Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Final Word on Gun Control


The violence with guns - especially assault weapons - goes on. Aurora, Sandy Hill(or Hook - some reports are one, some are another and it happened twice - a family slaughtered by the legal gun owner a couple of weeks after the more than two dozen adults and schoolkids were gunned down by the son of the legal gun owner - who was also shot to death by their family), the list goes on and will keep growing. Google "shot to death" and limit the search to the last 24 hours. The return results are appalling.

I wrote about the need for gun control before, of course. I also called for the second amendment to be repealed. I've pretty much beat this subject to death, but here I am with a stick beating it again because no one is listening.

The arguments have been put forth, of course. Repeal the second amendment because it's obsolete. We don't have well trained militias using their own arms. We have no will to mandate responsibility with gun ownership. Only cowards use firearms instead of cultivating their natural weapons: Wits and hands.

In response the NRA says put guns and armed guards in schools. Put more of the problem out there to deal with the problem. Yeah, that kind of delusional mentality is what we're working with here.

For example, we have an ultra-conservative (AKA Terrorist) hate-talk radio host, Alex Jones. He put up a petition to have Piers Morgan deported - a British citizen, liberal talk show host who had the unmitigated gall to exercise his right to free speech (Which actually is a right for everyone, not just citizens) by suggesting that the second amendment be repealed. He then went on Morgan's talk show, went ballistic and spouted the usual conservative bullshit about why we have guns in the first place.

Now, to be fair to right-wingers, Jones is a conspiracy nut, a libertarian (which means he's just plain fucking crazy for the same reason Ron Paul is fucking crazy - libertarianism, like communism and socialism, make utterly unfounded and delusional assumptions about changing basic human nature) and much like Rush Limbaugh, an egregious self promoter. He wasn't on the show to have a political discourse. He was there to pander to his audience.

But Jones said some pretty ignorant and moronic things which echoed the NRA's arguments about the reasons for justifying private citizen gun ownership.

The first was, "'Let me say, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms. No matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street begging for them to be taken. We will not relinquish them ", and my personal favorite was, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting. It's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs." Then after that, there's this point, "Take the woman in India, your piece earlier on CNN earlier, I was watching during Anderson Cooper's show, didn't tell you the women of India have signed giant petitions to get firearms because the police can't and won't protect them."

Now, keep in mind that this is all from someone who said, "I don't know, how many chimpanzees can dance on the head of a pin?" to the question, "Let's try again. How many gun murders were there in Britain last year?" We're not talking a cogent, rational human being here. We're talking about a bundle of hate, fear, self loathing and delusion. You know - a terrorist.

In any event, this terrorist did manage to articulate, in a stuttering, sputtering fashion, what the NRA seems to believe about the merits of gun ownership. So let us deconstruct these statements to show just how fucking retarded these people are.

First of all, "Let me say, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms. No matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street begging for them to be taken. We will not relinquish them."

The last time I looked, we lived in a democracy. If all the lemmings want to take your guns, THEY WILL. That's how democracies work. The majority rules. But ever since the gerrymandering effect of 2010, it's obvious conservatives don't believe in democracy, so I expect them to fight. Were I a believer in god, I'd call it a sign that we have the opportunity to help clean up the gene pool by forcing the issue, but I digress...

Fighting against the duly elected government is called treason. Calling for people to do that is called sedition. Both are federal offenses, and, potentially, capital offenses. If you don't like what your government is doing, you leave the country. This is how rational, sane people act. So the bottom line is that 1776 it isn't simply because we live in a democracy. We have taxation with representation. We have representation. The righties may not LIKE how it's going for them, but them's the breaks in a democracy. We moderates and those liberals were none too happy about GWB's little assault on personal rights during his presidency, but the country didn't rebel against him (until the sixth year of his presidency when the congress went liberal again and told GWB to pound sand up his ass).

For righties, not so much. They're far and away far more likely to rebel. And I hope to all the powers of the universe that they do.

You see, another aspect of the debate was articulated in the second inane argument Jones put out there, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting. It's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs."

Wanna bet?

Back in 1776 - Jones DID mention that date, by the way and it actually bears looking at - the "arms" available for the citizens did not significantly differ from those used by the military. Allow me to repeat that: The ARMS AVAILABLE TO THE CITIZENS WEREN'T DIFFERENT FROM THE MILITARY ARMS.

So, how many private citizens are open-carrying nukes around these days? RPG's? And we're only talking about 1940's tech there. That's 60+ years out of date with modern arms - which are NOT available to the average citizen. And guess what boys and girls? The U.S. military has those arms and these crazies do NOT. In fact, the presence of military-grade arms, or its lack, is why revolutions succeed, or fail.

In 1776, the U.S. wooed France and without her help, we'd never have won the Revolutionary War. In the South during the Civil War, the South tried to get British aid, but was successfully blockaded from that by the North. The result: The South failed to win. If one looks closely at revolutions across the years and countries - Russia, China, Yugoslavia and elsewhere - armed insurrection has only ever succeeded because of outside military-level aid to the rebels. It has never succeeded because of an armed citizenry. And as time goes on, with the disparity between the strength of arms available to the military and the citizens growing by orders of magnitude every year, the lessons of the past seem to be forgotten by the NRA and others.

The long and short of it is, if these "non-lemmings" fight, they'll get slaughtered - and that's why I hope to the powers of the universe that they fight. The human race could use a cleansing of the bottom of the barrel feeders on the IQ chain.

If one wants to really highlight now utterly retarded these people are, how disassociated from reality they are, how psychotic they are, keep this in mind:

In one breath they call the armed forces of the United States the most powerful military in the world. In the next breath, they think the armed forces of the United States will quail in fear because they have an AR-15. Yes, boys and girls and all the ships at sea, these morons can actually conceptualize taking on the most powerful military on the planet with an AR-15 and grim determination - and believe they'll win.

Well, I have news for them. After having had ten years of war to develop tactics that deal, rather effectively, with armed insurrectionists (not to mention the fact that Americans have killed more Americans than all enemies, terrorists or foreigners combined, making us pretty indifferent about slaughtering our own), I expect any insurrection they could POSSIBLY come up with to be met with more than sufficient firepower to turn them to ash. And the only tactics that could be even remotely effective is to surround themselves with civilians - you know, like any other terrorist in the world does - and engage in guerrila warfare (which the military has worked out how to deal with as well). The former will simply result in a lot of ashed civilians. The latter will be kinda fun doing a "hunger games" hunt for rebels and traitors.

What government is going to help THEM take down the U.S. government? Russia? China? After what they've called THEM over the years? Yeah, that's going to be a great plan. Maybe they'll get help from Mexico, if they can get over their racist, nationalist rants. In short, if they go against the U.S. government, they are going to be SO fucked.

And I'll be there, either eating popcorn and watching the short show, or taking up arms against those traitorous asshats and taking them out from 3000 yards myself. I expect to be joined by tens of millions of other patriotic Americans in this.

So as has been rather graphically illustrated, there is no stopping a tyrannical government with civilian-owned arms. No way. No how. I don't care how much ammo they've stockpiled. One RPG and they're done. One laser and they're done (Yes, they've developed them for anti-aircraft, but they work fine against people, too). One smart bullet and they're done. They don't have those, they don't have enough of those, they don't have enough people who are fucking stupid enough to fight WITH them. And there are a hell of a lot of people who will stand up against them that the government will gleefully arm with the latest and greatest weapons to take their traitorous asses out.

Now, that said, we haven't addressed the issue of "street thugs", or helping India arm its women because they're getting raped. This is another reason the NRA seems to think it's a good idea to have assault weapons in every pot or some such insanity. But let's look at history - modern history - for the sprays of gunfire by defenders of homes.

It ain't happened. Ever.

The police do it. Even the national guard. But Joe Average citizen will, at MOST, get off two shots. That's it. Almost all the time, they miss anyhow. Most Joes can't fucking AIM and since there's no regulation, rule or mandate for people to be competent with their firearms, most don't bother to learn anything more about their weapon than which end not to look down when pulling the trigger. Of course, somewhat over half of all firearms deaths are because the owner deliberately looks down that wrong end when pulling the trigger, but again, I digress...

The point is, two shots isn't a lot, but it's all that's usually ever done by civilians.

The only OTHER time you have multiple shots fired is when you have someone spraying a crowd of people with semi-auto or automatic weapons fire. If one thinks open carrying assault rifles will make people feel secure, think again. Yeah, it helps the fucktard carrying it because they lack the balls to actually learn skills to deal with situations, but no one knows what that fucktard is going to do with that firearm. And if someone is planning a "spray the crowd with gunfire" kind of tragedy, I suspect they'll scope things out first and make "Kill the asshat with the assault weapon" pretty much numero uno on their "to do" list.

Or they'll wear body armor as two men did in North Hollywood in 1997 and more are doing it today.

So much for your protection from the bad guys. Arming the home owner or the little girls in India ain't gonna cut it anymore. The criminal may be stupid, but he's not a fucking moron. They'll get body armor. The demand for it is WAY UP. And that defeats guns hands down.

As an FYI, a knife works well against body armor - better than guns, actually. Of course, if people could fucking AIM, almost no body armor covers the face and taking a round in the face is usually distracting enough to dissuade anyone from trying to spray gunfire all over the place, but that's way too much to ask from the spray and pray crowd of assault weapon enthusiasts. So what next? The right to keep and bear body armor?

Let's to back to the Sandy Hook School tragedy.

Will putting guns in to the hands of teachers, or even paying hundreds of millions to put armed guards into hundreds of thousands of schools, stop a gunman from killing a lot of kids again?

No.

Point of fact, any plan to take out a lot of people always includes dealing with opposition. Body armor would keep any gun-toting school guard or teacher from succeeding in killing or stopping the bad guy. Two men held off hundreds of cops in that North Hollywood bank robbery. One of the gunmen was shot in the leg eventually and bled out (likely on purpose) while the other shot himself in the head. He had no other wounds despite taking several dozen hits to his armor. And THOSE armed cops were actually trained to respond to situations like that.

Teachers aren't. Neither will putting retired cops or retired military personnel in schools solve the problem because they both rely on teamwork and support from others to react appropriately, and complacency WILL make its impact felt unless they undergo constant training - which makes the plan even LESS cost effective.

The problem is the American gun culture. At the same time, no one is arguing that we should repeal the second amendment as any sane nation that elects its leaders would do. So we're at a loggerheads in that unless the second amendment is dealt with in some way, we can not regulate guns because we have people who are stupid enough to breed with NRA members and pass along their defective genes and ideology.

However, there IS a way to deal with mass shootings that positively addresses every legal, legitimate excuse for gun ownership the NRA ever came up with without eliminating the second amendment as any sane nation would do.

Point of fact: The word "arms" is not explicitly defined in the second amendment.

As I mentioned, back in the 1780's the "arms" available to the military and civilians were pretty much identical. But even then, the nascent United States needed military-level help from an outside government to win the Revolutionary War.

Today, there are orders of magnitude of difference between them. The military can drop GPS guided munitions from miles away on top of a group of insurrectionists toting civilian guns. Historically speaking, no armed insurrection ever succeeded against a standing government without the aid of outside military arms available almost exclusively to governments. Governments are not afraid of an armed citizenry because governments have more, bigger and much better arms. So the idea that the citizens of the U.S. should be armed in order to "keep the government in line" is ludicrous and delusional.

Once one tosses out the notion that the governments of today are in any way intimidated by the popguns civilians carry, we can look at what "arms" really need to be in order to fulfill the other arguments the NRA puts forth - Sport shooting, hunting and personal protection - while at the same time addressing the notion of stopping mass shootings.

From that angle, what worked in 1780 will work today: Muzzle-loaded firearms.

We're not talking your great-great-granddaddy's blunderbuss here. Modernized muzzle-loaders are highly accurate, easier to maintain and more reliable than what was used in the Revolutionary War. But like what was available then - flintlocks and percussion caps - both require separate shot and powder to be put down the barrel to load the weapon, and a primer of some kind (the cap or powder in the flash pan for flintlocks), taking the three parts of a bullet used today and loading them separately.

This makes a muzzle loader's rate of fire about three to four rounds a minute. This instead of five to twenty rounds a second for more modern arms. Why do we need that high rate of fire? It's not accurate and has a much better chance of killing someone innocent than someone up to no good.

Muzzle-loaders are safer than modern weapons since they're harder to load and the "bullet" can't be made ready quickly. But a double-barreled muzzle-loaded shotgun will be just as effective in home protection as any other double-barreled shotgun. A two round derringer pistol (an over-under muzzle-loaded pistol) can back you up. The point is to ensure that rapid fire and fast reload can not happen while addressing the legitimate and legal arguments put forth by the NRA about why gun ownership is a good thing. If "arms" in the second amendment was explicitly defined as "muzzle-loaded firearms consisting of no more than two firing barrels capable of a rate of fire of no more than four rounds per minute", we could then heavily regulate more modern kinds of firearms.

This idea won't STOP gun violence, but if everyone is open-carrying a gun that fires just ONE round per barrel with two as the maximum you can shoot without reloading, then people will have to learn the word that the U.S. Revolutionary War army added to the then current phrase, "Ready, Fire!": AIM. Mass shootings like the ones we've had this year would be next to impossible.

I don't think it's too much to ask that a gun owner know how to aim their weapon instead of spraying high velocity rounds indiscriminately in someone's general direction. And if someone has an assault weapon, someone else only needs to aim carefully and shoot once to take them down. While body armor is highly effective against high velocity rounds, a low velocity, high mass round hitting them WILL leave a hell of a mark. (Most muzzle-loading rifles are in the .50-.65 cal range or about two to three times the weight of a .45 cal round.) Open carrying muzzle loaders wouldn't be as bad of a thing as open carrying a firearm that can be used in mass shootings. And you don't NEED a firearm capable of mass shootings to protect yourself - assuming you're concerned about your kids blowing their little heads off when you forget to put your gun away as any responsible gun owner would normally do.

Keeping in mind that on the incredibly rare cases of a homeowner defending their home from an intruder - at MOST - two shots are fired, anyone who can come up with a cogent, legal reason why this idea doesn't have merit, I invite them to try to rationalize why we shouldn't do this.

So in summary, we've proven the following:
- The notion of armed citizens standing up to the government is delusional bullshit.
- Open carry means "shoot me in the head FIRST" to the bad guys.
- When in doubt about a situation, wear body armor and you'll accomplish your goal because civilians won't react properly when you don't fall down after they shoot you and you can shoot them whereupon THEY will fall down.
- More people will be (and are) wearing body armor to do their crimes, so your little open or concealed carry pop-gun may as well stay holstered because if you shoot at them, they will kill you.

That pretty much leaves home defense (Still not going to happen very well against body armor), sport shooting and hunting. Muzzle loaders address every need there. If "arms" were explicitly defined as muzzle-loaded firearms, and any other type of firearm was heavily regulated based on a genuine need (home/personal defense isn't a genuine need) or banned outright then the incidents of mass shootings would go down. You're still going to have Billy Bob Asshat hanging on to his AR that his inbred cousin grabs to gun down the family, but I see that mostly as Darwin in action and really don't mind it that much as long as he gets ALL his kids before doing himself in.

But here's the funny thing about firearms, I've noticed. If you shoot every round as if you can only ever shoot just one, your aim improves. Practice makes perfect. A muzzle-loader MUST be practiced with in order to become proficient with it.

I can reliably hit a soda can from 300 yards. Out to 500 yards, I can hit it about 2 out of 3 times. Granted, this isn't putting a three round grouping the size of a quarter on the forehead of a silhouette target at 3000 yards (even if the caliber is the same) but it's not bad for hand-forged bullets and a much less precise weapon. We've already determined that even if one COULD do the latter, against a military it ain't gonna stop them (they have these nifty things that can accurately detect where a shot came from and return fire in under a second, after all). So how far away from a deer do you HAVE to be to make it sporting?

In the end, if we give up the delusional notion that guns are needed to "keep the government in line", we can actually begin to move toward defining the second amendment in such a way as to take modern firearms out of the hands of maniacs and morons and put in them something much less destructive that still caters to the "american gun culture". I'd rather see guns go away entirely, but that would never happen.

Call this a compromise. They can still have their guns, but they can't go around gunning down dozens of people at a time and the nature of the weapon is such that accidents, while still possible, are far less likely to happen than before. The death tolls WILL go down. And maybe the individuals who whoop and holler about how badass they are with their little AR's and Uzi's and AK's will become more like the backwoodsmen of our nation's history who had to be deliberate, careful and learn how to fucking aim for a change.