Comments on the New York Times gun-control editorial

Here is an excerpt from the NY Times anti-gun editorial:

“ They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

“But at least those countries are trying.”

In other words, it’s good to implement a plan to stop gun violence even if it doesn’t work. What’s that? About second-grade logic?

I have written a couple of web articles claiming that the left, and the military who would not claim to be on the left but who work for the government more intimately than civilian government employees, think their good intentions are a 100% substitute for results.

http://johntreed.com/…/69819907-good-intentions-and-tiny-bi…

http://johntreed.com/…/63529923-good-intentions-and-impatie…

The phrase “At least those countries are trying” is the epitome of that good-intentions-are-enough mindset that drives all the failed federal government programs that last forever and socialists worldwide.

If I may paraphrase Yoda. “There is no try. There is only succeed.”

I’ll go along with “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” BUT NOT THE SAME THING THAT JUST FAILED. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is well said to be one of the definitions of insanity.

Working for the government is kind of a prerequisite of thinking like this. If you try it in private enterprise either your business will fail if you own it or you will get fired if you don’t.

If there was still anyone who did not recognize that the NY Times “works for the government,” they should now have the final piece of evidence to disabuse them of that notion. Once, when I was in college, I had occasion to travel on public transit from Philly or DC back to college in New York. I bought a newspaper in each major metro area for a term paper I had to turn in academically. I noted that each paper had a particular successful-for-the-US battle in Vietnam on the front page, except the NY Times, which put it on page 37 or some such, in a tiny item at the bottom of the page. And that was fifty years ago. The NY Times is, and has long been, the journalistic equivalent of a political hack. I got an A on the paper. The instructor—an active-duty Army guy—really liked it.

Here’s another bit from the editorial:

“…purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.”

Pray tell please name and quote the advertisement that encourages buyers to engage in vigilantism or insurrection. I believe they are changing phrases like “self-defense while waiting for police to arrive” and “possible need to defend against a government turned dictatorial,” each of which is legal and moral, into a straw man that is more easily denounced.

This is a continuance of the Left’s hatred of assault weapons, which they are comically unable to define. Their attempts at defining them, in laws that were repealed, were entirely cosmetic: no pistol grip, no scope, no folding stock. WTF? None of that has anything to do with lethality. They have to do with Hollywood. And apparently Hollywood is the only level of analysis that the ignoramuses at the Times are capable of.

I am not a gun guy. One of my wife’s former bosses perusaded her to buy guns for self-defense. She bought a four-day hand-gun self-defense course at a charity auction and we went to it. http://johntreed.com/…/66449219-front-sight-nv-4-day-pistol…

But I can do the math. It takes police something like 10 to 45 minutes to respond to a 911 call. Guns can be useful—crucial—during the wait. So we got the necessary safes and all that and we sleep a little better. The New York Times wishes that we did not, that we would unilaterally disarm and hope the criminals follow our example. And this from people who live in New York City!