So another post that’s being pushed REALLY hard by the anti-rights types is this one.
They start out with a Fox interview with Helmke going toe-to-toe with GOA’s John Velleco. Many of you know my feelings on GOA, but more on that later.
I think we can all concur that Paul gets his ass whupped in the debate. Also I must say Fox certainly was in no mood to carry any of Helmke’s lies as facts. That’s really the only time you see the anti-rights types get any traction in an interview or debate, when the interviewer just assumes that somebody like Helmke won’t simply lie or use broken logic (Like assuming that “Gun Death” is somehow a relevant metric to our day-to-day lives), or cite Joyce-paid “Studies” that attempt to break all the ethics laws of science over the course of their work.
So Joyce-Funded Media Matters decides to attempt to boost up Helmke’s crushing defeat in the linked post. Note I will simply be playing Devil’s advocate and take all of their citations at face value (tho I’m sure even these take some extreme ethical liberties like all Joyce work) because of what it shows our opponents doing.
In Fact, Experts Argue There Is No Link Between Right-To-Carry Laws And Decrease In Crime
So they’re claiming more guns does NOT mean less crime. An interesting debate, John Lott and many others might disagree with that, but what’s most interesting is the report does NOT claim more guns means MORE crime. So their stance is “Less Freedom for no gain”. How does that sound to you?
GOA’s Executive Director Was Allegedly Tied To “Professional Racists,” Militias
Now nothing at all to do with guns or gun rights. Instead they are attempting to smear GOA in general. Again not a hard task and why I don’t much care for GOA as a lobbying group. Still this is ALL they have.
This is what they are reduced to, they are legally on the retreat as bad laws are repealed and good laws are being passed, and the best they can do is smear people and fight to claim that they are holding ground.
They are losing, and they are getting desperate.
I’m comfortable with that.
If I recall correctly, Lott says the correlation between guns and crime trends is pretty weak and often spotty. Florida’s policy of liberalization has had a strong positive influence that brought down crime rates. On the other hand West Virginia had a negative trend where they actually did get slightly more violence. In most places it didn’t matter and the strong positive trend states outweighed the weak negative trend states.
The point is that gun regulation doesn’t reduce crime and liberalization doesn’t increase it. And liberalization fundamentally means more freedom for the people which is a good thing.
Yep overall I suspect the correlation would be VERY weak either way.
Certainly liberalization of gun laws does not mean the market of “Sheepdogs” is suddenly saturated.
Outside of Blogmeets and other 2nd Amendment gatherings how often are there MANY lawfully carried guns in a given area, even in a state that is very permissive as far as gun laws go.
How many people do you know who have a carry permit who rarely carry?
We won’t see strong correlations until the bad laws are repealed and people EXERCISE their rights, rather than just being glad to have them.
Pingback: Count the Lies | Weer'd World