Love it! What an encouraging message. Long live the unreasonable.
ENthePeasantApril 10, 2014 3:10 pm
Unreasonable indeed! We’re the only group in America rolling back the tyrants. Every where else they win by a cut at a time. But in the end if we keep our guns we will never be there slaves. Long live the unreasonable.
ShelApril 10, 2014 6:00 pm
What a coincidence; I just finished reading your (good, as always) article and then went to your blog. There is another study which may be worth mentioning.
In his quite good book From My Cold Dead Fingers http://cspoa.org/product/from-my-cold-dead-fingers/ on pp. 53-54, Sheriff Richard L. Mack notes that in 1978 the Carter Administration commissioned a study by three men, including James D. Wright, to determine the effects of firearms upon American society. They had over 20,000 gun control laws on the books and could document no evidence that gun control laws reduced crime. Mack referenced a 1993 “Policy Review” article by Davie B. Kopel entitled “The Violence of Gun Control,” which I can’t find referenced on Kopel’s very detailed site. http://www.davekopel.org/DavePage.htm
I believe this book is the result of that study. http://books.google.com/books/about/Under_the_Gun.html?id=GfCMJgliyugC Wright is a known gun control proponent who has produced other writings; I haven’t taken the time to try to figure out if he has made serious efforts to refute his 1978 results.
Claire writes eloquently about the amazing 20 years. I got into this with GCA 1968, so I remember the slogging retreat for the thirty years before. My “first glimmer” was 1980, when Indiana passed concealed carry. Then the first “turning point” in 1987, when Marion Hammer and her people took everything Handgun Control and the media could throw at them and passed Florida’s concealed carry. Here in Texas we started in 1983, and finally passed concealed carry in 1995.
Yes, those were dark days. Thanks for reminding us of how far we’ve come.
Next task – “shall issue” medical licenses! How’s that for unreasonable?
KarenApril 11, 2014 4:40 am
Excellent article Claire! A few years back I did a very unofficial down and dirty comparison of gun crimes(fbi crime stats) with the “grades” the Brady bunch had assigned to the various states based on their gun laws. Almost entirely the A and B rated states had higher gun crime rates than the D and F states. In the mid range C rated states, gun crime seemed more related to other things like climate and poverty levels, rather than the gun laws. If the correlation is so evident that even I can chart it, how can anyone not see the glaring obvious? Especially in the poster child “state” of DC, the murder capital of the nation which had the toughest gun control laws at the time it was given that lofty identifier.
RickB’s comment hit a nerve of mine. It’s a harder comparison to make, becase relavant stats are hard to come by, but your doctor(medical/pharma community in general) is actually far more likely than a gun to kill you.
LarryAApril 11, 2014 11:43 am
And from “back in the day” (1964)
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Barry Goldwater, accepting the Republican nomination for president.
Good one, Claire! Say, I thought 3 state legislators lost their seats, 2 at first, then one later (without a recall needed). Or am I imagining?
[We’re the only group in America rolling back the tyrants.]
Well, not quite. Homeschooling became big in that same period. And we now have information uncontrolled by the gatekeepers (Internet).
I’ve been saying gun control is dead for some time now – except as a wet dream of the ruling class. The main point is that people largely aren’t buying it any more. And that’s not the only thing they are not buying; everything touched by government turns to shit. Look at the ratings of Congress.
To me the bottom line is to put your foot down and not put up with the crap. Present your case carefully and respectably, but don’t compromise with error. It’s a long slog but it works, because the opposition can resort to only hysteria and logical fallacies, and that gets old after a while.
Love it! What an encouraging message. Long live the unreasonable.
Unreasonable indeed! We’re the only group in America rolling back the tyrants. Every where else they win by a cut at a time. But in the end if we keep our guns we will never be there slaves. Long live the unreasonable.
What a coincidence; I just finished reading your (good, as always) article and then went to your blog. There is another study which may be worth mentioning.
In his quite good book From My Cold Dead Fingers http://cspoa.org/product/from-my-cold-dead-fingers/ on pp. 53-54, Sheriff Richard L. Mack notes that in 1978 the Carter Administration commissioned a study by three men, including James D. Wright, to determine the effects of firearms upon American society. They had over 20,000 gun control laws on the books and could document no evidence that gun control laws reduced crime. Mack referenced a 1993 “Policy Review” article by Davie B. Kopel entitled “The Violence of Gun Control,” which I can’t find referenced on Kopel’s very detailed site. http://www.davekopel.org/DavePage.htm
I believe this book is the result of that study. http://books.google.com/books/about/Under_the_Gun.html?id=GfCMJgliyugC Wright is a known gun control proponent who has produced other writings; I haven’t taken the time to try to figure out if he has made serious efforts to refute his 1978 results.
A contemporaneous 1979 book, Restricting Handguns; The Liberal Skeptics Speak out, edited by Don Kates, was another “we ran the numbers and they said the opposite of what we expected” view.
http://www.amazon.com/Restricting-Handguns-Liberal-Skeptics-Speak/dp/0884270335
Claire writes eloquently about the amazing 20 years. I got into this with GCA 1968, so I remember the slogging retreat for the thirty years before. My “first glimmer” was 1980, when Indiana passed concealed carry. Then the first “turning point” in 1987, when Marion Hammer and her people took everything Handgun Control and the media could throw at them and passed Florida’s concealed carry. Here in Texas we started in 1983, and finally passed concealed carry in 1995.
The times they are a-changin’
My brief History of Concealed Carry is at
http://www.txchia.org/history.htm
Yes, those were dark days. Thanks for reminding us of how far we’ve come.
Next task – “shall issue” medical licenses! How’s that for unreasonable?
Excellent article Claire! A few years back I did a very unofficial down and dirty comparison of gun crimes(fbi crime stats) with the “grades” the Brady bunch had assigned to the various states based on their gun laws. Almost entirely the A and B rated states had higher gun crime rates than the D and F states. In the mid range C rated states, gun crime seemed more related to other things like climate and poverty levels, rather than the gun laws. If the correlation is so evident that even I can chart it, how can anyone not see the glaring obvious? Especially in the poster child “state” of DC, the murder capital of the nation which had the toughest gun control laws at the time it was given that lofty identifier.
RickB’s comment hit a nerve of mine. It’s a harder comparison to make, becase relavant stats are hard to come by, but your doctor(medical/pharma community in general) is actually far more likely than a gun to kill you.
And from “back in the day” (1964)
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Barry Goldwater, accepting the Republican nomination for president.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.htm
Good one, Claire! Say, I thought 3 state legislators lost their seats, 2 at first, then one later (without a recall needed). Or am I imagining?
[We’re the only group in America rolling back the tyrants.]
Well, not quite. Homeschooling became big in that same period. And we now have information uncontrolled by the gatekeepers (Internet).
I’ve been saying gun control is dead for some time now – except as a wet dream of the ruling class. The main point is that people largely aren’t buying it any more. And that’s not the only thing they are not buying; everything touched by government turns to shit. Look at the ratings of Congress.
To me the bottom line is to put your foot down and not put up with the crap. Present your case carefully and respectably, but don’t compromise with error. It’s a long slog but it works, because the opposition can resort to only hysteria and logical fallacies, and that gets old after a while.