Well, they make me safer. And my family safer. And that’s all that matters. To me.
Beyond that, there’s not much need to delve into Frum’s tiresome argument, not least because most of the deterrent work of owning a gun doesn’t show up in statistics, largely because they prevent being targeted by criminals in the first place. And in truth, there are very few people who, at that moment just before a violent criminal is set to harm them or kill them — and they realize this — wouldn’t wish they had a gun to defend themselves or their family.
The rest is just playing the odds and pretending you’re “against violence” — as if those who own guns are in favor of violence that is not justified.
Look, if David Frum feels safer not owning a gun, he doesn’t have to own a gun. But he also has no right to decide which of my rights he’d like to see weakened by the kind of “common sense” reforms he favors. Because his common sense is not mine, and what I determine I want or need, so long as I am lawful in its use and keep, is really none of David Frum’s fucking business.
In the end, an armed populace is a threat to a tyrannical government — and it’s no accident that gun control has proceeded so many historical atrocities committed by a State on its citizens.
As Jefferson noted, “Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not.” And I ain’t nobody’s unpaid day laborer.
(thanks to Dale P)
…is really none of David Frum’s fucking business.
Precisely. If our gun laws make Davey feel skeevy, perhaps he should move back to the People’s Republic of Canada from whence he hails.
“The women of the Riddermark learned long ago that those who do not own swords may still die upon them.”
What leigh said. I don’t argue on the perception of merits, Frum:
I don’t give a shit if you think that constitutes grounds for a variable — an unconstitutional — stance on the Second Amendment imposed by one class against the majority. I don’t give a shit what constitutes “safer” in your or anyone else’s view. Safer in my life is when I produce a pistol and that act alone shuts down a lunatic.
Related: how perverse is it that one must take pains to conceal one’s right to self-protection lest supermarket ninnies rush to their telephones so law enforcement may confront one at the exit with lethal force prepared.
Let that sink in. This is what we’ve become.
So kind of him to crawl inside my head and share my imagination. And no, that’s not what my fantasy consists of.
Do dishtowels make us safer? Or might guns exist in order to protect?
Were LEOs to carry dishtowels I’d tend to think more highly of Frum’s “argument”.
Jeff, you’re moving up in the world *snort*. You got linked in Ace’s sidebar.
There are two ways to avoid being a victim. You either play the odds, or you take matters into your own hands. I will never be a victim – hopefully it’s because I’m lucky, but if not, I’ve taken great pains to arrange a Plan B.
Look, if David Frum feels safer not owning a gun, he doesn’t have to own a gun. But he also has no right to decide which of my rights he’d like to see weakened by the kind of “common sense” reforms he favors. Because his common sense is not mine, and what I determine I want or need, so long as I am lawful in its use and keep, is really none of David Frum’s fucking business.
Compare with:
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.
And today is his Centenary.
Help us Zombie Uncle Milton Friedman, you’re our only hope.
If you don’t approve of
gay marriagegun ownership, don’tget gay marriedown a gun.Exactly right. We’re selective when it comes to violence, nuanced even. David Frum is just a bigoted hoplophobe. Bitterly clinging to… well, whatever it is he clings to.
A sweet new design I happened to glom recently.
That looks as sweet a pocket 9 as I’ve seen, JHo – but Frum says you’re a deluded fantasist.
Does allowing Frum to be published increase our freedoms or diminish them?
“When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.”
“Why carry a gun? Because I can’t carry a cop in my pocket.”
I’m guessing antidotal evidence won’t persuade Frum from ideological notions…
F F, F&F.
Look here, Frummie — if it’ll make you feel better, I promise I won’t shoot you.
I’d add an exception clause, but I really can’t think of anything Frum could do that would deserve it. He’d dissolve into a puddle just from thinking any such thing.
So, according Frum, he doesn’t feel safe if he owns a gun, but, by golly, he’ll call someone with a gun if the situation warrants.
Progressives will nod their heads of the wisdom of Frum while conservatives will continue to dismiss Frum as the pearl clutching wretch that he is.
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That’s the nub of it, but he’s also generous enough to proxy that logic for all like-minded folks.
Basically he’s an elitist with en elitist mentality operating at least four domains.
1. You are not responsible.
2. He is.
3. The authority to protect and serve is his class’s to allocate.
4. As is the power of the pen.
The people most endangered by my guns are people who decide to fuck with me in violent terms.
Over the years of my life there have been quite a few people with violent inclinations who chose not to fuck with me in those terms, given the opportunity, without their having even investigated whether I own a gun, let alone was carrying. And really, I’m not a big guy. Something about me warns them off, and I’m not complaining.
But that tells me someone who actually would try to do violence against me is almost certainly badder than Leroy Brown, and gentle persuasion just isn’t going to defuse the situation.
So I hope Frummy doesn’t mind if my option of choice is not simply to have him on speed-dial.
Us? Kind of really gives the whole thing away doesn’t it? Your rights, freedoms, and even your life must be surrendered for the good of the collective — especially if the right people are in charge.
I am sure the day before I retired, Frum didn’t mind me carrying a firearm – the day after, I should be disarmed and am not to be trusted…
Frum: “Do guns make us safer?”
Frum, tell you what, why don’t you pose that question to the survivors of the Aurora shootings?
Damn it, Frum, the theater was a safe “gun free” zone, which has been widely reported, yet, your tripe is still published.
I guess Frum’s calculation goes like this: the murderer was an untrained professional and completely in the wrong and having an untrained professional shooting back is another wrong.
Since two wrongs don’t make a right, best to let the bodies pile up rather than have someone other than a highly trained professional be responsible for their own safety.
Be realistic Squid, if he was breaking into your house and you had nothing but a firearm to stop him, you’d be forced to shoot him. Now, of course, I’m assuming your fridge is empty…
I’m certain that the very notion of breaking into my house would send Frummie into panic attacks. He just doesn’t have it in ‘im.
Ouch. Game, set, and match to (ret)!
Everybody knows that in a crowded theater, fully armed people would just wind up shooting each other. It’s axiomatic!
Not to mention unsavory and rather gauche.
Best to just be shot properly by the evil doer. For the decorum.
Does spouting submissive drivel make Frum and his pseudo-Republican followers seem any smarter?
I say no.
Do anti-gun laws make us safer? Nope.
“I’m questioning the claim that widespread gun ownership makes America a safer place.”
Why, yes, armed citizens are much safer from tyranny. It also keeps us safer from foreign invasion:
“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass”
– Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II
vis a vis safety and that false sense of security….
Got into it with someone the other day about TSA. I was talking about what a joke it is as they are patting down guys with big dicks for having a bulge and little old ladies for wearing depends. Now the chick I’m getting into it with has a hubby in Astan doing contract work (retired army) and has at least one son in the field in Astan now and she says she has no problem with the TSA as ‘that the price of freedom.’ She was also on about how Americans have it so good and are playing catch up with the rest of the world as far as intrusive airport security and we need to be more like those other countries and get used to it ‘for safety.’
I axed her if she feels safer getting molested by a group that has a 35% fail rate and she said yes and reiterated that she always gets pulled for extra screening cause their passports contain some exotic overseas travel thanks to the hubby’s job and that I should thank her for ‘paying for my freedom.’
She is Trinidadian and votes republican but seems to have a totally fucked up sense of what ‘freedom isn’t free’ means. I told her it does not mean what she thinks it means. I said the price of freedom refers to the willingness to shed blood to protect your inalienable rights not the shit you have to put up with to pretend you are safe. She didn’t get it.
Sometimes you can’t fix stupid.
Stephanie, remind her of that thing Ben Franklin said — or that everybody says he said.
What does “older women make better mistresses” have to do with either guns or gun control?
n.b. paraphrased because I’m too lazy to look it up.
Do Frum’s innovative and fearlessly iconoclastic questions (that sound suspiciously like the usual, tired, one sided, rigged pro-gun-control “suasion” pablum spouted by the press and anti-gun lobbyists) somehow make us any less subject to the day to day pressures of reality ?
No? Then let’s all keep our guns. Screw Frum.
Actually, Frum feels safer if you don’t own a gun. He is just too lying a shit weasel to come right out and say it.
Frum should move here.
No no no — that other thing people say Franklin said.
Perhaps, McGehee, you’re referring to Franklin attributing his inventiveness to inherent laziness?
He did kind of run off at the mouth about a lot of different things, didn’t he?
But anyway. What I was referring to was how they that give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither or some junk.
I quoted that quote and a few others to her. Seems she has a weird definition of what freedom is. Freedom is going through intrusive and degrading airport security where you are arbitrarily selected for strangers to feel you up and confiscate your bottle of Coke. Who knew?