Maybe I would have read it your way if I hadn't been dealing with a treat to my own family. Be that as it may, I don't structure my life or my policy views around the abstract likelihood that I might face a lunatic with a gun. Actually that's one among many reasons I think the right to arm bears crowd is irrational. They do. Oddly, on the South Side and the West Side, in the neighborhoods where there is much higher chance of facing armed criminals, the people ask for more cops and stricter gun control laws. But what do they know?
--- bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:
> Well, I agree that the question was opaque, but then
> it ended up being a
> litmus test about the kind of assumptions you bring
> to the table about
> Jordan or me or anyone else here who defends the 2a.
> It was immediately
> assumed that the "theory" was deterrence when it
> seemed obvious, to me,
> that the "theory" was what Jordan said it was: this
> is rare and aberrant
> and it is only the media that has blown it out of
> proportion and our too
> easy fear of being out of control that has made us
> take this far more
> seriously than we'd take shark attacks off the coast
> of Florida. the same
> damn media hysteria surrounds both of those things
> -- and a host of others
> issues (like weather, indeed, i suppose no one
> remembers the easy hysteria
> that gets built up over hurricanes and then any tiny
> breeze that comes
> along.... When CNN turned into HNN, Hurricane News
> Network, back in 2004.
> Even I, living in FL and dealing with all four
> hurricanes, was sick of the
> hysteria)
>
> 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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