On 2012-12-26, at 12:06 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:
>> although I'm still awaiting a reply to my query about which
>> gun measures you now favour.
>
> I've discussed my position in length on this list over the years; I don't feel like your change-of-direction of the subject is worth a repeat here, especially when yo've not responded to any of my points. Also, I responded in depth to Wojtek's proposals. We were discussing you and your position that, as evidenced by the Newtown incident, "automatic" weapons and "assault rifles" were far too easy to come by, and limiting their access should be the way forward to stop those incidents from happening.
You're evading the question. A short yes or no will suffice. Do you endorse the campaign for further gun control measures expressed by, among others, Chomsky, Ames, Lenin's Tomb, other radicals and liberals, as well the majority of blacks and hispanics polled in the most recent Pew survey? You can ignore my request to provide particulars about which, if any, measures you favour since most of us, including yourself, are not qualified to assess which of the many differing proposals circulating would be effective. These are already subject to informal debate within the growing movement for gun control, in which both liberals seeking restrictions on the supply and radicals calling for a complete ban on handguns and assault weapons, are represented. If the movement continues to advance and become better organized, it will hopefully spawn a political program out of the current melange of analyses and prescriptions around which most could unite. That is how all movements for reform progress, and the central consideration for us at the present time is whether such a development would be a good thing or a bad thing. We haven't been stubbornly and often heatedly going back and forth on this issue because we share a common position, and our respective differences in relation to this campaign have been clear from the beginning.
So, to repeat - are you now for this heterogenous and evolving campaign against gun control or still contemptuous of those like myself who would encourage it?
[…]
> Do you get that what he's saying is that he's coming to the conclusion that, for reasons *other* than what you've offered…
I've said nothing other than what I've said above, which is also the essence of Ames' position: ie. that the development of a movement for gun control, rather than the specific measures which would would remain to be sorted out, is what is important. "Passing gun restrictions today probably wouldn’t do much to slow down rampage massacres, at least not for awhile, but the politics of sweeping gun control laws could have a huge transformative effect over time", he concludes. "It’s no longer possible for me to ignore that fact." That has been the axis of my argument, which can be easily confirmed with reference to my previous posts.
Do you agree with his conclusion? Straightforward answer, please.
> The problem you seem to be having is that you've projected a position onto me that I neither claim nor support. You've been fighting with a ghost….That I challenge you on these falsehoods makes me into a "gun nut" in your eyes, falling for exactly the trap that Ames claims was laid for you by Dark, Powerful Forces.
I have never said or implied that you were a gun nut. You don't have to be part of the mainly white male (often racist) Republican gun culture to defend gun ownership for a variety of reasons, including your own emphatic ones: that there is absolutely no correlation between the wildly extreme disparity in gun ownership and homicide rates in the US and other countries, and, at best, campaigning for gun control is a diversion from the real task of explaining to poor blacks and hispanics that it is poverty rather than guns which breeds crime. In my own case, I was never a gun nut, but for many years opposed gun control for the traditional reasons stemming back to Marx and Engels, ie. that revolutionary change was necessarily violent, and the masses should not let themselves be disarmed by the bourgeois state. No, I don't think you're a gun nut but I do believe Chomsky had people like yourself in mind when he wrote that "while one can recognize the motivation that lies behind some of the opposition to gun control, I think it's sadly misguided." Ames would agree.