Are you a law-abiding gun owner who may have low blood pressure? I have a cure you can find in a bookstore: “What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms” by Jonathan M. Metzl.  It’s sure to raise your blood pressure.

Metzl’s belief system says (direct quote) “I don’t own a gun, and I hope I never need to.” He doesn’t seem to realize that if and when he ever does “need to” it will probably be too late for him to get one.

His statement is like saying “I’ll buy fire insurance after my house burns down.” Things just don’t work that way.

He has heard the arguments of the pro-gun side, he just doesn’t seem to understand them. He writes, “A gun under the bed or in the glove box provides tangible reassurance in ways that policies warding off imagined negative events in the future, like cancer from cigarettes, diseases from sex, or potential accidents from cars, never can. Individual self-protection trumps aggregate communal data about gun injuries and deaths—which in any case are seen by many gun owners as happening in the ‘inner city’ or somewhere else.”

There is much truth in the above paragraph. Unfortunately, instead of recognizing the value of peace of mind in that “tangible reassurance” and the reality that a huge amount of gun violence victims are killed by gang-bangers  in “gun control cities” he sees that reassurance as somehow a bug instead of a feature.

Jonathan Metzl is obviously an intelligent man who has a way with words. But like so many on his side of this polarized debate, he seems to have committed himself to gun-banning with an almost religious zeal that gets in the way of his judgment and logic.

The book pivots upon, and constantly returns to, a multiple-victim shooting at a Waffle House in Nashville a few years ago. To be fair, Metzl scrupulously documents all the chances society had to stop this obvious whacko before he showed up at the killing ground nude except for a jacket and an AR15. We gun owners’ civil rights advocates point out those exact same societal failures. Sadly, Metzl completely disregards the reality that if a single armed citizen had been present and seen the nude gunman with the AR in time, there would have been no innocent victims there that day at all. 

Otherwise intelligent and logical people will continue to deny reality and to demand the disarming of the law-abiding, when they know or should know that those who by definition are lawbreakers will keep their deadly weapons, manufacture more they way they manufacture the most rigidly prohibited drugs, and will continue to violate the most stringent laws of both God and Man. Mr. Metzl’s book is priced at $29.99 (on sale at Amazon right now for $19.96 E.P.) and, while raising your blood pressure, will also understand why advocates for the civil rights of law-abiding gun owners will continue to fight for those natural rights.

41 COMMENTS

  2. His statement is like saying “I’ll buy fire insurance after my house burns down.”

    To me it reads more like, “I’ll run out and buy a fire extinguisher after my kitchen is ablaze.” Insurance is intangible and provides reimbursement to cover repairs and/or replacement. An extinguisher is a tangible item that can help prevent the worst damage in the moment.

    But I see your point: Precautionary measures are useless if you don’t get them until after the damage is done.

    It is interesting, though, that like any other anti-gunner with reasonable intelligence, he acknowledges all the same facts and societal failures that lead up to violent crime that we do, but instead of taking the last step and concluding that the right of armed self-defense could minimize damage and victim counts, he takes a sharp left turn and demands more “gun control” laws … more of the same laws that already failed multiple times leading up to the crime.

    That every reasonably-intelligent anti-gunner’s ability to use logic and reason seems to break down at precisely that last step, does point to “gun control” (and broader State control in general) as a religion.

    And “gun control” and Leftism do function as a religion: Government is its deity, politicians are its clergy, totalitarian socialism and collectivism are its Holy Writ, and “law enforcement” and prosecutors are its Inquisition to find and punish sinners apostates transgressors.

  3. If you were screwing people over like the Marxist Democrats are doing, you wouldn’t want them to have guns either…..the Founders believed armed citizens could prevent an oppressive govt….

    • and history has vindicated that thinking. Starting at Lexington and Concord, 19 April 1775.

      How far would Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, (and you all can complete the list) would hve goten if the common man on the street were in the vast majority armed and skilled.

      Remember the Warsaw ghetto where the Jews forced to live there had managed to ferret away a few firearms in open defiance of the collecion actions to disarm them all. When the army came round to gather them up and herd them into he cattle cars then off to the pits, they actually had a few weapons and used them to great effect. The army boys ran off screaming”they got GUNNNNS…..”
      Yeah, they did, and knew what to do with them.

      • More importantly, the Jews in the ghetto had squirreled away sub-standard arms compared to what the standing army carried. But it didn’t matter; they soon made up the difference by using the “sub-standard” arms to defeat a few soldiers, and then re-equipped themselves with those soldiers’ arms, thus putting them on more equal footing, armament-wise. Rinse and repeat.

        There’s a lesson in there, somewhere. “Battlefield pick-ups” work.

  4. I was at a class this weekend where a female student stated she had been very anti-gun for many years. She then realized the logical fallacy of the arguments made by that side of the issue and started researching the issues on her own. Not a dummy, she realized how much her trust in those anti-gun arguments had been misplaced. She now is very pro-gun and not only a good shooter but is taking steps to be an effective self defense instructor and 2A advocate.
    So keep talking with people on the other side in such a way that those who have at least some modicum of logic and open mindedness will realize the best way forward.

    • Even if they don’t go full pro-2A and continue to choose not to own or carry a firearm themselves — which is 100% their right (we’re the “pro-choice” side here) — if they walk away more skeptical of the anti-gun arguments and more open to pro-gun arguments, that’s still a win. One less virulently anti-gun voter.

      If they simply choose to sit the issue out as an “undecided”, that’s a net positive for us.

  5. It’s fascinating how “intelligent” people remain blind to the single fact that mass shootings were nonexistent until invention of SSRI drugs.

      • Tionico,

        Texas Tower Shooting August 1st, 1966. See also Bath School Massacre May 18th, 1927. The massacre was done with bombs, not guns, but it still remains the worst school massacre in American history, with the highest body count.

  6. Typical Leftist BS. Everything is based on feelings and not reality or common sense. “If I don’t feel that I’ll ever be violently assaulted it will never happen to me.” “I’ll vote for Kamala no matter what because Trump hurts my feelings.” We don’t keep defensive firearms because they make us feel a certain way. We keep them because we know that bad things can happen to good people and we choose to be prepared. Our forefathers would be ashamed of the helpless clueless dipsticks that populate this country.

  7. It is time to face facts. Roughly 50% of any human population is “hard-wired” with a left-wing mental state. I see articles, all the time, that basically rail about “why can’t these stupid leftists see the poisonous and destructive nature of their their polices?”

    Why can’t they “wake up” and see the oblivious?

    The answer is, simply, their minds are wired backwards. To rail against this is like complaining that your FM radio won’t pick up short-wave channels. It won’t because it is simply not wired to do so and no amount of complaining or adjustment of the dials will change its basic nature.

    I don’t know the true source of the leftist mindset. Is is genetics? Is it triggered by environmental conditions? Do childhood experiences play a significant role? Who can say? The left-wing mental condition is probably triggered by a combination of factors.

    All I know is that leftists actually SEE a different World than I do. They exist in a “dream state”. A fantasy World in which People are inherently GOOD and INNOCENT but they are twisted by environmental conditions. A leftist is literally PROGRAMMED to see humans as puppets that dance to external social forces. To a leftists, all of the World’s problems spring from external environmental forces. Therefore, they exists in a continual “Search and Destroy” mission to track down these negative forces and eliminate them.

    Therefore, to a leftist, it is oblivious that an external social force (the existence of weapons like firearms) is a DIRECT cause of interpersonal violence between humans. The solution is equally oblivious to them: Eliminate the weapons and YOU WILL eliminate the violence.

    This whole chain of thought seems stupid to us non-leftists. We can see a million reasons why such simplistic reasoning will not work. Why it is actually counter-productive. Our arguments fall on deaf ears. To be more precise. Our arguments fail to influence a brain that is hard-wired to accept only leftist thought.

    We broadcast our signals to the leftists. However, their radio sets simply cannot pick up and process our messages. What is there to do?

    • Typo correction. I wrote my previous comment in a hurry and I now see that it is full of typos. The most “obvious” typo was caused by my spell checker, which insisted on substituting the word “oblivious”, when I actually wished to use the word “obvious”. Please (mentally) substitute obvious for oblivious in every instance in my comment above and I apologize for the other typos as well.

      Spelling has never been my strength and when I type in a hurry, I can’t seem to avoid making mistakes.

    • Education is wonderful, but it doesn’t work every time. Maybe the problem lies in the heart, the inner nature, and not the brain. Although, the blinded heart is clearly influencing the brain.

      • Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to spot typo’s just after writing a comment. My mind knows what I was trying to say and only allows me to read what I wanted to write rather than what I actually wrote. Sort of like a leftist that views the World through the eyes of his ideology. A leftist sees the fantasy World that he wishes to create. He cannot see the True World, as it actually exists.

        Fortunately, my delusional state is only temporary. If I come back to a comment, a day later, then it is no longer “fresh in my mind”. So, I acquire the ability to spot my typos after a “cooling off” period. This is why I did not spot my typos on the 27th, the day I wrote the original comment, but was able to clearly see them (and apologize for them) a day later on the 28th.

        It is interesting how the human mind works. It can range from brilliant to (in the case of madmen and leftists) totally self-delusional.

        The problems that the World faces today are not external to humanity. They are internal. The source of all of our problems is not our external social environment. That is where the Left goes fundamentally wrong in their assumptions.

        The source of ALL of our Problems is the Human mind. Our wounds are all self-inflicted.

        Quote of the Day:

        “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.” – Walt Kelly

      • TN_MAN,

        One commenter once had good advice for me, but it only works if I am on a PC. Type your reply into a WORD document first. Edit it. When it is perfect, copy & paste it into Mas’ blog reply box.

      • @ Roger Willco – “Type your reply into a WORD document first.”

        Occasionally, I have done this. It does produce a better (more error-free) result. However, it takes extra steps and extra time to do this method. If I am in a hurry, then the temptation is to skip any extra effort and just type a comment directly into the comment box on-line, review it quickly, and then submit it.

        As usual, such a hurried approach produces less than optimal results.

        Quote of the Day:

        “Haste makes Waste.” – Traditional Proverb

  8. If you buy the book fo further research into the gun grabber mind, be sure to buy a used one so the publisher and author do not benefit further from the printed fantasies.

  9. We have our own Anti Group. Two individuals from a Santa Fe Presbeterian Church have enlisted the assistance of the Albuquerque Police Dept. for a “buy back” program. The Presby has been gun since 1968.

  12. I understand why tyrants want society disarmed. I will never understand why so many in the citizenry are OK with that. (I don’t lump Metzl in the latter category, this guy has been spewing luncacy for years. He raises his status in the academic world with this garbage.)

    God forbid, you are ever trapped in a confined space with an armed bad guy, do you want to be armed yourself or not? It’s no more complicated than that.

    In my household, there are far more guns than people, yet for some strange reason, not a single one of my firearms is shooting anyone right now. I’m surrounded by rifles as I type this and the walls don’t look like swiss cheese from the bullet holes. If guns are the problem, I must be doing something wrong, huh Metzl?

    • Imagine a room filled with twenty of the most powerful men in history, but no man has a gun, or any weapon. Into that room walks a 15-year-old girl with a gun. Who’s in charge?

  13. Perhaps I’m over simplifying, but the anti gun crowd seems to fall into two broad categories. The first group has two subsets: those who feel guns are innately evil and elicit violent behavior by their very presence, and those who feel that if guns aren’t available then violence won’t happen. There’s some overlap. I don’t recall exactly how Cain slew Able, but obviously, both subsets don’t reflect reality. There’s an old maxim that the mind is the weapon, whatever means is used is simply a tool.

    The second group seems to be related to class/social position and/or wealth. They really can’t believe that they are exposed to a threat. Those things take place among the less civilized lower orders and in other places. While some may have their own guns/armed security, everything would be so much better and more tidy if guns weren’t so prevalent amongst the lower classes. In short, guns for me, none for thee.

    There are folks who are very wealthy and of high social standing that are just plain folks.

  14. Kurt Schlichter’s book “I Am A Liberal” comes to mind when reading today’s blog. It really helped me understand this mindset, in which true reason and logic have no place. Liberalism seems to have become a fanatical religion, that wishes to suppress subjugate and destroy those who disagree with it’s ideals. Sound familiar?

    • David Horowitz knows a lot about being a liberal. He was raised a Communist, and joined the Weather Underground, or at least had contact with them. Then, he repented and became a Patriot.

  15. Mas,

    Do you think any anti-gun forum would recommend a pro-2A publication to their members/readers? Why are we giving these folks – who hold views in such stark opposition to us, to the point that they demonize us for our (constitutionally-protected) possessions and interests – the publicity (and revenue) they seek?

    We know what their arguments are. We know the flaws in them. I would conclude, based on your summary alone, that there is nothing new to be learned (else you would surely have mentioned it!). We don’t need to be supporting them.

  17. I have a challenge for the guy who wrote this book.

    Draft some sort of law that would ACTUALLY PREVENT wilflful killing of innocents ;acking any cause fot their deaths.

    Not just a law imposing punishment on those who so these things, but woule that woul in reality, 100% of the time, PREVENT such killings of innocents.

    Its already a felony to drive a vehicle into an occupied building “forgetting” to use the door.

    Its already a felony to use a firearm of any sort to kill another human being absent justifiable defense.

    Is already a felony to wilfully cause great bodily harm to another human being, absent justifying cause.

    Wha NEW felony or other law does this guy propose that would of a certainty stop or prevent any person from killing or seriously injuring another human? Not just punish after the crime, but PREVENT the crime in he first place.

    The ONLY thing that can and does reliably stop such harmful actions is someone else to SHOOT BACK.

  18. Not surprisingly, a respectful and graceful review to what seems to be an utterly nonsensical position. You’re a classy cat, Mas.

  19. um, mark twain said “never ague with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference…”

    Epstein didn’t kill himself…

  20. I BELIEVE people like this are neither sane nor rational. And honestly, not terribly intelligent to boot. We dare to confuse intelligence with sanity at our own peril. The simple construct Mas spoke about, ie, buying insurance after the fire, is a very relevant example of lack of reasoning capability on the author’s part. I’ve already heard just about all the anti-gun tripe I’m ever going to listen to. It’s the comprehensive study of illogical thought. Think I’ll pass. Again. Hearing it for the 100th time has less effect than the first. And it started at zero with me to begin with. I reject their “aguments” and “data” out of hand. Addressing it at all lends it credibility, so I’ve said too much already.

  21. Thanks, Mas, but my blood pressure is high enough already – I don’t think I need to raise it further, so I’ll skip this particular “light reading”!

  22. “Jonathan Metzl is obviously an intelligent man who has a way with words. But like so many on his side of this polarized debate, he seems to have committed himself to gun-banning with an almost religious zeal that gets in the way of his judgment and logic.”

    Using the definition of intelligence as the ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge, I suggest that Mr. Metzl is obviously NOT very intelligent.

    • It’s possible to be intelligent, but blind, like Noam Chomsky. Maybe people are intelligent in certain areas of knowledge, but ignorant, or stupid, in other areas. One time in Morris County, New Jersey, there was a judge who got arrested for drunk driving.

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