4 Straw Men the Left Love Tilting At

OR, Amanda Marcotte is STILL Dumb

Fresh from the music magazine that did all that great research and fact checking about the rape culture of Virginia frat houses, we have 4 Pro-Gun Arguments We’re Sick of Hearing, which are actually four specifically chosen gun arguments Marcotte thinks she’s smart enough to take down. We’ll see.

Another day, another horrible mass shooting.

I was unaware of this fact; can anyone cite a source that shows a mass shooting every day in the United States? Oh wait, she provides it in this paragraph:

While victims are being rushed to the hospital, many right-wing pundits and politicians are no doubt readying their talking points to explain why the 264th mass shooting of the year does not mean the United States should tighten up access to deadly firearms.

The link was to another rolling stone article, that linked to Gun Violence Archive (surely no bias there). When I started looking through their incident reports and original sources… a whole lot of these are gang activity. This isn’t a random spree shooter type of violence; it is disingenuous to compare the two (but these are anti-rights activists). In many cases, “police believe the victims knew each other.” That’s not a random act of violence like the school shooting. A disproportionate number also happen in Chicago — strict gun laws and all that. At least one that I clicked on only had two victims and sounded like domestic violence.

Again, not the same thing.

Also — that accusation against right-wing pundits is rich given that not only did Obama politicize the murders before the bodies were counted, he also admitted to it and said that we should politicize it. Well, if you’re going to make politics of a tragedy people are going to fight back (sorry is that triggering?). Rolling over and letting you pet our bellies never works with liberals.

Well, guys, I hate to break it to you, but we heard you the first time. And the second time. And the hundreds of times since that our country has grappled with an individual eager to take out as many lives as possible with a firearm. We can recite your arguments in our sleep, and they haven’t grown better through repetition.

Right back at you. However, in your case: Hearing clearly isn’t understanding.

1. “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

I’m not going to quote her whole paragraph about how guns are efficient at killing; duh. This isn’t often said as a point all its own. This is part of a greater argument. Guns don’t kill people — and alcohol doesn’t cause DUIs. People are the common factor there. To be fair, judging by the cited statistics from her page, guns don’t kill people — black people with guns in Chicago kill people. Except I’m not stupid enough to only look at one portion of the statistics presented and assume that’s the point to make.

Guns aren’t sentient. Millions of guns haven’t been used in crimes at all. It’s not the guns that are the problem, and if they were somehow magic voodoo death causers, we’d have a lot more murder now that we have a lot more guns. Since the 90s, gun ownership has exploded. Violent crime — even spree shooting — has went down. But the media is pushing harder and harder on this and glamorizing the bastards doing it (this killer outright said he wanted notoriety like the scum who killed those reporters weeks ago). Kind of like how there’ve been a low in hurricanes since the year of Katrina, but damned if the media isn’t going to go off like each one is going to eat the world.

2. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

If this isn’t true: then why do celebrities, politicians, and rich people have armed security?

I don’t think the secret service are only armed with batons made of stale french bread.

Marcotte even admits there are near as many guns as people. Yet there aren’t nearly 300 million murders a year. Why is that?

I’ll allow that I can’t come up with a spree shooter stopped with a civilian gun. But there are something like a million reported defensive uses of guns a year, if I recall correctly. Just because civilian guns aren’t stopping spree shooters (a relatively rare phenomenon), doesn’t mean they aren’t stopping crime.

Also, how did this last one end? The cops engaged and the shooter is dead. Good guys showed up with guns.

3. “But, mental health!”

How many spree shooters like this one haven’t turned out to be bugfuck nuts?

Zero.

Her basic argument here is that there isn’t any easy way to tell who is crazy and who isn’t, so we shouldn’t try. Instead, I suppose, we should take away everyone’s rights. Because feelings.

4. “Second Amendment, baby.”
Here’s a good time to remind everyone that the Second Amendment was written by slaveholders before we had electricity, much less the kind of weaponry that would-be murderers can buy today.

Here’s a good time to remind everyone that the First Amendment was written by slaveholders before we had electricity, much less the kind of speech platforms that would-be defamers can use today.

Here’s a good time to remind everyone that the Third Amendment was written by slaveholders before we had big houses, much less the kind of opulent air-conditioned wonderlands would-be free citizens can buy today.

Et cetera, ad nauseum, more Latin phrases.

But sure, if you think it’s that precious, we can compromise: If you love the Second Amendment that much, feel free to live in a powdered wig and shit in a chamberpot while trying to survive off what you can kill with an 18th century musket.

See above arguments. If you think your right to free speech on the internet is that precious, etc the rest of her tripe.

In exchange, let those of us living in this century pass some laws so we can feel safe going to class, or the movies, or anywhere without worrying that some maladjusted man will try to get his revenge by raining death on random strangers.

In exchange for us letting you live in states with high levels of gun control, let those of us living with some sense own and carry effective firearms so that we can feel safe going to class, or the movies, or anywhere without worrying that some maladjusted man will try to get his revenge by raining death on random strangers while we wait in fear for the cops to show up and kill him for us.

When you abandon logic and just go on your precious feeeeeelings it works both ways. What makes your feelings any more valid than mine? Oh, you’re scared of a gun wielding maniac? Me too. You think you can pass a law that will effectively stop him?

Is that like how the government has stamped out illegal drugs? Or how in the 1920s and early 1930s they were able to assure the citizens that no alcohol was being produced or consumed in the United States?

Has gun registration and confiscation worked in Australia or England?

What people like Marcotte want is for Big Daddy Government to pat them on the head and say it is all okay, and that the government will look out for you and protect you from those crazy right-wingers.

It’ll just take us ten to thirty minutes to get there.