Thursday, February 7, 2008

Reflecting upon the Brady standards.

The Brady campaign to prevent gun violence recently released score cards, awarding points to states that passed certain gun laws.
From the Brady campaigns blog over at the huffington post comes this little obseration by 1will:

  • While looking at the Brady State Scoreboard I couldn't help but notice a few trends.
    It seems like all of the catagories are aimed at law abiding citizens. There are restrictions on what kind of gun you can buy, how many, how big, where you can carry and whether or not you have to register it.
    Not one catagory is based on laws aimed at criminals. There are no manadatory sentencing laws for gun trafficking. There are no Project Exile type laws or Repeat Offender laws aimed at gun using felons. There aren't even catagories regarding how well my state tracks violent offenders or gang members. All of the catagories on the Brady State Scoreboardl target law abiding citizens, their rights and gun manufacturers.
Emphasis mine.

4 comments:

Ryan said...

That simple and obvious fact is missed in almost all gun regulation laws. Someone needs to tell these legislators that CRIMINALS DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHAT THE LAWS ARE!

badthing1 said...

Hi Michael,

There are too many people who believe that guns and other lethal weaponry will ALWAYS be the only way to solve our world's differences and problems rather than at least ATTEMPTING to use their imaginations by way of allowing their mindsets to become receptive to a less violent way of living via the many less than lethal weapons that are available out there as well as conflict resolution techniques that are presently being used.

I wish the Brady site would stop talking about guns, guns and guns and start talking about amending the our Second Amendment to exclude them altogether and substitute less than lethal weaponry instead.

Michael Hawkins said...

The prevalence of violent crime, and equal-force self defense isn't the issue here, fact is: the Brady Campaign is targetting people who are not engaging in violent criminal behavior to begin with! Following their mindset will not result in any less violence and death.

Less than lethal?

You mean the PAVA guns you love so much? The ones which are illegal in six states and can send groupes of people into respiratory chock?

Or tazers, which have found a nice use in forcing complience (=torture), aside from the occasional fatality?

How about clubs and batons, which are more likely to inflict a serious injury than a gun according to the US departement of justice?
(weapon use and violent crime, google it)

I respect the fact that you do not like guns, I would never force one into your life. But you have to face the fact that at present, there is no non-lethal equivalent to a firearm for self defence and recreational use:

Yes, I've shot bows, pellet guns and the like as well, they were fun too. My pellet guns are nowhere near the fun as a target pistol, or as suited to cull rodents, or as inspiring to learn machine-maintenance.

I won't force a gun into your life, but please, don't you force a tazer into mine.

Anonymous said...

Just a drive-by (bad pun -- sorry) comment:

On Page 3 of the January 1994 issue of The National Educator, Sara Brady said the following to Senator Howard Metzenbaum; “Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn’t matter if you have to distort the facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.”

The Brady Bunch is not about gun control at all; never has been.