Guns - the left wing's "Arabs"

Note: I use the term "Arabs" here loosely and in the sense that the RW uses the term when referring to a group of people 'over there' that hate us for our freedoms.

One thing that puts me squarely in the liberal camp of life is that we generally attempt to understand people and their issues - from being homeless to crime. The RW takes a broad view of issues and tries to apply a simple remedy to fix it all (like, people are on welfare because they are lazy, people are homeless because they are on drugs, those people over there want to kill us all cause they hate the freedoms we have and we are not an Islamic society, etc and so on).

We tend to try and see things in more of a spectrum - there are many causes for issues like those mentioned, mental illness, depression, low wages, how we treat other countries can affect how their people see us, and so on.

9/11 is an example in this whole mess - the left has tried to understand the why of the event whereas the rw sees wondering why as a weakness. We want to prevent future attacks by figuring out why we were attacked and fixing the issues, whereas the rw does not care for the causes and simply wants to destroy all who might attack us - they went after everyone and have killed many to prevent another attack here.

There is, in my mind, an interesting connection in all this. Liberals target the guns, conservatives are targeting Islam/'arabs'. The real issues are neither of those things, the real issues are wrapped in a cocoon of layers the core of which is a fundamental issue of mental health.

We will always have ways to kill a group of people, from using the propane tank on your gas grill to owning a gun. The issue is not how, but why - and addressing the 'why' in our society so that we get to a point that we trust our fellow citizens with their cars, gas grills, guns, household chemicals, etc.

Folks of a religious bent tend to see humans as flawed, as sinners - people who reject God and 'His' (if you will) ideals of people loving each other and taking care of one another. Throughout the bible (as one example) we see that humankind is flawed, not to be trusted, and tends to do what is right for themselves instead of themselves and others. So we don't trust the avg Joe - from owning a gun to not spreading diseases to many with their sexual contact (something else people want to control for the safety of others). We come to a point of not trusting anyone other than ourselves that we start more and more to want to control others - and we make case after case to do so.

Which is not always wrong of course. I don't trust my neighbor with a nuke, nor do other countries trust their neighbor countries with one either (seriously, who here would trust Saddam with a nuke or chemical/biological weapons, etc?). The risk outweighs the gain because when it comes right down to it - well, people are 'sinners' and can/will do the wrong thing. History has shown that over and over again.

But at some point, you draw the line. You say 'this is too powerful to be in the hands of one person' and you join together to make sure that one person cannot have X (ala nukes, et al). When that line is moved, it is only a matter of time before someone uses Y to kill others and the line keeps moving. Until we all have nothing because we don't trust each other and want to protect ourselves just in case.

Guns have proven to be useful tools, deadly weapons, and a deterrent to those who want to take from us our freedoms. And to me, I am willing to draw a line there and say lets keep our guns because while the few may misuse them, the many don't - and we have a way to defend ourselves from those in power who want to take from us the very freedoms that guns and those who held them gave us.

When you want to move up to more powerful weapons, that to me is where the state/national guard come in. You allow the many within the state to hold onto more powerful weapons to protect your state against the federal government. They get the tanks, planes, etc - while the lowest on the food chain (if you will) - the citizen, gets to keep their guns. There are tradeoffs and lines drawn in a society to insure security - from the individual, to the city (tear gas, armored vehicles, etc), to the state, to the federal.

Guns did not cause Columbine, or V.T. incident, etc. "Arabs" did not cause 9/11 (as much as the rw would want us to believe they did).

People with issues did. And when we let those people dictate our freedoms then we lose. We lost on 9/11 not because we were attacked and many died, we lost because we saw the problems as X and took away freedoms because of it. From the patriot act to more and more gun laws we keep trying to fix a problem that has neither to do with guns or middle eastern nations.

We don't need to take away guns, we don't need to kick out people of the Islamic faith. That's not the way to fix the issues.

We draw a line. We stand by it. And the we look at the issues with the people who cross that line and work as a team to fix those issues. When we start moving that line, we start losing.

... it's acknowledged that we lost the guns issue - as an electoral matter.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but I think that's the *only* issue we Democrats have lost on.

"We've" essentially lost on affirmative action, but that's not a party thing, that's a white folks thing. It was only a matter of time - since white folks can't stand any testament to the evils they've perpetrated.

In overwhelmingly blue jurisdictions, there are gun laws. Serious ones. I live in a community that doesn't allow the discharge of firearms for any reason. If you want to do target practice, you have to leave the area to do it.

The problem is that there is no way for a person in say, Blue MASS to find out if that guy from Idaho owns a gun or twenty. The registration system needs to be nationalized. Nothing more than that, for now. Just nationalize the database, NRA be damned.

Small steps. Now's the time to take that one.

Here in Atlanta, terrorist eric robert rudolph set off 3 bombs and killed 2 people and mad gunmen mark barton shot to death 9 in 1 incident. Guns are just the penultimate weapon that one can easily buy over the counter

We damn well don't sell them in quaint little shops with tidy receipts. Because they MASSACRE.

Are you advocating that we sell bombs like guns, or handmake guns like bombs?

Bombs are rarely made because they're not useful for defense. Guns are, and they certainly would be traded on the black market if they were outlawed. Guns and gun ammo can be made in clandestine workshops just like drugs.

or done the suicide vest routine. All by himself, too.

There's loads of ways to kill people. If you're a sick fuck who wants to do that sort of thing...

Remember Oklahoma City? Eric Rudolph was a moron. If he'd planted his explosives to bring down a major bridge during rush hour, he could have killed hundreds.

doesn't compare to one day actions by saudi arabian idiots.

It takes a whole lot of idiots,fools and criminals to commit over 400,000 crimes each year.
It doesn't take racial profiling to believe that the idiot pointing a gun in your face is bad for your health.

Seriously, have you gotten anyone to buy that analogy?

1. The persons who steal a jet plane and fly it into a building get to be the cause of everything that happens to that building and its contents afterwards. Fair is fair. They did the work. They get the credit.

2. "Guns did not cause Columbine, or V.T. incident, etc." "Incident"???? Karl Rove writing for you? MASSACRE. See, if you go to kill people with a knife, a slingshot, a BB gun...you may get a few dead people, you may get "incidents," BUT YOU DON'T GET A MASSACRE.

Own it, Bubbeleh. GUNS CAUSE MASSACRES. Now, a determined army of people with vastly inferior weapons can indeed cause a massacre with sheer industrious effort, but two teenagers? One writing student? YOU NEED A GUN FOR A ONE-MAN MASSACRE.

Now slink away and don't try these tricks on grownups.

Though your tone and post don't really deserve it.

The difference between 9/11 and gun tragedies is that after 9/11, no one tried to ban airplanes. So why, after a tragedy involving guns, do some people always try to ban guns?

You don't make your case with distortions of language and outright lies.

Or maybe that's the only way to make that specious case.

of items designed for the purpose of killing living beings?

Really? Do you really think that bigotry against people is like hatred of devices that are designed to kill?

Ever hear the term "apples and oranges" ?

And calling some liberals' response to guns a "dislike" is a laugh. And guns are "designed to kill"? So what? We give them to the police, these evil, evil, weapons.

And the comparison works in terms of a kneejerk, they-all-is-bad-regardless-of-the-context mindset.

to being anti-gun, no matter how strident the anti-gun people may be. The comparison is utterly absurd.

Some Arabs are terrorists, therefore the millions of peaceful Arabs are a grave threat to America.

Some guns are used by criminals, therefore all guns are a threat to America.

One of the few bits of patently Republican thinking commonly found among Democrats.

And I understood your title immediately, too: for some on the left, a mindless, no-thinking-necessary approach rules their response to gun laws, just as some on the right respond to Arabs.

claim guns cause massacres and this scumbag could not have committed this massacre himself without them forget...


Neither is true UNLESS the potential victims are guaranteed to be disarmed.


I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that you really dont want to discuss that part.

Your comparing bigotry against human beings to regulations of inanimate objects. That is disgusting.

In the running, sure.

There is a lot of competition after all. :D

because The Straight Story has posted on a lot of other stuff ;).

Both the anti-Arab prejudice and the anti-gun prejudice are knee-jerk reactions to complex problems. Guns are the one issue where many prominent Democrats remind of of Republicans, spouting robotic platitudes instead of trying to get a deeper understanding of the issue.

These guys have a partyline tighter than Stalinists.

not all of it, that takes people, but a nation awash in guns is going to have problems.

My suggestion for the problem here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x685143

I appreciate your posts so much.. even when I don't agree with them (and I do 90% of the time).


I totally agree with you on this one.