Here’s something you don’t see every day: a relatively fair and even-handed look at both sides of the “gun culture” discussion.
Congratulations to Spectrum News, and thanks to sociology professor David Yemane, who both appears in the video and brought it to our attention here.
I tried several times to hear what the spokes lady claimed was the percentage of folks admitting to owning guns was. Didn’t succeed. However, it’s widely known and acknowledged that gun ownership is under reported.
Gun owners got a generally positive image presentation. However, several of the academic types got in some subtle-or not so subtle-digs a any research that didn’t support their viewpoint. The violence prevention guy did a hit job on the NRA, not unexpected, but seems convinced that firearms restrictions are the solution to the violence caused by a society in turmoil. He wasn’t the only one to show a guns=violence bias.
Relatively fair is a reasonable grade.
One of the things I’ve done as a reformed golfer when people get concerned about how many guns someone might own is to use golf as an analogy. Golfers lug a bag with a double digit number of clubs in it. They do so because the clubs best suit specific situations.
And you can go one step further. Clubs were weapons millennia before firearms were invented.
A golf club was used to murder 15-year-old Martha Moxley in 1975. Why wasn’t there a movement to ban golf clubs?
Flannery, the violence prevention guy, made false statements that weren’t challenged by anyone. Namely that more guns = more violence. You don’t need to look further than Chicago and New York City to see that gun restrictions don’t eliminate violence.
I would have liked to see John Lott make a few comments after Mr. Flannery was done with his assertions.
Well done presentation. Something missing was why American politicians place so much emphasis on reducing or eliminating gun ownership while simultaneously letting violent criminals roam around society unfettered.
BINGO!!! You obliterated the bullseye.
That was indeed a fair representation of both sides. I’ll pass it along.
And, we see an example out of NM the other day of what can happen when an armed citizen steps up.
Mas, thank you for offering the video. This report did not resonate with me very well in terms of thinking it was unbiased. While it didn’t come across on the surface as openly hostile toward firearms, the tone of its presentation seemed to center more around the idea of the psychological feelings associated with gun ownership, the sentiments and notions, rather than the hard facts associated with the true purpose of the second amendment. Self defense was presented, but it was characterized in terms of how people felt in their personal security without emphasis on the reality of facts and the numbers of times guns are actually used to stop crime or save lives. The only mention I recall about the people confronting the government was in a negative light, giving no helpful enlightenment about the real purpose of the second amendment and how that relates to private gun ownership. On one hand, that might be a good idea if the presenters are not very versed in the foundations of the second amendment themselves, which would probably result in bungling such a presentation; but on the other hand, if they want to seriously examine the topic, they should first become educated about those fundamentals, and why such an outlook exists, since the irreducible minimum of what the second amendment is actually about is not personal self defense per se. To me, the tone of the video seems to subtly imply that gun ownership is merely a preference that some people have for recreation and a FEELING of security, both of which become negotiable in the hands of politicians. They would tell us, there are many kinds of recreational things that can take the place of guns, and the government is here for our security…so, why do you think you need guns, after all?! If I were anti-gun and watched this video, I would come away thinking that the people interviewed, those of the so-called “gun culture”, really don’t need guns, it is simply, and only, a preference and not something essential or indispensable. And thanks again, though, for posting it! It is appreciated!
Yes, the Second Amendment is the remedy for tyranny. Government leaders can be big tyrants. Criminals are small tyrants. My guess is the Founding Fathers could never foresee a time when people would be ignorant enough to question the need for personal self-defense with tools like firearms. They had just fought a rebellion against the greatest military power of their day. They foresaw a time when the government they were creating could become tyrannical. They wanted the citizens to be able to resist those tyrants. Also, they did not want a standing, professional army. They were afraid the army could be used by the government leaders to oppress the citizens. They wanted America to be defended from foreign attacks in the same way Switzerland was defended then and now, by a citizen militia. That is why the Second Amendment reads, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, . . .” They wanted America’s security to be in the hands of a citizen militia. For that, the citizens needed their own personal arms and training.
It could be argued that we citizens do not need arms today, because we are defended by a professional military. But we will need arms if our government turns tyrannical. Thinking people realize that arms are necessary for self-defense against little tyrants. But I am preaching to the choir.
Did the people of Ukraine need arms? Do the Israelis need arms? Do the people of Venezuela and North Korea wish they had guns? How about the people of Hong Kong? Do women who have been raped wish they had had a gun? School teachers?
There was a day when the British were stripped of their firearms by their own government. Then 1940 came and they were about to come face to face with Hitler’s army. Ironically, the British who once tried to disarm America were now asking for American arms to be sent by American citizens to them for their defense. Thus the inherent right protected by the second amendment does not only serve the people of the United States, but if properly respected, esteemed, and administered, it is able to serve peoples of other nations as well. And we haven’t even yet discussed the current invasion of this country…
The anti-gun bias in this video was milder than that usually seen. The difference is that in this video we were humanized instead of treated as an enemy.
Omitted from the video were:
* The _uselessness_ of the mild proposals that sound good to many gun owners though the NRA opposes them.
* The gun control movement’s history of telling lies chronically.
* The inability of the government alone to secure our rights if we, the people, are not ready to defend them.
* Gun violence researcher’s anti-gun bias, which cannot cloud their thinking any less than was the case with research on the safety of smoking funded by the tobacco companies.
Wrt the last item, what is this bias? Their bias is their immersion in a political environment that considers it barbaric and uncivilized for private citizens to go about ready to kill a violent criminal who threatens them. You would never hear someone who researches the danger of owning a gun say, “I admit it would be great if instead of robbing people successfully every mugger upon making his demand were shot down where he stands. It’s just that, according to my research, the danger of owning a gun simply makes that otherwise wonderful remedy just too dangerous to rely upon.” No, they oppose the carrying of guns for reasons that have nothing to do with the danger or safety of doing so, so why wouldn’t they prefer results that would seem to discourage the practice?
In their environment, researchers who produce results that can be cited by Progressives are lauded and promoted. Researchers who produce results that will be cited by faculties’ political opponents are despised. Is it realistic to assume that these social scientists will indeed be objective? Probably less so, than doctors getting grant money from tobacco companies.
“…relatively fair and even handed…”
That is a subjective assessment. I listened to the entire program ,and (in summary) this is the message that I received from it.
“Guns and gun ownership are bad. It is undisputed that more guns equal more crime, more suicides, and more gun violence. The United States ought to take strong action to rein in gun ownership, like the rest of the civilized World, but we have the 2nd Amendment, the NRA, and an unusual ‘Gun Culture’ that is standing in the way of taking effective action to reduce ‘Gun Violence’. There are historical reasons for why we find ourselves in this unfortunate position.”
The above is the message that I got from the presentation, and I don’t call it fair or even-handed.
The entire video was an exercise in left-wing thinking. Let me give you a tip. Anytime you see a discussion that is framed around how external, environmental factors are influencing human culture, then you are engaged in left-wing thinking. Leftists have a “Tabula rasa” worldview. They view humans as “Blank Slates” that are entirely formed and controlled by external environmental factors. Thus, the environment, society, and culture are inseparable under leftist thought. This kind of thinking gives rise (directly) to left-wing ideology which can be summed up as:
“Humans are blank slates formed and controlled entirely by their environment. Therefore, Utopia (The Left-Wing Utopia) can be manufactured by creating a supremely powerful central Government. A Government so powerful that it can entirely shape mankind’s external environment. By controlling society, this Super Government can totally shape the blank slates of individual humanity. It can eliminate negative external environment influences while growing positive influences. Using indoctrination and propaganda, it can shape the very thoughts in the heads of the People. The result? A perfect environment creates a perfect society (The Great Society, as LBJ put it). A perfect society will create, per the Tabula rasa worldview, perfect people. Perfect people will create Utopia. Thus, we will be as God and create perfection. With perfect people and Utopia, we will replace God. We will (ourselves) be God.”
The above sums up the left-wing worldview in a nutshell. It shows the egocentric and extreme narcissism of left-wing thinking.
The Left has identified guns, as (1) a negative environmental influence on society and (2) a barrier to their creation of the “Super Government”. Thus firearms, in the hands of the People, represent an obstacle to Utopia creation. Therefore, the People must be disarmed under the leftist mindset. The Left will never rest until the People are disarmed. Therefore, all talk of a “Middle Ground” with the Left is useless. Let me quote Churchill from the movie “Darkest Hour”:
“When will the lesson be learned? When will it be learned? You cannot reason with a Tiger when your head is in its mouth!”
This was not an even-handed presentation. This is clearly shown by their description of the NRA. Did you notice? It painted the NRA as an effective lobby group that used fear of confiscation to make the debate on firearms into a wedge issue. An even-handed presentation would have painted BOTH SIDES as using fear to create firearms into a wedge issue. Yet, the Gun Control groups were (quietly) not mentioned at all. Only the NRA got blamed for firearm-ownership being a wedge issue.
Yet, it was the Gun Control groups that started this war. For the first Century of its history, the NRA was largely focused upon the shooting sports, hunting, and firearms training. Their political lobby efforts were weak at best. It was the Gun Control side, who constantly “tightened the screws” of Gun Control (with multiple efforts to pass increasingly restrictive legislation such as the Gun Control Act of 1968), that caused the NRA to become more politically active. It was the Gun Control folks who CREATED the modern NRA and other 2nd Amendment Groups.
Yet, this video makes it sound like it is all the fault of the NRA. They are the “radicals” while the Gun Control Groups represent “Commonsense”.
Even-handed? Sorry, I don’t think so. I will admit that this video tried to soft-peddle their gun control. They did not go into full-bore attack mode and paint gun-owners as having their hands dipped in innocent blood. They did not paint them as being Bible-thumping hicks from “fly-over country”. Just don’t mistake their soft gun-control as even-handedness. Soft gun control is still just camouflaged “Firearms Prohibition” in my book.
Sorry, Mas. This is bad.
Professor David Yamane is good people, and we can learn from his perspective.
Many of us have good reason to believe that the anti-side is arguing in bad faith, but those aren’t the ones we should try and reach, it’s the ambivalent or mildly-biased, and framing can matter there, where just hammering on the facts can lose them.
well, the one fella said saint g. floyd was murdered, that perpetuates the lie and d. chauvin is paying the political price…
epstein didn’t hang himself.
Did anyone else notice that when Prof. Lacombe asks about driving a car in the first couple minutes, the video was showing a case with 3 Kahrs in the foreground? I wonder if the editor knew that.
Not the best venue but i just watched the latest Runkle Of The Bailey youtube video on Colonel Craig Tucker, it was a follow up about his sur-rebuttal in the Bonta case, and everyone here will absolutely want to watch both videos. Mas, i foresee a possible blog entry for you.
Undoubtedly, NO. They were “guns” not Kahrs, guns are just guns and if they go bang, they are assault weapons. THAT is the anti-gun view, there isn’t anything else to it. They don’t know any different and are so certain they know EVERYTHING they have no interest in learning any differently.
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