[BearwWthoutBorders] Fw: FIREARM RIGHTS AND CLOSELY RELATED STUFF (MY ROUNDUP)

[Hunter Gray]

First, Dale's message went to me only -- but it's obviously designed for the two lists on which he is a member -- and I'm also putting it on RBB. It's just below this of mine.  We do, obviously, disagree on a very few points of his -- and agree, certainly, on most others.  The NRA, as Dale indicates, is a single issue organization: supporter of the 2nd Amendment and gun rights. It picks the candidates it supports by endorsing the incumbent, regardless of political party, if the incumbent gets an A in the NRA"s rating process.  If the incumbent doesn't get an A and the opponent does, NRA supports the latter.  It's non-partisan and always endorses and supports a number of Democrats but, since Clinton, there aren't as many pro-gun Demos as there once were.  I don't think, although Dale didn't get into this, that it's at all accurate to label NRA, a civil liberties organization, as "right wing" any more than it's accurate to label ACLU as "left wing."  They transcend that dichotomy.

Frankly, I don't like the so-termed phony and superficially dressed -up "assault rifles."  I'm a revolver and lever action rifle guy -- and I have a single-barreled shotgun.  On the other hand, there are many people who do like the "assault" weapons -- and that is their prerogative.  So I see important principles embodied in that situation.  I also like gun shows and am opposed to any Federal regulation in what are essentially private transactions.

I certainly agree with Dale on his great concern for the callous disregard of a vast number of starving children and his equally great concern for the American military budgets and the extraordinarily sanguinary U.S. military adventures abroad.

I am familiar with the careful findings of Kleck and Lott to the effect that no solid evidence has been presented to indicate "gun control" is effective.  Lott and I have been on radio interviews together on various occasions.  I -- and John (Beba) -- met Kleck in New Orleans at a great gun panel which was part of the National Popular Culture Association's annual meeting. Kleck, very much a statistician type was unhappy with my "anecdotal" evidence, as he called it, but I was strongly supported by all of the other panel members -- all "proper" academics as well as good gun people.  The two approaches, of course, complement each other nicely -- but first hand accounts are always more interesting.

I do have a thick hide (and thick skull.)  Coming of radical age at 21 in 1955 -- with the Red Scare in full swing and due to continue through the '60s and somewhat more covertly beyond, I've been called all sort of things.  I've always heeded the old IWW adage, "Better to be called Red than be called Yellow" (no racial connotations, of course.) I've been called a "paramilitarist" countless times on my gun rights stance.  But I still treasure the public label given me by that old labor-exploiting  s.o.b., Lester Bennett in upstate New York, when we successfully mounted a campaign, with a strike, and ended his closed feudal control over more than one hundred Algonquin Indian mink skinners (and their families) at his huge mink ranch.  He called me a "cut throat do-gooder" in all of the regional newspapers.

Thanks, Dale! (And I note your apt correction:  "Correction:  By saying I am for gun control, I mean the military, not the individual citizen."

Solidarity/Best regards, Hunter

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Dale Jacobson 
To: Hunter Gray 
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2012 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: FIREARM RIGHTS AND CLOSELY RELATED STUFF (MY ROUNDUP)


Hunter no doubt will disagree with two points, or already has, but as very few have responded to his posts, let me at least express my thoughts. 


One of the qualities of American culture I find repulsive is its proclivity for dogma, which means, apparently, that certain apriori assumptions are given to be conclusive, depending on one's belief about them.  When someone doesn't agree that these assumptions are fact,  name-calling ensues, or labeling, or condemnation etc.  I see this righteousness very much alive in the gun debate and I'm sorry to see that Hunter had to suffer such a reaction. 


I have to admit that after the NRAs support of Bush the Minor, I came to dislike it, but not for its stance on guns, rather for its support of one of the most damaging presidencies our nation has experienced.  But that's me, and I see the NRA in its support of Bush as more myopic than reactionary, due to its being a single issue organization. 


What I've seen on facebook from the worst of the extremely righteous gun-control advocates, however, far too often fits my second paragraph above. I do not see gun-control as a solution to the problems we face with mass shootings.  And its not because I give a big hoot about guns, as Hunter can attest.  In fact, Justice Stephen Breyer, even as he voted, as part of the minority, in favor of gun control in the most recent case, acknowledged that there was no empirical evidence that gun control was effective.  Two studies, one by Lott and one by Kleck (I believe there are also others) support Breyer's assessment.

I agree with Hunter that guns are useful in self-defense and we have a right to that self-protection.  I see the causes of the violence in our nation as much more complex than mere access to guns, and it seems reasonable to ask why students or young (mostly male) adults want to kill other kids and teachers, in other words, what is their motivation, and I can't help thinking that a nation continually at war should not be surprised by this result.  Very few people are talking about this possible connection, though it has been mentioned, including in some psychology studies.  I actually am in favor of gun control, but let's go after the biggest guns promoted by the biggest pusher of guns:  our so-called military defense, which Eisenhower, the former general, warned us against. 


I also see a certain inconsistency in the concern over the recent shootings.  Where has been the great concern for the 17,000 children John Hopkins estimates died as a consequence of no health care in the last decade?  Or the children killed by our drone missile attacks, 333 such attacks this year alone?  Or the children who died from our invasion of Iraq?  Certainly people who  support gun control are among those who also did not support these policies, but as a nation, I have not seen a similar level of outrage.


I depart with Hunter on two issues:  I see no need for assault weapon designs.  While they are not in mechanical structure really different from the standard hunting rifle, they do promote a military mind-set and I see no reason to do so.   I see no need for the manufacture of these styles.  Looking at a recent Cabala's ad, I was less than thrilled to see a .22 in this style. Again, it is not in any fundamental way different from a hunting rifle, but I object because it promotes this inane military consciousness this country seems to love.  And, for the same reason, I also would do away with these incredibly stupid interactive video games.  I don't see a great loss to our freedom of speech if they were outlawed.  We ought to be able to frame a law that is narrow enough to not impinge on broader speech.  I see them as neither art nor political speech and the fact that they are interactive creates mental responses that simple passive viewing of violence does not. Either of these points are arguable, but this is my leaning.


I would love to see the same energy being put into gun control applied to demanding free mental health care or ending our permanent state of war. We might end up implementing gun control in some version but I don't really expect to see violence in this nation decrease as a result of it.  Breyer couldn't find that data either. 





On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Hunter Gray <hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org> wrote:

  During the Clinton witch-hunt on guns in the '90s, I was very active as a volunteer (as I've noted before) in assisting local NRA groups in North Dakota, and eventually in several other Western states, in effective PR and media techniques.  I always made the point in those endeavors and in writing and interviews on gun rights, of stressing the real causes of crime and violence:  racism, ethnocentrism, economic deprivation, urban congestion and, in that context, inter personal and value alienation.  These days, I mention and discuss those and also the obviously negative multi-effects of our perennial and proliferating Wars.  And, too, I deal increasingly with mental health matters.

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