A little help for the 2A ambassadors

[Seedy]

I wrote this for all the folks out there who need a little help dealing with gun control advocates on social media. Please feel free to share.

How to not sound like an idiot when speaking to a firearm enthusiast about gun control.

Here's a few pointers for those of you who want to have a "gun control" discussion with me or any other firearms enthusiast.

"Magazine" vs. "Clips"

Those things you want to ban are "high capacity magazines", not "high capacity clips". "Clips" are generally associated with WWI and WWII era rifles. They are a cartridges linked together on a metal "clip"...hence the name. Google "M1 Garand" to see a clip fed rifle. Magazines (those things you insert into rifles and handguns) hold cartridges/ammo internally. Which brings me to tip #2:

"bullets"

The things that come out of muzzle of the gun are the bullets. The things you put into the magazines are cartridges, ammunition or ammo. The bullet is just the lead/steel/copper part at the end of the cartridge. Also, while funny, the Chris Rock "boolit control" bit is a sophomoric argument and GUESS WHAT? We've heard it before...

"Assault Rifles"

Personally, I hate this phrase. It is a media buzzword that makes as much sense to me as "Arson Matches", "Stab Knife" or "Pornography Camera". The "AR" in AR-15 DOES NOT STAND FOR ASSAULT RIFLE. It stands for "Armalite" the name of the company that first made them. As much as I despise the term "Assault Rifle" it IS a valid firearms term...however it is EXTREMELY MISUSED. The phrase first shows up as a rough translation of a WWII German word and it specifically refers to: A Select fire (burst/full auto capable NOT a semi-auto) rifle that fires an intermediate round (larger than a handgun round, smaller than a traditional Rifle round). NOTE that "Assault Rifles" as they are properly defined are ALREADY HEAVILY REGULATED BY THE NFA (National Firearms Act). In fact all legally owned TRUE Assault Rifles in the United States are registered with BATFE,their owners have undergone extensive background checks before taking possession of the assault rifle, paid a $200 tax AND the BATFE not only requires the weapons be locked up but actually has the authority to knock on the door of an Assault Rifle owner AT ANY TIME and request to inspect the weapon!

"Automatic" vs "Semi-Auto" vs "Select Fire"

Let's be specific. When you talk about "automatics" do you mean a "full auto/Select fire" weapon where one trigger pull = more than one round fired, or do you mean a "Semi-Auto" where one trigger pull = one round fired?

Hunting and "Sporting Purposes"

Telling me that I shouldn't be able to own a specific firearm because it "has no sporting purpose" or "isn't used to hunt" holds no weight. The Second Amendment doesn't talk about "sporting purposes" or "hunting". If your argument includes "no sporting purpose" or "can't hunt with" as to why you want to infringe on my right to bear arms, please throw that argument out and start over.

Registration

Here in Oklahoma MOST firearms (all those that don't fall under the NFA) are not registered. We don't "register" firearms here in Oklahoma. The exception are weapons that fall under the NFA: Short Barreled Rifles, Short Barreled shotguns, suppressors, machine guns (select fire/full auto), destructive devices and the like.

 

[Seedy]

Good? Bad? Helpful/hurtful? STFU seedy? No feedback at all?

 

[MoBoost]

English is the most diverse and the fastest growing language in the world - explaining what words mean to a native speaker does make you "sound like an idiot." Find a different war front.

 

[Shadowrider]

Here is an article from the brilliant Dr. Thomas Sowell that brilliantly shows some fact based arguments for the other side's "facts". The ending is particularly epic.

Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of "gun control" advocates?

The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.

If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.

Places and times with the strongest gun control laws have often been places and times with high murder rates. Washington, D.C., is a classic example, but just one among many.

When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.

The few counter-examples offered by gun control zealots do not stand up under scrutiny. Perhaps their strongest talking point is that Britain has stronger gun control laws than the United States and lower murder rates.

But, if you look back through history, you will find that Britain has had a lower murder rate than the United States for more than two centuries-- and, for most of that time, the British had no more stringent gun control laws than the United States. Indeed, neither country had stringent gun control for most of that time.

In the middle of the 20th century, you could buy a shotgun in London with no questions asked. New York, which at that time had had the stringent Sullivan Law restricting gun ownership since 1911, still had several times the gun murder rate of London, as well as several times the London murder rate with other weapons.

Neither guns nor gun control was not the reason for the difference in murder rates. People were the difference.

Yet many of the most zealous advocates of gun control laws, on both sides of the Atlantic, have also been advocates of leniency toward criminals.

In Britain, such people have been so successful that legal gun ownership has been reduced almost to the vanishing point, while even most convicted felons in Britain are not put behind bars. The crime rate, including the rate of crimes committed with guns, is far higher in Britain now than it was back in the days when there were few restrictions on Britons buying firearms.

In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s-- after decades of ever tightening gun ownership restrictions-- there were more than a hundred times as many armed robberies.

Gun control zealots' choice of Britain for comparison with the United States has been wholly tendentious, not only because it ignored the history of the two countries, but also because it ignored other countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States, such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico. All of these countries have higher murder rates than the United States.

You could compare other sets of countries and get similar results. Gun ownership has been three times as high in Switzerland as in Germany, but the Swiss have had lower murder rates. Other countries with high rates of gun ownership and low murder rates include Israel, New Zealand, and Finland.

Guns are not the problem. People are the problem-- including people who are determined to push gun control laws, either in ignorance of the facts or in defiance of the facts.

There is innocent ignorance and there is invincible, dogmatic and self-righteous ignorance. Every tragic mass shooting seems to bring out examples of both among gun control advocates.

Some years back, there was a professor whose advocacy of gun control led him to produce a "study" that became so discredited that he resigned from his university. This column predicted at the time that this discredited study would continue to be cited by gun control advocates. But I had no idea that this would happen the very next week in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

---

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

Source link: Clicky

 

[CHenry]

Seedy, I stole that and posted it on my facebook.

 

[kd5rjz]

I've just started to tell everyone I had to take a month long class and undergo an FBI background check before I could buy a gun, and there was a $500 tax for each gun. Then they say the law sounds pretty fair and leave me alone.

 

[TallPrairie]

The UK is a terrible choice for gun controllers to idealize. Notice how carefully they limit the discussion to homicide rates. The UK overall violent crime rate is about four times greater than the US. That represents thousands upon thousands of robberies, serious assaults, and other violent crimes. A terrible deterioration of the civilized social fabric; imagine the insecurity and misery that causes.

Banning guns in Britain has meant you get a "Clockwork Orange," bully-run society where the young, strong toughs rule the streets. Where any two athletic guys with a baseball bat can invade and rob your home, terrify your family, without fear that you will have the tools to fight back effectively. That doesn't fly here.

Why anyone, but especially women (who are most likely to be at a physical advantage to attackers) would want to bring that kind of dysfunction to America is almost unimaginable to me. I can only conclude they are ignorant of the facts, or they haven't really thought it through.

 

[sklfco]

I take a much different approach. Whenever I encounter someone who is not pro-gun I do whatever I can to get them to the range and put a few rounds down the tube of the old .22.(It actually ended up being about 3 boxes and 2 handfuls of clay pigeons per trip) This year I have been able to convince 5 people. Was speaking with one last night and she told me about an argument she got into at work with some of her coworkers. Seems that a lot of the younger (20 something age) people at her work are all for giving up ALL firearms. Most saying that we have no need for them at all. After a bit of discussion she agreed to help me get one of them out to the range to experience what she did. I think there are just too many people around who have never had any exposure to firearms except what they read in what passes for news today with all of its slanted views.

 

[abajaj11]

I take a much different approach. Whenever I encounter someone who is not pro-gun I do whatever I can to get them to the range and put a few rounds down the tube of the old .22.(It actually ended up being about 3 boxes and 2 handfuls of clay pigeons per trip) This year I have been able to convince 5 people. Was speaking with one last night and she told me about an argument she got into at work with some of her coworkers. Seems that a lot of the younger (20 something age) people at her work are all for giving up ALL firearms. Most saying that we have no need for them at all. After a bit of discussion she agreed to help me get one of them out to the range to experience what she did. I think there are just too many people around who have never had any exposure to firearms except what they read in what passes for news today with all of its slanted views.

Bravo! This is what we all need to do. Convert them through action and reality.

 

[BadKarma]

The police department I work for has a public range day twice a month. I have been amazed to see the difference it
has made with many that come out to shoot. Not that many anti's but many are people with limited to no experience.
The interest these people develop has been amazing and many have gone out and bought their first gun or bought another. I
bring out a few from my collection and let them shoot those as well. I've sold a few AR's for the local gunshop as a result. Quite a few
came out prior to deciding on getting a carry license and have followed through by getting it. I feel honored to be able to teach, influence, and
maybe increase their interest, abilities, etc. All in all it's been a positive program for public relations as well as giving back
to the shooting sports.