Anti-Gunners Still Misfiring

At the pinko Common Dreams site is an op-ed by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship asking Why Have We Stopped Talking about Guns? The piece in itself is quite flat and uninteresting and just another recent lame attempt by anti-gunners to revive their deservedly dead cause now that there is an anti-gun administration and Congress. This is their golden chance to get their anti-gun agenda enacted. Their problem is they need an excuse to do so. They're working on one - and their work is cut out.

Basically, I found the op-ed's title, "Why Have We Stopped Talking About Guns?", to be the most interesting thing about it: I take it to mean the antis do not want to stop talking about guns, even when there is not much to say about them as far as public debate and policy goes. So I left this comment to answer Moyers and Winship's question on both Common Dreams and Moyers' blog:
To answer the authors' question: we have stopped talking about guns because we have not needed to! Isn't that a good thing according to their own stated beliefs?
Actually that must be the problem. It's time to manufacture anti-gun hysteria, starting with the bogus claim by the administration that 90% of guns confiscated from Mexican crime scenes originated in America, now that they have the votes and power to enact their anti-gun agenda. It's been obvious for the past several years - even since the Clinton ban expired - that guns are a major non-problem. That's not good politically for an anti-gunner.

The authors might want to check their stats. For one thing they neglect to mention that on average 1.5 million crimes are prevented by armed citizens each year. Also since November Americans have literally bought more than enough firearms to supply the Chinese and Indian armies! Ammo and reloading supplies are all but sold out. How about that? The coming to power of the party that wants to "get guns off the streets" directly caused record firearm and ammo sales! (Actually, these guns are not "on the streets" and are not dangerous to the public.)

Not only does increased restrictions on firearms lead to increased crime, people buy more guns when an anti-gun party wins an election. That the anti-gunners directly cause the exact opposite of what they want is not sufficient reason for them to rethink their beliefs. Instead they claim that gun-owners are "paranoid, extremist, gun-nuts."

Oh, that explains it. Right.

Can you say, 'dogmatist', boys and girls?

Anti-gun laws only harass and hurt gun owners - and they know it. So do those who pass them.
What is important now, since the antis have an opportunity to make come true their dreams of disarming law-abiding firearm-owners, is for the public to finally see that the anti-gunners are and always have been, quite frankly, full of B.S. The discussion thread at Common Dreams is one more pathetic instance of this.

Many commenters repeatedly stated their beliefs that gun-owners are stupid, dangerous, trigger-happy rednecks who menace society. I realize that crude-minds get expression in the comments on many sites, but these folks are typical of what I have heard from anti-gunners for a long, long time. In other words, none of it surprised me.There is always a big discrepancy between what they say is so of guns, gun-owners, and gun laws and - well, reality.

They have a history of manufacturing hysteria over gun-hobgoblins like "Saturday Night Specials" and "assault weapons," which are undefinable smears, or, anti-concepts, intended to connote fear. They pulled off a "cop-killer bullet" hysterical hoax; deliberately propagated the myth of "plastic guns that are undetectable by airport x-rays;" and on and on. Who knows what they have up their sleeves now.
The "cop-killer bullet" hoax is a case study in how they operate.

Ostensibly they meant ammunition that is designed to defeat police ballistic vests. Such ammo was manufactured for law-enforcement purchase and was and remains illegal in the civilian market. No problems or dangers existed. The background knowledge the public lacks, thanks to the media and the anti-gun lobby, is that there are different levels of ballistic vests. They are made in "levels" to stop small handgun rounds up to heavy magnum rifle rounds. What the antis defined as "cop-killer" was any ammo that would defeat a small handgun-level vest, the minimum level vest - and that is anything more potent than a small handgun round! Brushing this fact to the side, they were able to pull off their hoax, which in reality was a dishonest attempt to ban virtually all ammo.

In the end they never got their ammo ban, but those who took at face value what the antis were saying would only have to think things through to realize something does not logically add up. Does anyone who bought in to this ever think that if "cop-killer bullets" were not banned, then they must still be legal? And if they are legal, they are still available. And if they are available then cops all over should be getting killed by them! Where are the activists and legislators to stop this? Why are they so quiet about the legal "cop-killer bullets on the streets"? But wait - cops aren't getting shot with them. Why could that be?

Because it was all B.S. like everything else the antis say.

If anyone still wants to somehow believe the antis I challenge them to go to a gun shop and ask to buy one of those "plastic guns that are undetectable by airport x-rays" and a box of "cop-killer bullets" - or any other gun hobgoblin antis have generated fear over. After all, the legislation to ban them never passed so they are still legal and out there so the guy behind the counter in the gun shop can sell them to you, right? So go get them and let me know when you do. (And while you're at it, get the abominable snowman as well.) Then and only then you can believe what the anti-gunners say.

Most of them know nothing about firearms. To anyone who is knowledgeable this is demonstrated virtually every time an anti-gunner asserts anything. In the Common Dreams thread I pointed this out and of course I was challenged with comments like, "What, everything they say is a lie? Please, Mr. Gunnut...Prove it."

No, not to them. To anyone who is honest and reasonable, I'd be happy to - as I just did with their ammo hoax.

I am not responsible for informing my anti-gun opponents with knowledge they neglect to acquire because they are willfully ignorant about firearms, their usage, and existing laws. It is their responsibility to themselves to find out if what they believe and say is true. (If anything, it makes sense to exploit to my side's benefit the ignorance of our opponents.) If they actually educated themselves on this matter they would see their assertions, preconceptions, and beliefs are not grounded in reality. What a problem that would pose for them! Well, if any of them are intellectually honest, that is.

I suspect that in their minds they know I am right in stating that the anti-gun lobby and politicians are liars, but they could not care anyhow because they do not want any of us being armed, period. A thought experiment might illustrate this. The antis claim they want to at least strictly control, if not ban firearms all together, on the grounds that this will save peoples' lives from criminals and accidents. Let us accept that and agree to their gun ban - on one condition: if the results they insist will happen from their ban do not happen they let us have our guns back. Would they agree to that? Like hell they would.

With all that in mind, consider some unedited examples of how the antis at Common Dreams see things.

One said that after the military and police are essentially disarmed then he'll "be ready to worry about the redneck gun collector down the street."

I was discussing with one of them the matter of crime and the use of force. He was saying that America's gun culture was part of the crime problem and I disagreed by distinguishing between the evil of initiating force and the good of using force defensively. He did not accept that distinction it seems. he wrote,"I suggest YOUR mentality part of the problem and not of the soultion. You are saying ytoou are perfectly willing to KILL people because it your God Give right to KILL people to defend your stuff
Thus the Criminal thinks, as Long as I have a gun and am willing to use violence I have a god given right to take anothers property."

I asked him to explain further as I was interested in understanding him so I could better discuss this with him. He then dismissed me with, "You will never get it. There no use. Go get yer SAR and shoot varmints."

This same person elsewhere said, "According to the gunnut logic, I should feel safer in a US park because the people can carry guns there.
Rubbish. I will not visit them again. I would rather take my chances with a grizzly bear in a Canadian park then a Gunnut defending his space in a US park."

Some other quotes:
"When I read these posts by gun nuts, I think of a little child writhing on the floor kicking and screaming because mommy won’t let them have dessert."

"There are still too many yanks who think that their guns protect their freedoms, that they can use guns to protect themselves from the police or 'da gubmint', they're utterly delusional."

"You gunnuts will say anything, no matter how ridiculous on the face of it."

"The obvious eludes these gunnuts."

Another answered my arguments and facts - and not taking their petty insults - with, "If your postings are any indication, you're spinning off the rails. Which just makes it all the more worrisome that you have a gun."I, a gun-owner, am a cause of worry to them. I'm law-abiding, I threaten nobody. This is an irrational fear, a phobia. Their phobia is so strong that they want to eliminate my right to own firearms.

In light of these comments (and plenty more) who are the paranoid ones; gun-owners like me, or these anti-gunners? Who is more dangerous to society - law-abiding gun-owners or people who want to pass laws based on their ignorant prejudice? Has anybody else noticed how they project themselves on to gun-owners? Anti-gunners are the real "nuts."

America does not have a "gun-nut" problem; but America is about to have (another) anti-gun nut problem.

It is time to stop taking seriously the anti-gunners because at the least they are willfully ignorant, and at the most they are complete shysters.
Whatever dangerous, fraud-based legislation the anti-gun crowd is concocting now can be easily defeated if the American public gets wise to the inherently deceptive nature of the anti-gunners - which is not hard to uncover. And then the lesson for the public to learn is that they need to tell the anti-gunners to keep their self-righteous phobias to themselves and not make them anyone else's problem.

P.S.: I just found this site that is very good satire on the antis' own thinking, illustrating in a funny way how unrealistic their beliefs are. 40 Reasons For Gun Control
Here's some I really like:
7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which was created 130 years later, in 1917.
39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.