Presented to allow you a glimpse into the mind of one of those benevolent nannystatists who presumes to know better than the founding father’s just how to protect a society from itself. Here’s Dan Simpson, retired diplomat and member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in all his problem-solving glory:
[H]ow would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.
It would have to be the case that the term “hunting weapon” did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.
All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.
Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.
The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.
Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for “carrying.”
The “gun lobby” would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts to begin implementing the new approach.
America’s long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.
There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.
That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the part of the American people is another question altogether, but one clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.
Lost on Mr Simpson, as he rhapsodizes over “gun free zones,” is that Blacksburg itself was a self-proclaimed gun-free zone—which of course impressed the gunman responsible for the massacre not one bit.
But beyond that, what is truly chilling about this oped is the ideological assumptions it reveals: guns would be handed over to the government. Centralized and guarded. Heavily fortified and protected. From citizens. By men with guns.
Arrests. Raids. Forced compliance. This from a man who no doubt gets the vapors every time he hears the letters N.S.A. or C.I.A. uttered in roughly those orders.
Further, such a “plan”—which, let’s just say it, amounts to the blueprint for a police state, and goes directly against the aims of the founders—ignores the evidence of historical precedent and contemporary analogue that bans and prohibitions simply don’t work.
And when the stakes are personal safety, such a willful blindness to reality for the sake of Utopian ideological fantasies is just plane criminal.
In fact, the premises here are so ludicrous—and so obviously anti-American—that I wonder if this isn’t some sort of 21st-century “Modest Proposal”.
Though Simpson’s vehement denial that he is some kneejerk liberal (he played with cap guns as a kid, after all), coupled with the desire to give government (and, you know, museum curators) control over all the country’s weapons, brings to mind Shakespeare moreso than Swift.
(h/t N.O. Brain and CJ Burch)
****
update: Bryan Preston:
This unrealistic, draconian, and idiotic solution to the problem of gun violence is the kind of thing only a starry-eyed denizen of US diplomacy could come up with. It won’t work even if we wanted to try it, and wouldn’t stop guns from being here or getting here. It would just fulfill the cliche that if you ban guns, only criminals will have guns, but with a twist: Every gun owner in a America would become a criminal overnight unless they succumbed to a police state.
Eh. Gotta be a gag.
Otherwise Mr Simpson would have insisted this take place only when Democrats are in power.
. . . are you sure that wasn’t Homer Simpson?
Heavily guarded with what, & by whom? Oh, that’s right–the government. Christ, wotta maroon…
I love it how they simply wish away the biggest obstacles to their vision, and get to work on the details. In a good world–and hey! isn’t that what we all want?–there shouldn’t be a need for self defense. Soooo…abra-cadabra! There is no need for self defense! So, sign here, and drop the gun in the pile over there.
And no disrespect to my fellow proteins who are peace officers, but the only place the police have an easy job is in a police state.
Has to be a gag…it just has to be.
If random DUI stops are legal, why not random stops and searches for guns, once they’re made illegal? Driving was characterized as being a privelage, and that govenrment and the people had a right to ensure safety. Want to place bets that this joker would try claiming it?
The casual manner in which such house searches were to be implemented was breathtaking. Adn I suppose that they’re going to use metal detectors in every yard and garden? That’s an old Irish tradition.
And to add to Mr. Preston’s remarks, How does Mr. Simpson’s brain envision the months and years following the deadline to turn in weapons, when a large group of American patriots disobey the law? Somehow I doubt he would have the consistency to characterize them as freedom fighters?
So then what are they to Mr. Simpson? Are they now terrorists? It’s a worthy point of debate considering that many of these Americans are not going to settle for having their constitutionally protected weapons taken from them? It is a simple matter of fact that there would be bloodshed. And bloodshed brought on by whom? But how does Mr Simpson reconcile the gross and obvious discrepency between the aims of his utopian movement and the inevitable outcome of mass-murdering thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Americans?
Can he really be that naive? Either he is, or he is one of those, as Jeff characterized, benevolent personalities on the scale of Hitler.
After the nanny-state eliminates all guns, then privately-owned knives can be outlawed and placed in centrally located armories—to be withdrawn only for preparing and eating meals.
I’m with the gag crowd. No one could be this naive.
I third the gag crowd. The whole essay reads like a bad movie plot.
Check out this story at Sondra’s. There’s some very scary shit going down in this country.
JPT,
I’m with you on the first part; I think this is another attempt to give everyone the vapors and then say, “HA! HA! Gotcha again you benighted drooling wingnuts!” On your second sentence, not so much. Even if this is a joke, the sad thing is there are more than a few out there who would be nodding their heads. “Civil liberties? Bah! They’re just gun-nuts, after all.”
I’m inspired to burn my books.
Of course, I wonder what the others think, on the editorial boards of the two papers…
If he’s trying to present himself as an example to support the assertion that at least some people shouldn’t be allowed near weapons of any sort, then he’s made a compelling arguement.
Who would mention a Red Ryder BB gun in such a diatribe?
In another vein, it would explain much about the performance of the State Department.
There is nothing but doubt that this is a man…
“Well, there are some parts of New York I wouldn’t recommend you try invading, Major Strasse…”
— Casablanca
Of course, the “search and clear” operations would turn into a bloodbath very quickly. It’s a simple matter of numbers, Mr. Diplomat. The armed citizens in the US outnumber the police by a large margin.
That’s by design, by the way.
SB: indeed92
Beat it, Reynolds…
When they kick in your front door
How ya gonna come?
With your hands on your head,
Or on the trigger of your gun?
So, the deporting of 12 million individuals who broke the law to get into our country is totally unfeasible but the disarming of 50+ million ARMED individuals who bought their guns legally and in accordance with the SECOND amdendment to the Constitution is possible?!?!
Really?
Up really is down; black really is white…
TW-Taken97. Cut that out, Jeff.
And while it has proven difficult to keep out illegal aliens and large quantities of narcotics, it will be comparatively easy to prevent gun running. And some day geese are going to crap diamond necklaces.
I’m with Blue Hen; this ‘cause I wish it, it will become so’ attitude explains alot about current US negotiating strategy in the mideast and elsewhere.
It’s amazing how progressive you can be when you just start imposing your will on everybody.
The Constitution? No problem. Declare the Second Amendment dead. McCain-Feingold killed the First, and the Supreme Court thought that was OK.
Private property? Until we take it. And turn it over to somebody who will
pay us offmake better use of it.Simpson is a few cans short of a six-pack if he thinks this is politically or practically possible.
Balloon fence.
The Stasi couldn’t have come up with a better plan.
Illegal immigration, drugs……Irony thy name is Simpson
Wow! Just damn! I dispatched a feral dog (later found to be rabid) with a baseball bat outside of a Marine encampment several miles north of Jubail, Saudi Arabia, during Desert Shield, do Louisville Sluggers constitute one of this twits weapons of war?
Prediction: The trolls won’t touch this thread with a ten foot snark.
Mega-gun dealerships in Canada. The “Toledo Blade” has to be held to account for the insipidity of this gentleman who they’ve made a place for on their editorial board. At the very least this article should be sent to their advertisers.
Not to worry. We’ll still have our deadly, threatening toenail clippers.
My only response is its unconstitutional and unserious.
Fortunately, Dan is not draconian in his thinking…
SYRIAN guns are sacrosanct.
Well, Syrian army guns are sacrosanct. After all, they’re THE GOVERNMENT. I’d assume he’d be opposed to non-governmental groups in Syria owning guns…like the Kurds.
tw: state52…the ghost in the machine is back.
Oh. Good point.
Just a ridiculous column. I have the Fourth the “this has to be a gag” and agree with Jeff that Prohibition doesn’t work well.
Correction:
Just a ridiculous column. I have to “Fourth” the “this has to be a gag” and agree with Jeff that Prohibition doesn’t work well.
Uh, isn’t there something about this in the Bill of Rights?
Like:
Could be a problem, I’m thinking.
Everyman
This reminds me, I need to stock up on ammo. I’m running a bit low.
I vote joke.
Unless I get to be one of the “special”
polizeipolice.Jim, I know that was meant to be true and funny, but for all the talk, we should remember they could take them away from us any time they want. Your gun you were going to buy for “summer wear” (different thread) wouldn’t defend you from the sort of firepower even the local cops could bring. Ask the guy from Ruby Ridge or David Koresh.
Do adequately do something about this sort of thing, one must <<gulp>> be a member of the NRA and be able to write simple, persuasive letters to one’s lawmakers.
All of rights, history shows, are guaranteed to us only as long as we are willing to be involved. In the old days maybe Shay and folks could make their political point by taking up arms, but in America today, I just don’t think that a realistic goal.
So, stock up on ammo, but also print this off and send a letter to your local Congressperson with a promise to vote next year and the knowledge you are watching him/her.
What color shirt does this Simpson wear?
Is there, say, an armband that goes with it?
Just curious.
TW: I heard about this once71.
So Mr. Simpson’s position is that the best way for the government to eliminate the Second Amendment is by violating the Fourth Amendment. Well, if you’re not going to respect all of them, why should you bother respecting any of them?
Joke, I’m afraid not. As someone mentioned recently, this would most likley be accomplished via internationl treaty. Similar to the way the Opium Convention of 1912 led directly to passage of the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act, the grandfather of all Federal controlled substance regulation.
The National Firearms Act of 1934 has already established precedent for onerous and probitive levels of taxation of certain firearms, along with a defacto registration scheme. It really wouldn’t take much to expand that to more and more weapons.
If this is a joke it needs to be treated the same way one would treat jokes advocating the end of women’s suffrage or a return to chattel slavery.
Thankee, Jeff.
[tugs at forelock]
But it’s not funny.
It’s not a joke. Over at Ace’s, Slublog has unearthed a bunch of citations to other things he’s written. The man is a first class moonbat, and industrial strength dumb to boot.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Should Mr. Sompson’s little wetdream ever come to pass, my guess is that a lot of police and members of the armed forces might decide to obey their oaths to support and defend the Constitution rather than participate in “disarming the population”. And they just might bring along enough serious firepower with them to enact a regime change.
A disarmed people are subjects.
An armed people are citizens.
In light of CraigC’s link in this thread—among many other things moonbat-oriented these fine days—I doubt this is a joke.
Time to get more ammo and that “hunting rifle” I’ve had my eye on.
OK – if not a joke in attempt, it was a joke in effect. Bah.
The best part of the article wasn’t quoted:
So, 2 paragraphs of reminiscing about childhood and listing moments in his life when he carried a gun somehow speaks against him being a crazed liberal zealot? this guy is a retard.
His Frogness:
It’s the standard anti-gun “disclaimer” that they try to use. As if saying “I’m a gun owner too!” makes whatever restriction you want proposed all holy and sacrosanct.
I tend to mention that I still don’t own any guns and find pretty much all arguments for gun control to be bullcrap.
Oh dearie me, little timmy realized that staying in one place and letting yourself get surrounded by superior firepower isn’t a good idea.
Such staggering military genius.
I am simply speechless. I guess that 375 ultra-mag will need to be kept a little closer now.
How do people this brain-poundingly stupid manage to blink and breathe at the same time ?!
Scratch a liberal, reveal a national socialist.*
(nazi im Deutch)
This ex-diplomat has no idea that his political views are fascist, does he?
And the Lefty Lunatics wonder why we don’t trust them…
Conservatives passed the Patriot Act and violated the right for you to easily launder money and anonymously check out books on women’s naughty bits at the local library. Liberals just want to “revisit” the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.
One of these is not like the other. If this guy is indeed serious, wonder how many of our local lefties will condemn it?
Is that crickets I hear??
Lessee. There’s something like 50 million gun owners in America, owning some 112 million guns. Now lets suppose some small percentage of 50 million would violently object to the process. Good luck with that confiscation thing.
That is one of the most fascist wet dreams I’ve ever read.
Have I got a deal for you.
Cripes! Even Canada hasn’t gone this far. We just issue bullet credits.
I’m told my charm can be disarming. Is that good enough?
Worse than that nnivia, our dreams do too, no doubt.
I mean why move through guns > knives > bats > (other than the obvious boiling frog argument)when the real problem is people that don’t conform to the nitwit’s mentality?
“Now put on your electrodes and take your Sominex triple dose, you’ll be dream-free or we’ll be waiting in the morning…”
This is silly. People need guns. During Katrina, armed people could have avoided, defeated or bypassed, the thugs that intimidated them into not escaping..
IGNORE
ACTARDemmadinetimmah is a piker compared to emmah. This likely haapened at the same time that the people that should have been evacuated were cannibalizing old people and raping babies. Come on, emmah, the police had far more important cover-ups to attend to.
Where do they grow trolls like this ?
Sorry… you lose.
I spect Mr. Simpson will find this disheartening.
weird – you’d think Reynolds would be on that like a chicken on a cheeto
So I take it you’re all for the Patriot Act then?
The uproar about the Patriot Act was nothing but posturing by Bush administration opponents as it contained trivial extensions of existing law enforcement practice – literally nothing in it had not already been found constitutional in other law enforcement realms.
But a real constitutional violation – heartily endorsed by these barely disguised lovers of fascism. The reality is that the left of center has no principles left at all. Bush Hatred is the only belief left.
“So I take it you’re all for the Patriot Act then?”
I haven’t read most of it. But I don’t like the parts I’ve read, at least not how the FBI has been using the new powers these parts gave them. (see the march 2007 report)
But maybe you’ve read it and see a connection I don’t. Whats your bit?
Well, true, anyway. I am low on .45 ammo.
I pester my congresscritters, both state and national, about such issues on a regular basis. And yeah, I’m an NRA member, although I wish they were a bit more like the JPFO. They do have size on their side, though.
So. Em. You agree with mr. Simpson?
60 minutes Em? Really!
Quite simple. Like other Leftists, you get all defensive about worrying with “freedoms” lost under the Patriot Act, but you got no problem with tinkering with the 2nd Amendment. See any uh…issues there?
Or the Fourth Amendment.
“Like other Leftists, you get all defensive about worrying with “freedoms†lost under the Patriot Act, but you got no problem with tinkering with the 2nd Amendment.”
I do have problems with tinkering with the second. Like I said in my post it’s important to have guns to protect ourselves from thugs. I also object to tinkering with the Fourth, and to the {atriot Act provision that hte FBI is misusing according to the Inspector general of the Department of Justice.
Uh, could you possibily be a little less specific?
It is difficult to determine what parts of your posts are serious when you are refering to policemen upholding their oaths as thugs.
I’m starting to feel like the second amendment is the one we can use to enforce the others. So when an 4th amendment seizure comes along, the right to bear arms helps make sure it stays constitutional.
If it’s any consolation, this poor bastard lies awake at night agonized that somewhere some nimrod is blowing away Bambi with an RPG.. And It’s Totally LEGAL!! We’ve Got To DO SOMETHING!! Imagine the size of the rest of the monsters under his bed.
See fella’s! Some of them are capable of learning!
Holy cow! She gets it. I’m going to have a really hard time arguing with her on other issues.
I’ll definitely have to start being nicer to her.
We can disagree on foreign policy and ‘neo-cons’, but anybody who supports the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a friend of Liberty and a friend of mine.
Em said, “I’m starting to feel like the second amendment is the one we can use to enforce the others.”
Well. Duh. Oh. Wait. You were being ironical.
“Well. Duh. Oh. Wait. You were being ironical. “
Of course I want the people of new orleans to be free from seizures and restrictions on their freedom of movement.
Did it ever occur to you, emmadine, that people with the foresight to arm themselves and the ambition to take on a group of police officers probably wouldn’t have found themselves wandering aimlessly in a disaster area in the first place. But it is a nice thought if you romanticize about anarchy, I suppose.
As I recall BMoe, the police fanned out and demanded the legal gun owners surrender their weapons (all the while the illegal gun holders were doing what they pleased), same legal gun owners, even though they certainly knew this taking was illegal, turned over their guns, then went to court and won their right not to be abused next time… (meanwhile, again, the illegal gun holders are still lurking in the shadows, smirking at the cops for having wasted their time on harrassing the legal people).
“Did it ever occur to you, emmadine, that people with the foresight to arm themselves and the ambition to take on a group of police officers probably wouldn’t have found themselves wandering aimlessly in a disaster area in the first place. “
Yes well the black panthers aint around no more.
I am talking about the specific instance emmadine linked to above, where some vagrants were blocked from entering an neighboring town by the town’s police force. There was no aide available in the town, it had been completely evacuated, and the police did not want the place looted. emmadine takes the typical leftist position that the people who were responsible enough to evacuate should have their property pillaged by those too irresponsible to care for themselves.
But the pink rhinocerous knows the way home.
“emmadine takes the typical leftist position that the people who were responsible enough to evacuate should have their property pillaged by those too irresponsible to care for themselves.”
Plenty of people stayed behind with guns. The position i take is that if this group had been armed and organized, their rights would have been respected. A good thing. Maybe they learned that lesson.
What rights weren’t respected? And since they had gone their entire lives without learning how to provide even minimal care for themselves, I would say you are overestimating their capabilities for learning.
Yeah. I hear ya. They. those people with minimal care for themselves.
“The exodus continued the next day when a group of tourists who had been staying in the French Quarter started heading in that direction. Along the way, they were joined by hundreds of locals.”
Okay, you tell me what word to use to denote an otherwise non-descript group of people besides “they”. I can’t help that one of your cheap ass debating tricks is to try to make “them” a racist term. I don’t give a flying fuck if they were tourists, locals, or what color. “They” decided to ride out the storm without making proper arrangements, and then “they” decided that rather than wait for help “they” were just going to go wandering off. The fact remains that there was no aide across the bridge where “they” wanted to go. All that could have happened is “they” wood have had to loot for sustenance and “they” possibly could have gotten lost or injured. “They” made a series of bad decisions, and “they had to suffer the consequences. As it was “they” were inconvenienced, and maybe uncomfortable for awhile, but nobody died and “they” were eventually rescued.
And the people who owned the houses and businesses the police were protecting? “They” were probably pretty pleased with the whole thing.
“Okay, you tell me what word to use to denote an otherwise non-descript group of people besides “theyâ€Â. “
Most of the meaning comes from the other words you use to describe them. Your assumptions about them. About tourists and locals walking across a bridge to hopeful rescue. They’re chided for not leaving. And then chided for attempting to leave. When lots of people, with and without guns, of various worth of moral opprobium, were left behind and trying to leave.
My only assumption was that they made a series of bad decisions. Could you be bothered to actually specifically dispute that? Because if all you got is nebulous smarmy self-righteousness I am getting bored with it.
While we are at it make all the faries and gargoyles turn in their ray guns because the unicorns are not happy. What kind of fantasy land do people live in?
It’s a right to bare arms people! Now go fly home on your flying dragon to your reality and leave the real world with the true Americans that fight for their right to defend themselves and enjoy their outdoor activities.