Friday, January 09, 2015

MORE GUNS: THE CURE-ALL?

National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke is the latest right-winger to tell us that more guns would have changed everything at the offices of Charlie Hebdo:
America’s Provocateurs Are at the Mercy of the Barbarians

The most likely targets of Islamist wrath are in the cities with the most restrictive gun laws.


... Taken together, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles host almost all of the more controversial media personalities in America; and, taken together, these cities have some of the worst self-defense laws in the country. Had Charlie Hebdo been an American publication, it would most likely have been located in Brooklyn or in Silver Lake or in Columbia Heights -- positioned, in other words, in precisely the sort of place in which attacks on its employees would have been most likely to succeed. This, as the French might say, is “absurde.”

... Certainly, things might have been different if the events had unfolded in heavily armed states such as Oklahoma or Texas -- or, for that matter, if someone in an adjacent office had been possessed of a rifle of his own....
Yeah, right, because arms in the workplace always thwart the bad guys:
The co-owner of a Shawnee {Kansas] gun store was fatally shot and three suspects were wounded during an attempted robbery Friday afternoon.

The gunfight broke out after four robbers entered She’s A Pistol, at 57th Street and Nieman Road, about 2:10 p.m., according to Shawnee police.

Jon Bieker, 44, of Gardner, who co-owned the business with his wife, Becky Bieker, died later at a hospital, police said....
In the same week the Charlie Hebdo massacre took place in surrender-monkey France, a business owner in the very red, very pro-gun state of Kansas was shot and killed in his gun shop.

Of course, this is a ridiculous argument about what appears to be a very well-planned terrorist attack -- if the people at Charlie Hebdo were heavily armed, don't you think their very determined killers would have devised a different method of murder? A bomb? A suicide belt? More gunmen? Or maybe an ambush, as happened in the recent death of a Canadian soldier (and, for that matter, two presumably armed cops in New York whose killer was an assassin if not a terrorist)?

I don't know how you prevent or thwart small but lethal assaults like this, but guns aren't the cure-all. And agenda-driven murders are rare; if you want to live in a gun-drenched society like most of America rather than a gun-control nation like France, you have to put up with a rate of gun deaths that's more than triple what it is in France. Terrorism is rare. Garden-variety shootings are more common -- and more guns, here in America, mean more of the latter, thanks to Mr. Cooke and his friends.

11 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Guns now killing more of us than cars.

Ken_L said...

'This, as the French might say, is “absurde.”'

Pretentious? Moi?

But the conservative gun fetishists were ahead of you about the gun store thing. The brave owner saved his wife's life, you see. If he hadn't used a gun, who knows how many other innocents would also have died.

What's that? If he hadn't pulled a gun maybe nobody would have got hurt at all? Don't be ridiculous, that would be letting the thugs win.

Anonymous said...

"The FBI just released its data for Crime in the United States, 2013 and gun control lobbyists are probably not going to like what it says.

According to the report, while background checks for firearm purchasers hit record levels in 2013 — 21,093,273 to be exact — “violent crimes in 2013 decreased 4.4 percent when compared with 2012 figures, and the estimated number of property crimes decreased 4.1 percent.”

It’s important to note that background checks for firearm purchasers are fewer than the number of guns sold."

Aw shucks, it's only the FBI, what do they know?!

Grung_e_Gene said...

The proliferation of guns has made americans demonstrably less safe.

Philo Vaihinger said...

No, guns are not a cure-all. But they can help, and that's why people who feel especially exposed go armed, whether or not they hire body-guards who are armed.

Victor said...

Why do some of these gun-nuts feel the need to go armed into restaurants like Chili's, but not when they go to their mailbox or the Post Office?

I've never heard of anyone "going Chili's," or "going Micky D's', but I have heard of people "going Postal!"

Ten Bears said...

Speaking from considerable exprrience with firearms, as in the example above you are as likely when you pull a gun to shoot yourself, or get shot, as not. Indeed, in the example cited above I am not the least bit surprised, the outcome all to predictable.

Glennis said...

if the events had unfolded in heavily armed states such as Oklahoma or Texas

Sure. Of course. If a satirical newspaper that routinely poked fun at the major religions of the world were located in Oklahoma City or Fort Worth, I'm sure the cartoonists would be packing while attending their weekly staff meetings, and if armed gunmen invaded the conference room with automatic weapons blazing, they would naturally have pulled out their shootin'-irons and coolly dispatched the dastardly offenders forthwith. Right? Because fantasy world.

Let's all cheer on the brave and victorious strawmen.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

The most likely targets of Islamist wrath are in the cities with the most restrictive gun laws.

They sure do love their dead liberal fantasies.

Ten Bears said...

If, Auntie, a satirical newspaper that routinely poked fun at the major religions of the world - in particular Jesus as rabidly as Charlie - were located in OK City or Forth Worth... it would be at the very least firebombed as an NAACO office in Colorado was earlier this week. Didn't hear about that on the corporate lamestream media, did 'ya? I'm sure the cartoonists would be packing too, as targets for reich-wing though not necessarily "religous" nutjobs just such as these, they'd be damned fools not to.

Like "ISIS", and both "9/11", it smells like a highly orchestrated media event by the Military Media Industrial Complex and the International Bankers and Insurers to stir up the Ambien, Prozac, Viagra and crotch-shots on Fox Kool-Aid addled rubes to support more War.

Funny how Charlie only pokes fun at Christians and Muslims.

Wag the dog.

Tbone said...

You're telling us that fewer guns in the hands of criminals resulted in fewer violent crimes?

Isn't that the point?