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WASHPOST gun rights hit-piece shows failure to understand how the world works

Mike

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http://www.examiner.com/article/was...ows-failure-to-understand-how-the-world-works

SNIP

Michael Rosenwald’s essay, “Most gun owners support restrictions, Why aren’t their voices heard,” Washington Post, October 9, 2015, broadly assails Americans opposed to yet even more gun control in the United States. Rosenfeld’s writing displays both lack of respect for the factual foundation of gun policy matters, as well as a failure to explain to readers how collective political decisions are actually made in any polity, especially an American one.

For example Rosenwald quotes “Patrick Tomlinson, a science-fiction writer and gun owner in Milwaukee who favors universal background checks and longer waiting periods for gun purchases.” But in real-life – not science fiction - neither federal nor Wisconsin law imposes ANY waiting periods for gun purchases.

Rosenfeld then swerves to claim that “[gun] owners also strongly support prohibiting ownership for those convicted of domestic violence and barring people with mental illness from buying guns.” But actually, domestic violence convictions already bar firearm possession nation-wide, even for mere misdemeanor convictions.

And as for Rosenwald’s implied endorsement of a “mental illness” bar to possession of firearms, again Rosenfeld drops the ball, failing to note that absent an American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant and constitutionally sound due process based finding of dangerousness by a competent court or board of inquiry – mere mental illness cannot itself be a disqualifier for the right to possess a firearm even if the Second Amendment was repealed.

. . .

Finally, Rosenfeld rolls out the myth of so-called “high-powered assault rifles,” no-doubt referring to semi-automatic one-shot-per-trigger-pull rifles like AR-15 style rifles. The AR-15 style of rifle has pistol grips which – though part of every pistol - and help gun owners better control their firearms – somehow by anti-gunners’ logic, mysteriously transform ordinary long guns into “high-powered assault rifles.”

But there is nothing frankly “high powered” about AR-15s, firing a .22 caliber bullet, compared to common and vastly more powerful .30-06 caliber deer hunting rifles carried about town and in the woods by many or most American men, boys, and an increasing number of women and girls, at some point in their lives.

. . .

Michael Rosenfeld misses the boat when he claims that gun owners’ “voices are missing from the debate.” On the contrary, the electorate is listening to all voices, and rationally voting to protect their rights.

If there is a problem in the political process as applied to gun rights issues, it “is not the communication of the candidate’s views and personalities to the electorate, but [rather] the communication of the electorate’s interests to the candidates.” The electorate knows its best interests and cannot be persuaded by a biased press of the left or the right to vote against that self-interest. Wannisky at 9.
 

since9

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Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
http://www.examiner.com/article/was...ows-failure-to-understand-how-the-world-works

SNIP

Michael Rosenwald’s essay, “Most gun owners support restrictions, Why aren’t their voices heard,” Washington Post, October 9, 2015, broadly assails Americans opposed to yet even more gun control in the United States. Rosenfeld’s writing displays both lack of respect for the factual foundation of gun policy matters, as well as a failure to explain to readers how collective political decisions are actually made in any polity, especially an American one.

For example Rosenwald quotes “Patrick Tomlinson, a science-fiction writer and gun owner in Milwaukee who favors universal background checks and longer waiting periods for gun purchases.” But in real-life – not science fiction - neither federal nor Wisconsin law imposes ANY waiting periods for gun purchases.

I support the background checks. It doesn't keep many criminals from getting their hands on guns, but it does make it more difficult. The vast majority of criminals simply avoid it as they know it's difficult to beat.

Here in Colorado, for example, the most recent stats for the month of October, 2018, reveal some interesting results of the CBC (Colorado Background Check) this state opted for in lieu of the standard FBI background check (Source).
  • 98.17% of all transactions resulted in an approval
  • The top reasons for a denial are assault, dangerous drugs, burglary, larceny, restraining order, sexual assault, and robbery. Aside from unspecified "other," the remaining hits involve relatively minor numbers.
  • 94% of background checks were submitted by FFL sales; 6% were private sales
  • Just 6 min 38 sec is the average turnaround time for a CBI
  • Less than 0.07% of applications resulted in a fugitive arrest
I do not, however, support waiting periods, as one never knows why people are buying a firearm. It could be there's a problem with their current firearm. It could be they've been honest, law-abiding citizens for many years and are simply wanting their first, or perhaps their tenth firearm. I think exceedingly few buyers are looking to purchase a legal firearm as a means of committing domestic violence. If they're seeking a firearm to protect against a suspected threat, then such "cooling off" periods are heinously bad for the law-abiding citizen seeking to defend themselves.

Rosenfeld then swerves to claim that “[gun] owners also strongly support prohibiting ownership for those convicted of domestic violence and barring people with mental illness from buying guns.” But actually, domestic violence convictions already bar firearm possession nation-wide, even for mere misdemeanor convictions.

Good.

And as for Rosenwald’s implied endorsement of a “mental illness” bar to possession of firearms, again Rosenfeld drops the ball, failing to note that absent an American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant and constitutionally sound due process based finding of dangerousness by a competent court or board of inquiry – mere mental illness cannot itself be a disqualifier for the right to possess a firearm even if the Second Amendment was repealed.

Is this written into the ADA?

Finally, Rosenfeld rolls out the myth of so-called “high-powered assault rifles,” no-doubt referring to semi-automatic one-shot-per-trigger-pull rifles like AR-15 style rifles. The AR-15 style of rifle has pistol grips which – though part of every pistol - and help gun owners better control their firearms – somehow by anti-gunners’ logic, mysteriously transform ordinary long guns into “high-powered assault rifles.”

I'm working on a pretty chart that even the antis can read that clearly organizes various types of firearms by their barrels, actions, feeds, and other characteristics. :)

But there is nothing frankly “high powered” about AR-15s, firing a .22 caliber bullet, compared to common and vastly more powerful .30-06 caliber deer hunting rifles carried about town and in the woods by many or most American men, boys, and an increasing number of women and girls, at some point in their lives.

Well, a .223 carries substantially greater energy than a .22... Even so, .223 AR-15s use "intermediate cartridges." For comparison:

Full power cartridges:
7.62×54mmR
7.62×51mm NATO

Intermediate cartridges:
7.62×39mm
5.56×45mm NATO
5.45×39mm.

A 30-06 definitely falls squarely into the category of "full power cartridge."

Michael Rosenfeld misses the boat when he claims that gun owners’ “voices are missing from the debate.” On the contrary, the electorate is listening to all voices, and rationally voting to protect their rights.

Given the numerous video clips and news articles I've seen over the last 3+ years regarding proposed gun control laws, I disagree with your 2015 assessment. Specifically, I see many members of our electorate irrationally proposing legislation to further infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They do so for various and sometimes multiple reasons:

- Elected politicians are voting to generate more votes for them and/or their party. No other logical conclusion can be drawn in light of the highly party-polarized votes cast by members of Congress. For example, this 60-second animation shows how divided Congress has become over the last 60 years.

- They are motivated by idealism rather than reality. Spotting these members of the state and federal legislatures is easy. Often, the moment they begin talking about guns, both their ideologies and their ignorance of reality give them away.

- On a more conspiratorial front, some elected politicians believes its their inherent right, duty, or responsibility to pull We the People's teeth, "for their own good" or "for the good of the country." Well, again, phooey. More ominously, some people will note long-term goals of various external forces.

If there is a problem in the political process as applied to gun rights issues, it “is not the communication of the candidate’s views and personalities to the electorate, but [rather] the communication of the electorate’s interests to the candidates.” The electorate knows its best interests and cannot be persuaded by a biased press of the left or the right to vote against that self-interest. Wannisky at 9.

I believe the electorate thinks it knows its best interests, but in practice, I see a great many people voting for things which are desirable in the short run but harmful, if not fatal, in the long run. Without getting into controversial specifics, I think many of us know that a second bowl of ice cream a night, or even eating a bowl of ice cream a night instead of a cup once a week, while highly desirable (Black Walnut... Mmmm!) it's ultimate disadvantageous due to the fat, sugar, increased weight, blood pressure, and significantly increased likelihood of an early demise. Quite similarly, if we were to bypass Congress altogether, toss the Republic out of the window and go with a direct, forum-format government run directly by the people, I think we'd quickly find they make no more sense than a class full of college students who vote themselves all A's only to find themselves later in life lacking any of the education they require to do their jobs. Rather, those in the know who hold others to high standards would shake their heads, say, "Well, we've fallen," and move on.
 

solus

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Since9, one presumes the over three year old material cited in Mike’s WaPo article might just be OBE, but your epistle was interesting to say the least, especially the disjointed on ice cream eating habits/against diet to toss’n out Congress to a room full of college students leading to your statement about ‘we’ve fallen’.

I am awaiting with bated breath to see your ‘pretty chart’...:cool:
 

HP995

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Michael Rosenwald’s essay, “Most gun owners support restrictions, Why aren’t their voices heard,”

Link breaks for some reason, so I haven't looked at source yet, but sadly from past experience, when going into Anti literature my expectations are both misleading presentation and outright lies. It's a good bet that the type of restrictions supported by most gun owners (if any) are not the type being pushed by Anti authors.
 

color of law

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Either you are for gun control or you are not. It's a black and white, or a yes and no issue. If you are for ANY gun control you are not a true supporter of our constitution, period. This does not mean that certain persons cannot loose or forfeit rights for certain misdeeds.

Since the supreme court believes nothing is absolute then they must believe in reincarnation.
 
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HP995

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Here's how it works in general. You take a poll asking if people own guns, whether they support restriction of full auto, whether they support the NICS instant background check system. Good chance many gun owners say yes to at least one of those, especially given the NRA's positions. Also possible some people will falsely claim to own guns to dirty the poll results. Aha! Most gun owners favor restrictions, why don't we listen to them? :devilish:
 

OC Freedom

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Either you are for gun control or you are not. It's a black and white, or a yes and no issue. If you are for ANY control gun control you are not a true supporter of our constitution, period. This does not mean that certain persons cannot loose or forfeit rights for certain misdeeds.

Since the supreme court believes nothing is absolute then they must believe in reincarnation.
+1
 

hammer6

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Florida
Here's how it works in general. You take a poll asking if people own guns, whether they support restriction of full auto, whether they support the NICS instant background check system. Good chance many gun owners say yes to at least one of those, especially given the NRA's positions. Also possible some people will falsely claim to own guns to dirty the poll results. Aha! Most gun owners favor restrictions, why don't we listen to them? :devilish:


Why don't we listen to them? I'll tell you why. Because gun 'rights' have nothing to do with gun owners.

The same applies for those who would encourage restrictions on your 4th amendment right, it's not the rights of 'others' they are infringing, but their OWN rights. They just don't understand that all 10 bill of rights apply to every person on US Soil, not just those that choose to exercise them.
 

solus

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Oh please, think about those so called polling studies about citizens washing their hands after using restrooms...of course the pollsters get the truth from the participants...i find it most interestingly there is no response position on their polling sheet for my respnse..

‘Didn’t need to cuz I didn’t pea on myself’ [:rolleyes:]
 

Ghost1958

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If one supports any infringement IE interference with the RTKABA, one might as well accept them all.

Either you support the absolute RTKABA, or you support some form of gov permission to be armed.
Can't do both at the same time.




Color of law said it pretty well for the most part.
 

solus

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Welcome back NWGA45, you did note my query to since9 was dated o/a 24 Dec 2018, and while the trade blogs are just now in Jan 2019 releasing and a-twitter with mossburg’s self promoting press releases about the great news about Mossburg just ANNOUNCING [in time for 2019 shot show hype] of their first handgun in a century!

are they in production?
can JQCitizen purchase this marvelous firearm?

But think back several years ago to Ruger's [sincere apologies to Ruger from my faulty memory] REMININGTON'S R51 pre shot show hype/announcement of the release of their remake of their earlier handgun pistol...it bloody h3ll flopped due to significant design flaws even after toted so highly by all the shooting advocacy/social blogs!

Oh on a side note, wouldn’t look for it at Dick’s
 
Last edited:

Ghost1958

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Welcome back NWGA45, you did note my query to since9 was dated o/a 24 Dec 2018, and while the trade blogs are just now in Jan 2019 releasing and a-twitter with mossburg’s self promoting press releases about the great news about Mossburg just ANNOUNCING [in time for 2019 shot show hype] of their first handgun in a century!

are they in production?
can JQCitizen purchase this marvelous firearm?

But think back several years ago to Ruger’s pre shot show hype/announcement of the release of their remake of their earlier handgun pistol...it bloody h3ll flopped due to significant design flaws even after toted so highly by all the shooting advocacy/social blogs!

Oh on a side note, wouldn’t look for it at Dick’s
]
What model Ruger pistol would that have been?
 

solus

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here nc
]
What model Ruger pistol would that have been?

Thanks Ghost, faulty memory aside, the shotshow hype was for the REMINGTON's R51 per https://gundigest.com/reviews/in-depth-test-remington-r51-gen-2-review, quote:
Due to production problems, it didn’t take long for public opinion to turn. What initially looked like one of the most innovative new defensive handguns became the root of a deep controversy—one that tarnished Remington’s reputation and cast a shadow of uncertainty on the integrity of gun magazines and those who contribute to them. unquote.
 

Ghost1958

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Thanks Ghost, faulty memory aside, the shotshow hype was for the REMINGTON's R51 per https://gundigest.com/reviews/in-depth-test-remington-r51-gen-2-review, quote:
Due to production problems, it didn’t take long for public opinion to turn. What initially looked like one of the most innovative new defensive handguns became the root of a deep controversy—one that tarnished Remington’s reputation and cast a shadow of uncertainty on the integrity of gun magazines and those who contribute to them. unquote.


No problem. I was genuinely confused that Ruger had a boondoggle I'd missed or something lol.
 
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