Joan and the Anti-Rights Conundrum

Haven’t heard an anti step into this little conundrum in a while!

You must remember when I wrote this post. Guns are used so infrequently in public places for self defense that it begs credulity to hear the gun guys try to sell legislators on the idea that that is how their guns will be used….Van Cleave tries to make us all believe that someone in the Aurora movie theater with a gun could have changed the outcome. He has absolutely no standing to say that. It hasn’t worked so far in a mass shooting….We do not need guns in libraries and on college campuses. There is no reason for people to have them there. Gun free zones do not invite criminals with guns to shoot people. Those folks intent on doing harm shoot people anywhere. The idea that a criminal or law abiding citizen thinks ahead of time about whether someone inside of a place will have a gun is just a specious argument.

Ok first let’s touch on Joan’s little parallel universe “facts”. First guns are used defensively quite often, the low stats say around 100,000 per year (which is dead even with people who are criminally shot per year) high stats say up to 2 million. Reality is somewhere in between, and those numbers add up pretty good on the side of liberty and arming good people. Also Joan Peterson has a nice “heads I win, tales you lose” when it comes to defensive guns to stop mass shootings. If the shooter kills a bunch of people and is stopped, the defensive gun wasn’t enough, if the shooter is stopped BEFORE they can kill anybody…well that wasn’t a mass shooting so it doesn’t count! Its like the Christian Scientist method of medical care, or medical blood letting. If the person recovers the bunk treatment was the solution, if the person dies, then obviously they were too sick and there was NOTHING that could have saved them!

Still the Conundrum is that we don’t NEED to have guns and shouldn’t carry them because we’ll never use them and that doesn’t happen…but we NEED “Gun Free Zones”, and onerous gun control laws because armed people very frequently commit mass murder.

Of course the issue is these two observations are contradictory. Its obvious that police protection is hardly enough because such events DO indeed happen, and by the time the Police arrive the action is over, or the bulk of the carnage is done. Still what is it? Am I so safe that I have zero need to carry a gun, or am I living a some horrible post-apocalyptic world where murder is commonplace?

Also just like the anti-rights logic problem of “If guns were as illegal as murder, nobody would be murdered with guns” one needs to think, if we’re so safe, who fucking cares who or where people carry guns? I mean if the world suddenly had a zero violent crime rate I certainly wouldn’t NEED guns….but if the world has a zero violent crime rate, who cares what guns I own and what I do with them?

And if we live in such a dangerous world as Joan Asserts:

Semi automatic weapons are guns that shoot a lot of people in a very short time. The public understands that one. Though some hunting rifles are semi-automatic and are used to kill people as well, it is the assault type weapons that are doing the most damage in the shootings. Gun owners understand the difference.

Then why on Earth would I EVER leave my home unarmed? And why wouldn’t I want to keep my own “Assault type weapon” close at hand?….you know, because of all the mass murder!

Of course the reality is that life in America is mostly safe. Violent crime on the individual basis is fairly rare. If you’re an upstanding citizen who doesn’t deal in or associate with illegal drug economy, you’re really in overall good shape. Mass murders are even more rare, and right up there with getting bit by a shark or struck by lighting.

Still I don’t go swimming when I have an open cut and the Coast Guard helicopters are circling the beach watching the great whites, nor do I climb a tree in an electrical storm, or decide that a thunderstorm is the ideal time to go for a horseback ride in the pasture or decide to take up the game of golf.

You are relatively safe, but you are not COMPLETELY safe. People ARE killed by lighting, sharks, and spree killers, and you really need to examine factors that might put you in those numbers. Frankly even with the VPC biased “Conceal Carry Killers” project doesn’t even paint a convincing point that lawful carriers are much of a risk to public, and certainly I know I’M not a violent person. I get upset at people, and occasionally I lose my temper with some interpersonal situations…and I never so much as take a swing at those people, so my gun being used for murder seems pretty weak. I also know how long it takes for me to draw, and I know my shooting ability.

That math says Its probably a good idea for me to go armed wherever I can. Also from reading stories of defensive shooting I know that being able to qualify IDPA Master Class are probably mostly superfluous skills and the skills that can REALLY save your life are simply mental preparation and a basic familiarity and proficiency with their carry gun is all that’s needed. So its probably better for all lawful people to be armed if they so wish.

Also odd that Joan asserts that criminals don’t seem to choose “Gun Free Zones” as their areas to do mayhem, when it seems that all the shootings she revels in are indeed in “Gun Free Zones”.

Of course this is why they lose, and why her bleats of “Common Sense” is so ironic. She talks about “Common Sense” yet she’s openly contradicting herself? Good luck with that!

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0 Responses to Joan and the Anti-Rights Conundrum

  1. Is it just me – or is her blog becoming more and more just a list of screeds? She seems angrier and angrier.

    b

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Yeah I agree. I think it has everything to do with her feelings about her blog and the groups for whom she labors.

      She started out wanting to start a debate, and asking for sympathy of strangers about her miss-characterization of her sister’s murder (she recently she claimed her late Brother in Law was a “Law Abiding Gun Owner”, when she knew he was a mentally ill and abusive man).

      Then her comment section filled up with pro-gun comments, almost no anti-gun comments, and while there were a few angry assholes misbehaving she knows the majority of them made good points that shattered not only her world view, but her chosen career path. So she shut down the comment section (tho she still reads the comments she gets, as one of my unpublished comments to her blog were published on Ladd Everitt’s blog).

      I think she started the blog thinking very highly of herself and her mission, and now she knows (consciously, or subconsciously) her mission is wrong and a failure, and she’s choosing to double down.

      I was anti-gun once and I faced the reality Joan is facing, and it isn’t easy. Still I decided it was better to admit you made a horrible mistake and switch to the right side of the issue. Joan has decided that advocating for bad things is easier than admitting she’s wrong.

      All of that leads for a very unhappy and mentally unstable person.

      • Cargosquid says:

        I think that she lost it completely when the “candle vigil” by us swamped her group’s efforts. Then, because she stopped printing comments from gunnies AND that they stopped coming because she’s gotten boring and repetitive, she’s in an echo chamber. Her base premise is nothing but emotional and she’s just ramped that up.

        I think that part of it is frustration because I think that she really just wants to scream, “F@ck YOU! Guns should be banned!!!!!! You gun nuts are just a bunch of ##%$@$&*##^ that just want to ##$%^^$ kill everybody! You don’t NEED guns and its not a right!!!! GET OFF MY LAWN!”

        • Weerd Beard says:

          The vigil earned me full persona non grata status with the antis.

          That REALLY pissed them off! 😀

          • Jack says:

            Well, you refused to defer to the victim status they claimed, and after all that blood they rolled in!

            And worse you, a mere unpaid blogger, outdid their national efforts.

            In the anti’s view, it’s not supposed to be that way. The proles should know their place and that includes being armed *and* not speaking out of turn.

            As you say, anti freedom not anti gun.

          • Cargosquid says:

            Speaking of which, we should REALLY make it an annual thing. If you advertise it before they do, it looks like they’re joining you……

    • Tom says:

      I can’t ever remember Joan’s blog being anything BUT a screed. Maybe that’s just me. Of course, the one number that deflates her argument against the liberalization of gun rights is that the number of murders hasn’t been rising. You don’t really see a dramatic difference either way. Why? Because the people that begin to exercise their right to own and carry guns tend to be non-criminals. And they stay non-criminals. They simply don’t go out and kill people for fun or profit. And the criminals have always had guns, always will have guns, and will use them to perpetrate crimes. More laws will not stop them.

      Bottom line: Joan — and all of Brady, Bloomberg & Co. — simply want to ban and confiscate all guns. Her logic and arguments don’t really matter. They’re just fluff around her ultimate goal.

      • Weerd Beard says:

        I was checking my archives, and if you look back to 2010 you’ll see many of her posts are VERY well formed. Misguided and filled with lies, but not screedy in any way.

      • TS says:

        “Of course, the one number that deflates her argument against the liberalization of gun rights is that the number of murders hasn’t been rising. ”

        This is why they have to stick their fingers in their ears and say gun ownership is down. Even when faced with ATF stats showing how an additional 12 million guns hit the market in the second half of the aughties over the first, she insists they were not sold. The gun manufactures just made them and buried them in a ditch.

        • Weerd Beard says:

          Or they’re saying that people who already own guns are just adding to their collection. Meanwhile ignoring the number of new carry permits issued, and the number of young, female, and minority faces showing up at gun clubs and shops.

          The “Fat Old White Men” stereotype used to be the cornerstone of the American Gun Owning population, but now I rarely go into a gunnie place without seeing lots of non-whites, youth, and females. Also talking to them you quickly see that they’re relatively new to guns….wrong again Joan!

          • TS says:

            She could have taken that route when arguing with me, but she didn’t. She insisted they weren’t sold.

  2. George says:

    Listening to Joan talk about guns and self defense reminds me of the good Fathers in high school talking about sex and marriage: absolutely no frame of reference, but really strong opinions.

    • Weerd Beard says:

      I wonder how much she knows and how much she chooses not to acknowledge. Could be the same as the Fathers, not like they only associated with Priests, and I suspect many of them have had sexual flings they don’t openly advertise.

      Still their chosen life path isn’t very conducive to talking to people with a different viewpoint on the issue.

  3. Bubblehead Les says:

    Her first Supposition is wrong from the get-go. “Guns are used so infrequently in Public places…” In ANY Public Place, there can be up to 4 Different types of People with Firearms. A) The Legally Armed Citizen, B) A Police Officer/Sheriff/Bailiff, etc. C) a Private Security Guard (either Uniformed or Undercover)/Bounty Hunter/Private Eye and D) Goblins. A person who has decided to take a Firearm with them, either for Self-Defense, or as part of the Job or to commit a Crime has brought those Tools into “Use.” This also doesn’t count those Firearms that are “Stashed under the Counter” in 10s of Thousands of Businesses across the U.S.A.

    So if one counts all the Firearms that are in “Use” by the Good Guys out in Public, I’m gonna think there’s about a Million or so in play.

    As for the Private Citizen not being able to use a Firearm in a Mass Shooting, I remind her that an Armed Citizen less than a week ago used his weapon against that Nutjob in Texas, thus reducing the Casualty rate. And when they are used in those Events, the Body Count goes DOWN.

    But since she’s an Idiot who lives in a fantasy world where the “Shining Knight” will Save her from all Harm just by calling 911, she wouldn’t get it if you drove a Fact through her Front Door.

    • Archer says:

      The difference is that from OUR viewpoint, groups A, B, and C are all Good Guys, and group D are Bad Guys. In her viewpoint, groups B and C are a Necessary Evil (and C is pushing it), and groups A and D are default Bad Guys.

      Maybe that’s why anti-rights people are so dour, humorless, and unstable: There are no Good Guys in their world view. There’s no Hope, except to depend on the Necessary Evil for protection from the Real Evil.

      I’d be pretty damned depressed, too. Thankfully, I live in Reality, where not only are Good Guys real, I can surround myself with their company. 🙂

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