{"id":67362,"date":"2018-07-05T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-07-05T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=67362"},"modified":"2018-07-05T15:55:36","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T20:55:36","slug":"common-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=67362","title":{"rendered":"“Common Ground”"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is eating a plate of galbi and kimchi at Mirror of Korea on Snelling Avenue.\u00a0 Lost in a gustatory reverie, he fails to notice Avery LIBRELLE has entered the restaurant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Merg!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 (Shaken from his bliss<\/em>) Oh, hey, Avery.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 It’s time for us to find common ground on commonsense gun violence legislation.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Well, that’s great.\u00a0 So what do you propose for that “common ground”?’<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Our common ground should include background checks, bringing back Obama’s law preventing the mentally ill from easy access to guns, bans on certain types of guns, online restrictions, stop exploiting the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Huh.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Yes, these would be hard to do but we have to start somewhere.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 Well, one of the important exercises of finding common ground is defining the ground we do not\u00a0<\/em>have in common.\u00a0\u00a0OK. Let\u2019s go through this one at a time.<\/p>\n

Background checks \u2013 we already have them. If you\u2019re talking about \u201cuniversal background checks\u201c, they have two huge problems; people to get guns illegally today, will still get them exactly the same way when they are \u201cuniversal\u201c. And there is no way for \u201cUniversal\u201d background checks to work without a national registry of who has actually taken background checks, and for which firearms. If you want to ask for a registry, say it in is many words \u2013 and watch for the consequences.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure which Obama era law you\u2019re talking about; there are already laws against violently mentally ill people getting guns.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s already supposed to be reported in some form to the NICS database.\u00a0 But the reporting is extremely uneven, as are the standards for who is considered \u201cviolently mentally ill\u201d. Also, many state level laws have no due process; a malicious denunciation can and does deprive people of their rights. In what other area do people find that acceptable?<\/p>\n

Banning certain types of guns \u2013 well, then you are anti-gun. “Assault weapon” bans had absolutely zero effect on crime from 1994 to2004; they are used in far less than 1% of all firearm homicides nationwide. It\u2019s security theater and no more.<\/p>\n

Not sure what you mean by \u201cexploiting the Second Amendment\u201c; it sounds like another way of saying \u201cstop standing up for your rights\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0I’d love a clarification.<\/p>\n

Finally – you say \u201cWe have to start somewhere\u201d \u2013 and we have! Were you aware that firearm homicides are down 50% in the last 20 years? That firearm homicides at schools are down 75%?\u00a0 \u00a0And that\u2019s almost entirely due to policies the NRA and us law abiding shooters have pressed for.<\/p>\n

This is why when people ask for \u201ccommonsense gun laws\u201c, I asked if they get into specific policies immediately. None of the ones that people on the left are calling for will do a bit of good. Ever.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Typical conservative.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I give you some common ground, and you don’t accept it.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 “Common ground” can’t be dictated!\u00a0 \u00a0But I’ll do my bit, here:\u00a0 how about\u00a0 we start with getting the Department of Justice to take straw buyers seriously, and start intervening with at risk youth before they join gangs, and maybe come up with a “Red Flag” law that doesn’t trample due process?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 But what do any of those have to do with school shootings?<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 School shootings are a tiny fraction of the homicides in this country, compared to gang violence and…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I don’t care about any of that.\u00a0 \u00a0And you’re being a typical conservative.\u00a0 I’ve told you what our common ground will be…<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 You’re not “seeking common ground”; you’re trying to…<\/p>\n

(But LIBRELLE’s attention has wandered already<\/em>)<\/p>\n

WAITRESS:\u00a0 Hey, si…er, ma’… (Looks at BERG, at a loss.\u00a0 BERG shrugs.\u00a0 WAITRESS continues) Would you like to have a seat?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 \u00a0Is your kimchi non-GMO?<\/p>\n

(And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n

PS:\u00a0 Every single one of Avery’s words is a very close paraphrase of something I’ve heard from liberals on social media or in person in the past week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is eating a plate of galbi and kimchi at Mirror of Korea on Snelling Avenue.\u00a0 Lost in a gustatory reverie, he fails to notice Avery LIBRELLE has entered the restaurant.\u00a0\u00a0 LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Merg! BERG:\u00a0 (Shaken from his bliss) Oh, hey, Avery. LIBRELLE:\u00a0 It’s time for us to find common ground on commonsense gun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-67362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victim-disarmament","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67362"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67365,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67362\/revisions\/67365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}