Secret Police

[pasithea]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1035832#articleFull

Well.. Okay. Do you think it's secret police or do you think it's a clever new dodge for HMOs? How easy it'd before them to say, "Oh! This person falsified information to their doctor. They had a drink last Tuesday. Obviously an alcoholic in denial."

Generally I'm all for making parents suffer (particularly the ones across the way from me with about 18 children that all ride around on electric dental drill toys and have very loud bad sound samples on them, and they fight a lot and scream at their kids at 6 in the morning to get ready for school. Oh, and did I mention the parrot? PRETTY BIRD! (Note to self, borrow Atari from Ashy and leave it running in the window to reprogram neighbor's bird)

But seriously. Creepy, neh? I must also admit I find the focus on guns rather dull from both sides. On the one, WAH GUNS LIBERALS COMMIES! And on the other, who cares if some idiot has a gun. Wars in the US are fought with TV stations. Guns are useless against satellites and nuclear missiles and aircraft flying at mach, and tanks. They're not even very useful against modern riot armor. Oh sure, the militias yap about how they could take a military compound or have military people join them but take another look at the first 2. There were huge protests at the start of the Iraq war but they got no air time on TV. They were played down to be 'small groups of angry protesters' on the national news. Guns are useless against media.

Coming back around, I think the thing that bothered me most about this article was the focus on guns and the implication that gun-control (read as liberals) were behind this and that's all that any of the other articles online seem to care about. Guns guns guns! WAH!!!! But you know what. It took joint approval for this kind of crap. The BATF and the increase in power to the FBI was the work of conservative christians regulating morality during prohibition. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed by democrats, right wingnuts are fond of pointing out. Though if you were talking about racism instead of guns, they'd happily tell you that most KKK members at that time were democrats. Oh, and the Brady bill... Signed by majority of democrats and Clinton.. Named after the secret service guy that died taking a bullet for Ronald Reagan. Take a closer look at the way the votes went down on that one, and fucking wake up.

A so-called liberal may have pulled the trigger in Massachusetts but conservatives are every bit as guilty for setting up an environment with so much fear that stuff like this could be approved. From what google searches tell me, I suspect they'd make scarcely a peep if kids were just reporting on the drug and alcohol use of their parents or if they were gay or commies. The right will continue to blame the left 100% for gun control issues and simultaneously scare people into accepting more and more control. Run sheep run!

Comments

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

firearm is used (shown) four times more often to prevent a crime than to commit one

That's a rather meaningless statistic. How many crimes in total are thwarted, gun or no-gun? How many had the potential for gun? I also note that your statistic is counting police who show up to everything with guns. So it's a very biased statistic. Someone had a fender bender and is now screaming at someone else and a cop draws a gun, that's a gun used to stop a crime. Count conflicts between citizens and the stats are VERY different. It's rather like the statistics on motorcycle fatalities which include all of the people who were under the influence of something and not wearing a proper helmet. (Those two categories of rider account for about 90% of the fatalities)I exclude them in calculating MY risk riding a motorcycle because I am not an idiot.

Also, if I wanted to be totally anal, I could say that your statement is a total lie because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that guns are a very VERY frequent source of littering. Whether it's sinking beer cans in a pond or shattering glass bottles on a fence, or just leaving lead pellets and plastic shell-casings all over the place. More seriously though, I knew an awful lot of poachers and people who'd shoot non-game animals. I'd count those as crimes. Add those in and you probably get close to FF00FF's number.

Personally, I don't actually care whether or not someone has a gun. I think they're largely a waste in most practical situations. However, first thing one learns in women's self-defense class is that not looking like a victim is a major part of not being a victim. If a gun gives someone confidence, that reduces their risk significantly, so I wouldn't underestimate it sheerly as a psychological tool for self-defense.

I just really get sick of listening to the yokels jabber about how they need a gun to stop the government. Particularly when they've voted in the most controlling government we've had in years. I also dislike the misuse of made-up statistics on both sides of the fence. Samuel Clemens said it best.

There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Darned lies, and Statistics.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

FF00FF's numbers
By way of Arthur Kellermann

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but like I said for the statistics on the other side, statistics can be easily misrepresented, and if you read down a ways in that entry, you find this line:

after adjusting for other factors (such as a police-report history of violence in the home, a convicted felon in the home, drug or alcohol abuse in the home, race, etc.) there remained an independent 2.7 times increase in risk of homicide, specifically associated with a firearm in the home;

Still a pretty big increase but like the motorcycle statistics, if you factor out the stupid people, it's a lot less dangerous than it looks on the surface.


I am more inclined to agree with your position than Drew's simply on the common-sense factor. People who grate their own cheese are more likely to occasionally grate their knuckles than people who buy pre-shredded cheese in a bag, and instances of them being attacked by an angry cheddar that needs grating are statistically low and should it happen, it's nearly always a cheese that was brought into the home by themselves or a family member.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

What you say about decreasing risk factors dramatically with a few simple steps is true, and to keep the conversation polite I couldn't accuse anyone here of being the sort of idiot who has the full 22x actively working against them but do understand, idiots can't be asked to stand up and identify themselves, because they just don't know!

I knew a gun nut furry who was always on a rant about gun control this or liberal fascists that, and he maintained what a spotless record he had with all of his firearms, and how responsible gun owners should take care of busy bodies like Diane Feinstein.

Then he'd get a few drinks in him, come online and talk about the time when he was in a friends college dorm and they had stacked phone books against the wall to shoot .22 pistols at... yes, an impromptu shooting range in a dorm. He said the bullets went right through the phone books and they found them lodged in the wall just over the bed in the next room. Luckily no one had been in it. Great.

My brother later visited this persons house, which is apparently in a ghetto ass area, so fine, maybe he feels like he needs a gun to protect him from the rabid minorities. My brother didn't stay in the house for more than fifteen minutes before retreating, he said there were guns everywhere, and also dirty laundry. He was literally tripping over guns buried under piles of laundry. He could have made off with several handguns and this champion of responsible gun ownership would never have known they were missing.

My point being, sure you can say you're not an idiot, and I can believe you but in general people aren't very good about determining what they are idiots about.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that I can think of about 5 furries who that might be.

I know at least one that accidentally shot himself and there's another whom, upon the first time I visited his house (with some friends) suddenly jumped on me and held a knife to my throat and said, "I could kill you right now!" as some macho bullshit display.

So yeah. I get what you mean about stupid people being slow to self-identify. OTOH, I don't think kids necessarily understand the difference between alcohol use and abuse because we give them zero-tolerance messages. OTOH, having children (particularly young children) is a lot like driving a car in that one need to be ready for unforeseen hazards. Personally, having had a good friend killed in highschool by a drunk driver and having myself lost several teeth and woke up in a CAT scanner (also due to a drunk driver) I never get anywhere near a car if there's even a chance I might be impaired.