History of bumper stickers

[OC for ME]

On word descriptors.

Fudd - Slang term for a "casual" gun owner; eg; a person who typically only owns guns for hunting or shotgun sports and does not truly believe in the true premise of the second amendment. These people also generally treat owners/users of so called "non sporting" firearms like handguns or semiautomatic rifles with unwarranted scorn or contempt.

My daddy carried a four shot "derringer," loaded with snake shot in his pocket while out and about on the the farm. No permit to conceal, and every cop knew he had that pistol in his pocket.

Back then, out in the country, cops/deputies were not concerned with citizens with guns in their pockets as much as they seem to be these days. Heck, a Darlington PD officer picked up my daddy's little pistol that had dropped out of his pocket, and handed it back to him, when we were working to clear a bunch of overgrowth from behind our church. The cop did not even mention the pistol, never broke stride on he "directing" the proper way to clear overgrowth, just handed it back without any thought.

Cops back then did not have this fear of armed citizen's as some seem to do these days. I guess it was a country thing.

 

[Grapeshot]

On word descriptors.My daddy carried a four shot "derringer," loaded with snake shot in his pocket while out and about on the the farm. No permit to conceal, and every cop knew he had that pistol in his pocket.

Back then, out in the country, cops/deputies were not concerned with citizens with guns in their pockets as much as they seem to be these days. Heck, a Darlington PD officer picked up my daddy's little pistol that had dropped out of his pocket, and handed it back to him, when we were working to clear a bunch of overgrowth from behind our church. The cop did not even mention the pistol, never broke stride on he "directing" the proper way to clear overgrowth, just handed it back without any thought.

Cops back then did not have this fear of armed citizen's as some seem to do these days. I guess it was a country thing.

It was a "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thing - not so much a commandment as it was just they way most everyone was raised. We were taught to trust people until they demonstrated that they could not be.

Now days we say trust has to be earned. We distrust others until they have shown their worthiness.

During the Union Pacific strike, my grandfather was given a large caliber Colt revolver by the local police chief and told to be ready to defend himself. Grandpa was in UPRR management and had been threatened with harm for showing up for work. One night he was accosted by two thugs w/clubs intending to break his bones. Neither went home vertical and warm. Grandpa was charged with murder, the PD chief testified on his behalf. Grandpa was exonerated.

 

[utbagpiper]

One of the most decisive/effective short phrase shaped the election that gave Billy Boy his first win, "It's the economy stupid". And that was actually a bumper sticker, the other was "Read my lips".

LOL And some disparage the effectiveness of sound-bites.

I haven't seen anyone disparage the effectiveness of bumper stickers. What I have seen some say is:

Hmmpf! Bumper stickers led to bumper sticker politics.

Not every concept can be expressed in three icons on a bumper sticker or a hundred panels of a graphic-novel or a hundred pages of a popularized political science tract.

Bumper stickers are very effective at giving us bumper sticker politics and the kind of politicians who win when the electorate buys into them. We got HW Bush on sound bites. And slick Willie. And "Hope and Change" Obama.

Reagan, of course, was a master of one liners. They certainly helped him convey his message. But being more interested in winning the cold war and gaining some human rights for minorities in the USSR including Russian Jews, does anyone really think his internal discussions and strategy planning resolved around bumper stickers?

There is great talent in a simple, pithy statement easily digested by the masses. And anyone who has any talent to that end should certainly be using those talents to help pro-RKBA/OC candidates run successful campaigns. That is what the electorate demands. They have no attention span for real debates, nuanced answers, or thoughtful dialogue.

This forum, however, is not a campaign website, but a discussion group.

Charles

 

[utbagpiper]

Cops back then did not have this fear of armed citizen's as some seem to do these days. I guess it was a country thing.

Some of that. Also less media back then.

Consider that violent crime in this nation is about one half what it was in the 90s and 80s. Our violent and serious crime rate is about the same as it was in 1963.

But do most people feel safer today than they did in the 70s and 80s? Do most parents give their children more or less latitude to roam freely?

My theory, media.

I grew up in Southern Utah in the '70s and '80s, 300 miles from my State capital of Salt Lake City, but only 120 miles from Las Vegas. Of the 5 TV stations we received, one was the NBC affiliate from SLC, and another was the NBC affiliate out of Vegas. With the time zone change, we could watch the evening news from SLC and then watch the evening news from Vegas. Violent crime was rampant in Vegas and the first several minutes of the Las Vegas news most evenings was dedicated to the most newsworthy murders of the day. There were enough murders that many did not make the news. Looking back I realize that the SLC news rarely ever reported on these murders in Vegas. A run of the mill murder--even if it had all the markings of mafia--was considered local, not national news. Ditto for child sexual assault, child abductions, etc. Likewise, there was no "USA Today" or other national paper. Local papers ran local stories, with some truly national or international news pulled off the AP wire. Routine, violent crime was usually not considered national news. As a grade schooler we made fun of the rare kids who were overly nervous about kidnappers in panel vans.

These days every time some cute kid thinks he saw a bad guy it is national news.

Objectively, statistically, violent crime rates are half what they were when I was growing up. But if I watch the news for a few nights I find myself emotionally worried about my kids' safety as they go about being kids. The longer I can avoid much of what passes as "news" these days, the less nervous I get about my chidren's safety.

I don't figure cops are immune to the same issue. We all know cops being killed in the line of duty is rare. But it is now national news. Probably also part of training. Used to be cops would go their entire career and never draw their guns in the line of duty. Now, even if they don't draw their own guns, they will hear a never ending stream of news and training of cops being killed.

My theory, for what it might be worth.

Charles

 

[OC for ME]

It was a "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thing - not so much a commandment as it was just they way most everyone was raised. We were taught to trust people until they demonstrated that they could not be. ...

You'll get no disagreement from me on this score.

Then again, back then, cops did not take too kindly to being told how to enforce the law in "their town/county." A cousin of my daddy's, a deputy in a neighboring county, would only enforce "laws that made sense," the easy ones, the obvious crimes. He, and his sheriff had a simple approach to LE " I know a crime when I see one, if I have to read a book to see if a crime has been committed then likely no "crime" was committed." Obviously, this is a extreme and unpopular view in the LE q-munity these days.

 

[OC for ME]

...

My theory, for what it might be worth.

Charles

A very good theory in my view. I have a slightly different fear, a "drive by Dr. Spock" with a cellphone. The fear that my parenting approach is subject to state scrutiny simply because a nitwit dislikes my kids being out and about, unsupervised (coddled and protected) and they disagree with this.

 

[solus]

uh, piper about your youth...two words:

MORMON country !

let's compare being raised rural verse urban verse 300 miles from SLC...

somehow i am sure being raised around Oral Roberts OK would also be different from say the Hill district in PA or near oakland, watts, or DC or south side Chicago...

and finally, do you have cites to clarify those crime stats you mentioned

ipse

 

[utbagpiper]

uh, piper about your youth...two words:

MORMON country !

let's compare being raised rural verse urban verse 300 miles from SLC...

My point isn't the difference of rural vs urban. No doubt the urban SLC area had more crimes (per capita) than we did in rural Utah. (Something about urban living just isn't good for the soul, methinks.) And we heard about these crimes on the nightly news out of SLC.

What makes my situation somewhat interesting is that the geography meant we also heard about the crimes in Vegas on the nightly news we got from that city. And what I've realized is that in my youth in the 70s and 80s, most crime was considered local news only. Of course some crimes were national news because they involved celebrities or politicians. And sometimes a crime elsewhere had some local tie in like when a Utahn was murdered in NYC.

But by and large, most crimes in NYC or even Vegas, Denver, or Reno, were not reported on the SLC news. Most SLC crimes were not reported on the Vegas news and I suspect not on any other news outside Utah.

Those who are 50+ years old might want to look back and consider on how often they saw routine violent crimes from other news markets, reported on their local news or in their local papers back in the 70s and 80s.

and finally, do you have cites to clarify those crime stats you mentioned

Of course. Pick your favorite source. This has been widely reported in liberal and conservative media, with all pointing back to annual FBI crime reports. Depending on the exact year of the report (2005 to 2013) and what aspects the reporter focuses on, details change. But the overall story is the same. Violent crime rates are way down from where they were in the late 70s, through the 80s, and into the early 90s.

Yet the very fact you asked for cites, suggests to me that you have an intrinsic feeling to the contrary. Why? I believe it is because the 24 hour news cycle is hungry for content that will draw in viewers. And so what were once local crimes, now make national news on a regular basis.

Your requested citations. I'd be most curious to know your response after reading them.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...st-point-in-decades.-Why-America-is-safer-now

The last time the crime rate for serious crime – murder, rape, robbery, assault – fell to these levels, gasoline cost 29 cents a gallon and the average income for a working American was $5,807.

That was 1963.

In the past 20 years, for instance, the murder rate in the United States has dropped by almost half, from 9.8 per 100,000 people in 1991 to 5.0 in 2009. Meanwhile, robberies were down 10 percent in 2010 from the year before and percent in 2009.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...es-in-the-us-drop-approach-historic-lows?lite

According to FBI analysis, the homicide drop would mean that nearly 280 fewer Americans were murdered last year, which would be the lowest homicide death toll since the mid-1950s.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-usa-crime-fbi-idUSKCN0IU1UM20141110

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

This last one is tables. It shows the total violent crime rates in 2013 at the same levels as the early 70s. The murder rate for 2013 is a record low for any time since 1960; it is comparable to the rates in the early 60s. Rape and property crimes are up.

Finally, http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/08/the_taboo_on_mentioning_black_mob_violence.html

This one takes a more pessimistic view of the situation by going back to 1957 when the violent rate was less than 100 per 100,000. It ends in 2005 when violent crime rates were still dropping and so looks really bad. And by comparison to 1957, even our current violent crime rate of 365 or so looks really, really bad. But compared to the 500 to 600+ range when I grew up and the peak of some 770 in the early 90s, violent crime rates today are much better.

But few of us feel as if violent crime is lower than it was in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Why?

Charles

 

[Logan 5]

What makes my situation somewhat interesting is that the geography meant we also heard about the crimes in Vegas on the nightly news we got from that city. And what I've realized is that in my youth in the 70s and 80s, most crime was considered local news only. Of course some crimes were national news because they involved celebrities or politicians. And sometimes a crime elsewhere had some local tie in like when a Utahn was murdered in NYC.

But by and large, most crimes in NYC or even Vegas, Denver, or Reno, were not reported on the SLC news. Most SLC crimes were not reported on the Vegas news and I suspect not on any other news outside Utah.

Those who are 50+ years old might want to look back and consider on how often they saw routine violent crimes from other news markets, reported on their local news or in their local papers back in the 70s and 80s.

Consider your source- the media. You only see on the news what they want you to see on the news. You know that.

But few of us feel as if violent crime is lower than it was in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Why?

Charles

Because back in those days not only were the more guns available to more people, but there were fewer crimes. And cops were considered to be, generally speaking, more honorable than the common man. Back in the day of when wearing a badge meant the man was a better person, a man of morality and integrity. It was a symbol of honor, not a symbol saying "aim here".

If we had more guns on the market and more people had their rights restored, we would have a huge decrease in crime. Maybe not right away, but within a few years I guarantee it.

 

[J_dazzle23]

Consider your source- the media. You only see on the news what they want you to see on the news. You know that.


Because back in those days not only were the more guns available to more people, but there were fewer crimes. And cops were considered to be, generally speaking, more honorable than the common man. Back in the day of when wearing a badge meant the man was a better person, a man of morality and integrity. It was a symbol of honor, not a symbol saying "aim here".

If we had more guns on the market and more people had their rights restored, we would have a huge decrease in crime. Maybe not right away, but within a few years I guarantee it.

Charles' citations seem to support that there is LESS crime now.

Off the top of my head (being that I don't watch the media much) I would say in many (some) areas gun rights HAVE increased, and crime has dropped in correlation.

Correlation doesn't equal causation, but it seems a significant link.

I don't know if my opinions are backed by the data as Charles has linked, but just my (probably flawed) perspective.

 

[marshaul]

...back in those days... there were fewer crimes.

According to pretty much all available data, crime rates in America are lower than they have ever been at any point in history, with the general trend being downwards (with a few hiccups here and there).

But it's true that current (quite significant) decrease in crime rates correlates to an equally-significant increase in respect for RKBA and self-defense rights. So, if nothing else, we can say than access to legal guns does not lead to an increase in crime.

 

[utbagpiper]

According to pretty much all available data, crime rates in America are lower than they have ever been at any point in history, with the general trend being downwards (with a few hiccups here and there).

Not quite that good--at least for violent crime--according http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/08/the_taboo_on_mentioning_black_mob_violence.html which shows violent and property crime rates going back to 1957.

This data ends in 2005 when violent crime rates were still dropping. The most recent data I linked a few posts back shows that violent crime rates are now about 360 per 100,000 which puts us at about the same rates as the late 60s. Not the lowest crime in our history, but a huge improvement over our peek periods.

What I continue to find fascinating is that a lot of us crew up with much higher rates of violent crime, but a lot of us have a feeling that the risk from crime is higher today than when we were younger.

Charles

 

[marshaul]

If people "feel" like there's more crime, I can suggest a couple psychological reasons:

1. Sensationalist media.

2. Something about "soft on crime politicians" coupled with a misbelief in heavy-handed law and law enforcement as the primary driver of decreases in systemic crime. But this gets us back to (1).

All roads lead to (1).

 

[utbagpiper]

I can believe murders are at an all time low for part of the same reason that battlefield fatalities are so low: much improved medicine means many injuries that were once fatal, are now non-fatal.

But I've seen too many friends and family with "non fatal" injuries I wouldn't want to have inflicted on me and have to live with for ever. Being a paraplegic (not to mention a quad) doesn't look like any fun at all.

And reported rapes are way up from where they were 100 years ago. Though a big chunk of is likely to be increased reporting, decreased stigma, and a differing understanding of what constitutes rape.

Either way, I think total violent crime rate is probably the best statistical metric of personal safety (ignoring personal factors that would change one's situation from the random norm).

If people "feel" like there's more crime, I can suggest a couple psychological reasons:

1. Sensationalist media.

2. Something about "soft on crime politicians" coupled with a misbelief in heavy-handed law and law enforcement as the primary driver of decreases in systemic crime. But this gets us back to (1).

All roads lead to (1).

I'm right there with you on #1. I know crime is way down. I still have a difficult emotionally giving my kids the same degree of freedom I had growing up. Though as I think about it, I'm more worried about them getting hit by some inattentive driver than I am them being abducted or sexually assaulted or something similar.

As for the decrease in crime rates, the articles I read suggested various factors including an aging population (old guys tend to commit less violence than did their 20 year old former selves), and record rates of incarceration. There are really very few among us who engage in deliberate, violent crime. Lock up the correct 1 to 2% of the population and you start to take a lot of the violent criminals off the street.

Charles

 

[marshaul]

Lock up the correct 1 to 2% of the population and you start to take a lot of the violent criminals off the street.

Sure. The problem is the sort of "tough on crime" crap you still hear prosecutors advocate, such as heavy-handed prosecution for non-violent crimes because "it's the only tool we have to convict dangerous criminals", despite the fact that, if you actually know someone is a dangerous criminal, it's remarkably easy to prosecute them for these known crimes. It certainly has the effect of increasing our prison population, and it certainly looks "tough", but it appears to have little effect on systemic criminality.