The good news is that many people, perhaps millions of people who otherwise never think about gun violence will be thinking about gun violence today. And for all the talk about this gun-control law and that gun-control law, gun violence will end when our culture stops accepting the idea that the best way to deal with violence is to use violence; i.e., the violence caused by guns.
The bad news about today is that every liberal (i.e., gun-control) media outlet will feel it necessary to have some staff writer put out a nice, feel-good story about guns, by which I mean saying something either stupid or obvious about gun violence because if The New York Times says something, The Washington Post better say something too.
In that regard today’s WaPo has an op-ed by a kid named Robert Gebelhoff, who as far as I can tell, has never previously published anything about guns. And not only doesn’t he know anything about guns, but if you take the trouble to read the actual content of his piece entitled, “Opponents of gun control say nothing can be done. Science says they’re wrong,” you’ll discover he doesn’t know anything about science either, or at least he certainly doesn’t know what the word ‘science’ actually means.
I may be a little old-fashioned, or maybe just old, but to me the word ‘science’ means or at least implies that we base what we know on facts. Not just one or two facts scattered here or there, but on facts which come out of evidence-based research, not just out of hot air. And sadly, as I read through Gebelhoff’s piece, I can’t seem to find where the facts begin and the hot air actually ends.
According to Gebelhoff, the first thing we need to do is “Ban weapons of war.” And his science behind this statement? “Based on the evidence we have, banning these weapons probably won’t do too much to curb overall gun deaths.” Some science.
The next thing we need to do is: “Keep guns away from kids.” And the way we do this is to make sure the guns are always locked up, because according to another bit of science quoted by Gebelhoff, “68 percent of school shootings are perpetrated by shooters who obtain a gun from their homes or the homes of relatives.” Except the study he quotes says absolutely nothing about whether the guns used by those school shooters were locked up or not.
Next? “Stop the flow of guns.” And the ‘science’ behind this idea comes from the ‘gun buyback’ in Australia, according to Gebelhoff, except that what happened in Australia wasn’t a buyback at all. It was a decision by the government to prohibit the ownership of certain types of legally-owned guns, which meant that owners of these products had to be compensated at fair-market value when they surrendered their no-longer-legal product; in other words, it wasn’t a buyback, it was a confiscation, that’s all.
Of course, when Hillary talked about Australia during the 2016 campaign, her so-called experts told her she would be accused of supporting a plan that would undercut the sanctified 2nd Amendment, so what happened in Australia was turned into a ‘buyback,’ as if she knew what she was talking about either way. I’d like to thank Rob Gebelhoff for turning Hillary’s fiction into fact, of course using science to pave the way.
My concern about giving totally uninformed contributors like Gebelhoff space in the gun-control debate is that what they say will end up not just influencing the content of the debate, but will be used by the ‘other side’ to prove once again that people honestly concerned about gun violence are wolves in sheep’s clothing who just can’t wait to take all the guns away. And when a media venue as influential as The Washington Post allows someone as ignorant as Rob Gebelhoff to use terms like ‘science’ to shape the ideas of uninformed but otherwise-honest readers, the alt-right isn’t wrong when it refers to such shabby journalism as ‘fake news.’
Mar 24, 2018 @ 10:53:53
Unfortunately, the WaPo article is behind a paywall but I suspect I would agree with the essay here if I read the WaPo piece.
Mar 24, 2018 @ 12:15:09
The author, Robert Gebelhoff, writes that we need to treat guns like we treat cars. So I would say he agrees with concealed carry reciprocity.
Mar 24, 2018 @ 12:57:59
touche’
Mar 24, 2018 @ 16:32:07
“except that what happened in Australia wasn’t a buyback at all. It was a decision by the government to prohibit the ownership of certain types of legally-owned guns, which meant that owners of these products had to be compensated at fair-market value when they surrendered their no-longer-legal product; in other words, it wasn’t a buyback, it was a confiscation, that’s all.”
My understanding was that the guns weren’t banned or prohibited. Technically, instead, they were placed into license categories, which most people didn’t have access to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia
“Category C
Pump-action or self-loading shotguns having a magazine capacity of 5 or fewer rounds and semi-automatic rimfire rifles up to 10 rounds. Primary producers, farm workers, firearm dealers, firearm safety officers, collectors and clay target shooters can own functional Category C firearms.
Category D
All self-loading centrefire rifles, pump-action or self-loading shotguns that have a magazine capacity of more than 5 rounds, semi-automatic rimfire rifles over 10 rounds, are restricted to government agencies, occupational shooters and primary producers.”
Mar 24, 2018 @ 21:52:25
“My understanding was that the guns weren’t banned or prohibited. Technically, instead, they were placed into license categories, which most people didn’t have access to. ”
I would call that a distinction without a difference.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 03:34:29
Really? Whether a type of gun is legal or not is not an important difference? Okay…
Mar 25, 2018 @ 07:55:33
The bottom line is that buybacks as we use that word, are voluntary. The Australian event was a required turn-in of guns.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 09:17:50
When the terms of ownership are so restricted that it pretty much bars the public, then it really is not regulation but prohibition. Heck, at least in the USA, you can get a Federal permit for a pre-eighties machine gun.
Mar 25, 2018 @ 11:18:45
Australians call it “A required turn-in of guns,” Americans call it “confiscation.”
Mar 25, 2018 @ 10:09:47
From the description above,Category C licenses are available to the general public. Category D licenses are available to members of the public in certain occupational categories. It’s far from prohibition. Those people who couldn’t get a license for their gun were obliged to turn them in, for which they received full compensation (unlike UK gun owners, a major cause of complaint). My understanding is that many people took the compensation money and used it to buy a gun which they did have a license for.
As for the notion of an Australian apocalypse, so beloved of the NRA, I think the following is worth noting. That all-Australian hero Crocodile Dundee had a) a fancy hat, b) a crocodile coat, c) a big knife, d) a big smile, and e) one of the following:
A semi-automatic centre file rifle (Category D)
A semi-automatic rim fire rifle (Category C)
A bolt action centre fire rifle (Category B)
I’ve seen the first two films many times, but I would have got it wrong if asked.
Can you do better?
Mar 26, 2018 @ 16:49:58
Reality isn’t watching movies. A de-facto ban via impossible to obtain credentials is a ban and if you are allergic to the term, you have to ask why you are evading reality.
Closer to home, the fact that a billionaire like Donald J. Trump can get a may-issue pistol permit in NYC doesn’t mean the system is fair or just. It means he is a billionaire and everyone else is S-O-L.