Michael Ejercito
2018-04-06 23:18:54 UTC
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/04/daniel-zimmerman/why-do-anti-gunners-lack-self-awareness/
Why Do Anti-Gunners Lack Self-Awareness? Question of the Day
BY DAN ZIMMERMAN |APR 06, 2018 |53 COMMENTS
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Esquire’s Dave Holmes is the latest to try to poke holes in what he sees as
the good guy with a gun “fantasy.” You idiots think you could have done
something about Sandy Hook if you’d been there? Parkland? YouTube? It’s
delusional!
This happens like clockwork now. The NRA, well within the time frame wherein
we are not supposed to politicize a tragedy, goes out and suggests that the
only answer is more guns. They will fall back on the absurd notion that only
a good guy with a gun could stop a bad guy with a gun. They will find a
person who, in the heat of the moment, is entertaining their own childish
hero fantasy; they will build a whole policy argument around it, and then
they will tell you to stop being so emotional.
The time period in which we’re not supposed to politicize a tragedy? While
we missed the memo announcing the prescribed, respectful number of days
before commenting, Holmes is apparently unaware of his fellow civilian
disarmament honks who jump on news of a shooting like Michael Moore on a ham
sandwich.
Check the time stamp. That was only a couple of hours after the shooting was
reported. There were still hundreds of cops at YouTube HQ stepping around
pools of blood.
The NRA has learned from experience that sitting back a “respectful” amount
of time gets them nothing. Worse, it allows the enemies of Second Amendment
rights to seize the narrative in their attempt to drum up support for ever
more gun control legislation. Wayne LaPierre waited almost a week after
Sandy Hook to make a statement and was pilloried for it.
Looking back on a mass shooting and wishing you’d had a gun is natural. It
is the life or death version of the French idea of l’esprit de l’escalier,
the wit of the staircase, the one devastating conversational clapback you
think of five minutes after it would have been useful. We long to recast
negative experiences as positive ones with ourselves as the hero. It’s
human. It’s also really fucking stupid, and the fact that it’s influencing
policy is an embarrassment .
Mr. Holmes apparently isn’t aware that according to even the CDC’s
conservative analysis (at the request of President Obama), there are at
least 500,000 defensive gun uses (and probably a lot more) in this country
every year. So yes, people with guns do stop crimes like rape, robbery and
murder every single day.
But laws shouldn’t reflect passion. Laws should reflect reason. Data shows
very clearly that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. On
the other hand, we have this emotion, this childish fantasy borne out of
trauma and impotence. Right now, they’re running about even.
No more. NRA, for once, fuck your feelings.
Sorry. That thud you just heard was the sound of my jaw hitting the
keyboard. Because emotion is the anti-gun crowd’s primary weapon of mass
distraction against the right to keep and bear arms. If they gave that up,
there’d literally be nothing left in their quiver.
Emotion and the heat of the moment (never let a crisis go to waste) is
precisely how states like Connecticut, New York and Maryland slammed through
even more restrictive laws, including “assault weapons” bans after Sandy
Hook. Acting in the heat of the moment is why you saw a Republican governor
like Rick Scott, in a famously pro-gun state like Florida, sign a gun
control bill into law in the middle of a Senate run.
Actual application of reason, as Holmes says he desires, reveals that
literally none of the measures Scott has signed into law would have done a
single thing to stop a Nikolas Cruz. Or an Adam Lanza. Or a Dylan Roof. They
were able to commit their hideous crimes due to social and institutional
failures by multiple parties that let them slip through the cracks for years
before they eventually snapped.
But try telling that to someone like a Dave Holmes. My guess is you won’t
get very far. Because as he sees it, enough is enough. It’s time to do
something about guns. Never mind how ineffective or burdensome the something
is for millions of law-abiding Americans. Hey, that seems suspiciously like
an emotions-driven response rather an application of reason or intellect.
The point is, Holmes isn’t unique. He and his fellow anti-gun travelers are
expert at projection; accusing their opponents of the very actions they
themselves are famous for. Do they just not see it? Or is that just SOP?
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Why Do Anti-Gunners Lack Self-Awareness? Question of the Day
BY DAN ZIMMERMAN |APR 06, 2018 |53 COMMENTS
Esquire’s Dave Holmes is the latest to try to poke holes in what he sees as
the good guy with a gun “fantasy.” You idiots think you could have done
something about Sandy Hook if you’d been there? Parkland? YouTube? It’s
delusional!
This happens like clockwork now. The NRA, well within the time frame wherein
we are not supposed to politicize a tragedy, goes out and suggests that the
only answer is more guns. They will fall back on the absurd notion that only
a good guy with a gun could stop a bad guy with a gun. They will find a
person who, in the heat of the moment, is entertaining their own childish
hero fantasy; they will build a whole policy argument around it, and then
they will tell you to stop being so emotional.
The time period in which we’re not supposed to politicize a tragedy? While
we missed the memo announcing the prescribed, respectful number of days
before commenting, Holmes is apparently unaware of his fellow civilian
disarmament honks who jump on news of a shooting like Michael Moore on a ham
sandwich.
Check the time stamp. That was only a couple of hours after the shooting was
reported. There were still hundreds of cops at YouTube HQ stepping around
pools of blood.
The NRA has learned from experience that sitting back a “respectful” amount
of time gets them nothing. Worse, it allows the enemies of Second Amendment
rights to seize the narrative in their attempt to drum up support for ever
more gun control legislation. Wayne LaPierre waited almost a week after
Sandy Hook to make a statement and was pilloried for it.
Looking back on a mass shooting and wishing you’d had a gun is natural. It
is the life or death version of the French idea of l’esprit de l’escalier,
the wit of the staircase, the one devastating conversational clapback you
think of five minutes after it would have been useful. We long to recast
negative experiences as positive ones with ourselves as the hero. It’s
human. It’s also really fucking stupid, and the fact that it’s influencing
policy is an embarrassment .
Mr. Holmes apparently isn’t aware that according to even the CDC’s
conservative analysis (at the request of President Obama), there are at
least 500,000 defensive gun uses (and probably a lot more) in this country
every year. So yes, people with guns do stop crimes like rape, robbery and
murder every single day.
But laws shouldn’t reflect passion. Laws should reflect reason. Data shows
very clearly that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. On
the other hand, we have this emotion, this childish fantasy borne out of
trauma and impotence. Right now, they’re running about even.
No more. NRA, for once, fuck your feelings.
Sorry. That thud you just heard was the sound of my jaw hitting the
keyboard. Because emotion is the anti-gun crowd’s primary weapon of mass
distraction against the right to keep and bear arms. If they gave that up,
there’d literally be nothing left in their quiver.
Emotion and the heat of the moment (never let a crisis go to waste) is
precisely how states like Connecticut, New York and Maryland slammed through
even more restrictive laws, including “assault weapons” bans after Sandy
Hook. Acting in the heat of the moment is why you saw a Republican governor
like Rick Scott, in a famously pro-gun state like Florida, sign a gun
control bill into law in the middle of a Senate run.
Actual application of reason, as Holmes says he desires, reveals that
literally none of the measures Scott has signed into law would have done a
single thing to stop a Nikolas Cruz. Or an Adam Lanza. Or a Dylan Roof. They
were able to commit their hideous crimes due to social and institutional
failures by multiple parties that let them slip through the cracks for years
before they eventually snapped.
But try telling that to someone like a Dave Holmes. My guess is you won’t
get very far. Because as he sees it, enough is enough. It’s time to do
something about guns. Never mind how ineffective or burdensome the something
is for millions of law-abiding Americans. Hey, that seems suspiciously like
an emotions-driven response rather an application of reason or intellect.
The point is, Holmes isn’t unique. He and his fellow anti-gun travelers are
expert at projection; accusing their opponents of the very actions they
themselves are famous for. Do they just not see it? Or is that just SOP?
---
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