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I’m having a “What if we’re the baddies?” moment

I’ve written and deleted variants of this post several times over the past couple of days.

Rough weekend. Every weekend is rough if you read the news coming from our inner cities.

I’m a gun owner, and not a casual one. I have to take my shoes off to count the number of guns I own, including the usual suspects of evilness (models that start with AR and AK). I have something George Patton once called “the greatest battle implement ever devised”. It is entirely unchanged from when it was used in World War II by our soldiers to kill Nazis. 

When I fly (driving to someplace else is not an option when you live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean), I often bring a firearm along with me, just to exercise my right to do so, if nothing else. 

But, I find myself increasingly unable to defend in good conscience our resistance to practically any gun law, no matter how reasonable, how well-intentioned.

I look at how pro-abortion people react when laws are proposed that would save a baby who survives the procedure, and I look at the mirror and think “Is that me when it comes to guns? Is this how crazy I look to people who want to do something to stop gun violence?”

My state recently enacted a Red Flag law, the 16th state to do so I think. I’m OK with it. We all agree that we need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, right? This is what “keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill” looks like. Can it be abused, sure. But so can any law. Ever read “3 Felonies a Day”? If a cop gets a hard-on for you, there are 100 other laws he can probably get you on. That’s what the courts are for. And if it does get abused, it gives us grounds to have these laws repealed or otherwise modified. 

Until then, it’s a battle of imagined abuses, and perceptions. And we’re increasingly looking like the baddies.

19 replies on “I’m having a “What if we’re the baddies?” moment”

The overton window keeps being moved. Proponents of red flag laws, waiting periods, clip size limits have an insatiable appetite to make me a slave. They just keep looking for an angle, a weakness in my defenses to attack. They are like rust. I resist the sirens call of red flag laws, clip bans, etc. The solution is simple. Be in an intact family, stay married, get my kids through high school.
Speaking of schools, I advocate reintroduction of gun clubs.
Finally, admit I am flawed and in need of redemption and salvation

You’ve all put such a fine perspective on aspects of this issue, better than I could have done. Yes, I down voted it as well, absolutely nothing against Beau, he has legitimate concerns, and raises legitimate issues. It’s important to remember that we are intentionally being cast as the “baddies” through misinformation from the MSM in a deliberate attempt to move their anti-gun, anti-America agenda forward.
Regarding gun legislation in general (aside from it violating our God given rights), I am reminded of an old Arab proverb, that “you never let the camel get his nose in the tent”, the same tenet that “reasonable” gun control legislation seems to metastasize into eventual confiscation/disarmament.
Red Flag laws: I live in New York (upstate). Emperor Cuomo recently signed this into law, yet to take effect, we’ve already seen a case of a lawful gun owners firearms being seized, denied due process, no laws broken, they have to prove their innocence on their dime. We had this very same discussion with our sheriff regarding the many consequences of this upside down approach to justice. I want to make it perfectly clear to our law enforcement community – Abide my constitutional rights, you’ll find no more ardent supporter. I will gladly, proudly watch your back or guard your flank. Seek to disarm me as a law abiding citizen – we are both at far greater risk, and your oath to uphold comes into question – Not something I want.

Just a quick follow up. It appears that on occasion, our legal system works as designed. Here’s hoping it’s only a beginning to a cascade of revision, and return to Constitutional Law.. Hey I can hope.

A friend of mine once asked me the question “Why does someone need an AK47?” He is a good person and not against guns per say. He just could not conceive of why someone would want it. I thought about it for a moment and replied “You have an expensive car. Why would you want an expensive car few can afford. That is why.”

In my online conversations with lefties about gun control, I often try to take a neutral participant, or distant observer approach (I try to do this with every argument really).

Ultimately, every time I decided I could not accept a piece of gun control, it came down to the fact that I did not trust the politicians enacting the gun control to use it as a notch of a ratchet, in their ultimate goal of killing American gun culture via 1,000 cuts. This lack of trust is well-founded, based on much of what we’ve heard from gun grabber’s own mouths and tweets. However, you have a good point. So many of our arguments parallel: “Address mental health! That’s the real isue!” But how do we do that, in a way that effectively removes guns from those who “might” do evil with them? Any law that is proposed would seem unreasonable to most 2A people, for the fundamental reason I state above: lack of trust.

So, how do we negotiate when no one trusts each other? In my online conversations, I often say, in combination with whatever meaningful gun restriction (I don’t consider many of them as meaningful, but instead feel-good), there must be some equal measure to help ensure that future encroachment does not take place. Some added language in a statute somewhere that gives 2A people something in return, some assurance that gun grabbing politicians and citizens won’t be able to easily kill our culture one cut at a time.

Of course, to this proposal, at least one of my lefty friends said something along the lines of “Absolutely not! Why should we give you such an assurance and limit our future ability to address problems?” That was the end of that conversation, and it seems to echo every other “conversation” the left keeps wanting to have about gun control. Basically: Why won’t you be reasonable and negotiate with us by agreeing to everything we want with nothing in return? You unreasonable people!

>:(

My problem with Red Flag laws is pretty simple; I don’t trust politicians.
I can too easily see being on the “wrong side” of an SJW issue would qualify as a Red Flag.
There are several hundred million firearms in the USA. Access to weaponry is not the problem. People seem to think that these guys just snap and decide to go off on the spur of the moment.
The OK city bombers planned for months. The VT shooter for at least weeks. He had chains and locks for the doors to keep people in.
There are people in this world bent on doing bad things, if we could magically make all firearms disappear; they would still do bad things.
I have the right to protect myself from those people.

It is far to easy to corrupt the red flag laws by simply finding the desire to assert your second amendment rights to be mental illness. As in, if you want to own a gun for ANY reason it is proof positive you are not fit to own a gun: permission denied!

For them it is heads they win, tails you lose EVERY TIME! No matter what, the power and reach of government grows without restriction and our liberties shrink to zero. They do not have your best interests at heart. Their intent is to destroy everything that is good because it is good and to promote everything that is evil because it is not good.

It is truly a sign of a mature and thoughtful adult that will take the time to look at themselves in the mirror and challenge their views. However, I fear you have overlooked a most important question – and that is, where is their moral center in contrast to yours?

If it’s not gun violence, it will be something else. England taught us that. The Boston Marathon Bomber taught us that. The first murderer Cain taught us that. Obviously, more laws don’t work.

Red Flag laws are scary. They open the door for full-blown tyranny where your neighbor can turn you in for perceived crimes. Guilty until proven innocent. Sound good to you? I thought not. Just because any law can be abused doesn’t justify adding more that we know will not only be ineffectual, but dangerous. Have you seen social media? People are itching to take down anyone. We need to fight to keep 1984 on the bookshelf.

People have a right to have guns because they have a right to life. That right to life is why the pro abortion camp is wrong to protest the laws you’re concerned about. Someone else’s bad behavior doesn’t require infringing my rights. We don’t say a baby doesn’t have a right to life because someone else did something bad. We barely have the ability to say people that kill others have lost their own right to life.

Preventing “the mentally ill” from having guns is a noble and laudable goal, but how do you define “mentally ill”? How to you diagnose them? How do they prove they’re not ill, that they’re not a harm to society?

I’m with the other commentators in that I’m against the idea due to past history and proposals by the Left. If they can put up a concrete idea that we can discuss and debate, I could be for such an idea but in the concrete, not the abstract. It feels far to much in the “Do Something!” camp, an over-correction of the pendulum when we should be dealing with all of the mentally ill, especially getting the non-functioning ones treatment and care, and then working on the murderous and sociopathic.

In my general anger over this entire topic (not at you Beau), I didn’t touch on the mental illness subject.

FIRST, define mental illness. I have a copy of the DSM4. It outlines all of the various categories of mental illness. It is at least 2 inches thick and it is out of date. I would venture a guess that if not ALL people the greatest majority of us have a mental illness by their definitions. People, including Bill Whittle, throw this term around because of a need to blame something without understanding the consequences of doing so.

Do these people have a mental illness, probably so, but they are the 1% of us (me included) that are diagnosed with a mental illness. I have major depressive disorder and PTSD.

PTSD is a tricky one. If triggered it can result in a psychotic episode (losing touch with reality) and yes we can be dangerous during an episode, but that is rare and easily noticed by those around us on a regular basis. 99% of the time we are normal. Most if not all state’s have what CA calls a 51/50. That’s a 3 day Psychiatric hold where you are placed in a psych ward, treated and observed. In CA if you are not released at the end of the three days because you are still unstable you can be held without a hearing for as long as they deem necessary. Also upon release (if held for more than 3 days) you MUST sign a document that states you are banned from purchasing and possessing a firearm for 5 years. It can only be challenged by going to court and proving you are well which is close to impossible to do. I know this because my first episode resulted in a one month stay after which I lost my rights to own or possess a firearm. As bad as the entire situation was I’m fine with it. It would surprise me if this or similar laws didn’t already exist in the other states. If true then how are these “mentally ill” people getting weapons and committing mass shootings?

Probably because most aren’t psychotic. A break with reality is very obvious to people who you’re around on a regular basis.

The others that have carried out these sort of killings and the criminal that Bill Whittle showed in his firewall on the topic a couple of years ago is *likely* either a psychopath or a sociopath. They are the scary ones. They appear “normal”, they can fool a psychiatrist and psychologists. They lack empathy, they feel nothing for others. *Unless they have previously committed some sort of significant criminal act, and have been diagnosed with Anti-Social Personality Disorder in the past as a result, they are very hard to detect. I suspect there are many politicians/leaders (past and present) with this disorder.

One thought I had today, but as yet haven’t found any writings to put a name to it, is does a form of “Stockholm Syndrome” exist in some susceptible people as a result of remote indoctrination and perceived threat that might occur from heavy involvement in certain groups (on both the right and left). If this does exist, it would be my belief that the “leaders” of such groups would fall into the psychopath/sociopath category with the ability to persuade those who are susceptible to do their bidding (so to speak). (Let me be clear here, the “leaders” of such a group are not Trump, Sanders or Warren) In one of the press conferences held yesterday on the shooting in Gilroy, the FBI agent in charge of that investigation did say it is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism as they found evidence that multiple targets had been identified in the information they found on the perpetrator’s digital records, Gilroy was one of many targets identified.

Bottom line, I do have a problem with the red flag proposals that have been presented so far. They are too vague and there is virtually no due process.

I do not have an issue if every state were required to have a system as CA has (or had, not sure what it is today as I was in it over 20 years ago). 3 days hold if you are brought in with the concern that you are a danger to yourself or others for observation and evaluation, if released with medication the requirement to attend psychiatric appointments for followup for at least a year (if violated, a return to in patient treatment) and if held more than the 3 days or returned for not attending appointments the loss of rights to purchase or possess a firearm for 5 years. (as an fyi, the hold beyond the 3 days does (or did) require a hearing before a panel of psychiatrists). Someone who has extreme mental illness and regular psychotic episodes is not likely to go past the 5 year mark without another significant episode, which would virtually extend the 5 years to indefinite. The other piece of this that would need to be enacted is that the states would all have to have the same policy and the information would need to be shared.

With all this being said, it’s also my opinion that this specific type of patient is not the source of the problems we see with mass shootings. But it won’t harm them either by having this as a law, might help them get the help they need by providing more treatment options and will help to shut up those who blame it all on the “mentally ill”.

*continuation from earlier…

I down voted it as well. The gun itself is not the problem. If it was mass shootings like this wouldn’t be something that is a relatively new phenomenon.

I grew up with guns hanging on a rack in the living room. So did most of my friends.

So what’s different today vs the 50’s and 60’s? That’s what needs to be fixed. Why do I have to give up my right to defend myself, along with the 99.99% of other
citizens who are not mass shooters, because no one will fix what’s really wrong.

We have at least one, maybe two generations of people who never learned the meaning of self control, respect and ethics. At least one generation of young people that were given Psychiatric drugs because they were difficult to control instead of being disciplined. And the introduction of the internet and social media. Kids don’t go outside and play with the other kids in their neighborhood. I live in an area where lots of kids live, I rarely see any outside. Look at the increase in suicide. Our society is sick and getting sicker every day.

The answer is out there, but it’s not a quick fix. In this world of instant gratification that’s difficult to accept.

Remember prohibition of anything just creates a black market. It solves nothing. The criminals will still be criminals. Only the law abiding citizens will suffer.

There are plenty of people with the desire to control other people. These people (news media, Hollywood, academia) have an impact on the culture disproportionate to their numbers. Those not on the left get to hear all the time that their words and ideas are considered outside their version of civilized society. I am greatly concerned that these new laws will be abused by the same types of people.

Why? Don’t fashion Garands? Or was it some other part you disagree with? I can only read so much into a thunbs-down.

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Michael’s reply sums up what I would have said. Give those people an inch and they will end up taking a mile. Next thing you know, we would have to use those banned firearms to shoot our way out of tyrannical socialism

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