There is little difference between disarming people by taking away their guns, their bullets or their right to vote. If what you want is a citizenry that becomes physically incapable of causing a ruckus, then the instrumentality of disarmament is of no consequence. It is the presumption that people need to be pacified which is of utmost concern.
Liberals, and those people who were most upset about W's declaration of war on the Axis of Evil, as well as those people who aim for nuclear disarmament ought to understand this presumption quite well. If you go out romping and stomping about some entire country of people who need to be stopped NOW, then it should not be surprising that people will be alarmed at the inherent arrogance. So when I hear people proclaiming loudly that they understand human nature and what ought to be done because of that, it makes me blink and think. How about you? There is almost no argument I have ever heard in defense of gun control that doesn't first begin with the argument and presumption that there is something wrong with America, they understand that, and the way to stop it NOW is romping and stomping all over the right to bear arms. No difference.
So when it came to war, wasn't it surprising that the biggest POW camp we ever saw in Iraq was Abu Graibh? Something must be wrong with a program of pacification that doesn't fill a nation the size of Iraq with dead men, given what we know American shock and awe can do and did on some tiny island like Iwo Jima. No, what we did was counter-insurgency. We even let Iraqi men keep their own weapons. Perhaps we weren't at war really, but just out to get the bad guys. Afghanistan has no mass graves. That ain't war. Nothing happened to North Korea - we even let them come to the Olympics. Or, in the same way that the War on Drugs is quite far from my mind here in sunny, pleasant, affluent Redondo Beach, perhaps the 'war' is very targeted, and very specifically lethal.
I don't bother worrying my tuchus about mass murder in the US. That's part and parcel of my understanding of the facts. The facts are that 30,000 Americans kill themselves every year. Suicide. 40,000 is the number for automobile deaths. The number for murder? Want to guess? 17,000.
When it comes to mass murder, by the way, I tend to remember that it wasn't too long ago when America had the popular nuttery to enact the 18th Amendment. And because of that the FBI got a good workout in homeland security against moonshiners and their gangster patrons who were armed to the teeth. I don't remember that much of my high school history, but even that domestic terror was eventually handled. Yeah we changed the law back, which was a good idea for those same pacification reasons I stated earlier, but we sure did grow the FBI. So there has never been a time in the past 80 years or so when we really couldn't handle the 'fire next time'. David Koresh is about as bad as it gets. Oh yeah, and the Mexican drug gangs. But that's not really my problem. So yeah. I shrug mass murder off, but I do everything to maintain my inner peace and I always buckle my seatbelt.
People talk all the time about how we're losing civil liberties all of the time. I'm wary, but I just don't see it. I have a feeling we're more losing civility, and that's because odious people keep taking liberties with their perversions, one of which is the kind of hate-baiting that wants to make it a crime to each Christian fried chicken. But that's just more noise, and people do have a right to get out of hand and make loud, uncivil noise.
I have a constitutional right to get out of hand, by bullet or by ballot, so I defend those rights, and I stand to mock those who think they know enough about me to pacify and disarm me. I'm no joker and I won't be disarmed without a fight.
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