Once again, celebrity intellectuals give us an opportunity to case study bad thinking methods. First, Michael Moore recently “ranted against the Senate majority leader after Reid removed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to prohibit military-style weapons from the bill because they wouldn’t have the votes.” Moore said:
“If a man with an assault weapon goes into the school where Harry Reid’s grandchildren go to school tomorrow and kills his grandchildren, would he stand in front of that microphone at five o’clock and say, ‘I know how Dianne [Feinstein] had to witness the mayor getting murdered, but my grandchildren just got killed today, but, you know, we can’t get it passed because we just don’t have the votes,’”
‘Cold Dead Hand’ is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids.Sorry if you’re offended by the word safety! ;^}
Ironically, the vast majority of gun owners are law abiding people who understand the practical limitations of police protection and possess weapons to prevent the slaughter of their own children. Yet, Carey’s solution to protect “our kids” is, um, to disarm these very people since they are the only ones who are likely to abide by laws restricting firearms!
Obama made a similar emotional appeal, discussed in a previous post, in which he cited letters, not from legal scholars but from school children, urging passage of gun control legislation. Like Moore, both Carey and Obama urge us to disregard the concepts of individual rights and self-defense along with the historical justification for the Second Amendment and instead focus on a primitive analysis of the following type:
Man used gun to murder
If man didn’t have gun, he wouldn’t have murdered
Therefore, government should ban gun
The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; the weak would become a prey to the strong.”
“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty, teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon and citizens’ firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that, to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 and 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate that they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil influence. They deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour.”
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, that could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.”
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
What these quotes unequivocally demonstrate is that the Second Amendment was not enacted just to protect the hunting of squirrels. The right to bear arms was considered essential in order for the people to protect themselves from tyranny – a concept fresh in the minds of those who fought the American Revolution. Naturally, Feinstein et al. don’t even consider the arguments of this type instead dismissing the concerns of millions of law abiding gun owners as petty politics. Said Feinstein:
“That’s the problem with this place. The gun lobby is inordinately powerful.”
No, Diane, that’s not a “problem,” because the gun lobby represents millions of people who believe the ideas upon which this country was founded are still inordinately powerful.