I've known since this morning, but it now appears that the word is out that my friend Brian Beutler was shot three times last night around 17th and Euclid back in DC. He's expected to make a full recovery, for which we're all thankful.
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Brian Beutler
02 Jul 2008 04:16 pm
Comments (86)
Matt isn't that you in this picture?
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/leading_liberal_blogger_shot_i.php
Wow. I walked right past there Monday night.
I'd comfort him with the example of Andray Blatche, if I were you.
I think this all means that Brian will be able to play in the NBA after he recovers.
Obviously what's needed in D.C. are more guns and easier access to guns.
And will this get Matthew to reconsider his economic royalist, oddly reflexive support for handgun possession in the District?
A handgun control enthusiast is just an economic royalist who's had a friend get shot.
Jesus Fucking Christ on a pogo stick, the dude's friend got shot and the 5th and 6th comments are dickish remarks about gun control?
Best wishes.
Why can't McMegan say his name? Did she really think it would stay a secret or something.
It was the 2nd comment on TPM.
"Jesus Fucking Christ on a pogo stick, the dude's friend got shot and the 5th and 6th comments are dickish remarks about gun control?"
Seems an appropriate time for an intervention to me...
Vaya con dios to Brian, but legal gun possession in urban areas sucks as policy.
This is why we need to increase taxes on income acquired by robbery. Robbers will not find it worthwhile to steal from people if they have to pay confiscatory taxes on their takings.
This is why we need to increase taxes on income acquired by robbery. Robbers will not find it worthwhile to steal from people if they have to pay confiscatory taxes on their takings.
That has been a truly crappy corner of the universe forever. I don't know if the neighborhood crack house is still there, but it flourished for an ungodly long time when I lived in A-M.
I hope he's okay.
"This is why we need to increase taxes on income acquired by robbery. Robbers will not find it worthwhile to steal from people if they have to pay confiscatory taxes on their takings."
Meh. While the tax burden should be somewhat more graduated than the current code indicates, I see no reason to start differentiating between different kinds of income.
Reasonable penalties for illegal conduct, with enhanced penalties for violent illegal conduct, should be enough of a deterrent. Better educational opportunities and gun control in urban areas would add additional mitigating effects.
Distorting the tax code for moral purposes is generally a poor idea.
Jesus Christ, I'm glad he's alive and I hope for a speedy recovery.
I live on 16th and Euclid and I've learned through personal experience to never walk on Euclid at night. It's a deceptively nice-looking street, but there is still a crack-house on 17th. Or at least there seemed to be the last time I walked by there several months ago.
A jarring reminder of how fucked up DC can be...
"Jesus Fucking Christ on a pogo stick, the dude's friend got shot and the 5th and 6th comments are dickish remarks about gun control?"
And while I have no idea if Brian's family is as plush as Matthew's, I'd guess this is a teachable moment for universal healthcare as well.
If Brian doesn't have the resources of a Matthew, while I'd guess Medicaid will pick up the trauma costs, should he require any type of ongoing treatment or therapy, that's the place that universal healthcare makes the difference between tragedy and comedy in a life Matthew can relate to.
Petey, go eat a bag of dicks.
Petey, first of all, fuck off for making this is about politics.
Second, (and yes, I'm taking the bait), shouldn't you wait for some information about this incident to see whether it fits your gun control thesis? Like, for example, whether he was shot by someone who had a legal right to own the gun? If not, I don't see how it's an argument for gun control.
Comedy? Really?
OK, I read the story, he was mugged. I would assume by someone who acquired his gun despite DC's handgun ban. How would gun control have prevented this, exactly?
Also, eat a bag of dicks, Petey.
"Second, (and yes, I'm taking the bait), shouldn't you wait for some information about this incident to see whether it fits your gun control thesis? Like, for example, whether he was shot by someone who had a legal right to own the gun?"
Meh. Barring reasonably convincing evidence to the contrary, I think it's a reasonable default position to assume that everything else being equal, outlawing of guns in a municipality is likely to reduce gun violence in that municipality, at least on the margins.
I'd agree it's an even better cautionary tale for universal healthcare than for gun control, however.
"fuck off for making this is about politics."
Vaya con dios to Brian, but the personal is the political.
Brian Beutler was shot three times last night
This is excellent news! For Petey!
Petey, there's plenty of evidence now as to whether a municipal gun ban is likely to reduce gun violence in said municipality. You don't have to assume anything. All of the reputable research has found no connection whatsoever between gun laws and gun violence in American cities. There's been some disreputable research that claimed to find the converse, that "More Guns = Less Crime," but as I said, it was bad research, so we'll leave that out.
I forgot that you're one of those assholes who thinks everything is about politics. Dear god, if there's one phrase that makes my skin crawl almost as much as "it's for the children," it's "the personal is the political."
It's surprising that Petey hasn't added poverty to the list of 'teachable' aspects of this incident. Maybe it's because he's too rich. Or too fat, or he has too many chromosomes. Some personal flaw must be the reason, anyway.
Forget politicization. Petey wasn't the first, and we're all political wonks here; someone was bound to do it eventually. What I want to know is, what in the world does supporting a lack of gun control have have to do with "economic royalism"? Bwuh? Not only is he a troll, but he seems like a particularly lazy one.
"It's surprising that Petey hasn't added poverty to the list of 'teachable' aspects of this incident."
Glancing addressed upthread with "better educational opportunities" mentioned as a mitigating factor alongside with gun control.
But still, considering the interpersonal connections involved, universal healthcare seems like the best teachable moment present here...
"I forgot that you're one of those assholes who thinks everything is about politics."
This ain't Unfogged...
-----
"What I want to know is, what in the world does supporting a lack of gun control have have to do with "economic royalism"
I'd say there's a certain correlation between economic royalism and thinking you ought to have a gun in the home in an urban area rather than relying on the local constabulary.
I'm fully willing to concede it may be a relatively weak correlation.
I apologize, Petey, you know I meant "asshole" with the greatest affection. You're one of my favorite assholes.
Petey, I suppose one of us could actually look it up instead of speculating, but from my experience, gun control is pretty popular among the rich, limosuine liberal types. I don't really know what you mean by "economic royalism," though.
But I will reiterate that there's plenty of evidence on gun control, plenty of cities that do have it and don't, that have adopted and abandoned it. It's been studied extensively and nobody's found a real connection one way or the other between gun laws and gun violence.
Petey, you are a disgusting, loathesome human being. Your attempt to show solidarity with the policy preferences of the majority of DC residents does nothing to change that fact.
I'd say there's a certain correlation between being an unprincipled troll with no judgment and thinking that it's okay to gloat when a friend of someone you don't like gets shot and has his spleen removed.
I'm fully willing to argue it's a very strong correlation.
I think Petey`s right. There`s no reason not to discuss positions on issues related to something shitty that just happened. When people read about this kind of crime ...they can feel sorry for the guy ... at the very same time that they are mumbling something about "two many guns" OR thinking how different it would be if the good guys had had some firepower. I`m not clear on why such an incident ìs not permitted to spark immediate discussions. Surely the blogger victim would not mind. And maybe it takes the emotion of those moments to drive changes of perception. Nowhere near as much gun violence here in Germany.
Used to live right down the street at 16th & Harvard. Got mugged twice in the 5 years I lived there - including once when I took a crowbar to the head from a large group of neighborhood thugs. They ended up getting arrested about a year later for beating an immigrant to death in a case almost exactly the same as recent murder near the PG county border. Needless to say, I moved out of that hipster laden, shitbox neighborhood. Yet people continue to pay $2000/month for a shitty one bedroom apt to live there...
Petey's not gloating, he's just taking the occasion of a traumatic event that left one of Yglesias' friends grievously wounded to engage in a not-so-cunningly disguised rehash of personal insults he's been hurling at Yglesias for months now. If it looks like he's deriving a certain amount of pleasure from the news that an innocent person was repeatedly shot last night and had his spleen removed this morning, it's just because you trust fund scumbags don't realize that the personal is political.
You know I ll second the remarks in regards to policy.
I think that one has to have the empathetic ability that posting a political comment might lead someone to respond in the same way and then turn this whole thread into a clusterfuck. And that's inappropriate.
As for the fellow, I don't know him; I wish him speedy recovery.
Personally, it's the first time the recent DC crime wave hit a personal chord with me. Jebus, where do we live in?
"it looks like he's deriving a certain amount of pleasure from the news that an innocent person was repeatedly shot last night and had his spleen removed this morning"
Au contraire. I threw a party when Tim Russert died, but given that I have no reason not to think Brian is a good guy, I take no pleasure here whatsoever. As stated, I hope he recovers as well as Andray Blatche.
I threw a party when Tim Russert died
Would you be popping the champagne if it had been Yglesias lying shot on the sidewalk instead of Beutler?
Would you be popping the champagne if it had been Yglesias lying shot on the sidewalk instead of Beutler?
Yes. We also throw parties when soldiers who support the war in Iraq get killed there, and when people who oppose increases in municipal public transportation budgets die in car accidents. If and when there's another terrorist attack on American soil we will mourn only those victims whose foreign policy views jibe with ours, and jeer at the rest for having gotten what they deserved.
Hmmm... it's almost as if, by making the personal political, Petey has made his personality course and unprincipled, instead of making his involvement in public life more humane.
Best not to think about it.
"Would you be popping the champagne if it had been Yglesias lying shot on the sidewalk instead of Beutler?"
Youth makes things more excusable.
Should Yglesias stay on his current political course for the next three decades while rising high into the commentariat before the supposed incident, we might begin to have a more difficult moral case for Petey to face.
Unfortunate situation, of course.
To be correct, this sort of small time coercive crime is irrelevant to gun possession. I got mugged once in San Francisco by a black man with a hunting knife. Had I possessed a gun at the time, he would have lost. As it is, all he got was $25 - and no doubt ended up in the state joint at some point.
It's good this victim will make a "full recovery", although I imagine not having a spleen and having probably some seriously dislocated or damaged tissue and bones in his shoulder will be with him permanently. Firearm wounds tend not to be totally recoverable, I believe. The psychological trauma alone is serious.
It would be interesting to learn how the incident went down. Normally, if you give up your stuff, there are no injuries in these cases, if the assailant has a gun as opposed to merely using physical force. Resisting someone who has a gun pointed at you is not a good idea unless it's clear they intend to shoot you anyway. So I wonder why this criminal opened fire.
"We also throw parties when soldiers who support the war in Iraq get killed there,"
Meh. Anyone wearing the uniform, assuming no violations of the UCMJ, has umbrella coverage of Petey's sympathies.
Soldiers work for politicians, If they're law abiding personnel within the UCMJ, they are blameless in how they carry out their responsibilities. The politics of a law abiding soldier matters not a whit.
Tim Russert, however deserved to be choked to death on a flood Jack Welch's paper money. No glory there to be had there.
"So I wonder why this criminal opened fire."
Because he's an amoral shitbag?
You know, Petey's antagonist hints at a serious point when he says, "it's almost as if, by making the personal political, Petey has made his personality course and unprincipled, instead of making his involvement in public life more humane."
The reason conflating the personal and political is scary is because politics is, for lack of a better word, shitty. We're absolute shits to each other in a political context. Politics is how we make decisions that involve other people's business. Politics is, to quote P.J. O'Rourke, "the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit." The more your personal life resembles politics, the bigger an ass you probably are.
"it's almost as if, by making the personal political, Petey has made his personality course"
You inexplicably say that like it's a bad thing...
Burlap can work even better than silk in some situations.
"it's almost as if, by making the personal political, Petey has made his personality course"
You inexplicably say that like it's a bad thing...
Burlap can work even better than silk in some situations.
well said, too many steves. One of the problems liberals have with making the personal political is that they think political issues can be resolved the same way personal relationships are dealt with: reasoned discussion and a search for mutually beneficial common ground for the main purpose of continuing and nuturing the personal relationship. In actuality, politics has winners and losers, and effective political action ensures that your interests take power and win, and the opposition stays out of power and loses.
If you make your political life reflect your personal life, you will become ineffective. If you make your personal life political, you will become a raging jerk.
Sorry for Brian's bad luck, hope for a speedy and complete recovery, and want all you DC bloggers to take care for yourselves and each other. I know you will.
hey, so that's Matt in the background in the picture on the TPM site. What is that he's holding - is it a bong?
Burlap can work even better than silk in some situations.
You haven't covered yourself in burlap, Petey, you've covered yourself in shit. Every time you try to fling it at others you get it all over yourself.
Apparently the Dismemberment Plan wasn't fucking around when they wrote "13th & Euclid."
RSH,
You'd like to think everyone who pulls a gun on you is a rational actor merely trying to maximize his utility. But too often they are fucking crack head pieces of shit or teenagers with no sense of consequences or no consciences at all.
I did ten years in Adams Morgan after a year stint on U Street and before that a couple of years on Capitol Hill (1986-1998) and I finally lost my nerve and moved to Ward 3. The feeling of invulnerability wears out around age 35.
Until people rise up, they will be hunted in places like Adams-Morgan by thugs that hunt easy targets.
The races and ethnicities change for armed robberies and murders by robberies depending on locale, but in DC, whites in the NW at night are high-value targets of black thugs.
Until the thugs fear they will be rounded up and spend 30 years in a barbed wire corral with no rights and few decent items of food and amenities and no ACLU Jewish lawyers, ministers, or family allowed to visit or write, the hunting parties of thugs will still remain in business. And despite how counterintitive it appears to lefties who are part of the target population, concealed carry has cut down on the hunter thugs - as the cons admit - they are a lot less likely to jack up a stranger if there is a significant possiblity that they will die or be maimed or held for the cops at gunpoint in the process.
That is why crime rates are down for cities and states with concealed carry, factoring in for the
amount of high-crime races present in each locale.
Common sense.
Cost of doing crime as a business goes way up if each victim you select could be your last, or an armed passerby sees a robbery in progress and intervenes.
"Would you be popping the champagne if it had been Yglesias lying shot on the sidewalk instead of Beutler?"
His momentary excitement would quickly be replaced with a deep longing for a new blogger to creepily stalk.
I`m not clear on why such an incident ìs not permitted to spark immediate discussions. Surely the blogger victim would not mind.
'While I was lying on a table getting my spleen cut out, those assholes wanted to argue about gun control?'
Condolences to all and sundry, Matthew.
max
['Yeesh.']
Chris,
You're full of shit and living in a fantasy land. I hope you don't think for a minute that I am in sympathy with your idiotic point of view.
Untrained people walking around with concealed firearms is a recipe for disaster. Firearms in the house are a much more significant source of danger for the occupants of the house Guns are simply not a panacea.
I doubt that Justice Scalia (my-almost-least favorite justice) caused this shooting, directly or indirectly. Too bad that "the left" is reacting to Heller the way that "the right" has reacted to Roe v. Wade. Irrationally. Read Heller. There is more than a broad hint in the case that comprehensive, strict, and strong gun regulation will be found constitutional by this court. But then, the MSM and the blogs, along with politicians and other freaks don't really care about reality, only about their agendas.
I doubt that Justice Scalia (my-almost-least favorite justice) caused this shooting, directly or indirectly. Too bad that "the left" is reacting to Heller the way that "the right" has reacted to Roe v. Wade. Irrationally. Read Heller. There is more than a broad hint in the case that comprehensive, strict, and strong gun regulation will be found constitutional by this court. But then, the MSM and the blogs, along with politicians and other freaks don't really care about reality or honesty, but only about their agendas.
I doubt that Justice Scalia (my-almost-least favorite justice) caused this shooting, directly or indirectly.
All the same, I've asked him to remain in the District until he can account for his whereabouts on the night in question.
That's terrible. Best wishes to him.
Since he is going to be okay, it is permissible to make a joke about how Brian Beutler is the 50 Cent of left-wing bloggers, correct?
Very sorry to hear about your friend. Best wishes to him for a complete recovery.
Well, let this be the day that the folks who occasionally rush to defend Petey finally come to their senses and realize that this is a sad, sick little man with an enormous ego and little empathy for other people.
And, by the way, all the best to Brian. I am glad that it looks like he is going to be okay. It must be hard for Matt to be so far away. It is always good to be reminded that the hard-working folks you read on the internet are real, living breathing people with friends and personal concerns. (That goes for traditional journalists and politicians as well.) An important reminder for the trolls and haters out there: there is a real person who writes these things with real friends and real feelings. And while it makes you feel big to needle him, it only reveals how small you are.
ACLU Jewish lawyers? Did I actually read that?
Sir Charles: You may be correct about crazed crackheads. Muggers in general are the bottom of the barrel of criminals, anyway. It isn't usual to open fire on the victim once he's cooperated, however. I suspect that Brian or his friend may had words with the mugger as he retreated - not a good idea. But you could be right and it might have been purely spite that made him open fire.
"Untrained people walking around with concealed firearms is a recipe for disaster."
So train them. It's not rocket science to learn safe gun possession and storage. And if they intend to carry for self-defense on the street, with or without a license, they need a bit more training to know when NOT to shoot and what the legal consequences may be.
"Firearms in the house are a much more significant source of danger for the occupants of the house."
Not true - unless of course, once again, they're untrained. A firearm is a dangerous device - no doubt about that. You treat it like a dangerous snake. But it's not automatically going to increase your odds of being injured by one if you're not an idiot.
Still call BS on the no policy debate thought police. Exactly what period of silence and how many consolations are required before we are allowed to express our opinions? Petey may be vaguely annoying, even when I agree with him, but there is nothing wrong with discussing such things just because somebody you know was the victim. Everytime you discuss gun violence you can bet somebody somewhere is in the operating room suffering. I`m sorry but if somebody I know and love were shot like this I would not be able to refrain from cursing the stupidity of USA gun saturation, and I could do this and feel compassion for the victim simultaneously. And yeah, US health care issues might come to mind while your friend was suffering if the hospital was slow to treat the ininsured victim.
Why do people think carrying a concealed weapon would HELP in a mugging? All you're going to do is end up giving the mugger a free gun. Can you seriously envision out-drawing a person who has a gun already out and aimed at you?
Muggers AMBUSH people who aren't expecting it. Unless you treat walking down the street as a tactical combat exercise, they're going to get the drop on you. And then your gun might as well be in a drawer at home.
The value of a handgun only comes into play on a level playing field, i.e. if someone breaks into your house and you get your gun ready before you encounter the crook. Then you have to decide if it's worth a human life to protect yourself from a possibly unarmed person.
Petey may be a troll, but he's right that (1) making handguns harder to get will obviously decrease the number of people owning handguns; (2) the policies Yglesias advocates will increase the number of handgun owners, and inevitably the number of incidents like this one, and (3) Yglesias's politics, like everyone else's politics, are inevitably informed by his personal circumstances and upbringing. I doubt, however, that Brian Beutler getting shot will actually affect Yglesias's position on gun control, and I seriously doubt that anything that Petey says - or anything that anyone in this comment section says - will have any real effect on any position Yglesias takes, given that he's too aware of what it takes to succeed as a professional pundit to change any major policy position without considering its affect on his career.
Very sad, scary news. Glad he seems to be doing alright and will make it.
I guess everyone should take back the comments from a few months back about Matt's directions to Amsterdam Falafel not going through Meridian park.
The summer crime spree is in full swing.
You don't have to assume anything. All of the reputable research has found no connection whatsoever between gun laws and gun violence in American cities.
That's just not true.
It may be true that the gun laws as they currently are written in the United States have little or no connection to gun violence. But that's pretty much like saying, "The ill-conceived and poorly thought-ought hodge podge system (or non-system) of gun regulation in the US, where many jurisdictions eschew even the most basic, common sense measures, and where a criminal is seldom more than an few hours' borderless drive from a state where it's incredibly easy to purchase a firearm, has done little to curb gun violence in America."
So yeah, our current gun restrictions are lame and pretty ineffective, and shockingly don't do much to prevent gun grime. That's a very different thing from saying it's not possible to construct a regulatory regime that makes it much more difficult for a criminal to obtain a gun.
Incidentally, we've heard a lot of hokum of late about how there's supposedly little correlation between the number of guns in circulation and a given polity's rate of gun crime -- typically with such relatively gun-friendly European states as Germany, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden being offered up as examples. What the NRA apologists don't tell you is that these states all have in place extremely strict regulations (permitting, storage requirements, education mandates, etc.). I'd gladly swap American non-gun control with the practices of, say, Switzerland, but I doubt many members of the NRA would make the same trade.
Jasper's right -- if we made handguns illegal in the United States at large, D.C. would be as safe as London....
Or is London the place where they've set up airport security detectors because people keep getting stabbed to death on a daily basis? They killed Harry Potter's friend, you know.
As for Switzerland, they certainly have heavy restrictions on carrying guns, but there are very few in storage requirements. Nearly every home has an accessible rifle, and it is possible (though very difficult) to get a carry permit there.
Jasper's right -- if we made handguns illegal in the United States at large, D.C. would be as safe as London....
Or is London the place where they've set up airport security detectors because people keep getting stabbed to death on a daily basis? They killed Harry Potter's friend, you know.
As for Switzerland, they certainly have heavy restrictions on carrying guns, but there are very few in storage requirements. Nearly every home has an accessible rifle, and it is possible (though very difficult) to get a carry permit there.
So Jasper's point is that the only possible effective gun control is a nationwide one in a nation with secure borders (or bordering states with similar effective bans). And seeing as that is something that will not happen in the United States, at least in the 21st century (see: 2nd Amendment, NRA, Heller), Jasper's provided a very convincing argument that municipal bans and regional bans are completely worthless and counterproductive, and all cities or counties that have them should ditch them. In that case, good point Jasper.
Petey may be vaguely annoying, even when I agree with him, but there is nothing wrong with discussing such things just because somebody you know was the victim.
No objection to policy discussions; my concern is that Petey took the opportunity to re-launch his demented ad hominem attacks on Yglesias by saying, more or less, "Gee, I'm really sorry about your friend getting shot--but your political positions make you a bad and uncaring person, and if you cared about your friend as much as I do you would immediately adopt Positions X, Y, and Z on gun control, health care, etc."
Others have brought up the policy issues in a respectful way. They should have clear consciences about how they've behaved. Petey shouldn't.
MUGGERS DO NOT SHOOT THEIR VICTIMS THREE TIMES; THIS SUGGESTS THAT THE MOTIVE WAS OTHER THAN MUGGING.
MUGGERS DO NOT SHOOT THEIR VICTIMS THREE TIMES; THIS SUGGESTS THAT THE MOTIVE WAS OTHER THAN MUGGING.
MUGGERS DO NOT SHOOT THEIR VICTIMS THREE TIMES; THIS SUGGESTS THAT THE REAL MOTIVE WAS OTHER THAN MUGGING.
MUGGERS DO NOT SHOOT THEIR VICTIMS THREE TIMES; THIS SUGGESTS THAT THE REAL MOTIVE WAS OTHER THAN MUGGING.
MUGGERS DO NOT SHOOT THEIR VICTIMS THREE TIMES; THIS SUGGESTS THAT THE REAL MOTIVE WAS OTHER THAN MUGGING.
Probably revenge for multiple posting all-caps comments.
Jasper's right -- if we made handguns illegal in the United States at large, D.C. would be as safe as London.
Jasper doesn't make the contention you allege, nor does Jasper favor making handguns illegal.
Or is London the place where they've set up airport security detectors because people keep getting stabbed to death on a daily basis?
I'm quoting from memory, but last time I checked London't murder rate was about one-third that of the new and improved New York City. I'm guessing it's one ninth or tenth what it is in D.C. For all I know fatal stabbings are indeed more common in London than they are in the states. This shouldn't surpise. I mean, why would American criminals resort to such inefficient and ancient weapons as knives when they've got easy access to all that firewpower? What I most definitely do know is that murder is much more common in all large American cities than it is in the British capital. Knives are great for tabloid headlines; they're not so great for efficiently expanding the incidence of homicide.
So Jasper's point is that the only possible effective gun control is a nationwide one in a nation with secure borders (or bordering states with similar effective bans).
I would agree with you that's more or less my point: a tough but fair, no-nonsense, nationwide system of firearms regulations that accommodates the legitimate needs of would-be gun owners but makes it very difficult to go outside the system (and makes it far more difficult and expensive for criminals to obtain them) is a requirement for reducing US murder and gun crime rates down to the levels of the rest of the rich world.
And seeing as that is something that will not happen in the United States, at least in the 21st century...
I have no idea why you think such a system can't be implemented some time in the next ninety-two years. For starters, the Scalia's own opinion left the door open to firearms regulations -- it simply ruled out outright bans (something I don't support in any event). Moreover, I'm skeptical the current activist right wing coterie on the high court will survive eight years of an Obama presidency, and there's certainly no guarantee the precedents established by the aforementioned political judges will be respected.
"Why do people think carrying a concealed weapon would HELP in a mugging? All you're going to do is end up giving the mugger a free gun. Can you seriously envision out-drawing a person who has a gun already out and aimed at you?"
Not necessarily true.
For instance, in my case I was mugged at knifepoint. Obviously not a good idea to reach for the gun with a knife at your throat. However, if you see the mugger approaching with something other than a gun already drawn, obviously a gun has the superior tactical value.
Also as the mugger retreats, I could have drawn down on him and held him for police.
Same is true of a mugger with a gun. If your gun is properly concealed, he won't know you have one unless he searches you - not usually done when the mugger has to keep you under control with his gun. He asks for money, you give it to him. When he leaves, you can either draw on him or not.
The problem is not whether the gun is effective, it's the legal issue. You can't actually shoot someone who's merely robbed you and is retreating. It's considered excessive force. I don't agree with that, but that's the law. On the other hand, if there are no witnesses and you don't leave a shell casing behind with your prints on it, well, whatever happens to the fuck is his problem.
"making handguns harder to get will obviously decrease the number of people owning handguns;"
Duh. It will make the number of people legally owning handguns less. It will do nothing to make the number of criminals owning handguns less. That's the point. If you can't control the black market in illegal handguns now, NO policy will do so.
"the policies Yglesias advocates will increase the number of handgun owners, and inevitably the number of incidents like this one"
There is no correlation between the number of legal handguns owned and the number of criminal handguns owned.
None. The only difference is in the street price of the illegal handgun. Right now, it's less because it's easy to obtain a legal handgun (or steal one.) If there were no legal handguns - again, a physical impossibility, as I've repeatedly pointed out - there would instantly be a larger black market and the street price would go up - temporarily - before going back down again as the black market became more efficient at importing weapons from outside the country.
Read my lips, morons: It is physically and economically IMPOSSIBLE to prevent criminals from obtaining handguns IF they feel they need them.
And that explains most of the reason they don't use guns as much in certain other countries. Because the citizenry is effectively disarmed, criminals don't NEED guns to carry out their crimes in those countries. It's not like those crimes aren't still committed - they just don't need guns to commit them.
And in other countries, the social culture and demographics are such that the crime rate is lower regardless of whether guns are legal or not. Most of the countries cited as having strong gun control have far more homogeneous populations than the US does, not to mention less social and economic disparities.
In other words, Switzerland doesn't have millions of "ghetto niggers" and "ghetto spics." Sorry to be "racist", but that's the facts. You can't compare Switzerland to D.C. and expect Swiss gun laws to have any bearing on whether some ghetto thug has a gun or uses it to commit a mugging.
People's fantasies about gun control are irrelevant to the reality. Just because you think it would be "nice to have" doesn't mean it's feasible in the real world or would have any of the effects you think it would.
“I have no idea why you think such a system can't be implemented some time in the next ninety-two years. For starters, the Scalia's own opinion left the door open to firearms regulations -- it simply ruled out outright bans (something I don't support in any event).”
Again, as you pointed out, as long as people own handguns, laws against what you do with them will continue to be ineffective (i/e the old, perhaps tired, argument that someone breaking a law against theft won’t generally be deterred by a law against guns; why don’t they have signs prohibiting theft beside the ones prohibiting guns?). An outright ban seems the only option to reduce criminal ownership of guns; for that to happen, Heller will have to be directly reversed, and the 2nd Amendment interpreted as distinctly not an individual right (and any liberal should be aware of the potential precedent there). Even Obama, at least nominally, supports regulation but not outright bans (he affirmed that the 2nd amendment is “of course” an individual right). American support for gun control has been wavering in the last 5+ years.
I also tend to doubt that a criminal will be quick to give up his handgun, and if the police are ineffective at keeping it out of criminal hands now, consider the complications when thousands (millions?) of formerly law-abiding citizens decide not to hand over their guns.
Richard is a jackass, but he is at least right in pointing out that European crime rates might involve more complicated causalities than “less guns = less crime.”
I’d also like to point out that Chris Ford is a dumbass – an important distinction from Richard, who is merely a jackass.
Read my lips, morons: It is physically and economically IMPOSSIBLE to prevent criminals from obtaining handguns IF they feel they need them.
Nonsense. All of the world's other rich democracies do a better job at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals than the United States. That's a lot of guns being kept out of the hands of a lot of criminals. You'd be on firmer ground were you to modify the verb "prevent" with the adverb "completely," but one suspects accuracy is not your aim.
Again, as you pointed out, as long as people own handguns, laws against what you do with them will continue to be ineffective.
I pointed out no such thing. All of the world's other rich democracies have gun regulation systems that are more effective than America's hodge podge non-system at promoting public safety. There's plenty of effectiveness on display internationally; there's just not the political will in the United States to emulate it.
An outright ban seems the only option to reduce criminal ownership of guns.
False. To repeat ad nauseum, a fair number of countries both: a) Eschew handgun bans; and, b) Reduce the criminal ownership of guns to levels far below that in the US.
I also tend to doubt that a criminal will be quick to give up his handgun.
I agree with you. My guess is that if my vision of nationwide Euro-style gun control (which, again, stops short of prohibition) were implemented tomorrow morning, it would take a good decade or so and lots of money (on policing, and on building the gun control infrastructure) before said implementation began to yield significant results.
RSH,
Guns are more dangerous in the home because they are used for suicides at rates in excess of homicides and they are also the tools for crimes of passion that result in deaths in domestic incidents.
The notion of training most people to carry concealed weapons is folly. My Dad was a cop for twenty plus years -- when he got home, he locked the handgun up. His view was that the police have a hard enugh time keeping clear headed when using deadly force -- civilians are just going to make a mess of things -- or get themselves killed.
RSH,
Guns are more dangerous in the home because they are used for suicides at rates in excess of homicides and they are also the tools for crimes of passion that result in deaths in domestic incidents.
The notion of training most people to carry concealed weapons is folly. My Dad was a cop for twenty plus years -- when he got home, he locked the handgun up. His view was that the police have a hard enough time keeping clear headed when using deadly force -- civilians are just going to make a mess of things -- or get themselves killed.
Thanks to Jasper for making sense.
Comments closed July 16, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
That's horrible! I enjoy his writing; I wish he updated his blog more often. I hope he recovers fully and quickly.
Posted by beckya57 | July 2, 2008 4:28 PM