Kurt Hofmann:
Indeed, Mr. Gelman, by all means, re-brand the position of forcible citizen disarmament advocates as a demand for “no guns.” Boldly acknowledge what the gun ban groups no longer dare admit.
Kurt deals with a writer who advocates the complete ban on guns. The Washington Times carried something similar (one wonders if these kooks plan their attacks or if this is just happenstance).
Why don’t we just take guns out of the picture entirely?
Why don’t we just halt the possession, manufacture and importation of firearms altogether? But not just for civilians, for everyone.
The writer goes on to advocate the absence of firearms for the police, armed forces and all hunters. The police won’t need firearms if the public doesn’t have any. The armed forces won’t have to repel invasions – we haven’t had to do that for hundreds of years. Hunters will learn to use bows.
Forget the Pollyanna universe in which this pitiful soul lives, the one in which he can remove all sin by removing machines from our lives. We would need to ban assault hammers too.
One paragraph sticks out and bears debunking for readers.
Using the term “high powered” rifle is also ineffective and incorrect. The “high powered assault rifles” are mainly 5.56×45 chambered weapons, which is a round designed by NATO to allow for low recoil, making soldiering easier for smaller framed individuals in NATO allied militaries to wield the rifles. These weapons were designed to wound so that other enemy soldiers would be forced to tend to their fallen comrades, effectively taking them out of the fighting.
There are so many problems with this paragraph I don’t know where to begin. First of all, I don’t own an assault rifle because mine doesn’t have selective fire. Second, we are led to believe that we use the 5.56 mm because of the “little people.” This is so absurd as to be laughable.
The point of the cartridge is moderate recoil which makes it easier to obtain proper sight picture for the next round, especially with selective fire weapons. Finally, as we have discussed before, the 5.56 mm round yaws in flight, shattering upon impact to leave multiple wound tracks. To say that the intent was to wound rather than kill is patently false and silly.
When gun grabbers attempt to discuss guns they look silly and sophomoric because they don’t know what they’re talking about. But it’s nice to have some honesty. As we’ve also seen, an outright gun ban and confiscation is what the folks at Daily Kos want as well.
UPDATE: Kurt points out that the Washington Times piece was parody. Very good parody.
