Reply #33: yup (with addition) [View All]

[iverglas]

Do you honestly believe...
Every single person who posesses a firearm for the purpose of self defense is either a racist/misogynist or a dupe?

You could try me on a few exceptions to the general rule, as I'm sure there would be a few. But otherwise, yup.

Dupe, generally. The racists and misogynists have other primary reasons.


Have a look at US crime rates 1960-2006 and explain how trends in crime rates would explain trends in individual decisions to acquire/carry firearms "for the purpose of self defense".

edit: I meant to include the link for that --
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Of feel free to offer any other explanation you might have.

I know what mine is.


http://abacus.bates.edu/Library/aboutladd/departments/special/ajcr/1970/Tydings.shtml

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD – SENATE

July 9, 1970

Page 23393

SENATOR TYDINGS AND GUN CONTROL

Mr. MUSKIE: Mr. President, in the June 27 issue of the New Republic, Alex Campbell has written a perceptive article about the political situation in which the Senator from Maryland (Mr. TYDINGS) presently finds himself being the object of attack from both the left and right. I think this short piece clearly demonstrates what happens to a public figure when he takes on the tough issues without ducking. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD.

...

TYDINGS OF NO JOY

And, because Tydings is also pushing for saner gun laws, lavish displays of posters and bumper stickers paid for by you-know-who tell Maryland voters, "If Tydings wins, you lose."

What?

Their guns; therefore, they seem to fear, their manhood. Both fears are groundless; nevertheless Tydings, a self-confessed liberal, is now being depicted as a castrator as well. Tydings is Maryland's senior senator and faces in September a primary fight with George P. Mahoney, a Democrat who is an eight-times loser and is so far from being a liberal that in 1966 Spiro T. Agnew won the governorship from him largely by appearing to be by contrast a moderate.

Mahoney is counting confidently on gun lobby backing. Should Mahoney lose a ninth time, the gun lobby doubtless will back Republican J. Glenn Beall Jr. against Tydings in November.

Unregistered guns killed two of Tydings’ close friends, John and Robert F. Kennedy. The 1968 Gun Control Act is a flop; only three states require gun licenses and in 35 states, lunatics may legally own guns. Tydings wants guns registered and licensed. His assurances to hunters that this will not interfere with sport and to collectors of antique guns that these won't count, have failed to abate the trumped-up hysteria against Tydings' modest proposals; so have Tydings' terrible statistics – 99,000 armed robberies annually, more than doubled since 1964, and 9,000, Americans shot to death each year.

... The senator has written a book, Born to Starve, to expose his views on population control. He says that 5.4 million American women who are poor don't want large families and do want family planning assistance, but fewer than 800,000 get it. The Nixon Administration has adopted elimination of unwanted births as a national goal, but Tydings is urging larger financial provision, $984,000 over five years. His less rational accusers blow up over his family planning stand. Some blacks say he's a rich white who aims to sterilize the black poor; others profess shock at his proposal to leave abortion "to individual conscience." If he politically survives the attacks generated by what seems to be everyone else's castration syndrome, Tydings may look good in 1972, when he will be only 44. Many of his liberal ideas match with those of Senator McGovern – and of Senator Ted Kennedy. Tydings would also fit a Muskie ticket, or a Hughes ticket. But sometimes, reading his hate mail, Tydings becomes a bit glum. The storm that is being worked up against him in his state is contrived by the gun lobby in part because he is a liberal, and people who fear and hate liberal views readily believe that Tydings is plotting to disarm them so as to leave them helpless prey of vaguely glimpsed powers of evil. But, meanwhile, Tydings' efforts to protect poor and black people from the criminals who prey on them are rudely rebuffed.

Ah, those were the days. When Democrats were "liberals".