David Frum, ever the thinking-man’s Republican (the kind, for instance, who scores points with the left in his essays with throwaway lines about, eg., FOX News, or pointed innuendo that gun sales are increasing during the Obama years because, well, white men are both scared and racist), “Fear drives opposition to gun control”:
[…] what will change [attitudes toward the wisdom of gun ownership] is not more atrocity stories, but instead the reassuring truth: The United States is safe and getting safer, safer than ever before in its history.
The police can protect you, and will, and do. And a gun in the house is not a guarantee of personal security — it is instead a standing invitation to family tragedy. The cold dead hands from which they pry the gun are very unlikely to be the hands of a heroic minuteman defending home and hearth against intruders. They are much more likely to be the hands of a troubled adolescent or a clumsy child.
In the land of the Second Amendment, nobody will take your guns away. But if you love your children, you should get rid of them voluntarily.
To borrow one of Frum’s snide asides: a citizenry voluntarily disarming itself in the midst of a soft political coup, leaving the defense of themselves, their families, and their liberty entirely up to others? What could go wrong?
Here, let’s get to the nub of Frum’s argument: you people with your guns aren’t man enough to surrender your right to self-defense, even though you are more likely to get hurt yourselves (or provide the means for an innocent person to get hurt) than you are to kill the mythical bad guys who really aren’t all that common, and who, besides, the police can and do protect you from. Like they did all those folks in Aurora. You gun-loving cowards.
Or, if you prefer brevity, “You’ll put your eye out, rednecks!”
You see, real men have the balls and confidence to walk around unarmed and unprotected. Not to mention, quite pudgy. And disturbingly, unnaturally pale. With a quasi-Canadian lilt to their speech, hoping against hope — and relying on statistical probabilities — that nobody tries to do them or their families harm. As you terrified white (mostly Republican and likely slightly racist) males should also be doing, should you ever wish to be counted among the real men.
Honestly, you cowards with your guns, all afeared of the government taking away your right to self defense, all afeared of non-exist threats that are readily handled by trained professionals: your bitterclingerness really is offputting, and it gives sensible, brave, pudgy and unnaturally pale Republicans with Canadian lilts who would willingly surrender their rights to the state a bad name.
Sorry, but in today’s very safe America, there’s nothing more untoward than a Hobbity wingnut all strapped up who ridiculously refuses to listen to sensible gun control measures of the kind that routinely punish the law abiding and do nothing to stop criminal behavior.
As anyone who sat helplessly in that Aurora theater while a criminal act took place will tell you.
I said good day, sir!
(h/t JD)
Colorado gun control madness.
David Frum is like the girl in Once Upon A Time In America, who blew guys for cupcakes.
Aurora Code Sec. 94-146a:
One argument that Frum foolishly leaves out: if you don’t have firearms at home, the cops are slightly less likely to kill you when they bust down your door in the middle of the night because ABC News reported you have the same name as a criminal and you support the Tea Party.
So there’s that.
I thought the shooter was in a heap of trouble for killing all those people, but if he’s run afoul of the Aurora City Code, well, God help the poor soul. He’s gotta be looking at, what — $500 and/or 10 days in lockup?
In response to the Colorado shooting (and a desire for “more sensible gun laws”) a lefty friend of mine sent me this piece of lefty drivel. As though America is populated with gun-toting rightwingers looking to shoot anyone around.
On the plus side, Coloradoans seem to be responding appropriately.
My HTML-fu has failed me…
Those are old rules, J Howard. Colorado is very gun friendly. I believe open carry is prohibited in Denver, but not in most other places. And the sheriffs now are in charge of issuing concealed carry permits. Where I am, that sheriff is very 2nd Amendment friendly.
Hell, I can even own a suppressor here. It just takes about 7 months to get one.
I didn’t know Frum was Canadian*. Explains a lot, actually.
*according to wikipedia, anywayYes, the source is headed with the disclaimer that in 2003 the State took jurisdiction. It seems selective madness still infests theaters, however.
John —
Two of those background checks were mine. I now have, in addition to my dad’s old Browning 9mm, a FNP-45 tactical with a Trijicon RMR reflex amber dot site and a Taurus 45 OSS military spec tactical with a laser and light/strobe.
Because I’m afeared of the black manses, you see. And because FOX News.
Yup. Gun control advocates seized on the Columbine shootings and went hog wild.
People started fighting back.
This is fucking Colorado, for Chrissakes. Just because we have a lot of ex-Californians planted here doesn’t mean we’ll let ourselves turn into California — at least, not outside of Denver and Boulder. (Denver is starting to see lots of Hispanic gang activity. Guess those gang members aren’t paying attention to how gunplay is frowned upon by the state’s urban sophisticates.
The self-appointed Aunt Sara of the GOP is at it again I see.
You were ahead of the curve Jeff…
Didn’t a fourteen year old somewhere drop a home intruder not too long ago? Somebody tell Dave so he can cluck his disapproval.
I find my reassuring truth in that video of those two punks running over one another trying to get through the internet cafe door before grandpa pops another cap in their ass.
Frum figured out that he could eke out a reasonable living filling a niche–i.e., as a diversity exhibit in a leftist intellectual zoo.
“And over here, you’ll find our conservative–don’t worry, we let him roam free because he’s harmless. Warmly affirming, even.”
All the free table scraps he can eat–it’s a good gig.
Somebody ought to retitle the link to Davie’s bit of Frumery “Fear Drives Support for Gun Control. I mean, Jesus dude, take charge of your own life for once, instead of leaving it to the professionals.
Only if your first name is David, or you can check off more than the “token conservative” box on the diversity score card.
David Frum should voluntarily surrender his subservient attitude toward tyranny, if he loves his children. They’ll thank him for it later. And curse him should he not.
The police can protect you, and will, and do.
not so much in movie theaters
Incidentally, did I mention I have several hundred rounds of 45 ACP scheduled for delivery today? That I bought in bulk. On the internet and for my guns, plural?
Reading that Frum piece was like reading a Reader’s Digest gun control screen circa 1968.
“The police can protect you, and will, and do. ”
The cops and every mugging, rape and robbery victim on the planet know better. With the best will in the world, they can’t, and don’t, and don’t even have any specific legal obligation to you to do so.
The pistol range and gun shop where I like to shoot on Sundays was as crowded as I’ve ever seen it. There was a guy on the range next to me with his two kids, a son and a daughter, and he was teaching them both how to shoot. It warmed my heart. I was honestly surprised by how many woman were buying guns but apparently, the number of woman purchasing guns in this country has risen significantly in the last few years. As a single man, I wish I could find a woman who was interested in shooting =) Maybe the pistol range is the new singles bar.
In the Detroit, the cops will get there very soon after you get shot.
They don’t respond to mere reports of people shooting off guns. You need a bleeding body to get a drive by.
Yeah, Carin, but it’s your own fault for not living in Georgetown (or any other place like Goergetown) with the rest of the swells. If they don’t need to rely on themselves for their own safety, why should you? After all, they’re better than you.
That’s right, David. Because the people defending their home and hearth against intruders typically stay alive, you pusillanimous twat.
chicago’s gun control in action
Cops: 6 shot in 15-minute span, teen killed
More than a dozen wounded in the city since Monday night
http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/23/14-year-old-phoenix-boy-shoots-armed-intruder/
http://www.14news.com/story/16447781/nc-boy-14-shoots-intruder-and-saves-sister
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/04/teen-mom-shoots-kills-intruder-with-11-dispatcher-on-phone/
http://www.kveo.com/news/small-boy-shoots-intruder
Where were the cops, Dave?
Yeah, Carin, but it’s your own fault for not living in Georgetown (or any other place like Goergetown) with the rest of the swells. If they don’t need to rely on themselves for their own safety, why should you? After all, they’re better than you.
True.
Don’t those children know tht guns are dangerous?!?! Somebody could have gotten hurt!
From a 2004 John Lott piece linked by one of the pajamaheddin:
Yes, you ninny, but the additional people being put in jeopardy are the bad guys! Heavens forfend anybody should put those guys in jeopardy!
There’s that elite deference-to-credentialed-experts mindset at work Squid. Those students didn’t go through a four-year program and obtain proper certification in gunman subdual, and we just can’t have that.
Why, before you know, people might get the idea that anybody can report the news!
I’ll man up when David Frum goes down and gets the NBPP to surrender their guns. When the NBPP thinks it’s safe enough, then I’ll consider the idea.
But…but…the murderous crossfire!
the nra claim over a million cases a year of armed citizens thwarting criminal acts. frum is an ignorant slut.
Where’s Silver Whistle to tell us how one can go to prison for defending one’s castle in the UK?
John Lott put in some time on Mark Levin’s radio show last night to talk about the gun control fanatics and their absurdities. Pull the slider to 20 mins in (oh, and check to turn down your speaker volume before clicking the link, since the app is turned up blasty full).
They ought to call a piece like this – full of lies told in hopes of making a virtue of gutlessness and the willful surrender of our individual rights and responsibilities – a Frumjob.
Since children are more likely to drown than be injured in an accidental shooting, one wonders if Frum keeps his away from swimming pools, lest the nymphs and sprites lure them to a watery doom, or if it is the fire spirits who lurk in the thunder sticks alone that he’s frightened of.
Our host now has an arsenal and is stockpiling ammunition. At least, that’s how it would read if a progressive wrote it.
Two guns is a pretty modest number to be called “an arsenal.” Hell, even two dozen guns is a bit shy of arsenal status, in my opinion.
But, I don’t know, it may well be that Frum’s life isn’t worth defending, as he seems to think. I’ll let him make that call for himself.
From a false premise you can deduce anything.
Well they can, but they don’t have to.
I agree, Jim, but you can bet that if they found someone with, say, five guns, it would be called an arsenal. I don’t think two guns is that much of a stretch for our betters in the MFM>
No Frum, you are a ghoul wallowing in the warm blood of innocent Batman fans who died acting as armor for their girlfriends and kids in a theatre that stripped them of their rights to defend themselves with a law that the killer did not bother to obey.
You obviously belong in the cold shadows your brand of ‘behind the lines /sugar coated’ leftism has condemned you to Frum. Your name has become a conservative epithet to describe similar surrenders of principle by oily protean invertebrates everywhere.
I noticed that too. Then again, progs tend to project their own faults upon others.
They use the dead to whip up hysteria and panic to get some new law passed, but it’s the people who disagree with them who must be scared? Get real.
It’s people like David Frum who will make #AbandonTheGOP so effortless!
The argument is as ignorant, specious and dishonest as it was the last 3000 times. This will not be settled by argument, because they’re not listening. And they’re not listening because they’re not being honest about their reasons, so the response is irrelevant.
They don’t want “safety,” they want power and control.