So I’m currently reading Cathy Jackson’s delightful Book “The Cornered Cat”, and it got me thinking about the various talking-points and catch-phrases of the anti-gun people. We talked about it here, how the anti-gun talking points are often tried, and discarded when they are easily rebuffed, proven false, or just don’t grab the public ear.
Meanwhile Dennis Hennigan of the Brady Campaign attempted to argue against the simple talking points and catch phrases of pro-rights people in his book Lethal Logic. His table of contents is available on Amazon and the chapters go as following:
1.”Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People”
2.”When Guns are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns”
3.”But What You Really Want…”
4.”An Armed Society is a Polite Society”
5.”We don’t need new guns laws. We need to Enforce the Laws we Have”
6.”Is Budweiser Responsible for Dunk Drivers?”
7.”From My Cold Dead Hands…”
Now 1&2 are expressly true, and I’m of half a mind to buy one of the Amazon used copies (I would prefer the kindle edition, but I have a thing against my money supporting bigotry and intolerance) to hear how he “Refutes” what is indeed the truth. People have been killing people for thousands of years before gunpowder was invented, and even today when gun crimes happen in every corner of the world, people are beaten, stabbed, run-over, burned, poisoned, and a myriad of other methods that one can use if your intent is murder or brutal physical harm.
#2. Obviously every corner of the world DOES have gun crimes, even places where guns are outlawed. So again, the only people without guns are the good guys, the bad guys can get guns if they want…otherwise they’ll make do with knives and clubs, and it won’t make a difference because the people who are being harmed are disarmed by the laws they respect.
#3. Is a tricky one but again, 100% true. I haven’t read the book but I assume its people pointing out the dishonesty of gun control advocates. A prime example was when they passed a law banning guns with pistol grips, bayonets, and Flash Suppressors. The gun industry quickly responded and ground off bayonet lugs, or started building barrels without that appendage, started permanently affixing muzzle brakes to the muzzles of their guns, and added stocks without extended pistol grips.
The Antis Response? They called this the industry “Exploiting a loophole”. If their intents were honest they would call this “Compliance with the law”, but we all know their intent was banning large numbers of guns, which they were unsuccessful at doing.
Another example is their recent harping on “State’s Rights”. They claim they don’t support laws because it doesn’t respect the rights of some states to infringe on the rights of their citizens. Except most of the laws they push and support don’t respect the rights of free states to remain free. Antis are indeed dishonest and liars, and such an accusation is very much true.
#4. If you doubt this spend an afternoon at a gun club, a gun show, or a shooting competition. If you find somebody who is rude or confrontational, it’s probably the anti-gun “researcher” trying to provoke an inappropriate action for the cause.
#5. Duhh. Name a current gun law that is presented to address a new problem that isn’t illegal. They don’t want background checks for the sake of background checks…they want them so people don’t sell guns to criminals (a crime). They don’t want the ATF to get data on multiple long-gun sales because buying multiple long guns is a crime, they just don’t want the multiple guns being trafficked to street gangs and drug cartels (a crime). They don’t want people carrying in restaurants not because there’s anything wrong with that, but because they don’t want people getting shitfaced and shooting people (crime and crime). Can I rest my case, or do they need a few more?
#6. This is actually the first time I read this statement presented in this way. The most common way is “Is *Car Company* Responsible for Drunk Driving?” I think this change is because like the gun industry, the alcohol production industry was also an industry subject to heavy prohibition, and was one of the first industries to be heavily monitored and controlled by the federal government (Conveniently the same Jackbooted Agency, the ATF). I do know that Budweiser offers community service, and classes for those engage in drunk driving or are problem alcoholics. I have no idea the mechanism behind these programs, if they’re done for pure altruistic charity, for tax benefits, or mandate by state or federal law. I won’t comment on that, but I will note that Oldsmobile was not questioned on the murder at Chappaquiddick, nor was Chevis Regal.
Of course #7 is a personal issue that we all must deal with if the antis ever win. There are certainly examples where the government confiscated arms from lawful citizens without retaliation. Some of those citizens were Americans. The Being pro-rights is being pro-freedom, and that includes the freedom to sell yourself into slavery, as well as the freedom for Mr. Hennigan to print lies.
OK so that was a LONG winded post to get your juices flowing on a homework assignment. Let’s list a bunch of anti-rights slogans, and talking points that have been abandoned ages ago because they just couldn’t survive on their own.
The perennials that keep popping up are the: “It will turn into the Wild West” or “People will be shooting each other over parking spaces.” “BLOOD IN THE STREETS!”
They seem to survive because they live in a small bubble when a law is presented, to a few months after it passes. Its always brought after the first anniversary of the law change showing indeed they were wrong.
Sebastian recently pointed out the “Guns from Lax States to Guns with Restrictive laws”…we’ve discussed the data that doesn’t support that here, still the “Iron Pipeline” myth centers around people buying guns in Georgia, and taking them up I-95 to New York City, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. This is used to explain the massive violent crime problem in Anti-gun states that isn’t present in states with lax laws. Yet if the violent criminals are (illegally, I’ll note) buying their guns in Georgia, or Virginia, Or Pennsylvania, or New Hampshire, why don’t they commit crimes there. Either it isn’t happening (Which the ATF data shows is the truth) or the criminals are on their best behavior because they’re concerned about getting shot. Either way, its a lie.
Of course my personal favorite was preferred by Paul Helmke during the Assault Weapon ban days, was that semi-autos fired with a “Finger twitch” not a pull of the trigger. Yeah that wasn’t a gaffe.
There’s always “These are weapons of war!”…in which I ask you what nation issues AR-15s, or Mini-14s, or the FNH PS90 et al. Now the weapons we DO see in War are variations of the Remington 700 hunting rifle…oops ignore the man behind the curtain, remember chapter #3, they say they aren’t coming for your deer rifle!
“Gun Show Loophole” which in most of its variants isn’t about gun shows, and doesn’t actually address a loophole of any sort.
“Compensating for the Size of your Penis…” Yeah because my .45 can get my wife pregnant, and if I had an 8″ Hog I could defend myself from violent assault.
“Gun owners are paranoid”, “you don’t NEED a gun.” , “If attacked the attacker will just take your gun away from you.” The internet killed these ones with the various collections like The Armed Citizen, or The Dead Goblin Count.
The use of the metric of “Gun Death”…I hope I’m personally kicking that one’s ass.
There are a bunch of others that are floating around attacked to current anti-freedom legislation, but I’m more interested in ones like “Finger Twitch” that have been abandoned because they were too worthless to survive on their own.
What you got?
