How To Attract The Crazies And Start A Flame War In One Easy Lesson
Posted by
tgirsch
“Guns.”
UPDATE: I’ve already said this in comments here, but I think it’s important enough to deserve a front-page mention. I shall rise to the narcissism level of the Gospel of John, and cite myself (with minor updates):
It’s probably a good time to let the record show that I do not favor a repeal of the Second Amendment, and that (at least as liberals go) I’m moderately pro-gun (to the extent that I am a CCW permit holder). So it’s not like I’m some “Brady bunch gun grabber” or whatever the derisive term du jour is.
In truth, I find both of the vocal sides of the gun debate to be incredibly tiresome. The fact that neither side wants to admit is that there’s probably nothing that could have prevented the Omaha attack. The guy took his own life! You really think the possible presence of a packing CCW holder was likely to deter him? Sure, there’s a chance that an armed CCW holder may have shot the attacker before he took all those lives, but I think that chance is an awful lot smaller than most of the rabidly pro-gun folks want to admit. [And the odds that such a person would have inadvertently injured an innocent bystander rather than the shooter are probably higher than the rabidly pro-gun folks want to admit.] At the same time, as has been pointed out by gun rights advocates ad nauseum, it was already illegal for this guy to have the gun in the mall, so it’s [highly unlikely that] any additional legislation would have prevented it [either].
And let’s call a duck a duck: Even if the presence of CCW holders would have reduced the death toll, the anti-gun crowd still wouldn’t support this. Even if additional legislation would substantially reduce the number of gun deaths in this country, the pro-gun crowd still would oppose it. So it’s not like we’re arguing about anything where anyone is even remotely willing to reconsider their position.
So what we’re left with, then, is a bunch of virtual ink spilled, and over what? The idea that my slippery slope can beat up your slippery slope? It’s a tragedy that was almost certainly non-preventable, and attempts — by either side — to coopt it to score cheap political points are, in my view, reprehensible.
Yeah - I should have known better.
So far it’s not a bad argument, though. Getting a little digressive, but not really crazy.
It’s not like I’m going to mention Jim Zumbo or anything . . .
Comment 12/7/2007
I note there haven’t been any hockey posts, and the season is .25 over.
Comment 12/7/2007
The crazies are already here.
KTK:
There, fixed it for ya.
Comment 12/7/2007
Oh, c’mon, Uncle, even you have to admit that the gun contingent of the blogosphere got a wee bit coocoo for cocoa puffs over the whole Zumbo thing.
Comment 12/7/2007
Yup. But that was nothing compared to how the anti-gun contingent dealt with it. The gun side may have been crazy but they were crazy with the truth instead of repeating already debunked talking points.
Comment 12/7/2007
The gun side may have been crazy but they were crazy with the truth instead of repeating already debunked talking points.
Methinks you’re viewing that with some seriously rose-colored glasses.
Comment 12/7/2007
No, ktk was pretty soundly refuted in his own post. he chose to stick his fingers in his ears and shout lalala.
Comment 12/7/2007
Because, when someone states that a paint job turns your firearm from lawful to babyslaughtering terrorist guns, a logical response is to agree with it, no matter how illogically or plain factually inaccurate (the AR-15 models used by varmit hunters are not and have never been “assault rifles”).
The man did advocate banning stuff, based on the personal bias of idiots outside of the field.
But, hey, maybe he was right. Let’s go silence some flamboyent gay folk, since we know that they tend to scare idiots outside of the field.
Comment 12/7/2007
And once again, we have the kind of slippery slope thinking that permeates the gun debate. Because Zumbo was “wrong,” every single attack levied against him by the pro-gun blogosphere was completely understandable, and in no way irrational or over-the-top.
Christ, people, listen to yourselves. I’m not saying Zumbo was right about anything. I frankly don’t give a shit whether or not he was. All I’m saying is that his gaffe brought out the crazies (on both sides, to be fair), and this is met with the risible objection that it was only the anti-gun folks who were crazy about it. I’m sorry, but that’s idiotic.
It’s also why all you fuckers (on both sides of the gun debate, but frankly the pro-gun folks have treated me worse than the anti-gun folks) piss me off to no end. Any deviation from the Gospel of Truth is treated as High Treason of some sort, and rational discussion need not apply.
Comment 12/7/2007
For starters, that’s not a slippery slope. A slippery slope argument is the belief that action A will make the odds of action B more likely without stating the relation between A and B. Using someone’s previous results to justify later responses which would normally be illogical is usually considered a special form of the argument ad hominem, but I’m not sure even that would apply given that the issues you’ve put forward.
Comment 12/7/2007
I thought the best way to attract the crazies was simply to say “Ron Paul”, but I guess you’re right too.
Comment 12/7/2007
“Christ, people, listen to yourselves”
dude, i was there with you criticizing the folks bashing zumbo. i said stand down. that doesn’t change the fact that what KTK said was utter BS. Once again, we seem content talking past each other.
“I thought the best way to attract the crazies was simply to say “Ron Paul”,”
I’ve started referring to him as /20~ p@\/1 for that reason.
Comment 12/7/2007
gattsuru:
It’s a slippery slope insofar as many of the pro-gun folks seem to behave as though any acknowledgment that anything coming from the pro-gun movement could be over-the-top or ill-advised must somehow inevitably lead to the downfall of the gun movement and therefore must be avoided at all costs. Perhaps you’re right, and slippery slope is not the correct term in this specific context, but it seems like an awful lot of pro-gun folks will defend absolutely any pro-gun argument, irrespective of merit or the lack thereof, and will attack any anti-gun argument, irrespective of merit or the lack thereof.
Goldnl:
Heh.
Uncle:
that doesn’t change the fact that what KTK said was utter BS.
A point that I haven’t commented on one way or the other, because I don’t see how it’s in any way relevant. You used KTK’s mention of Zumbo to make a wholly unrelated jab at him, despite the fact that the Jim Zumbo affair did in fact bring out the crazies on both sides, in force, making KTK’s comment here completely relevant and on-point, no matter what else he may have written elsewhere.
It’s admirable (sincerely) that you chided the pro-gun folks to stand down on the Zumbo mess, but you were decidedly the exception rather than the rule on that matter, and what you wrote doesn’t change the fact that wackjobs came out of the woodwork over the whole Zumbo thing.
In the final analysis, the original Zumbo comment was a joke, made in the same spirit as this post was, but apparently it’s one that you’re too sensitive to find funny. That’s fine, whatever.
All of this, however, serves to underscore my original point, which was that the relatively small percentage of people who care deeply about the gun debate cares so much that rational discussion becomes impossible. Even the most trivial discussion becomes a flame war on which side is stupider, crazier, wronger(tm), etc., when in fact to the majority of us who aren’t strongly vested in one side or the other, you ALL look like a bunch of unreasoning, unreasonable zealots, irrespective of your pro- or anti- stance.
Comment 12/8/2007
That wasn’t at hand, in this case, either. Zumbo specifically stated that : “The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters…I call them “assault” rifles, which may upset some people. Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I’ll go so far as to call them “terrorist” rifles… I say game departments should ban them from the praries [sic] and woods.” This isn’t people worried that this ban could encourage further bans; it was people who were worried that this ban would ban their own actions or the legitimate actions of those they associated with, or worried about having a speaker claiming to be on the pro-gun side claiming falsities to be fact (modern AR- or AK- series rifles available to hunters are not automatic, and thus not ‘assault rifles’, the AR-15 hasn’t been a popular “terrorist” weapon by any reasonable definition of the word).
Given that Zumbo didn’t try the “It was a joke” defense, your attempt to use that is not only laughable put just plain pathetic.
I also see very few people who will find no such thing as a good gun control law. Even Kim du Toit or David Codrea has their points. It’s just that the oft-cited “reasonable gun control” is about as reasonable to us as requiring government ID, fingerprinting, and blood testing for anal sex would be to the gay right’s movement.
Comment 12/8/2007
Given that Zumbo didn’t try the “It was a joke” defense, your attempt to use that is not only laughable put just plain pathetic.
Huh? Once again, I’m not trying to defend anything Zumbo said. And I didn’t mean to imply that what Zumbo said was a joke. I was saying that when KTK wrote “It’s not like I’m going to mention Jim Zumbo or anything” in comment #1, that was a joke, in reference to the flame war that erupted the last time he broached that subject. I thought that was plainly obvious in this context, but maybe not.
All that said, I stand by my observation that when the subject is guns, people tend to overreact. Zumbo was, in my opinion, a good example, not because Zumbo was right or because what he said was defensible, but because the reaction was disproportionate to the offense, as even some pro-gunnies like Uncle conceded. It’s your right to disagree with me on that, but I think most reasonable observers not deeply vested in one side of the argument or the other are likely to agree with me.
(For what it’s worth, I think Zumbo went too far, and that his choice of words was exceptionally bad, but buried within all that mess was the legitimate [in my estimation] point that gunnies don’t do themselves any favors when they go out hunting small game with what a casual observer would consider a military rather than a hunting firearm. Does that mean I agree they should be banned? No. Just that I think perceptions do matter.)
Comment 12/9/2007
Bah. I got the uninformed riled up by criticizing Ron Paul. When I criticized Thompson, one of his stooges took the time to engage me in a running commentary. And somebody from Unity ‘08 called me a hater.
There are plenty of ways of drawing them out.
Comment 12/9/2007
In all seriousness, I was, and am, in favor of licensing gun OWNERS. Not the guns-the owners. Make them complete a course and pass a safety test just like we do drivers. Penalties for mistakes could result in a suspension of the gun license, which would mean a removal of the guns.
There is nothing even remotrly unconstitutional about demanding someone show some competence with a gun. And I speak as an owner of several of them; I wouldn’t mind going down and demonstrating my proficiency with the safe handling of firearms one bit.
Comment 12/9/2007