Shot in the Dark

Degüello, Metaphorically Speaking

Question: Why did President Harris go so long on gun control at Biden’s “bedtime chat” the toher night?

Answer: Because Big Left may not get another chance at it, at least not via due process of law.

Americans are ditching gun control:

The number of Americans supporting enacting new gun laws over protecting gun rights fell from 57 percent to 50 percent, a seven-point drop from when the poll was last conducted in 2018. The number of Americans favoring gun rights jumped from 34 to 43 percent, a nine-point jump. The difference between the two positions narrowed by 16 points overall.

The sharpest decline in support for new gun-control measures came among 18 to 29-year-olds and Hispanics. Both groups saw a 20 percent drop. Rural Americans and strong conservatives saw a 17-point drop.

The downturn in gun-control support comes even after multiple high-profile mass shootings in Colorado, Indiana, and Georgia. The ABC/Washington Post poll is the second in as many weeks to show support for gun control waning. A Pew Research poll released on April 21 found the same seven-point drop in support for stricter gun laws.

The polling trend lends support to the idea new gun owners are beginning to change their attitudes on guns. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gun makers and dealers, estimated there were 8.4 million new gun owners in 2020. Since gun owners tend to oppose new gun-control measures at a higher rate than non-gun owners, the drop in polling support for new gun laws may be a result of those new gun owners changing their minds.

There’s a strong case to be made that gun rights are winning the culture war – we’ve talked about it before – and this stiudy is some fairly solid evidence toward the thesis.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the problem: when we’re on defense, gun owners and gun rights supporters are second to none. If every conservative constituency in the US were as diligent at organizing and wielding power as shooters, Congress would look like the North Dakota legislature – there wouldn’t be enough elected Democrats to staff their committee assignments. When there’s a threat, we turn out like an onslaught of biblical wrath.

But when times are good?

Most especially when Republicans – who are reliably pro-gun, and the few exceptions prove the rule – control Congress and our legislatures, we go back to “real life”. Which befits us, as (mostly) conservatives; we don’t want politics to be our daily grind. We have real lives.

But with the SCOTUS on the brink of taking on a case that could impose strict scrutiny on state gun control laws, we, the good guys, need to resolve to fight this thing through to its bitter conclusion, just as our grandparents and great-grandparents did in 1945 – until the war is over for good. Until there’s no doubt.

Until gun control is as dead as the slavery in which is was born.

No quarter. No compromise.

UPDATE: Well, that went to hell quickly.

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Mitch Berg

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23 responses to “Degüello, Metaphorically Speaking”

  1. Paddyboy Avatar
    Paddyboy

    WW2 was NOT about gun control, what a load of crap. GI’s did not rush to recruiting stations saying, “let’s go save those Germans from the oppression of gun control.” Not in the slightest. That you want to conflate it as such just shows the desperate measures to which you’ll go to co-opt something good (defending democratic ideals and ending genocidal/autocratic regimes) with something as stupid as saying it was about gun control. You know better, you just won’t say it. In fact, as you WELL know, in 1939, there was a landmark 2nd Amendment case that made it very clear SCOTUS at the time viewed the 2nd Amendment very differently, defining sawed-off shotguns as not protected by the 2nd Amendment because they were not ‘tools of war’ (my paraphrase), so to say US soldiers viewed our action in bringing down HItler/Tojo/Mousolinni as being about the rights taken from Jews to bear arms is absurd as suggesting it was about the right to smoke cigarettes.

    You rail against authoritarianism only when it suits you. You claim libertarian roots but all too gladly accept needless restrictions on voter registration (and now access to the polls) to stop fraud which is neither wide-spread nor common, nor, by and large, perpetrated when it is found, by anyone other than members of the GOP. You divine solutions Big Gov’mint solutions to non-existent problems, not because you believe in the problem but because WINNING is all that matters to you, even if you usurp the will of the majority. You applauded Mitch McConnell unconstitutionally delaying a vote on Merrick Garland, thereby denying Obama the right he had to appoint Scalia’s replacement. You talk about protecting liberty and protecting us from authoritarianism yet are fine with misusing the tools of government to stack the court, and in so doing putting in place what is nothing other than a minority view on various constitutional principles.

    Likewise, you blither blather about borders and the need to “secure” them while happily embracing offshoring of jobs, something that has the exact effect so-called cheap, immigrant labor has on our economy. You (with tRump) leading, built 52 miles of new border wall, rather than hundreds of miles, with most of the work going merely to maintain/restore to some degree, walls already in place. At that pace it will be something like 400 years before there will be a wall along that border, a wall which every military expert imaginable has said will fail without substantial investment in manpower to monitor, and to what end? Saving on tax expense for benefits? No, immigrants (including undocumented) contribute far more in taxes than any benefits received. Security? Hardly, we’re not going to be invaded by Mexico. Saving jobs.. see above.

    So, once again, a Big Gov’mint solution insufficient to address the underlying problem – which is the problem of a designed-in over-supply of labor, something you otherwise (prior to tRump) applauded.

    Pardon us, therefore, for laughing out loud at your alligator-ear laden complaints about the 2nd Amendment. It IS the only Amendment you care about, that’s abundantly clear, but saying that you care about authoritarianism or limited government is a joke. You absolutely do not. You endorse physical invasion (by medical staff) to intimidate people into not seeking abortion, yet belly-ache about a non-political issue of wearing masks for a time for public health/safety. You belly-ache about tyranny, when you endorse restricting the franchise, and you caterwaul about borders and “jobs” and stealing benefits when you vote (repeatedly) to permit the destruction of pensions, the movement of jobs overseas (by protecting companies from being taxed to help retard that activity) and by endorsing pols who avidly support making the rich richer, all the time. You are the pawns of the wealthy, and in so being, you have through deeds, not words, endorsed a government which looks more and more like Mexico’s, and less and less like that of the United States in 1945. You are the willing slaves but don’t ask us to be also.

  2. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    The case is United States v. Miller, 307 US 174 (1939). The relevant passages:

    “In the absence of any evidence tending to show . . . we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.”

    and

    “We are unable to accept the conclusion of the court below and the challenged judgment must be reversed. The cause will be remanded for further proceedings.”

    The case was remanded to the trial court for additional findings but Miller died before the case was reheard.

  3. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    To clarify my comment: the Supreme Court did not say the Second Amendment covered sawed-off shotguns, and it did not say the Second Amendment did not cover sawed-off shotguns. The Supreme Court said there wasn’t enough evidence in the record to make a decision whether the Second Amendment covered sawed-off shotguns. That’s why the case was remanded – to gather additional evidence so the Court could make the decision.

    The commenter is citing the case for a holding that the Supreme Court specifically declined to make.

  4. Dr. Pete"Sedition Boy"Strunk Avatar
    Dr. Pete”Sedition Boy”Strunk

    WW2 was NOT about gun control, what a load of crap. GI’s did not rush to recruiting stations saying, “let’s go save those Germans from the oppression of gun control.”

    I’m always grateful when Peevee puts his best low IQ quotations right up front, so we don’t have to wade through 10 paragraphs of inchoate screeching to find the plums.

  5. TKS Avatar
    TKS

    First half of the first sentence completely irrelevant and paddy is TL;DR

  6. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    DPS? Plums? You mean horse apples?

  7. Troy Avatar
    Troy

    It was refreshing to read the “I didn’t really understand the post at all” section right up front.
    Thank you, Paddyboy!

  8. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    I was going to comment on patsy’s UTTER lack of comprehension, but you guys beat me to it.

    Hint peevee, its about taking the fight, whatever the fight, all the way to its conclusion.

    My post yesterday about the left being in a panic, causing them to utter the most ridiculous nonsense is proven again.

  9. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    PS: Mitch, nice “Rio Bravo” reference, deliberate or otherwise.

  10. Dr. Pete"Sedition Boy"Strunk Avatar
    Dr. Pete”Sedition Boy”Strunk

    Peevee’s insane screeds have lost their propensity to rest on the authority of an acknowledged expert who happens to live down the street from him.

    I guess he’s tossed the cringingly obvious lying over the proverbial fence to Potato Head.

  11. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    kin, it was a reference to ZZ Top, duh!

  12. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    JPA: did not know that!

  13. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    You finally got it right.

    No.

    Change the subject.

  14. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Paddy,

    WW2 was NOT about gun control, what a load of crap

    What on earth are you talking about?

    This is a story about a public opinion poll.

    Are you reading the wrong thread, or what?

  15. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    All,

    I”ve left a post a few down the way for arguing about the Holocaust – an even that, all due respect, I find inarguable, for reasons historical and personal.

    Now – Paddyboy? Where did I mention World War 2?

    I’m afraid for you health, old friend.

  16. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Kinlaw and JPA,

    It was an “Alamo” reference, but Rio Bravo and ZZ Top are also accepted.

  17. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    It was an “Alamo” reference, but Rio Bravo and ZZ Top are also accepted.

    I am reasonably certain ZZ Top was familiar with the source material.

  18. AllenS Avatar
    AllenS

    Mitch, get new friends.

  19. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Mitch, two new deguello references I never knew!

    Rio Bravo is my fave Duke movie.

  20. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    PS I guess I missed the fireworks. I had just responded to JPA about ZZ Top and then had to actually do work at my job., so I came back later, comments closed, now they are up again.

    Paddywhacker cap himself? (or crap himself?)

  21. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Since this is a gun grab thread I would like to add this, seen on Kurt Schlicter’s twit feed. The graboids have a shiny new factoid of falseness, that is to wit:

    147 mass shootings in this country this year alone.

    The stupid is so powerful, it burns.

    Would love (well, maybe) to see what they include to get that fairy tale.

  22. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Kinlaw,

    That’s easy. They use the FBI’s definition of “Mass shooting”. It includes any shooting with 3 or more victims (maybe four, I can’t recall), dead or wounded.

    See the problem?

    Every gangland drive-by that sends three rivals or bystanders to a hospital or morgue; every tragic family murder-suicide; every botched robbery; every drug dealer that rubs out three junkies who didn’t pay their bills; even some self-defense shootings involving 3-4 home invaders getting kacked or winged by a citizen. They all get classified as “Mass Shootings”, whatever the motive.

    The correct term is “Spree Killing” or “Rampage Killing” – where killing is the ONLY motive. The Feds classify those separatelyl, for good reason. Big Left and the media have done their best to obfuscate the distinction.

  23. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    They want you to think of a mad man running through a shopping mall, machine-gunning down innocent shoppers. The truth is typically like this:
    https://www.wrbl.com/news/local-news/four-shot-at-phenix-city-motel-party/

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