Discussion for article #241573
1 Like
I am growing to dislike Ben Carson’s syrupy smirking face more and more.
19 Likes
The gun advocates’ first strategy always is to change the subject. If that doesn’t work, they provide a meaningless link with dubious stats, and if that doesn’t work they start calling you names.
In the end, they might pull out the heat.
16 Likes
Yesterday, Ben Carson told Wolf Blitzer that the Holocaust would have been “greatly diminished” had Jewish people in Europe been armed with guns. Carson also partly blames the horror of the Holocaust on Nazi gun control laws in his book, A Perfect Union. The reality:
The Weimar Republic, the German government that immediately preceded Hitler’s, actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime. After its defeat in World War I, and agreeing to the harsh surrender terms laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, the German legislature in 1919 passed a law that effectively banned all private firearm possession, leading the government to confiscate guns already in circulation. In 1928, the Reichstag relaxed the regulation a bit, but put in place a strict registration regime that required citizens to acquire separate permits to own guns, sell them or carry them.
The 1938 law signed by Hitler that LaPierre mentions in his book basically does the opposite of what he says it did. “The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition,” Harcourt wrote. Meanwhile, many more categories of people, including Nazi party members, were exempted from gun ownership regulations altogether, while the legal age of purchase was lowered from 20 to 18, and permit lengths were extended from one year to three years.
The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general. And the ancillary claim that Jews could have stopped the Holocaust with more guns doesn’t make any sense at all if you think about it for more than a minute.
Link: http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/stop_talking_about_hitler
12 Likes
So if it’s mental health, we can expect a serious Republican plan to ensure full access to treatment for everyone who needs it, right?
15 Likes
The NRA has a huge network of paid propagandists who could never hack it as real historians, so they print out and sign NRA funded and dictated “studies” that present twisted NRA disinformation fantasies as fact. One cock-and-bull story is that gun control created the Holocaust, and Ben dutifully reprinted this sicko perversion in a recent book – gotta write whatever the paymaster tells you to write. The amoral huckster is doubling down on it right now as you say, quickly denounced by Anti-Defamation League.
I guess he was an imperfect surgeon, leaving sponges in people’s skulls and getting sued for malpractice many times, But reformatting/republishing NRA propaganda pamphlets under his name doesn’t make him either a historian or a policy expert either. No matter how much he smirks “knowingly.”
11 Likes
As long as they can write a check.
3 Likes
While I am in favor of background checks (actually the current system has background checks for some) and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminal, I have to say that I that some of the “causes” raised by Republicans should be explored. We delude ourselves when we think a simple minded solution alone will solve all our problems.
Mass shootings have become more common. Anybody wonder why?
1 Like
Enlighten us! You seem to have all the answers, so spell it out for us.
P.S. You don’t know, but you scold us? Come on, what could it be?
Muslim President not from USA? Punished by God for tolerating gays? Licenciousness on internet? Failing to charge a gunman and then playing the victim when he kills you? Not arming kindergarten teachers? You said we are deluded! ENLIGHTEN US!**
3 Likes
I don’t know, but I it is a question that must have an answer. I think we are so deeply frozen into our simple minded ideological answers I doubt anybody on either side is really looking.
1 Like
Republicans don’t want to help people. Only to judge them. Clever Republicans will diagnose the problem as a deficiency of judgment which has been passed against somebody, and therefore redefine passing judgment as “helping.” Too-clever-by-half Republicans like Carson have so completely tricked themselves with their own bullshit, that they don’t even bother pretending. To their supporters, they look like truth tellers when in fact, they are everything but.
4 Likes
Um, more guns? Absurd ammunition clips? Ammo available on the Internet? Paranoia of gun owners?
Frankly, I think mental health checks will have very limited, if any affect on this. Many teenagers have depression, loneliness, and anger issues. If every therapist/teacher/coach (who could even do this?) put all the people who have those issues into the gun “data base” there would be a revolt, and it would become useless. It would also have the effect of discouraging troubled people from seeking any help.
No. The basic problem is guns.
Edited to add: It is hard to come up with answers based on research, since the GOP passed laws actually PROHIBITING RESEARCH ON THIS SUBJECT! I guess we just have to look at other countries, and use their examples. And when we do, we find thatn countries that have tighter gun laws, and fewer guns, have fewer mass shootings.
9 Likes
I agree that YOU’RE not, speaking of illogical.
1 Like
I don’t think guns are more available now than they used to be. Finding a gun to commit a mass killing has never been a problem, at least since WWII.
Limited mental health might be, but we let the crazies go during the Reagan administration for reasons related to budget er, freedom.
2 Likes
No. The basic problem is guns
This is another example of simple answers to complex questions, brought to you by people who don’t want to solve real problems.
1 Like
I scold you because you aren’t interested in really examining the problem. You have a simple, one size fits all solution and by God you intend to deploy it regardless. You are no better than the Republicans you oppose. Both sides have figured out how not to solve the problem while sounding pious and proud. Typical modern America.
I think you are more invested in the ideological fight with the other side than you are in solving mass killings. In that regard you are no better than the NRA. That is what I think.
Sometimes a cigar is really just a cigar.
Sometimes the answer obvious. That doesn’t mean one is “simple minded” to note it.
5 Likes
He’s a mess.
You really think gun control is going to completely solve the problem of mass shootings? I want better gun control because I think it might have an impact on impulse killings in domestic disputes or low level street crimes, but I don’t think for a second gun control is going to stop the really determined crazy from getting a gun.
2 Likes