What always amazes me about this stuff is that we will laugh at crazy whities who flee to the exurbs and suburbs to get away from criminal "darkies'. We talk about how irrational those fears are. We talk about how irrational it is for "whities" to arm themselves against the criminal "darkies" who want to abscond with their wide screen teevees. And yet, when it comes to suicidal-homicidal maniacs, we immediately conclude that the way to stop the problem is to get rid of guns as if we, ourselves, have the slightest chance of getting gunned down like that. What are the numbers? The chance that you'll get gunned down by a person like that?
Probably a lot less than the chance someone will get robbed. Apparently, I'm living in a pretty high crime area. You can't find many neighborhoods that aren't plagued by robberies, burglaries, car thefts, car jackings. I suspect the people living in Arbor Reach Apartment complex on the outskirts of the city have a lot more chance of getting robbed than she has of getting gunned down. And yet, we'd laugh at her and her irrational fears, but not at all at the parents of college students and others who think that banning guns would be a way to prevent such crimes.
Oh, hey, I know: cut dicks off to prevent rape! And get rid of broomsticks and mops while you're at it!
At 12:51 AM 4/18/2007, you wrote:
>What do you mean, get over it? Don't worry about it
>because, like bad weather, there's nothing you can do
>about it? Why are you making me guess about your
>meaning, here and in the post I replied to? Is this a
>new argumentative strategy, say opaque misleading
>things that are susceptible to interpretations you
>don't maintain, then say Aha! Fool! when someone
>"guesses" wrong about what you meant? Very clever. I
>will stop discussing things with you, not having time
>to decode the gnomic mutterings of gnostic gun nuts.
>
>Rest content, however, that while I think your right
>to arm bears position is irrational and dangerous, I
>cede the ground to you on the basis that I have
>already stated, namely the fight's not worth the
>candle, and an attempt to create a policy I'd consider
>sensible would stir up a hornets' nest of right wing
>activist voters who might otherwise stay quietly in
>their tree.
>
>Maybe if the Supreme Court follows the DC Circuit in
>reading the "well regulated militia" out of the 2d
>Amendment and says it's a fundamental right to own an
>Kalashnikov, your lot can cuddle up to your arsenal,
>fantasize about fighting the 101st Airborne to
>preserve freedom or shooting muggers or mass murderers
>or whatever it is you fantasize about, coming out to
>announce loudly, when a massacre occurs, that the
>killer would have done it with a broken bottle anyway,
>and you will just leave the rest of us alone.
>
>Now I have to go to bed, because I have to get up
>early to drive my 14 year old son to school, as some
>idiot classmate chose Friday to try to get in a fight
>with him, threatened him with a cinder block, then
>announced loudly enough for a nearby adult to hear
>that he was going to get a gun and shoot my boy. I
>suppose that is something I should get over too, and
>maybe if I were you I'd get the boy a gun and teach
>him, or have someone who knew teach him, how to kill
>people who threaten him. But being a whiny liberal, I
>have taught him to disengage from fights and, because
>there is a very marginal possibility that the idiot
>might try to carry out his threat, since access to
>guns is easy and in any event there are always cinder
>blocks, I have to drive to to school and my wife has
>to drive him home until we figure out how to monitor
>the idiot's behavior. I guess I have to get over that
>too.
>
>Well, serves me right for trying to reason with you.
>Please, take your guns and go home. I'll get over it.
>
>--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
>
> > > Jordan's theory, implicit in this rhetorical
> > question,
> > > is that there are millions or hundreds of
> > thousands or
> > > even thousands of people who would in fact attempt
> > to
> > > kill lots of people with a gun, but are deterred
> > by
> > > the thought that so many other private individuals
> > are
> > > armed and would kill them if they tried.
> >
> > No actually, Jordan's "theory" is closer to
> > something that Wojtek said
> > earlier: this is aberrant behavior, guns don't
> > magically make people
> > homicidal. A few people blow a gasket now and again
> > and kill a handful
> > of people, for reasons that don't seem to make much
> > sense and don't seem
> > to fall into much of a pattern. Get over it!
> >
> > So maybe change your Subject: line from "bad
> > psychology" to "bad guess"
> > ...?
> >
> > /jordan
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
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