To: President Barack Obama
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re: Optics
President Obama,
You made a big show of flying the “Newtown Parents” – white, upper-middle-class suburban Americans all – to the White House on Air Force One.
I have nothing but sympathy for the parents of Newtown. Losing a kid is the worst thing I can imagine. And God willing, imagining is all I have to do so far. Knock wood.
But I’m wondering – were there any bereaved parents from Chicago on the plane? Any standing with you in the Rose Garden yesterday?
No, Mr. President. You surrounded yourself with bereaved parents who looked like NPR producers and CNN reporters, rather than residents of projects and parents of “working families”. Why was that?
Because it looks to me like you’re trying less to make America – including the parts of it where black people are being gunned down daily – safer, and more like you’re trying to get white, upper-middle-class people to dig deeeeeep for the next Congressional election.
That is all.
Gun controllers are a very white crowd. I expect msnbc to be all over this immediately.
This is worth a listen:Really? I would have thought that because I’ve got personal experience that my views ought to be dismissed out of hand.
Someone needs to show this to Piers Morgan.
I hate to be the contrarian here but white folks are far more likely to die from their own gun (suicide or accident) than to be the victim of a homicide.
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/leading_causes.html
Once again Emery advances the notion that guns are somehow volitional instruments and that people wouldn’t think of killing themselves if the gun wasn’t there prompting them to do it.
“Ban guns to prevent suicide” – is that what you are saying, Emery? Really? That’s your arguement?
this:
“Cultural and religious beliefs that discourage suicide and support instincts for self-preservation”
from Emery’s link sounds suspiciously like the CDC endorsing Christianity and/or Judaism which any lefty will tell you invalidates any point they might make.
/“Ban guns to prevent suicide” – is that what you are saying, Emery?/
With all due respect Sir, a white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun. Those are the facts. You may not like them but they are the facts.
Gun ownership is a personal choice. That’s my position.
Fortunately for me, I have 100% control over that likelihood.
Emery, look at the suicide rate in this country with no gun control and at the suicide rate in Britain where guns are banned: they’re essentially equal. And the US is lower than France, and practically tied with most of Western Europe and Canada.
Try again, the data show your logic is flawed — banning guns won’t appreciably affect the suicide rate.
nerbert;
I understand the statistics are not very well known and are rather surprising.
Let me make clear that I support the second amendment. Having said that, are you able point to an example in either of my two comments that advocates for anything resembling “banning guns” or any gun control measures in general?
Suicide is absent from the discussion of gun policy. The availability of firearms does indeed increase the risk of suicide, but most people don’t see it that way. A safely stored firearm reduces it’s “availability”.
My hope is that these statistics would bring a little more attention to gun safety and how we store and secure our firearms. It’s a matter of Personal responsibility, not additional laws or regulations.
“…a white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun..”
White person? What the hell kind of papspewin’ moonbat are you Emery? You mean “Old, White, Republican Men”. Say it loud and proud, son.
‘Cause everybody knows Old, White, Democrat Men live long enough to contribute to the community, then die peacefully in a wonderful, sustainable urban neighborhood, beneath swaying palm trees with a piece of government brie in their hands.
Their graves are marked with Peace Poles inscribed with tales of their heroic deeds by a diverse group of public school children.
“The availability of firearms does indeed increase the risk of suicide…” So does living food stamp to mouth in the rubble of the leftist agenda. Ask anyone from Detroit.
The availability of firearms does indeed increase the risk of suicide, but most people don’t see it that way.
If you mean that availability of firearms increases the risk of suicide by firearm, I’d tend to agree. But if you mean that availability of firearms actually increases the overall suicide rate I’d like to see your source.
Given that “success” in committing suicide is enhanced by an attempt with a firearm and seeing that the suicide “success” rate is approximately the same in Western Europe as America, we come to the inference that the suicide rate isn’t particularly impacted by access to firearms, but rather by cultural factors. Wikipedia’s list of suicide rates shows a strong presence of countries that ban gun ownership at the top of the list, which again seems to run counter to your argument. Or can you point to data showing otherwise?
Me thinks Darla is projecting his man-crush on Alfalfa once again.
“Emery, I wish I knew how to quit you.”
@ nerdbert, I’m pleased you were able to move past your gun control assertions.
I am cynical enough to believe that Obama doesn’t really care about gun control, or the wishes of the Newton parents. He wanted a victory here to gain points with his base. For Obama it’s all about regaining the house in 2014. That’s what he saw slipping away from him, that’s why he took his loss on gun control so personally.
If he can’t ‘bring home the bacon’ to his base, they will start thinking that he is a worse civil rights violator than Bush, and that his economic policies are hurting poor people, minorities, and bankrupting the country.
“The availability of firearms does indeed increase the risk of suicide . . . .”
I get out of bed every morning, then the sun comes up. Does my getting out of bed CAUSE the sun to come up? Or is it a coincidence?
Americans kill themselves with firearms. Do the firearms CAUSE Americans to kill themselves? Or is it a coincidence? If all the firearms in America disappeared, would there be nothing to cause suicide = no more suicide?
Emery, can you show us proof of causation, not mere correlation, to back your assertion that firearms cause suicide? Causation is the element the CDC keeps trying to slide past us, and it looks as if you are, too, even after Nerdbert called you on it in his 2:57 post.
Forget John Galt, who is Joe Doakes? He is every man.
Do not confuse gun safety with the 2nd amendment.
Epidemiological studies can be useful, but we should never forget that they find correlation, not causation.
The first epidemiological studies on smoking showed that it was associated with heart and lung disease, and cancer. The epidemiological studies led to controlled studies that showed that smoking caused these health problems, it was not merely associated with them (I believe the controlled studies used cows and pigs and stand ins for human beings).
Confusing epidemiological studies with controlled studies is not confined to the left, but ir is a hallmark of the left. I suppose that this is because they are convinced that science is on their side. I’ve seen the most ridiculous ‘studies’ produced as proof-positive that banks discriminate based on race, guns ’cause’ violence, etc.
When people compare murder rates between the U.S. and other countries, they are citing epidemiogical evidence. There is no proof — none — that if the U.S. were to successfully ban civilian ownership of guns, the rate of murder or suicide would be reduced.
@ nerdbert, I’m pleased you were able to move past your gun control assertions.
Uhh, not hardly.
Mitch noted that Obama is using sympathetic rich white folks to sell gun control.
You took the position that guns were somehow contributing factors to suicide, which I questioned. I still maintain that the data don’t support your conclusion, and I’m still asking you to justify that position.
Terry,
You are right to remind us to keep things in perspective. Almost all of us will die of cancer or cardiovascular disease. Pneumonia and other infections will take their toll. Of those of us who die of trauma, most of it will be the result of car wrecks. 200 of us every year will be struck by lightning. Of those very few of us who die of homicidal violence, it will most likely have been inflicted upon us by someone we know.
Mass murders, terrorist attacks, crazed gunmen, and the like are so rare that there’s no reason for us to even consider them individually as a likely cause of our demise. If statistics are hard to take to heart, I think we can all at least appreciate that by definition, if something is on the news, it must be something that doesn’t happen very often. It’s the old “dog bites man” versus “man bites dog” thing.
If we can choose our actions, Emery, our actions are very important. More important than anything in the natural world we have observed. A galaxy forming a trillion, billion miles away from us is doing just what nature demands of it. It is of less consequence than a single person, out of charity, giving a few dollars to a beggar.
Nature knows no charity.