis.
I read an extensive analysis of the obvious gun control void in al Gore’s platform. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which paper of journal it was from… maybe WSJ. Without arguing the merits of gun control or gun control laws, I will attempt to reconstruct my understanding of that article.
Back in early 2000 (March, I think). Wayne LaPierre, the VP of the NRA maybe a statement that the Clinton administration, and Democrats in general were willing to accept a certain level of gun violence and even death to further their political agenda - including enacting ineffective and irrelevant gun laws and not enforcing many of the 25,000 or so laws currently on the books. Whether you believe this statement or not, wherhter you believe it’s intentional on the leftists’s part, it causes some uneasiness. I believe this idea is one that stuck with many informed voters, and gun owners in particular. You could see the effect of this on Gore’s campaign, from the minor treatment the issue received to his backpedaling in the debates. I’m sure his focus groups let him know it was wise to stay far away from the issue.
Wayne’s statment was the clearest and most effective explanation of the leftist gun control agenda I’ve heard to date. It has a certain Machiavellian truth to it.
Machiavellian on whose part? Is he suggesting that the Democrats were willing to tolerate more gun murders in order to achieve fewer? The strategy, if it existed, makes no sense even for Machiavelli.
The mass of “unenforced gun laws” Wayne was referring to are almost all on the state level, not federal. Gore’s positions, and Bush’s, didn’t matter there.
Absolutely not. No one on other side of the political debate honestly believes that more gun laws will reduce violence. Wayne was suggesting that a certain level of gun violence was acceptable in order to expand and extend the left’s political agenda - more government control and ever-increasing restrictions on law-abiding citizens. An exploitation of people’s fears of crime and terrorism and the irrational desire to limit freedoms in order to achieve a token measure of “safety”. (Remember the spate of laws that were proposed after the Oklahoma City bombing and again after Columbine?)
Well, their actions do matter because federal authorities have some sway on the state level. In some cases federal prosecutors will decline to indict criminals on gun charges, letting states will harsher penalties prosecute instead. In the past eight years or so, federal gun prosecutions have declined by a third. That’s a bit disturbing. Forunately, states began taking up some of the slack - due in part to this increased cooperation. There is an interesting study of the differences between state and federal prosecutions here.
This is all getting rather off-topic. My contribution to the original debate is that some influential politicos began to publicly exmaine the real political agenda behind gun control based on the actions of the previous administration. Their logical conclusion was that there was more to the gun control debate than efforts to reduce crime. (which were already on the decline). It’s an idea that seems to have found some popular appeal, and may have contributed to the decline of the issue in the last Presidential cycle.
A very overbroad statement there, unless you’re referring to the laws themselves without including enforcement. But this is a Gore campaign thread; you’re right.
If he’s serious about that, he’s so paranoid that he’s wrong. When would the time to get serious about reducing the risk of random homicides be any riper, with more public support, than right now? Does anyone seriously think it could be?
At what frequency of occurrence would such fears become rational? While we were referring to debating techniques, dismissing your opponents as “irrational” is another.
Yes. Laws alone without proper and agressive enforcement do nothing to thwart criminal activity.
Hmmm… there’s no epidemic of crime. In fact, it’s at a 30-year low. Read the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports. Isolated instances of extreme violence have led to the adoption of laws which seriously infringe upon civil liberties. In these instances, you’ll often find the ACLU and NRA on the same side such as their joint stance against the Omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act of 1995, later the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Law of 1996. It is this trend, I believe, that led to Wayne’s assertion that the gun control agenda is becoming less and less about controlling gun crime and more about controlling the citizenry. True or not, it struck a chord with voters.
These fears are irrational - that is, they are not based on any logical or thoughtful analysis. Crime has been declining steadily for 30-years. If crime were increasing dramatically, there would be some cause for the hew and cry over gun control. In a modern democracy, it is also irrational to believe that personal safety is preferrable to personal freedom. What else would you call an emotional reaction to a situation that is not based on fact? I certainly wouldn’t call it wise.
I’m sure somebody will post the per capita gun-related homicide rate for the US vs. more-regulated countries. I’ll go look it up if you insist, but the numbers I’ve seen show the US rate at several orders of magnitude higher than any other country. OK, I’ll go get them when I have more time. You want facts instead of “irrational fears”?
You don’t see a great hue (not “hew”) and cry over gun control? What part of the country do you live in? And do you not think there is no single crisis to create one, just a general fed-up but despairing sentiment over the situation, as in so many others? Please. If Gore had appealed to that feeling that nothing can be done in the current political structure, and made people believe that it can indeed be done, I’m sure he’d have gained a great deal more solid support than he did.
The US crime rate may indeed be coming down, but it’s the height of solipsism to refer only to one’s own self or country in making moral judgments. If you’d like to argue that the rate is acceptable and that anyone who disagrees is irrational, go right ahead. Please answer the question about what homicide rate you consider “acceptable” or leave your own rationality (and basic morality) in question, friend.
Gore NEVER came out against the Constitution itself. And Joe never said that he did.
If you cure the disease, there’s no more need for the doctor… hence, if gun-related crime were to drop significantly, there wouldn’t be any more possibility to ride into an office based on a pro-Control platform, and the politicians who use that platform to garner votes would suddenly be out of a job…
Not that I believe that attitude is prevalent… I just think it shows the typical politician attitude of “Big promisese, small payoffs”.
I do so enjoy hearing gun-rights folks tell us about how keeping handguns (useless for hunting or sport, btw) will help us defend ourselves against some vast, underarmed invasion force from some country they can’t even name, but that the idea is “rational”. Meanwhile, the fundamental societal right to not get killed at random in one of the real incidents that occur every day, and fear of it occurring, is labeled “irrational”.
I’ll maintain that Gore, or any other semi-skilled politician, could have turned our widespread frustration and despair over lack of responsible gun control into anger and hope (and votes, not incidentally). But it might not have worked as a piece of the effective overall strategy that won him the plurality.
SPOOFE, our friend Joe went on at some length about the gun-rights lobby defending the Constitution itself, not a special interest. I think accusing Gore of campaigning against the Constitution was indeed the tenor of his remarks, as easily refutable as they are.
Also, your “keep the patient sick” strategy suggestion can be easily applied to any politician on any side of any argument. Unless you have a specific attribution to make, that didn’t really add to this discussion.
Can you back this up? You say that handguns are “useless for hunting or sport”. That’s a pretty broad and sweeping claim, and I’m calling you on it to prove it. Or retract it.
Seeing as pistol target-shooting is an immensely popular pastime among gun enthuisiasts, I guess at least that part of the assertion is, uh, shot to hell.
ElvisL1ves: “I do so enjoy hearing gun-rights folks tell us about how keeping handguns (useless for hunting or sport, btw).”
Man, you need to get out more!
Maybe you should inform my former fiancee about how useless handguns are for sport. Somehow she got a gold medal in the Pan American games and 2 national women’s sport pistol championship titles shooting a handgun.
I haven’t actually checked the site, but I would bet dollars to donuts that it does not list the number of times guns are used defensively each year that do not result in anyone getting killed.
I am gonna ask for a cite on two things here. One, where does this “right not to get killed” come from? If I do get killed, can I sue the state for failing to prevent it? And two, on this assertion about people getting killed at “random”, bearing in mind the dictionary definition of “random”.
Re the Brady site: Can anyone offer a fact-based rebuttal of anything relevant there? And if so, would it answer the moral question of what constitutes an “acceptable” level of homicides? I’m still waiting for THAT reply.
Re sport pistol shooting: OK, too quickly said, I’ll admit. I was referring to the kind of handgun commonly found on the streets or in the nightstands of paranoid homeowners, which are designed and made to kill people. The kind that is used to punch holes in paper is an exception, and no doubt stored responsibly when not in use, but they’re a very tiny percentage of the total. Fair enough?
Anthracite, what kind of handgun do you use to hunt deer or birds? Do you use hollow-point, Teflon-coated bullets? Please. There is too little responsible discourse in this debate as it is.
I hope you’re not serious. Check the Commandments or the Constitution, if it isn’t in your own conscience.
Your survivors certainly can. Wrongful death suits are filed and won routinely, including against government entities. But you’re still dead, though. In case you’re thinking “Guns don’t kill people” etc., let me point out that people armed only with knives or clubs cause fewer people to be dead. The argument that the killers can always be imprisoned doesn’t make the victims less dead.
I hope you’re not serious about that, either. If somebody toting a piece decides he doesn’t like me, or if I dare get into an argument with someone with access to the means to end the argument quickly, doesn’t that meet a real-life definition of “random”? And are you really defending it?
No. Because rights do not need to be justified based on need. Period. Can you justify your need to practice religion freely? Or to speak freely? Do you have a NEED not to let the nice friendly officers into your home without a warrant or probable cause, even if you have nothing to hide?
Since you’re so enlightened, please explain to us all what the differences are between hollow-points, teflon-coated bullets, and plain old soft lead nose bullets. Do you even know what teflon-coated bullets are? I didn’t think so. Please don’t use media buzzwords here unless you have knowledge of what you’re talking about.
Oh, and a .44 mag will take down a deer nicely. You really shouldn’t talk smack to Anthracite on this topic, as she is a) short-tempered when it comes to ignorant people telling her how to conduct herself and discussing her “need” to carry a gun, and b) probably quite a bit more intelligent and educated than you and I put combined.
Oh, and we try to argue here based on facts, not emotional catchphrases.
Please show me where in the Constitution you are guaranteed a right not to be killed. And when your relatives try to sue the government because the police didn’t prevent your death, you’ll probably get thrown out of court, with the opinion referring to South v Maryland, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the job of the police is to enforce laws and conduct investigations, not to provide protection.
This is just stupid, and has nothing to do with anything.
A valid question, with the answer varying depending upon whom you ask. But consider this: firearms accidents have declined continuously for almost the last century, and have shown no signs of reversal. And yet gun ownership, especially handgun ownership, is at record highs (there are some preliminary indications that handguns ownership, at least, is leveling off, and may begin to decline).
Then why the need for new gun control laws on mandatory trigger locks and storage to prevent accidental firearms deaths when, as an form of accidental death, firearms are 13th on the list of accidental causes of death? Where’s all of the hooplah for the other 12 preceding forms of accidental death?
I won’t rebut your claim that handguns are useless for sport or hunting; others have done so here very well. And in your defense, “the right not to get killed” can be included in the broadest interpretation of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (btw, that clause appears in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution or the Bill of Rights).
I won’t even rebut your cite of HCI’s claims of firearms fatalities, but I do recommend that instead of taking your stats from an obviously biased source as a pro gun control organization, that you instead get them from the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics’s report Deaths: Final Data for 1998, or possibly Deaths: Preliminary Data for 1999.
My purpose in opening this thread wasn’t about the rigth to keep and bear, or what is reasonable in the realm of gun control; it was to debate the political ramifications in the United States of the impact of the larger (National level) gun control debate upon the candidacy and elections last year.
The LaPierre .vs. Clinton brouhaha on the Today Show in early 2000 may have struck a popular chord with a large number of Americans; that quite a few believe that gun control may be nothing more than a band-aid on the sucking chest wound violence, and that the Clinton Administration seemed quite eager to pass new gun control laws but they were extremely quiet on the question(s) of what was the underlying causes of violence and how to address them.
And in spite of the media’s negative portrayals of the NRA and gun owners, there may be more grassrooots support of gun rights than strictly amongst gun owners. IIRC, a CNN/Gallup poll conducted w/in a month of Columbine showed that (approx.) 60% polled opposed more gun control as a response to incidents like Columbine, while the Clinton Administration railed against the evils of guns and the need for more restriction upon them. The bodies were barely in the ground, the investigation was just getting started, no facts were resolved, no conclusions arrived at, and yet the answer (to Pres. Clinton and his administration) was obvious: more gun control.
The Democratic leadership may be awakening to the fact that not every gun owner is a potential mass murderer, while any potential mass murderer may want to get their hands on guns, which is why vigororous enforcement of good, enfoceable laws is preferable to sound-bite analysis, posturing and legislation aimed at allaying fears while ignoring causes. That guns are owned and used safely by approximately 70-80 million Americans for hunting, target shooting and self defense.
And that while courting extremes may garner votes among extremists, the healthy majority of Americans are not extremists (a fact that the Republicans may want to sit up and take note of, as well).
Does anyone else here remember Tipper Gore’s campaign against the 1st Amendment in the 80s? Mr. Gore’s support of gun rights and gun owners in the 80s?
Well, I had a concealed carry permit and routinely carried the means to terminate anything which displeased me for a while. As a quarter million of my fellow Texans currently do.
But I never did, in spite of a few occasions of extreme provocation; it never left the holster. The closest I came was reaching for it, and placing my hand upon it (in its holster) during a street confrontation late at night in south Dallas.
And, judging from the homicide stats for Texas, the “streets-running-with-blood-new-Dodge-city” predictions of HCI and such were, and are, completely unfounded. In Texas, and the other 32 states that have encated concealed carry.
