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Sebastian answers some questions from a Brady campaign member. He does so with aplomb, avoiding phrases like "you festering ass-weasel", and answers with some fairly calm, rational responses that do our side good.

In the end, however, I believe it is a futile gesture. Anti-gunners start from the mindset that their fellow humans are too stupid to handle dangerous items without the false sense of security licensing provides. Since I'm perfectly ok with placing myself smack dab in the middle of several thousand strangers operating heavy machinery at high speeds, sometimes within inches of me going in the opposite direction, I can also deal with the same people being armed with a gun which has a much, much, much less chance of causing me any harm.

I also believe strongly that groups like the Brady Campaign and the VPC (or whatever shell company it is these days) truly wish to disarm the populace. At this time, I think their game plan is to try to remain relevant so their actions will not be in that direction, but if the political winds ever shifted, they'd be right back to trying to make gun ownership so fraught with peril that it's damn near impossible to do and people just give up.

I don't agree with Sebastian on a few things, but I heartily admit he is a good voice for our side.

As an update – I mean to give credit to the Brady staffer who's reaching out. Sebastian doesn't need special accolades, he does just fine.

posted @ 9/22/2010 9:03:51 AM

Comments

Weer'd Beard says:

on 9/22/2010 10:10:32 AM

I'm interested to see where this goes, but I also think this is an exercise in futility as Ms. Peterson is deeply entrenched in the gun-ban culture. If she ever says ANYTHING reasonable about gun control she will be thrown off the Brady Board of Directors, and will likely lose her MMM chapter.
She will also have to admit that all the laws and regulations she has been peddling for years have NOTHING to do with her sister's death, and she has been using a dead woman's memory to wrongfully push an anti-rights agenda.

That's a HUGE pill to swallow.

Hell I was just a Commie College puke when I stumbled on the fact that Gun Control was lies and bullshit. I hadn't made up T-shirts, started anti-rights organizations, or accepted funding...and STILL that was a bitter pill for me to swallow that I had been part of the Big Lie.

Rustmeister says:

on 9/22/2010 10:32:54 AM

It not about them, it's never been about them. It's about the third party readers, the ones who need to hear something other than what the newspapers and TV have to tell them.

If, by engaging the anti's, we get one person to start thinking positively about gun rights, then we've done our job.

It's for the children, after all....

Weer'd Beard says:

on 9/22/2010 10:35:34 AM

Rusty, just look at readership numbers and Google/bing results.

We HAVE the 3rd party locked up tight as a duck's butt.

This is why we're winning.

RuffRidr says:

on 9/22/2010 10:56:30 AM

If Japete is truly interested in reasonable dialog between the two sides, then I think she would have no problem answering a list of questions that we would ask. Anybody think that this will happen?

Weer'd Beard says:

on 9/22/2010 12:01:41 PM

"Anybody think that this will happen?"

Given that huge numbers of us have commented or linked to her blog with our own blogs with open comments, and there have been ZERO Japete comments made outside of her regulated environment, I think this is a staged event.

Staged for what, I don't know. But I've played this "Answer My Questions" game before, and it was to my net loss. (Mostly time and little game...and said Anti cherry-picked through various answers and quoted them out-of-context for spin)

Rustmeister says:

on 9/22/2010 12:04:47 PM

Yeah, Weer'd, it does my heart good to see all the comments on anti-gun pieces these days. A few years ago, that didn't happen.

CinSC says:

on 9/22/2010 12:56:07 PM

I think the anti-gun folks are a mixed lot. Mostly (perhaps 99%) they are well-intentioned but misinformed people who cloister themselves against the possibility of confronting the opposition directly. This is what makes the exchange so interesting.

I thought it was the best thing I had ever read about gun control.

Stuart the Viking says:

on 9/22/2010 1:46:04 PM

I don't have much hope for it in this case, but I have seen what spending time with a reasonable, responsible gun owner can do to make an anti see that gun owners aren't the violent lunatics that the anti-gun movement portrays us as.

I have a friend who was once terrified of guns to the point of crying whenever she saw one. Now, after a few years of me being her friend, that same person has gone to the range with me and shot .22LR and 9mm handguns. No crying, just grinning. While I don't think that particular friend will ever cross the line to being a gun owner, she has at least realized that the anti-gun hype is just that, a bunch of hype.

I'm not holding my breath, but maybe, if we continue to be the reasonable, normal people we are, the Joan Petersons of this world will also see the light.

s

mike w. says:

on 9/22/2010 2:05:50 PM

"Anybody think that this will happen?"

No. I have virtually no hope for Ms. Peterson. Can you tell I'm far more cynical than Sebastian. Given her actions thusfar and the massive amount of comment moderation she's engaging in I highly doubt she wants to have an honest discussion.

She's engaging in behavior we've all seen plenty of times before.

TJP says:

on 9/23/2010 2:30:42 PM

Nice calm collected responses, there. I tend to see these as the same idea, though:

"1. Do you believe that criminals and domestic abusers should be able to buy guns without background checks?

2. What is your proposal for keeping guns away from criminals, domestic abusers, terrorists and dangerously mentally ill people?

3. Do you believe that a background check infringes on your constitutional right to “keep and bear arms”?"

Wife-beaters are in an entirely different category because the situation often involves dependence--financial and emotional--of the beaten spouse. No one wants to argue any aspect of this unfortunate side of human behavior, and any sort of position from reason gets shouted down with, "Oh, so it's her fault for getting beaten, Mister Chauvinist Pig?!" Any pro se resolution--especially those that include violence--will still leave a broken and bitter victim. It's complicated, there are no immediate resolutions, and minor contraband rules are a farce, not a solution.

"Terrorist" is now such a broad category that I'll have to narrow it down: Jihadis or sympathizers who are in this country specifically for the purposes of creating destruction and death, in order to scare people. The cases that have been brought to light by journalists don't suggest prior record of violent crime or any reliable predictive element. I believe in mitigation--prevention is expensive and has a terrible track record. Also, society is not protected when a "terrorist" chooses an underwear or car bomb instead of a firearm.

The problem is that all of the questions are burdened with presumption yet unmolested by fact, and that makes it difficult to answer in short. Criminal background checks only exist for people who have been caught, and furthermore records only appear in a database once someone, somewhere has entered them. People who argue for the existence of this glacial, costly paperwork-shuffling are employing hindsight, narrowing their vision to a particular event instead of considering the millions of transactions that occur, and also assuming that everything happens instantaneously. This immaculate disarmament fantasy also ignores that guns are durable goods, and have been in the hands of people for decades--long before the contraband rules--as well as the fact that criminals don't volunteer for background checks when purchasing off the black market, or when stealing from government agencies or private citizens.

My general point is that the above are not actually separate questions. I wouldn't provide a one-word answer to the question of whether or not I think criminals or the "dangerously" mentally ill should be able to buy guns, because it's not a valid question. There's a broad spectrum of mental illness, not enough people are diagnosed much less treated, and even if there was a database with psychiatric evaluations, a police officer or a gun store employee isn't qualified to make a spot judgement based on this information. Violent criminals and the dangerously mentally ill who are unable to function in society should be under the custodianship of institutions qualified to deal with them. I'm not taking one for the team just because judges give short sentences or treatment facilities are so clogged with drunks and dopers that some psychotic can't get his Vitamin H when he needs it.

The disarmers have experimented on the general populace for over a century, and violent crime rates have varied without respect to contraband rules. Since this is painfully obvious to anyone who has actually examined the data, the unavoidable conclusion must be that further disarmament rules seek only to make it either dangerous or impossible for everyone else to own a firearm. I am therefore left with no other option than to believe that "banning" guns in the hands of innocent citizens is the ultimate goal--and I believe that answers another of the questions.

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